Parshas Matos tells about the war which Bnei Yisrael waged against the nation of Midyan. Moshe instructed the people to mobilize an army consisting of one thousand men from each tribe: אלף למטה, אלף למטה, לכל מטות ישראל תשלחו לצבא – “One thousand per tribe; one thousand per tribe; for all the tribes of Yisrael shall you send to the army” (31:4).
The Medrash Tanchuma (3) and Medrash Rabbah (22:2) explain this repetitious pasuk to mean that three thousand men were recruited from each tribe: one thousand to fight the war, one thousand to stand guard, and one thousand to daven for the campaign’s success.
The Otzar Pela’os Ha’Torah notes the significance of the fact that tefillos were necessary despite the fact that Hashem specifically commanded Bnei Yisrael to wage this battle.
In truth, whenever Bnei Yisrael went out to war in ancient times, this was done with Hashem’s authorization – after consulting with the urim ve’tumim, the part of the kohen gadol’s garments which would prophetically respond to questions posed to it. We might have assumed that once Bnei Yisrael received Hashem’s clear authorization to fight, victory was guaranteed. After all, if He told them to go to war, then He would certainly assure their success. And yet, nevertheless, tefillos were still necessary. No matter how confident we are of success, the Otzar Pela’os Ha’Torah explains, we still need to pour our hearts before Hashem in prayer and beg for His assistance, because tefillah is an indispensable prerequisite for berachah.
We might draw an analogy to a person with a winning lottery ticket. As long as the ticket remains in his pocket, not a penny of the millions of dollars that he won will go into his bank account. He is no better off after the winning number was announced than he was previously, if he doesn’t bother to go to the lottery office and show his ticket.
The same is true of tefillah. We all have the winning ticket. Hashem has an abundance of blessing with which to shower each and every one of us. But we need to cash it in, and this is done through sincere, heartfelt prayer. We cannot access the berachah without davening for it. The blessings are there, but our tefillos create the pipelines through which they can descend from the heavens into our lives.
