It states in this week's parashah (28:2) תשמרו במועדו לי להקריב, "Be scrupulous to offer [the korbanos] to Me in its appointed time." The Sfas Emes (5647) says that תשמרו can also be translated as waiting (see Bereishis 37:11). במועדו לי להקריב תשמרו means we should wait the entire day for the time when we can bring the korbanos. Today, tefillah takes the place of korbanos (see Brachos 26:). Therefore, Sfas Emes writes, "The entire day should be of secondary importance; a person's focus should be tefillah." תשמרו, wait for those times of tefillah. Tefillah should be the highlight of your day, with the rest of the day utilized to prepare for this important time.
You can hit a table all day long, and it won’t break. But if you hit it once with strength, it will break. The lesson is that we daven, and sometimes we don't see our tefillos answered. But if we place more effort and concentration into our tefillos, we will see results.
Another example is a laser beam. The concept of a laser beam is that it takes the light and concentrates it in one place, and then it has extreme power. So, too, when one concentrates his efforts in avodas Hashem, it will be powerful and bring forth powerful results. Many good deeds, and many good tefillos, performed half-heartedly won't accomplish as much as one tefillah said with full kavanah, and good deeds performed with all one's heart.
Reb Yonason Eibshitz zt'l writes in a letter: "The highlight of my day is the hour I stand before the One Who hears all prayers."
The Kuzari writes (3:5), "The time of tefillah should be the heart and the fruit of your day. The rest of the day should be paths leading up to this time. Yearn for these special moments when you become spiritual and distant from the physical. Food nourishes you from one meal to the next. Similarly, tefillah should nourish your soul from one tefillah until the next."
