Everybody knows the story of how for twenty years Yitzchak and Rivkah prayed for children. ֹוּ ̇¿ׁ ̆ƒ‡ חַכֹנ¿ל 'הַל ָ̃ח¿ˆƒי רַּ ̇¿ע∆ּיַו – And Yitzchok prayed abundantly to Hashem across from his wife (Toldos 25:21). רַּ ̇¿ע∆ּיַו means that he davened excessively, with force; and he did it opposite his wife – it means that Yitzchok was standing in this corner and Rivkah in this corner and they were both pouring out their hearts, tearing the skies apart with their prayers.
The truth is that I hesitate to use the word ‘prayers’ because what we think of today when we hear that word is an empty shell of what davening is supposed to be. You think they were standing in the corner saying a formal prayer? Something in the Siddur, a יך∆נָפ¿ּלƒמ ןֹוˆָר יƒה¿י that they got through with and that's all? No! That’s not how they prayed. They prayed from the bottom of their hearts. I cannot describe what took place there but you can be sure it was the most pathetic scene. It could be that they were hysterical!
Hysterical Prayers
I told you once the story about the tzaddik Reb Dovid Lelover, in Galicia; they said about him that he was kadosh mei’rechem, that he was born a tzaddik. What that means exactly I can’t tell you, but there must have been something there, and according to the story a person once came and asked his mother, “How did it happen that your child was born a tzaddik? Maybe your husband – her husband was dead already – maybe your husband had some middos of chassidus, special practices of holy behavior that we don’t know about?”
“No,” she said, “he was a plain man.”
“It can’t be,” they said, “Can’t you recall anything exceptional about him?”
She couldn’t remember anything out of the ordinary. But then she said one thing she does remember. There was a tefillah she used to hear him saying. הָרֹוּ ַּ̇ב יםƒ ̃¿סֹעו יםƒנָּב י≈נ¿בּו יםƒנָּב ֹ̇ו‡¿רƒלּוּכ¿זƒי¿ו ֹ̇וו¿ˆƒּמַבּו; it’s talking about being worthy of having children who study Torah and do mitzvos. And she remembers that he used to say those words again and again, and each time he became more and more excited. And then he began to cry out and shout; he broke out in tears praying for good children. And the end was that he was banging his head against a wall, begging Hashem. He banged so much he used to faint. “Sometimes he fainted; that I remember,” she said.
And so it could be that Yitzchok and Rivkah when they stood there in their corners pouring out their hearts, they banged their heads against the wall too. It could be they fainted from excessive prayers. I can’t tell you exactly what they did, but you can be sure they were importuning and begging and shouting and beseeching. I’m sure they wetted the floor of their tent with tears.
When He Doesn’t Yield
Now, had we been there, our hearts would have melted with pity at these two great people. Had it been up to us, we would have yielded and fulfilled their requests straight away, but Hakadosh Baruch Hu didn’t. He listened to their prayers but He didn’t answer them. Yitzchok and Rivkah endured that experience of childlessness for twenty years. Twenty years! That’s a very long time.
Now, we understand that there was a plan here; such a thing is not an accident. Even in our own lives there is plan and purpose but surely when it comes to our Avos and Imahos and to the episodes that are transcribed in the Torah, everything was done for a reason. And we are expected to study the stories and understand the lessons intended.
And so the Gemara (Yevamos 64a) asks, what was the purpose of this plan? Why did Hashem squeeze Yitzchok and Rivkah with this tzaar for so long?
The Great Why
And so listen now all you people who don’t have children and are waiting to be answered. And not only them – all of you people who are undergoing any type of difficulty, pay attention to this and understand the great opportunity you’ve been given.
Why did Hakadosh Baruch Hu withhold children from Yitzchok and Rivkah? ה"ב ̃הׁ ̆ י≈נ¿ּפƒמ יםƒ ̃יƒּ„ַˆ ל∆ׁ ̆ םָ ָּ̇לƒפ¿ ̇ƒל ה∆ּוַ‡¿ ̇ƒמ — Because Hakadosh Baruch Hu desires the prayers of tzaddikim (ibid.). It means that those who seek righteousness, He wants to hear their prayers. Not only He wants but He’s ה∆ּוַ‡¿ ̇ƒמ, from the word ta’avah which means a passion; Hashem longs, He desires to hear them pray.
Not because He needs it. I explained this to you already once. To Hakadosh Baruch Hu your prayers are as important as the prayers of bacteria. Suppose all the bacteria on this big rug would start praying to you now. Millions, billions, of bacteria are bowing to you and praying. It would mean absolutely nothing to you; you wouldn’t even turn a hair. But the prayers of the bacteria are relatively more important to you then our prayers are to Hashem – He doesn’t need our tefillos at all. And still, He wants it, He passionately desires it. Why? Because it’s for our benefit.
Living Like a Squirrel
Benefit?! What benefit do we get when we daven for twenty years, day after day, year after year, and our prayers are not answered?
The answer is that Hashem wants to confer upon us every form of perfection. That’s the purpose of life; we are here in this world to make the best that we can out of ourselves. We’re not rabbits and squirrels who just pass out of this world after a useless existence. The truth is that rabbits and squirrels will have to excuse me because they are very useful in this world. Men, it could be, waste their lives but squirrels don’t; they live purposeful lives. Everything they do – squirrels, when they're busy burying acorns they may think they're preparing food for the next spring but they're planting some more oak trees. Many squirrels never live to dig out those acorns that they planted but now the oak trees begin to grow. And rabbits are busy catching field mice or other things. And so animals are living useful lives, doing the plan of Hakadosh Baruch Hu.
Only that after they do their job in this world, it’s finished; they go lost forever. But we can’t just live and then go off into oblivion like animals. We’re here to acquire perfection, all forms of shleimus, that we’ll take with us forever, beyond the grave. And one of the very big forms of perfection, one of the most important forms, is the Awareness of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. ̇יƒׁ ̆‡≈ר הָמ¿כָח – What’s the highest wisdom that a person can acquire in this world? ‘ה ַ̇‡¿רƒי – Yiras Hashem (Tehillim 111:10).
Better Than Lip Service
Now, there’s a big misconception here because yiras Hashem doesn’t mean to be very frum and observant; a man can be very pious and still not have yiras Hashem. We explained here more than once that yirah means to be aware, to feel the Presence of Hakadosh Baruch Hu.
Not mere lip service, ‘I know that there is a Hashem’. No, that’s just words. It’s also good but it’s very remote from this true achievement of actually being aware of Hashem; it’s allegiance to an ideal but it’s not yirah. Actually it’s just a piece of information that is put away somewhere in the attic. If we’ll ask him, he’ll bring it down from upstairs and brush it off – “Yes, sure. Ani maamin!” – but it doesn’t actually function and participate in his daily life. Yiras Hashem means you feel like Hashem is right here; it’s the hargashah chushis, the sensory feeling, that you’re standing lifnei Hashem. Always!
That’s the great success of a man in this world! And if by that time when you’re already white at the temples and you are thinking of going into a home for the aged or your children are thinking of putting you there, if by then you’ll have acquired some actual yiras Hashem – you feel Hakadosh Baruch Hu actually like you feel a person – then you can know that you have lived with a purpose. You’ve lived successfully!
Unfortunately, it’s not a subject that’s spoken about enough. Even in the Orthodox world, the Torah world, there are all forms of success you’ll hear spoken about, but this most important achievement, Awareness of Hashem, you’ll be hard-pressed to find people speaking about it. And that’s a tragedy because yiras Hashem is an attitude that requires a lifetime of effort to acquire, a lifetime of practice, and most people are bumbling their way through life without even trying, without attempting to become yorei Shomayim.
Squeezing Out Obtestations
Now you know why Hakadosh Baruch Hu sometimes squeezes us where it hurts. Because you know when a person feels Hashem? When he needs Hashem.
You’re hearing now the real benefit when people are mispallel. You think it’s so that you’ll be answered? No, that’s not the chief function of tefillah. Yes, it’s important, absolutely; we want Hashem to accede to our obtestations when we call out to Him. But the chief function of calling out to Hashem is so that you should realize that there is a Hashem! You hear that chiddush? The primary purpose of davening is that it causes you to have more awareness of Hakadosh Baruch Hu.
Because when we live our regular lives, even if we live them with principles of the Torah, with Torah and mitzvos, but they have only a faint effect upon our minds. Hashem is in the Siddur and He’s in the Chumash but that’s where He stays – into our minds, not so much. But when some occasion turns up and we are squeezed and because we are really in need we respond with a more original and genuine reaction – we turn to Hakadosh Baruch Hu with sincerity that we haven’t expressed in our regular prayers – then the benefit which we gain, the added awareness of Hakadosh Baruch Hu which comes from those prayers, is the greatest fortune for us.
Pressing Out Greatness
And that’s why sometimes, no matter how much a person suffers thereby, Hakadosh Baruch Hu continues to press him – maybe even twenty years! – because the perfection in awareness of Hashem that comes from the anguish of a person who longs for something with all his heart and he turns to the only One Who can give it, that’s a perfection that is unmatched.
And even if it’s the last thing a person does, he has lived successfully. That’s what it means, that famous Gemara (Brachos 10b), that a person should never give up hope and should never stop asking Hashem for mercy even if a sharp sword is already on his neck. It’s not only because maybe he’ll be saved; that too, but the crying out to Hashem, that itself is his success. So imagine now a Jew who is chalilah in danger of his life; maybe in another minute he’ll be destroyed. But because he realizes the circumstances, now, for once in his life, he pours out his heart. So he has to know that no misfortune is happening to him. What takes place subsequently, one way or the other, makes no difference. He has achieved the purpose of life!
The purpose of life is not to continue to exist. The perfection a person acquires in this world when he utilizes his misfortunes – not merely he suffers like a stone, like a tree, but he reacts; he reacts with emunah, and he prays and prays and prays, and he pours out his heart more and more, and he opens up the fountain of tears, then this man should know he’s gaining the most out of life.
