After his unanswered davening he says, “I must not have made enough hishtadlus.” And after his unfruitful hishtadlus, he says, “I must not have davened enough.” And so it goes, round and round.
In all this time, he didn’t bother to open a Rambam, a Tehillim, or a Gemara, to see that when a person is a ba’al ga’avah, his tefillos are not answered. Indeed, hubris is a great impediment to tefillos. His tefillos aren’t accepted, for Hashem says, “He and I cannot live together” (see Sotah 5a).
Hubris Distorts the Normal Course of the World
When the Gemara (Berachos 32a) tells us that one of the impediments to tefillah is תפלה עיון, when a person davens hard and expects to see his desired results... He is practically exclaiming that he “deserves” that his tefillos be answered because, after all, he has davened so hard. The Gemara is referring to a feeling of ga’avah—which ruins the tefillah.
It is possible for a person to wander around aimlessly in this way for many years without realizing that his problem is hubris. Ga’avah?! “That’s something that applies to big people,” he says. “I have problems with big yetzer haras, and you’re coming to talk to me about ga’avah?! You don’t understand. If you would know me, you would never talk to me about something like that. I have bigger problems... shalom bayis, chinuch, parnassah. Who can talk about ga’avah now? Why are you even talking to me about this?”
The Ba’al Ga’avah Doesn’t Listen
Were a person to still his hubris for a moment and listen, he would understand that the reason he doesn’t have siyatta diShmaya is because of his hubris, and 90 percent of his complaints and questions would be answered if he weren’t haughty. His tefillos aren’t answered because of his ga’avah. He can’t attain clarity in Torah because his mind is preoccupied with thoughts of ga’avah which prevent him from properly understanding the truth of Torah; the right things cannot enter his mind. He davens for his eyes to be illuminated in Torah... for his heart to be opened in Torah—but he is not allowing the Torah to penetrate his mind.
