Introduction To Jewish Prayer - The Amidah Explained

0:00What is the Shemona Esrei prayer? The whole point of the Shemona Esrei is to pray for divine mercy and to connect with this idea of Ein Od Milvado. It's this total connection with the only thing in the universe, which is Hashem. With that, we use the Shemona Esrei prayer. We focus our mind. We focus our concentration. We focus all of our soul and our heart. What is the Shemoneh Esrei prayer? The whole point of Shemoneh Esrei is to pray for divine mercy and is to connect with this idea of Ein Od Milvado. It's this total connection with the only thing in the universe, which is Hashem. With that, we use the Shemoneh Esrei prayer. We focus our mind. We focus our concentration. We focus all of our soul and our heart. part in this total unification and synchronization of all the essential parts of the human being. We're connecting that with the service of Hashem. The Shemoneh Esrei is the tool that the Jew uses to do that and to connect with his or her needs. Rabbi Acha, in the name of Rabbi Yehoshua Ben-Levi, said, also, the ones who established the wording of this prayer established it according to a specific order. If one recites it out of order, he has not fulfilled its obligation. This is what was enacted by Ezra and the Men of the Great Assembly, who included prophets. Lamar reads, the first three blessings and the last three blessings are...

1:25the praise of the Omnipresent, the Holy One, and the middle 12 blessings are for the needs of the people. When he recites the last three blessings, you're going to be like a servant who received his allotment from his master and he begs to leave and go on his way after having some sort of interaction. Gratitude and the first three are talking about praise about the King, but that's going to be before any requests are made. You're like a servant asking for your needs in the middle. The Gemara reads that grant us understanding, and once you have granted us understanding, then we can ask, accept our repentance. And once you have accepted our repentance, then we can ask, forgive us. And once you have forgiven us, then we can ask, say redeem us from our enemies, and... our troubles. And once You have redeemed us, then we can ask and say, heal our sickness. And once You have healed our sickness, then we can ask, bless our years. And once You have blessed our years, then we can ask, gather us together. And once You have gathered us together, then we can ask, judge us with righteousness and appoint righteous judges for us. And the Gemara continues, saying, once You have judged us with righteousness, then we can ask, subdue our opponents. And once You have subdued our opponents, then we can ask,

2:42say let us prevail in judgment and once you have let us prevail, then we can state our final need, which is to build our Temple. Each of the Shemona Esrei blessings says "Blessed are You, Hashem." Why would that be over here? You also have a prayer structure where everything has a specific order. ...because each thing has its own subject, each thing necessitates a different statement. "Blessed are You, Hashem" starts off, and it says, "Grant us understanding." Once you have granted us understanding, then we ask, "Accept our repentance." If there is no insight, there is no prayer. You have to understand what you did, have cheshbon hanefesh, and be able to look in the mirror and understand. Only after you have understanding can you have forgiveness. What good is there if a person isn't going to repent and is going to continue to sin on a daily basis? Without forgiveness, all your daily troubles still weigh on you, and it's still a burden to you. That's why we're saying every day to redeem us, to take us out of our troubles. One of the key things about doing teshuva is that you are redeemed. That's an essential part of the creation.

3:54is that there is teshuva not only for Jewish people, but also for the non-Jews. In fact, in the story of Cain and Abel, Hashem Himself points out that there is teshuva when Cain is bringing a bad quality offering. Hashem says, you can change yourself, you can fix your actions, you can adjust, you can be better. Implicit within the creation of the universe is redemption and forgiveness and teshuva and improving yourself and changing your actions. And that's why the redemption here is in there, and that's going to be before we're asking for help. What's the point if you have good health but your enemies are pursuing you to destroy your mind and give you stress, ultimately going to make you sick? What good is it? So that's why we're worrying about having... redemption, and after that, we're worried about having healing. For the next part, bless our years. Once you've blessed our years, we ask to be gathered together. What's the point of having any money if you don't have any health? That doesn't really have much value. That's why the blessing of the...

5:01the crops and the blessing of the year is going to be after the blessing of the health. It's going to move on and gather us together. Once you’ve gathered us together, it says, judge us with righteousness. So why would that be? The Gemara lists these six blessings that are requests for an individual. But if you look here carefully, you see this changes now to the Jewish people as a whole. These are actually communal requests to to start the redemption of Israel, to gather in the exiles. And it also points out that there's divine providence on the individual, and there's also divine providence on Am Yisrael itself. So too, Judaism will give like a brit milah to the world and is going to change humanity itself to know Hashem and to elevate the state of consciousness to a higher level. And that's why we're praying now for the community And the redemption after is talking about judging us with righteousness. And why would it be talking about judging us with righteousness? The Jewish people being gathered together need leaders and judges. We're praying that once we're being gathered, we will have the right kind of Torah leadership where we're going to be following Halacha.

6:14It's going to be like a Sanhedrin. Once you've judged us with righteousness, it talks about subduing our opponents and enemies. The judges have the power to subdue the opponents under halacha and under the law and under what the Torah says. Then it's talking about letting us prevail in judgment. In other words, it's showing that you're going to have these righteous people who are going to witness the undoing of all these evil people. And even worse, these Erev Rav people who actively try to undo the Torah and actively undo Judaism. These Erev Rav are always and have always been doing everything to hold back the mental state and spiritual state of the Jewish people. The restoration of the Davidic monarchy is going to be a big part. of the rebuilding of the Temple, Rabbi Yirmiyah said 120 elders, among whom were prophets, formulated this prayer, Shemoneh Esrei, in a specific order. The prayers that you have in your hands today

7:15came from these prophets and Ezra and the Men of the Great Assembly. This is something that is based in prophecy. The order is precisely calculated. In fact, even the number of letters in here is precisely calculated. The number of words is precisely calculated. And you have something that is part of an ancient tradition. And it's very important to stick to that ancient tradition. This is elucidated and illuminated with prophecy, prophets, and Ruach HaKodesh. What you have today is something that should connect you to HaKadosh Baruch Hu because this is how you can start to have your prayers answered. If you want your prayers to be answered, you have to say it fluently. The Gemara says, why is the prayer composed of 18 blessings? The first 18 Tehillim correspond to one's daily prayer, and they are followed by the verse that says, may Hashem answer you on the day of distress. And the verse's opening phrase, "May Hashem answer you," does double duty. First, it reads as a reference to the preceding verses in Tehillim, and it expresses the hope that Hashem will answer one's daily prayer. The verse is then read independently. It says, "May Hashem answer you on the day of distress." The implication is that if one's daily prayer is not answered, one must undertake a day of distress, in other words, a fast day. Now,

8:38Another way to look at that is to say, hey, wait a second, why did my prayer not get answered? And you have to do cheshbon hanefesh, and you have to start to look at it. In other words, if it's so serious that your prayers are not getting answered, the rabbis are saying, hey, you should actually be taking a fast day. And we know that fasting, charity, and prayer are very important for finding repentance. And this is a clue that somebody whose prayer is not going to be answered has to look at themselves in the mirror, look honestly, and evaluate their sins and evaluate who they are and what they're doing and try to improve themselves. And that's why it's so important to learn Torah because learning Torah helps you start to identify what is wrong with your actions, what's wrong with your thinking, and what's wrong with the way you live your life. You can start to try to make teshuva and improve yourself so that your prayers will be answered. This is a way to achieve more daily prayers answered, and this tends to be directed towards people who are more holy. evaluate their sins and evaluate who they are and what they're doing and try to improve themselves. And that's why it's so important to learn Torah because, through learning Torah, you can start to identify what is wrong with your actions, what's wrong with your thinking, and what's wrong with the way you live your life. You can then start to make teshuva and improve yourself so that your prayers will be answered. This is a way to get more of your daily prayers answered by becoming holier.

9:34and more cleansed of sin. Rabbi Mana's teaching, like the Gemara's previous teaching, concerns a person who sees that his own prayer has not been answered. And that verse advises the person to beseech his Torah teacher, whose prayer is likely to be more potent and to pray on his behalf. If your prayers are not answered, it's a clue that you have to look at yourself in the mirror, and start trying to make yourself more holy. You have to clean your thinking, and you have to clean your hashkafah, and you have to start to connect more to the Shulchan Aruch. You have to start to learn more about what is good. Kosher behavior, what is not kosher behavior, what is going to be clean money, what is not clean money, because you are punished measure for measure for your sins. When you're sinning, you're going to pay, and your prayers are not going to be answered because you're so far removed from the single source of holiness that it's like you're filthy with dirt. You don't have the merit to have your prayers answered. And so, that's why you have to cleanse yourself from sin. The only way to do that is to be honest with yourself, look in the mirror, and start learning Torah so you can know what is correct and what is not correct. Because only the Torah has the absolute method and system for what is correct behavior and what is not correct behavior, as elucidated by the Chachamim.

10:56The Gemara is going to return to the matter of the 18 blessings and offers a second explanation on the significance of the number 18. Rabbi Shimon says the 18 blessings correspond to the 18 vertebrae in the spine, for at the time a person stands and prays, he must bow, and the Gemara says, what is the reason? For the verse states, "All my bones shall exclaim, Hashem, who is like You?" And the reason why we're bowing is because when we are praying, when the Jew is praying, the Jew is praying with his body, and the Jew is praying with his soul, and the Jew is praying with total concentration, and his mind is aware of... And when the Jew is praying, they're directing their heart to the Holy of Holies in Jerusalem, where all of the blessing enters into the universe. We were created from the dust and we're formed out of clay, and Hashem blew the soul into us. When we're connecting back to Hashem and climbing this ladder of prayer,

11:59We are doing it with our whole self, and the way we do that is with the Shemoneh Esrei. The proper way of bowing when doing the Shemoneh Esrei is such that the top 18 parts of your spine protrude. However, we don't bow so deeply that we're bowing with our whole back, as we don't want to appear arrogant. Is this trying to show the proper way of bowing and the proper posture? That doesn't contradict the other explanation by Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi. Although another blessing was added later, the blessing of the sectarians and rebellious sinners, known as the blessing "Who humbles wanton sinners," was added by Rabban Gamliel in Yavneh. Nowadays, we recite 19 blessings. Rabbi Chanina, in the name of Rabbi Pinchas, says the 18 blessings correspond to the 18 times that the names of the patriarchs are written together in the Torah in the same verse, where it says Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. And the obligation, according to this, is to pray three times a day, and that three times.

13:10Daily times are going to be instituted by the patriarchs, and when formalizing the text of the daily prayer, the rabbis set the number of blessings to correspond to the number of verses that contain the names of all three patriarchs together. You're praying and trying to refine yourself so that you can go in the way of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob because the tree of life is really going to be the path. of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The way to get to Shamayim and the way to connect to HaKadosh Baruch Hu and the way to have a better life in this world is to go in the way of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and And that is why the 18 blessings in the Shemoneh Esrei were composed by Ezra and the Men of the Great Assembly. When we talk about Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, we're talking about a continuous line of transmission that goes from Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. And it goes to Moshe Rabbeinu. And it goes to all of the successors in a continuous line. And the Gedolim that we have today are...

14:22that line, the Gedolim that we have today, the Torah that we have from the great, holy Gedolim that we have today, this is the Torah that was given from Har Sinai. All of the Oral Law following the Shulchan Aruch, this is the path that leads you to a better life in. This world, it is guaranteed by the Torah. The Torah guarantees that if you follow the sages of your day and you follow the Torah, you're going to have a better existence. The last three blessings are prayers for the Temple service, prayers for thanksgiving, and prayers for peace. The last three prayers, you have the Temple service, which is going to be the worldwide recognition of the knowledge of Hashem. That means all of the world and all of the Jews are going to be seeing the Divine providence in this world where Hashem is actively running the world, just like Judaism has been speaking about. But that experience will be so clear that it will be like when Adam and Chava were in Gan Eden.

15:30That vision of seeing Hashem running the world with that kind of clarity. In other words, this opacity that we have today, where it's very hard to see Hashem in this world, is going to be changed, with human perspective and human understanding being elevated. It's going to become very easy and clear. clear when you have the Temple service come again. And also, the Shemoneh Esrei is a substitution for the Temple service, so it is very fitting to be ending the last three with a statement of the Temple service. We were looking for the source where we're going to recite blessings over foods and over other things as well, like when you have a new garment. Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish said, the verse states, you said to Hashem, you are my master, my goodness bil'adecha. This is when King David is speaking to his soul and it's calling out to Hashem, and it quotes Hashem as responding to the soul. And it says, this is in Tehillim 16:2, bil'adecha. Now, Rabbi Acha comes and interprets this.

16:37Rabbi Acha says, what is the meaning of "bal'adecha"? It says, God replied to David, I declare that I will not bring goodness upon the world without you. And it's read as "bil'adecha." The Afei Mar'eh explains about this with the word "bil'adecha," that God's reply to King David is that goodness will not come into this world without you. In other words, without your request or involvement. And the Afei Mareh explains it as no goodness shall come into the world unless you request it by praying for it. And what this does is it helps us to understand the final three blessings in the Shemoneh Esrei. And then you have this idea of thanksgiving, just like you're saying brachot on the things that you get because you're manifesting them into reality through prayer. prayer that you're going to say a bracha on it. The Shemona Esrei ends with the blessing of peace because when you have that kind of vision where you can see the divine providence very clearly in your life and it's so clear that you can see the heavens working in your life with a God who is actively creating and where you are at the spiritual level where you've cleaned yourself up from sin and you've made yourself holy, and you are praying. Now, you have a part in the Amidah where you have your personal requests. You're supposed to be requesting things that you need, and then you're giving thanksgiving because you've brought things into reality, as this verse is talking about, and as the Midrash is explaining. And then later on, when you're going to go use that object that you've effectively brought into the world through

17:54prayer, that you're going to say a bracha on it. The Shemoneh Esrei ends with the blessing of peace because when you have that kind of vision where you can see the divine providence very clearly in your life, and it's so clear that you can see the heavens working in your life with a God who is actively creating, and where you are at the spiritual level where you've cleaned yourself up from sin, and you've made yourself holy, and you are praying, and... to bring things down into this world. And then you have the recognition that this thing you are about to use was brought into the world through this manifestation through prayer. And then you're going to go and bless each thing. That's a statement of thanksgiving. And you're going to be living a life of peace. And this is the life that Hashem intends. intended for every human being at the point of creation in the Garden of Eden. And I want to point out another aspect, that in the brachot, when you're blessing fruit and you're blessing bread, this is in the present tense, not in the past tense. It means that we have a God who is continuously creating. Judaism has a God who is actively creating.

19:05Very important to realize that no goodness will come into the world unless you request it by praying for it. And then once you have it, you have thanksgiving for it. And then you say a bracha on it. And when you live that kind of life, you're going to experience peace because you, as a human being and as a Jew, are living the way you were made to live. to live back in the Garden of Eden and to experience that. And only Judaism can give you that. No other system in the world can give you that and restore you back to the original point of how you're supposed to live your life. Everything else will mislead you and waste your time, and you'll have stress and anxiety and depression because you are doing something that's a little bit different than how you were designed. anxiety and depression because you are doing something that's a little bit different than how you were designed. For Berachos (blessings), you should spend a couple of years trying to think about and trying to learn about, in addition to whatever you're doing in Judaism, because this is one of the deepest metaphysical things that you can start to have access to, this and tefillah (prayer).

20:11That's why the Rambam holds that these two things are going to be necessary for your development as a Jew and why you need to really start focusing on concentrating on them. Because you're starting to interact with the world in a different way and bring things into reality. existence and interact with things in a spiritual way, and it changes who you are, and you're going to be a happier person because you're going to have a closer relationship with HaKadosh Baruch Hu, and you're going to be closer to the Source of Creation. You're going to experience divine providence and feel it in your life. Ultimately, that is going to give you a more meaningful existence than anything else that you can do. Have a great day.