Praying Amidah? Here's How to Do It Right!

0:00People say, "Yeah, I pray every day, but, uh, I don't know, I don't connect to it. I don't like it." Well, you don't like it because you're probably not praying the right way. If you had a meeting with somebody important, a president or a king, you'd be as excited as possible and as careful as possible with every word that you say. Whereas in your prayers to Hashem, every day, three times a day we pray, but it seems something is missing. you're not excited about it if you're not connecting to it, there's something missing. One of the things we mentioned last week in regards to the Amidah, the Amidah prayer that Jews pray three times a day, is of critical importance. But what many people don't realize is that the Chazarah, which is when the Chazan repeats the repetition of Shemoneh Esrei, is not even of lesser importance or equal importance but rather it's of higher importance... lesser importance or equal importance, but rather it’s of higher importance, as the Arizal writes that during the reader’s repetition of the Amidah, all of the mystical rectifications, all of the tikkunim that were accomplished during the silent Amidah, are accomplished again but on a higher level. And that’s why Rabbi Chaim Vital, his talmid, writes that the main form of service in our era before Mashiach.

1:24is prayer, and for this reason, the evil inclination makes every effort to prevent us from concentrating on our prayer by sending us all types of distracting people and distracting things. But this also comes due to the fact, as Rav Yisrael says, from the person's desire to want to know everything. Who just came in? Who just rang the bell? Whose phone rang? Who's making that noise outside? Who's driving a motorcycle at this time of day? Who's driving this? People want to know everything. This is why social media is so successful. Because people want to know everything about everybody else and forget about their own self-awareness and introspection.