Can You Really Change G*d's Mind? - Yitzchak's Unusual Prayer For Babys [Toldos]

Okay, good evening friends. Paras to the para that introduces the birth of the next generation, the next generation of patriarchs, the next generation of sibling rivalry where is going to give birth and are going to give birth to Jacob and Asaf. But first, there's a delay in Rifka's ability to get pregnant. Um the the the um the binding of Isaac, the took place according to many commentaries when Yeetsk was 37 years old. And right after the binding, Abraham heard through prophetic vision that the woman whom he is destined to marry, Rifka was born. In our para, we identify as age 40 when he finally got married. So she's 3 years old and there was a 20year delay till they had children. The first 10 years they waited. It was probably more of a an arranged marriage than it was a a practical marriage. I'm assuming I don't know. And then the next 10 years it took them took them another 10 years. The Torah says she was a she was she was barren. She was not able to have children physically or scientifically. Prayed to Hashem. Rivka prayed to Hashem. Um side point it uh might is important to note and I I honestly I don't fully understand this. Commentaries grapple with this but it's not the our discussion for today but I just want to mention it. It says that they both prayed but Yeitzk was answered by God. Rifka wasn't because Yitzka came from a more pure environment. His prayer carried more weight which is interesting. I I would have thought that her prayer carries more weight because she comes from a negative environment because of the space she's coming from. But that's a side point. That's that's a different different uh discussion for a different time. What I want to focus on today is what is unique about the way prayed. The verse says, I'll read it in Hebrew and then I will translate it. It says it's an unusual term. What does vayar mean? Vetar means if you look in the Aramaic translation, just means he prayed. Prayed. We'll soon unpack what that word means. It's an unusual word for the word pray. He prayed toward to God toward his wife because she was barren. Hashem, God received the prayer on his behalf. Rifka's wife had conceived. And what commentaries and and many many sources unpack is what is this term vaar? It's an unusual term for to to describe pray. In fact, Rashi even asks the question, what is this word? Contextually speaking, we know it means pray. But it doesn't say the normal word for prayer such as bakasha or whatever it might be expression of of pleading or or or something like that. So what does the word vet mean? So what I'd like to do for today's discussion is take us through several sources. I have here a handful of sources simply of what the word vayatar means and what that teaches us about prayer and what that teaches us about how to pray properly. Sounds good. Let's start with the Talmud. The Talmud says that the word uh the the root word is it's actually you see this a lot in Hebrew. It's a noun that has been turned into a verb. You don't see that a lot in English, but you do see that a lot in Hebrew. Um, actually, if you translate this word, you do see it in English. An atar is like a shovel. So, a shovel is a noun. A shovel, depending on how you use it, could also be a verb. And he shoveled. So, if you want to translate it literally, shoveled. Contextually speaking, it means and he prayed. But if you were to be really literal, stick to the literal root word means he shoveled. So the Talmud says, "Why is why is the Torah using an expression of shovel when discussing prayer?" So it says just as a shovel or or a plow or or a gardening tool that that's used to move all the dirt mixing the seeds into the ground. Right? So the dirt that was on the bottom is now on the top. The seeds that were on the top are now on the bottom. Everything's all flipped over. Similarly, Yeetszkak's prayer had this magical way of changing reality, changing God, which is an interesting thing. How could prayer change God? We'll get there in a second. But his prayer had a magical way of changing God. Why? because it wasn't scientifically speaking in the cards for him to have a child with Rifka because Rifka was barren and she did have a child. So his prayer was like a shovel flipping reality flipping reality on its head. Known as the kaduca known for his book the kadusha points out something interesting. It doesn't just say vatar and he shoveled which means he changed reality. That's how the the Talmud contextualizes it. It says he prayed to God but toward his wife across his wife. Well, what does that mean? What does that teach us? It means that something changed in him in his relationship with his wife which is which enabled his prayer to be effective. didn't necessarily change God changed himself his relationship with his wife and that shifted the dynamics. Sometimes when we pray the way we understand prayer especially from a cabalistic oridic perspective is that we're not actually trying to change God's mind like God I know you wanted this but please do this. God wants the best for us. The question is, are we willing to experience and to receive the best? Are we open to those blessings? Prayer isn't so much about changing God's mind as much as it is changing our mind, changing ourselves, turning ourselves into the type of person that is willing to see those receive those blessings. I'll give you a a bit of an abstract parallel, but I I think you'll see the connection. Similar idea is the idea of trust in God. It's not that if things are good, I will trust in God and when things are good, I will feel secure. It's that my feeling of security, my trust in God actually creates a good reality. The bashm have pointed out that in heaven when there's god forbid an evil decree against somebody um and and they're destined to be punished by heaven. God doesn't actually or the prosecuting angels don't directly punish people. What they do is they make it more difficult to trust in God. So now you're more susceptible to negativity. But the inverse of that is trusting in God makes you more susceptible or more attractive to to blessings. And it was the same with the he says he shoveled he changed he flipped he transformed. Wasn't just that he was transforming God's mind he changed himself. In what way did he change himself? So the kaduca explains that the dynamic of marriage in order for marriage to work in order for marriage to translate into reproduction. Now in the woke era we live in this is not going to be popular. But this isn't going to be novel either. But it takes two opposites to tango. Takes two to tango. And they have to be opposites. male and female, donor or giver and receiver. That is the biological reality. Um that that is like like Charlie Kirk always has to always likes to ask what is a woman, right? The biological definition and the spiritual definition and they're aligned of a woman is the biological receiver happens to be the emotional and spiritual receiver itself as well. in a male is the giver. And when those two meet, there's reproduction. And the reason why there wasn't reproduction, says Levy, is either he wasn't giving properly or she wasn't receiving properly. And this might be true physiologically, biologically, spiritually. We don't know what plane, but but but they all have to kind of line up emotionally, psychologically. All all these things kind of line up or if they do line up that's that's a good thing. So the he says which means he shoved he transformed that's the Thomas interpretation he transformed himself to be the type of person who's a giver in a way that his wife can receive so now they can have children. And what that teaches us about prayer is that prayer isn't just treating God as a gumball machine. Please give me this because I did this. It's a transformative experience or it's the journey of uh toward being on a transformative experience. The journey toward being in a transformative experience to become the type of person that can receive those blessings. which is ironically speaking this is why most of prayers most of the sitter doesn't directly ask God for things like much of the amida does but other than that we're really trying to build ourselves up trying to become something and if we become something great something spiritual we're going to position ourselves to be able to receive blessings properly in the in just the right way. That's what did said God he didn't just say God give me this give me that. He did real work and said who do I need to be? Who do I need to become? Okay, this is the first explanation on what this unusual term means. Let's go to the more although this is the earlier explanation because it's in the Talmud. Let's go to the more classical explanation. Rashi's interpretation. Rashi says that the word vayatar appears in two other places in the Bible. It appears in the book of it appears in the book of proverbs. And both of those so so Rashi does this often by the way when there's an unfamiliar word. And you want to know what that word means? Well, let's see where else this word appears. What does it mean contextually in those contexts? Let's plug it back into our context. In the book of it's describing the the smoke on the altar from the from the corbon from the sacrifices and apparently the smoke that had gone up from the sacrifices which was a a sign that God is receiving the sacrifices that God is pleased with it. the smoke would puff up in a overwhelming like dense it was like this dense cloud that would just like shoot straight up. It wasn't like a thin vapor. It would it was like this thick pillar that would just shoot up. And Rashi deres from there and it uses the same term a variation of the word vayatar. Rashi derives from there that the word vayatar conotes the idea of abundance. His prayer's prayer was abundant. It wasn't a one-time thing. It wasn't a one-off thing. It was an abundant thing. That's how Rashi interprets vayatar. Um, just to put this in brackets, by the way, the Zohar points out going back to the Corbono parallel, the Zohar says that the unusual term actually conotes a sacrifice. He brought a sacrifice to God. Noah brought sacrifices to God on the altar. Abraham did the same. Noah um Adam did the same. And he did the same. Did the same as well. And that is significant because what was really doing was forging a relationship with God because that's what a corban is. The word gorban translated as sacrifice actually comes from the word kairo to come close. He was developing a closeness with god and developing a closeness of god to god opens us up to blessing. But Raj's interpretation means that the word defines vayatar as abundance. Okay. I'd like to share with you another interpretation from the Lut points out that was authored by Rabbi Nasan of Brelvas uh one of his big students that wrote down and transcribed and transmitted much of Rabin Aman's teachings and he points out Rashi's interpretation. What does it mean that the prayer was abundant? Based on the idea that the smoke was abundant and it's the same word when we pray and he derives a direct lesson from here. When we pray, it should be familiar. Prayer should be familiar, abundant. We shouldn't be stingy with prayer. Which means prayer doesn't have to be limited to specific times of the day. Yes, we dedicate times of the day to pray, but it doesn't have to be limited to those times. It doesn't have to be formal. There's advantages to formal prayer. There's reasons for formal prayer and we as we've discussed extensively in our prayer class earlier, there's so much depth and meaning to the formal prayer, but there's also meaning to the informal prayer. There's also incredible significance to remembering that God is also like a friend, not just like a king. It's a different relationship with God. And his prayer was abundant because he was always praying because God was always present in his life. God was like that friend was that supportive figure. And I believe very much so that this ties back to interpretation that the prayer was a transformative experience. It was so transformative it became a part of who he was. He was able to abundantly pray and his prayer was no was not dependent on a time of day. It was not dependent on a space. It was just who he was. So I'll tell you a story. Somebody once came to the Katskar and he was in incredible agony and pain and stress because he was having trouble financially supporting himself. He says, "Reba, help me out. Give me some sort of blessing. Pull some strings in heaven. I I need to make a buck. Got bills to pay. What do I do?" The Reb looks at him and says, "You're going to be totally fine. God will bless you. You just need to focus on your prayers." He says, "I can't focus on my prayers. I'm just too stressed." The Katskarb looks at him and says, "That's the problem. The problem isn't you don't have parasa. The problem isn't you don't have livelihood. The problem is you lack identity. An identity that would transform you to make you into the type of person that would receive God's blessing, receive that livelihood. So often in life, we're trying to look for quick fixes. We're trying to look for things. We're trying to look for safety. We're trying to look for the relief. And the question we ask ourselves is like what do I need to do? And I think what the katkarba was trying to urge him to really ask is who do I need to become? Because that's what prayer is. It's that transformative experience like the Levy had described and was essentially transforming himself by being so comfortable with prayer that he's able to receive those blessings. I'd like to share with you one final interpretation from Raenobaya. Bakaya is a very interesting commentary on the Torah because he he you know Rashi many of you are familiar with Rashi will leave his comment will share his comments on the Torah from a very literal uh perspective goes through layers. Here's the literal meaning. Here's the figurative meaning. Here's the homalytic meaning. Here's the cabalistic meaning. Here's the midashic meaning. And he shares like layers and layers and layers. And one of the things explains, let's go back to the sentence. It says prayed with the unusual term vayar. Prayed to God toward his wife because she was barren. Now, Rifka was not the first person in the Torah to be barren and to pray for children. She was not the last person in the Torah to be barren and to pray for children. But there's something unusual here in this particular instance. Usually the Torah or the Bible would introduce the fact that she's barren, tell us the story, and then explain why he's praying. But over here, it tells us he's praying. And by the way, here's the reason why she's praying because she's barren. It's kind of a backwards thing. usually tell somebody the context for which what is about to take place and then tell us what takes place. There's a reason why he's praying because they want to have children. It's been 20 years or technically 10 years she's barren. Okay, he's praying. Instead, it's like no is praying with this unusual term yet because he's abundantly praying and then it kind of nonchalantly just slips in. Oh, because she was bearing as if it was like no big deal. Raenai explains that this teaches us something very valuable about Yitkak's prayer that we can all learn from. There was a bigger focus on who he was praying to than what he was praying for. What he was praying for, as important as it was, as necessary as it was, and as stressful as it might have been, what he was praying for was secondary in his mind to who he to whom he was praying to, God. Because prayer is a transformative experience. And that transformative experience is going to attract blessings. to turn him into the type of person whom would have children or who would have whatever he needs. The focus wasn't the outcome but the transformative process that produces the outcome. And I I think this is a lesson in certainly a a lesson in our relationship with God. you know, we're we're trying to change God's mind and it's like, well, what what do I need to change? Who do I need to become? And I think it's rel it's a lesson in relationships as well. When I meet with couples so often, they're trying to change each other. He needs to start doing this. She needs to start doing that. And the question I'll try to or the direction I'll try to lead them to is well if he were to do that what kind of person would that make you which is a respectful way of saying hey who do you need to be? And that's the question we need to ask ourselves when facing God. And it's it's so difficult. It's so difficult because sometimes we're praying and we feel desperate and the desperation is real. But Yitak's prayers wasn't coming from a place of desperation. It was coming from a space of transformation. God, who do I need to become? Who do I need to be to attract these blessings? And that's the question we we ask in our relationships. Who do I need to become in order for things to just flow properly? Okay, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.