סוד התפילה: ממה נדרשת התנתקות כדי להגיע לדבקות? | הרב אליהו ובר

This week's Torah portion talks about Isaac going out to meditate in the field toward evening. Isaac comes from Beer-lahai-roi, and he walks; Isaac went out to meditate in the field toward evening. There is a point here: Isaac came from Beer-lahai-roi. He left Beer-lahai-roi, and then he came for "Isaac went out to meditate in the field toward evening." This fits what we read last week: " Abraham said to his young men, 'Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go up so that we may worship and return to you.'" Our Sages say that Isaac's meditation in the field refers to the Temple Mount; it means that in order to pray, some detachment is necessary. Our Sages say that when Abraham spoke to his young men—who were Isaac, Eliezer, and Ishmael—it meant a detachment from Ishmael was needed so that "we may worship and return to you." Isaac came from Beer-lahai-roi; at Beer-lahai-roi, Keturah and Ishmael were there. So, in order to be able to pray, to establish the Afternoon Prayer (Mincha), a detachment from Ishmael is required. Also later on, when our forefather Jacob establishes the Evening Prayer (Maariv) , when does he do it? When he is fleeing from Esau. He detached from Esau, so now , it is possible to pray. Ultimately, there is a point that for prayer, for the prayer to be perfect, we need a detachment from the nations, exactly as I said before. " >> As I leave the city..."" >> As I leave the city, I will spread out my hands," wonderful. This is a continuation with Moses our teacher as well, fantastic. Another piece of evidence? It is possible. Go for it! Truly, there is a concept that the detachment, the detachment from the nations, creates the prayer. Just now, two days ago, I said that the United States decided to cut back their budgets a bit. You know, there are those who see this as a disadvantage, but there is a great merit in it, because the more we detach from the nations, the better it will be, truly. There are people who are always stressed : "You know?""It succeeded in the elections, it didn't succeed"—it doesn't matter. Truly, the great rectification is the more we detach, the better. If we detach from the nations, it stirs us to think, both in the United States and here in the land where they have so much power; these things provoke a lot of thought and help the people of Israel understand exactly where they are and how important this is—this detachment and lack of connection to the nations. I saw on Tuesday the Rambam in the Guide for the Perplexed; he classifies the commandments, there is a special way, he divides the commandments into 14 parts, not according to his book, not according to his 14 volumes, but he has another way he divides the Guide for the Perplexed. The first division is the foundation, the foundations of the Torah , belief in God and everything, and he includes there two commandments and says they are also part of the foundations of the Torah. What are those two commandments? The commandment of prayer and the commandment of repentance. Whoever reads the Rambam there, these are very important foundations regarding repentance; I will address that less here now, but I want to focus on the subject of prayer. The Rambam says: When a person is facing the evil inclination and turns directly to the Holy One, Blessed be He, they feel much, much more connected to the matter; they feel more connected to the Holy One, Blessed be He . So, prayer during the evil inclination truly creates faith in God; it itself creates faith in God for us. On this point, we must be very, very awakened, that the essence of prayer is the detachment from the nations, and that is how we connect to God, and this is a very, very important thing—exactly this message is in the Torah portion. I want to conclude with an important and interesting point. Yesterday, the people of Israel were privileged to hear more good news, that nine families moved into Jericho. As is known, Jericho and Jerusalem are connected to one another. Regarding Jericho, ten things were said . So it is written in the Midrash, listing ten things in the Mishnah, which the scribes count precisely. From Jericho, they would hear all the singing , from Jericho they would hear all the cymbals, from Jericho they would hear all the shofar blasts, from Jericho they would hear all the chanting, from Jericho they would hear the sound of the Great Gate opening; everything, everything was heard in Jericho. And in Jericho, they would smell the scent of the incense offering. There is a theme regarding Jericho— perhaps the name Jericho itself—there is some connection to Jerusalem, and when there is a...A connection of, in principle, there was a prohibition against building Jericho, so Jericho in principle should be a mountain, perhaps a field, but a house should not be there , something similar to the Temple Mount of today. There is a mountain here, a field, like our father Abraham, they called it a field, there is still no house. But after that, in the end, they built Jericho, and after they built Jericho, now it is also possible to build in Jericho, so they went to buy houses there. So, together with the houses there, we will also merit to build a house here. That is how this connection of joy regarding what happened yesterday in Jericho [is understood]. And we will conclude with an event from Megillat Ta'anit of the 25th of Cheshvan , which is a day—it is written there " The Day of the Capture of Samaria," which is the conquest of the mountains in Samaria, the mountains of Sebaste, Sebastia. It is not clear when this was; there are some who say if it was at the beginning of the Second Temple period or in a later era, but there is also a point of settlement and settling the Land of Israel on this day. It was awakened yesterday, together with the moving into the houses in Jericho, the matter of settling the Land of Israel was awakened. May the Holy One, Blessed be He, help us that we truly merit to begin hearing good things, to detach the Land of Israel from the nations dwelling within it, and may we merit that we will be more connected to the Holy One, Blessed be He, to connect the Land of Israel to the Holy One, Blessed be He, to connect every place— Jericho, Samaria, and all parts of the Land of Israel—and we will have a total connection to the Holy One, Blessed be He, and to our Father in Heaven. Amen, may it be His will.