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The Prayer Podcast is an attempt to make prayer meaningful, elevating and real in our day-to-day lives for every individual regardless of background.
This Podcast Series is Generously Underwritten by Dr. Leonard & June Goldberg
00:00 - Intro (Announcement)
You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe from TORCH, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. This is the Prayer Podcast.
00:09 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
Welcome back everybody to the Prayer Podcast. This week we are going to focus on something that I feel completely unqualified to be talking about. I've been intrigued over the last few weeks about the four parts of prayer. Our sages tell us that there are four parts of prayer. I want to, just before we get into that, I want to just do a little bit of discovery about what this number four has in store for us. So the first thing we have to know is that Hashem's name has four letters. It has the Yud, the he, the Vav and the he.
00:49
Now, most of what we're talking about is Kabbalistic things. I really don't have any clue of what I'm talking about, but at least I know what I researched, and you have the sources on the back of the second page. For those of you who are listening or watching online, I will try to remember to put them into the folder. In the description you'll have a link to the folder of all of our notes. So, as we know, the world has a composition of four different elements. We have fire, air, water and earth. Fire is hot and dry, air is hot and damp, water is cold and damp, and earth is cold and dry. Now, that also is part of our human body is composed of these four elements as well. We have the fire, which is our digestive system. We have the air, which is our breath, how we breathe. We have the water, which is our bodily fluids, and we have the earth, which is what our bones and skin is formed from. Also, in our traits, in our character, we have these four elements. We have fire, which is arrogance, anger. We have air, which is our speech, speaking good and bad. Water, which is our emotions, which comes and goes Pleasure, love, jealousy, these are all emotions and that's reflected by water. And then we have earth, which is laziness, depression, things that pull us down, and we see these four elements in our existence. We also know that there are the four realms. We have domem, someach, chai and medaber Four realms of living creatures or living of existence. Domem is mineral, it's earth or rock, salt, right. We have tzomech. Tzomech is vegetation, it's living, but in a different form. We have chai, something which is living like an animal, and then we have a medaber, which is something that speaks, which is a human being. Now, all of these are also. Each of these four realms of life are also in our offerings. When we'd bring an offering in the temple. There was a salt offering, which represented the domem, the minerals, the earth. We had the wine and water libations, which represented vegetation. We had the animal offerings, which represented the chai, the living, and then we had personal atonement, which was the medaber, which is the human realm. So we see these four there as well.
03:44
Now, in Torah study, we also know there's four levels of understanding. We have pardes, which is the pay for pshat. Pshat means simple, literal meaning based on the text and context. We have resh, which is remez, which is illusions, hints, gematria, numerical value. We have dalet, which is dirush, homiletics, discourses, moral and philosophical derivations, and then, finally, we have the deepest level, which is samach, which is sod, which is the hidden meaning, the mystical secrets, the Kabbalah. And we also know the Talmud tells us and the Midrash teaches us that we review everything that we learn four times, that we review everything that we learn four times, also representing this four, to get to the essence of something. It's not enough to just learn it once, to learn it twice. You learn it four times, then you start understanding it, then it starts really. And we know that there's four steps in Agriculture you plow, you sow, you harvest and you consume. This is as well part of our process.
04:58
Then we know there's also four sections of Jewish law In the Shulchan Oroch. We have the Orochaim, which deals with daily laws, shabbos, holidays. We have Yoridea, which deals with kosher, mourning, nida, family purity. We have the Evinu Ezer, which is revolving around marriage and divorce and other issues, and then we have Choshen Mishpat. Choshen Mishpat deals with civil and financial law.
05:23
And then we have four levels of soul. Four levels of soul. Four levels of soul. We have the nefesh, which is the fleshly earth soul. Nefesh is awareness of the physical body and the physical world. The ruach, which is the emotional water soul, so to speak, and it is the primary manifestation of our emotions. We have the neshama, which is the intellectual, the ear soul and that seeks to pierce through to the essential rather than the ephemeral. And then we have chaya, which is the spiritual, the fire soul, a complete nullification of the ego, knowledge of the absolute truth. Okay, so these are different areas of fours. And, by the way, in modern psychology we also have anybody who's done the Myers-Briggs. All right, it's divided up into four different categories of personality, right. We have the introvert, extrovert, then we have all of the different ways that people, and there are 16 different dimensions of that, but it's broken down to four. So we see this fundamental principle.
06:38
Now let's get into our worlds. We have four different worlds. We currently are living in the lowest form of world, the world of Asiya, the world of action, of the physical universe, the reason why it's called Asiya, because that's Oseh to do, the world of doing. We have the world of Yetzira, which is Yotzer Tzura God makes, forms things. The world above that is the world of Bria, of creation. God is Eboré, god creates. And then there's the world of Atzilos, the world of closeness, nearness, of emanation, and that comes from the word Etzel, to be right, by close and nearby to the Almighty. So we gave all this introduction of the fours. How does this relate to our prayer? Our sages tell us that our prayer is broken up to four parts.
07:38
Now, before we talk about this, we need to know that in this week's Parsha we have the story of Jacob traveling and Jacob. It gets late in the day and he goes to sleep. Where does he go to sleep? Turns out, it's Temple Mount, the source of creation. Temple Mount. That's where the beginning of creation expanded from.
08:01
You ever wonder why Israel is the most disputed land in the history of the world? Nobody cares. Take a billion acres in Africa, nobody cares. Right, you take an inch in Israel, everyone's going crazy. It's amazing why? Because that's the source of all creation. It's the source of all creation, it's the source of all blessing and that's Hashem's physical dwelling. It was right there on Mount Moriah, which is the Temple Mount, which is the Western Wall, is the one standing wall from the original Temple.
08:38
We'll get into it a different time, but either way, we have four worlds. As we know, jacob went to sleep on Mount Moriah and he had a dream. What was his dream? It was a ladder. In the ladder there were angels going up and going down, going up and going down. Olden, the Yordenbo Sages, tell us that really there were four rungs on that ladder and the angels were going up and down between the four worlds. What are those four worlds?
09:10
These are the four worlds that we're going to talk about, the four worlds of prayer, the four sections of prayer. So let's first understand which parts of prayer we're talking about, and then we can associate each one of them to their proper world. So the first is the morning blessings and the karbanos, the offerings, which is dealing with sacrifices. That's world level one, lowest level. Level two is the verses of praise, which is the psuket dezimra. So from Baruch Sha'amar till Yishtabach is the verses of praise. Then we have the Shema and its blessings, which is the third section of prayer, and then we have the fourth, which is the Amidah, the 18 blessings of the Shemona Esrei, and that's the highest level of our prayer. Then we have to get off that ladder that we climbed up and that's the end of prayer. Also has four different sections. It has the Tachnun, which is the supplications, the Asherah and Uvalatzion. We have the Aleinu and then we have the Hayom Yom, which is the song of the day.
10:18
So now let's try to put this together and understand what we're dealing with. So first part of our prayer, level one is, we said, the world of action, the world of doing olam ha'asiyah. That's where we thank Hashem on a very practical level for the mundane, ordinary parts of life, the practical needs of our life. We thank Hashem for giving us a soul. We thank Hashem for giving us a functioning body. We thank Hashem for giving us eyes to see and clothes to wear and an earth to stand on All of the incredible gifts of our ordinary day-to-day life is the lowest realm, the world of asiyah, world of doing, and this corresponds to the nefesh, which is the lowest level of soul. So we just get into the frame of mind here, we start praying every morning and we are getting into a world of connection with Hashem. But it's a limited world. It's a limited world for us Because we're benefiting so much, we're trying to thank Hashem to the greatest of our ability. But we can take it so much more, that relationship between us and Hashem. We can take it up a notch. What's the next notch? And then we talk one second. By the way, we talk also in that first section about the offerings. The offerings was a really the essence of what prayer is today is a replacement of those offerings.
11:51
Okay, then we get into the verses of praise, psuchidism, which is section two of prayer, and this is level two of the world. This is the world of Yetzirah, the world of shaping. God is a Yotzer, god forms us and this is referring to the angelic world. And this is the preliminary. Sorry, this is primarily with introductory psalms, Psalms of King David. The majority of this part of our prayer is psalms. We also have part from Az Yashir, which is part of Exodus, where we thank Hashem for taking us out of Egypt and for our exodus, for our redemption from slavery, and we're praising Hashem through what he has formed, all the hallelujahs, where we are praising Hashem through His creation, through His angels. We're praising Hashem through His trees, through the mountains and valleys, through the heavens and earth, through all of the instruments, through all of the gifts that Hashem has given us, so through Hashem's form, and this is corresponding to the ruach level of soul. Then we have the third level, which is Shema and its blessings, the world of creation, the world of throne, and we're acknowledging Hashem through his creation.
13:23
Again, you have to create and then you have to form. So creation comes before forming. Right Before the carpenter can make shelves, he first has to have wood, okay, then you form it. First you have to have, okay, then you form it. First you have to have the creation and then you form it. And this it has three parts. Number one is acknowledging Hashem through His creation, the Shema pre-blessings, which is thanking Hashem for the creation of light, darkness, the angels, the heavens, everything in this world. Yotzer or uvorei choshech, oseh shalom, uvorei es hakol. Then we thank Hashem for being our God, our creator. We say shema, shema, yisrael, hashem, elokeinu Hashem, hashem. You are our God, you are one, you're oneness. That's what we recognize. That's part two of acknowledging Hashem through creation. And then part three is Hashem alone rules over all of the forces in the universe, natural and spiritual, and that's what we talk about when Hashem took us out of Egypt. We acknowledge that right after the Shema, we're recognizing that Hashem has control over splitting of the sea. Hashem has control over, you know, our captors. We pray that our hostages be released speedily in our days Should see all 101 of them of those, and there's others in other countries. You know Ron Arad is still missing, an Israeli pilot from years and years ago, but we shouldn't forget him either.
15:13
We're corresponding to. This is corresponding to the world of Neshama. That's the third level. And then we get to the 18 blessings of the Amidah. That's the highest level. That's the level four, the world of atzilus, of closeness to Hashem and it's pure spirit.
15:34
And what we're doing is directly acknowledging, praising, asking and thanking Hashem. So till now, we didn't ask for anything specific. Till now, we were just setting, we were thanking Hashem, we were praising Hashem, we were acknowledging Hashem. But now we get to the point we're right in front of Hashem. We can ask, we can ask, we refer to Hashem as Ata Baruch, ata Hashem, blessed, are you, hashem? Who are we to talk to Hashem like that, god, creator of heaven and earth? Yes, because we just we ascended the ladder. Now we're at the top rung. Hashem, you control everything, you have the power over everything. We need wisdom, hashem. We need forgiveness, we need healing, we need livelihood, we need justice All of the things that we need in our world. We ask for, and that is the world corresponding to the Chia, which is the highest level of Neshama. So now we're on such a great height, but how do we get back down? Gotta get back down to this world. Right, we keep on elevating one rung after another, but now we're stuck up there. How do we get back down? So we go.
17:10
The next thing that we do after the Amidah is supplications, where we're asking forgiveness. Again, we're asking for something. Then we take a rung down. We say Ashrei and uvaletzion. We're acknowledging Hashem's creation. We're acknowledging that Hashem is posach, has yodechom, has b'alochoch, harotzom. Hashem opens His hand, so to speak, and gives everyone what they need. Then we say the oleinu, which the created form recognizes Hashem, and then finally, hayom Yom.
17:45
We say the Psalms of today, the Psalm of the day, which means I'm bringing back that clarity that I've had into my day-to-day life. Today is the third day of towards Shabbos. Hayom Yom Shlishi B'Shabbos. Today is the third day of towards Shabbos A yom yom shlishi b'shabbos. Today is the third day towards Shabbos. We're taking that great height that we were at and we're bringing it into a practical level.
18:11
So the reason why I'm fascinated again, I told you I am not worthy of talking about this because I don't really understand what I'm saying. I'm sharing with you many of the sources that you see here on the bottom you have the sources where exactly I got this information from. But I'm trying to connect. We're praying. Every day we're praying. Try to just give us a glimpse that the prayers that we're praying, every day we're praying. Try to just give us a glimpse that the prayers that we're praying is not just words, it's not just some prescribed, you know decree that our sages tell us. Say these words, say these words. We are dealing with worlds above that. We're trying to pull the strings of Hashem's mercy. We're trying to gain a closeness with Hashem. I want to share with you my grandfather writes in his introduction to the section on prayer.
19:20
He says the most important part of prayer is the preparation for prayer. Understand that the most important part of prayer is the preparation for prayer. Understand that the most important part of prayer is the preparation for prayer. Why he says we need to take even one minute, 60 seconds to sit down in your seat before you rush to put on your tefillin, to put on your talus, to grab your sitter, to sit by your seat. Sit down, close your eyes and just recognize what's about to happen. I'm about to stand in front of the Almighty and I'm about to talk with.
19:57
Him, to Him directly, uninterrupted, unfiltered. Creator of heaven and earth. I'm about to talk to him directly. It's a very different type of prayer than just running in praying saying a few yeah, no, no, no, no, no. It puts a whole perspective. Stop for a minute. You're about to talk to God. He's coming to listen to our every word. He's available 24 hours a day for every word that we say. But let's just understand. We're standing in front of God. Before we recite the Amidah, we take three steps back, take three steps forward. We're trying to put ourselves into a frame of mind. I'm standing in front of a king and the king is very interested in every word. I have to say the king is very, very excited to be hearing my prayers. When I have that frame of mind, when I stop 60 seconds to just put myself into the proper place to know ground yourself. I'm standing in front of you, hashem. I'm about to praise you, I'm about to thank you. I'm about to see all of the creation that you created, that you have formed, giving praise to you.
21:28
Very different prayer when we have the Kavanah, which we spoke about previously, of what it means to say the name of Hashem, that it's not just the name of Hashem. When I say the name of Hashem, it means something. It means God was, god is, god will be. We have a constant in our life. Before we were created, god was there While we're living our lives. God is there. When, after we're living, god is there. That's just one of Hashem's names. I call Yochol God can do anything. Adonai, master, call master of everything, bala, yecholos, kulam. God has the ability to do anything in the world. You look at things like oh, I don't know how I'll ever get out of this. It's impossible. Everything is possible by the laws of nature. Perhaps you think it's not possible, but Hashem doesn't. Hashem is the creator of that nature that you speak of. Hashem can change it in a dime. Now, we don't rely on miracles. We don't ask for miracles. We ask for Hashem's intervention. So the purpose of this is not to confuse us. The purpose of this is to put us in a frame of mind that when we pray, we have to understand we are dealing with things that are so lofty it ought to take our attention away from everything else in the world. Right now I'm talking to Hashem. Now we understand what the Talmud tells us.
23:15
One of the great Tanakh sages would start his prayer at one corner of the room and he would end in the other corner of the room. He was so immersed in his prayer he'd be shaking the heavens, so to speak. He didn't even realize where he was. He was completely consumed in his conversation with God. That's the way our prayers should look. Shouldn't be any distractions. Leave our phones in the house, leave it in the car. Remove all interruptions, all distractions. We're dealing with the worlds of creation, the worlds of formation, the worlds, all of those worlds. God is welcoming us into those worlds. We elevate ourselves and then we come back down.
24:08
This is prayer. This is part of prayer. It's an important part of prayer because we have to realize that we have the privilege. We have the privilege to talk directly to God. No intermediaries, there's no one who goes between us and our prayers. We don't go to a spiritual leader to confess. We talk directly to Hashem. We don't ask someone to die for our sins. We take personal responsibility. There's no conduit, there's no intermediary. We talk directly to Hashem and, yes, we can be elevated. All of those rungs. We go all the way up and then we come back down, just like the angels on Jacob's ladder In our prayer three times a day, four times on Shabbos and holidays, five times on Yom Kippur, ascending and descending, going up to the upper realms, understanding that there's a whole world of closeness, of nearness to Hashem. And then we have to get back, bring that into our lives, bring that into our very existence, bring that into our very existence and, dear friends, hashem should always feel to us the closeness that's there, because Hashem is always near. We have to feel it, though, we have to open ourselves up to it, and we should always see the implementation and the fruitful fruition of our prayers being answered. I mean, I'll explain what she's saying.
25:51
The idea is like this Imagine you're going to visit the president in the White House. You don't just walk in to the West Wing, into the Oval Office. There's a process you first come in to the security right, then you walk in one level and then the next level, and there's room after room or section after section that you get to in order to get into the inner sanctuary, so to speak, of where the king or the president is. You don't just walk right in, boom, you're in when we're in our process of connecting with the Almighty lahav dil alef avdos not to compare between holy and unholy. It's a similar idea. It's a similar idea. We don't just come in, boom God, we're here. There's a process. We start with the introductory prayers and then we start with the introductory prayers and then we start with the praises of God's creation. It means we work our way in to our closeness with Hashem and that's like you're saying, the three steps back, the three steps forward. You don't just walk right in. There's a process. There's a process.
27:04
If you were walking into a king, you would have one hallway and then another one and then another. Finally you get it. Oh, this is the king's palace, this is the king's inner sanctum, this is where it is, and I think that that's part of that buildup, right? So it's a form of arrogance. The Mishnah tells us to look directly into someone's face. You keep a little bit of a humility, you look down a little. You know, it's like a little bit of a humbleness, which is important, particularly when we're dealing with the Almighty. Obviously, our sages tell us, by the way, in the Amidah, we're supposed to look down Right Now, again, hashem doesn't have a face. So we're not looking into Hashem's face, but the idea is for us to carry ourselves with a sense of humility. All right, my dear friends, thank you.
27:58 - Intro (Announcement)
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