Tefillah, davenen, and one of the main things is to explain where do we get the difference of the נוסחאות? We know that there are different נוסחאות. You have what we call נוסח האר\"י, and you have נוסח ספרד, and you have נוסח אשכנז. And the question is: Where do they all come from? We all know that the tefillot were, as I will explain soon, were established by the אנשי כנסת הגדולה. So, if they established it, how do we get different נוסחאות, different versions? But first we will get to discuss the general idea of tefillah, and from there we will understand what took place when the אנשי כנסת הגדולה established the tefillot. When we talk about tefillah, when we talk about davenen, we have to realize that there are two parts to it. There is the general concept of what tefillah is, what is the meaning of tefillah, of davenen, and then the נוסח, the version, the words of the davenen, and the time of davenen, when you have to daven. The mitzvah of tefillah, of davenen in itself, is a mitzvah of the Torah. It's not a mitzvah from the רבנן, it's not that the rabbis established. There are certain mitzvot that we do which are מדרבנן, but this is a mitzvah of the Torah. But the way the mitzvah is from the Torah, the Rambam says you have to daven just once a day, and also it includes that whenever a person is in need, he has to daven to Hashem to ask Him to give him whatever he needs. That is basically the mitzvah of the Torah of tefillah, that whenever a person is in need, he feels he needs something, he has to daven to Hashem. Then we have the times of davenen, and the wording, the words of davenen as we have it in the siddur now, that is מדרבנן. The רבנן established that we have to daven three times a day: we have to daven in the morning and in the afternoon and in the evening. Originally, the way they established it was that the first two tefillot, which is Shacharit and Mincha, is a חוב, is an obligation. The third tefillah was רשות, was voluntary. But later on, it says that the Yidden accepted upon themselves even the third tefillah, and it became a חוב. So, now we are obligated to daven three times a day. But this idea of davenen three times a day is מדרבנן. Also, the words that we have that we have to daven the way it's written in the siddur, these words is also מדרבנן. The רבנן are the ones that established the נוסח. And we will see, as I said before, where the different נוסחאות come from. Mainly, we have, nowadays, four נוסחאות: We have what is called נוסח אשכנז, then what we have we have what is called נוסח ספרד, then what we have what is called נוסח האר\"י, which is basically the ליובאוויטשער נוסח. But all of these three are נוסחאות, versions that are used by the Ashkenazic Jews. And then we have another נוסח, which is the real נוסח ספרד, the נוסח that is used by the Sephardic Jews, the Jews from Africa, from Spain. But the other three are used mainly by the Jews from Europe, Asia. So basically, there are four נוסחאות. Within these four, there are a lot of different versions also in certain details. Generally, there are four, and I will explain soon where we got these four versions. But the time and the words of davenen, that was established by the רבנן. From the Torah, as I said before, the mitzvah is once a day, and also anytime a person feel that he needs something, you have to daven to Hashem. The question that comes up right away is: Why is there a mitzvah that we have to daven? Why did Hashem command us that if you're in need, you have to ask Him for it? Why would He make such a mitzvah? If a person wants to ask Hashem for what he needs, fine, let him do it. What happens if a person doesn't want? It's his problem. Why did Hashem command us that you have to ask Him for your need? It's your own thing. If you don't want to get what you need, don't ask Him for it. But it's not so. It's an obligation, it's a mitzvah. One of the תרי\"ג מצוות is that you have to daven. If you need something, you can't say, \"Well, I need it, but I don't care, and I won't daven.\" You have to daven to Hashem. Why did Hashem give us such a mitzvah? And the answer is, because this is an expression of our emunah and bitachon in Hashem, our belief and trust in Hashem. If we feel that when we need something, the one to ask is Hashem, that is an expression of our emunah in Hashem. So, we know that He is the one that's able to help us. And that shows our trust in Hashem, that if we daven to Him, He will help us. So, the reason Hashem gave us this mitzvah is because He wants us to express our emunah. Just like we have a mitzvah of emunah, to believe in Hashem is a mitzvah in itself. Actually, it's the first mitzvah. The first mitzvah is, the Rambam when he enumerates the mitzvot writes, מצוה ראשונה, the first mitzvah is להאמין or לידע שיש מצוי ראשון, to know that there is a Hashem. He learns it out from the פסוק אנכי השם אלקיך, \"I am Hashem your God.\" So, there is a mitzvah to believe in Hashem. This itself is a discussion, it's not for tonight: How can there be a mitzvah to believe in Hashem? If there is a mitzvah, obviously you know that there is someone that gave you the mitzvah, so before you believe yet, you already know that, a question that Abarbanel asks. But that's a subject, a topic in itself, which one time we will discuss that too. But there is a mitzvah to believe in Hashem. So too did Hashem give us a mitzvah to express that belief. How do we express it? That when we need something, we ask Hashem to give it to us. So by doing that, we're showing Hashem that we feel that he is the one that's able to help us. So he wants us to daven to him and ask him for the help. So it's takeh for our benefit, but he wants us to express our emunah, and that's why he told us to do this mitzvah. But the Sefer Akeidah, there is a sefer called Akeidat Yitzchak, he gives another reason why Hashem wants us to daven, and it's for, so to speak, kevayachol for Hashem's benefit. The way Hashem set up the world and the creation is that things that come from ruchniyut from Hashem, and they come down into this world, have to go through a whole seder, a whole order of things. And along the way, there is a בית דין של מעלה, a heavenly court, and other things that Hashem has set up that they should be the ones to judge of whether things should come down, or should not come down, should be given to the person, should not be given to the person. Now, Hashem himself is טבע הטוב. Hashem is the best, טבע הטוב, he's only kindness. And anytime there is something that a person needs, Hashem wants to give it. But the way he himself set up, so to speak, the system, that it has to go through the judgment of the בית דין של מעלה, of the heavenly court, it has to go through different things. And there is a system that they have that before they give, they judge and they see, do you deserve or don't you deserve? So sometimes, even though Hashem might want to give, but he knows that it'll have to go through the סדר השתלשלות, as we call it, it'll have to go through the בית דין של מעלה, and there might be מקטרגים, there might be different מלאכים or different beings in higher worlds that might stop it from coming. But Hashem wants to give it. Now, if he wants, he could give it to you whether the בית דין של מעלה agrees or not, but he doesn't want to go against the own the system that he himself made. And therefore, he says, \"I want you to do something to deserve it, so definitely you will get it.\" So by you asking for it, and you expressing your true emunah and bitachon that I'm the one to give you, that itself makes that you deserve it. And therefore, the בית דין של מעלה has nothing to say. So Hashem, כביכול, so to speak, feels good about it. He wants you to daven, he wants you to show that you really believe, and if you really believe, the בית דין של מעלה will give you. So he will give you, and he will have nachat that he's able to give you, because he wants to give you. And therefore, Hashem gave us a mitzvah that we should daven so that we should be able to get, and it's kevayachol for his benefit and he likes it, because he wants to give. The reason he said that we should daven by speaking, because if the idea is that we ask him for it and we show that we believe in him, why do we have to say it? Why can't we think it in our mind? There are, lehavdil lehavdil, other religions that their way of prayer is meditating, thinking. But our we know that you have to say the words. הרהור לאו כדיבור דמי, we pasken that thinking is not like speaking. You actually have to say the words with your mouth. There has to be dibbur, there has to be speech. But the question is why did Hashem command us that we should speak the words? Why do we have to say it? It's not because otherwise we're afraid he won't hear. Hashem hears even if we think it in our mind. The din is just the opposite. The din is המשמיע קולו בתפלתו הרי זה מקטני אמנה. If someone daven out loud, and we're talking about Shemoneh Esrei mainly, if he daven Shemoneh Esrei out loud, it says הרי זה מקטני אמנה. It shows that you lack in your belief in Hashem. It's as if you feel that Hashem can't hear you unless you scream, unless you daven out loud. That's why it says you should daven quietly. But in that case, why do we have to say it with our mouth? Why can't we just think in our mind, feel it in our heart, and that's enough? The answer is because Hashem wants us to express our belief in him and therefore to ask him with every aspect of ourselves, including the most important attribute and ability and power that a person has. We know that the greatest ability that a human being has is the power of speech. We know that the Rambam and many other sefarim, when they divide the whole universe, the whole creation into four categories, it's divided into דומם, צומח, חי, and מדבר. דומם are the unmovable objects, צומח is the plant life, then you have the animal life, and then you have the human race. But how do you refer to the human race? As the מדבר. The מדבר means the speaker. In truth, the מעלה, the specialty of a human being over animal, and certainly over plant, etc., is the brain, his intellect. So why isn't a human being called the משכיל, the one that understands? He's called the מדבר, the speaker, because the כח of speech, the ability of speaking shows that you have שכל, and your שכל is so strong, it's also able to make you speak. And therefore, it says that when we talk about a human being, what is a specialty of a human being, that he's able to speak, which already includes the fact that he's able to understand, And it goes on all the way to speech. It's interesting when it says in חומש, ויהי האדם לנפש חיה, that a person was turned into a living being, so the Targum says לנפש ממללא, a being that is able to speak. So from all this we see that the כח הדיבור, the ability of speaking, is the strongest and the most important part of the person. And therefore, when Hashem wants us to express our emunah, He wants us to express it with that כח which describes a human being. And therefore, the mitzvah is that we have to speak. So far we've explained one part of davenen, which is the mitzvah of asking Hashem for our needs, and asking for it not just in our mind, but also in our with words in our mouth, and by that we express that we believe that Hashem is the one that's able to help us. But then there is another part to tefillah. Before we even get to the times of davenen and the nusach of davenen, there's another aspect of tefillah, and that is what we call תפילת הנפש. Tefillah is that a time when the nefesh, a person's soul, gets connected to Hashem, communicates to Hashem. Tefillah has two meanings, actual word of tefillah. Tefillah means to speak. Tefillah also has another meaning, from the word התופל. תופל means to connect. Expression in the משנה, התופל כלי חרס, if someone a כלי חרס, if a vessel cracked and then you want to cement it and connect it again, the expression is תופל. Or in Chumash we find that Leah named him Naftali, so it says, כי נפתולי אלקים נפתלתי, it means I was connected now. So the word tefillah is connection. When we daven, we actually connect ourselves to Hashem. That's why it says in Zohar that davenen is referred to as סולם מוצב ארצה וראשו מגיע השמימה, as the ladder standing. It says when Yaakov Avinu had the dream that he saw a ladder standing on the ground and its tip was reaching into the skies, so the Zohar says, סולם דא צלותא, this is davenen. Davenen is like a ladder. We start off down here, but we start in the davenen thinking about Hashem and getting closer to Him till finally we get to a point where we get very close to Hashem. And it says that that's what davenen is. There's a pasuk that says actually by Chana, and many of the halachot of davenen we learn out from תפילת חנה when Chana davent for a son, so it says she said, ואשפוך את נפשי לפני השם, I'm pouring out my nefesh, my soul. It's a time when your nefesh connects. That's why it says in the Gemara that חסידים הראשונים, the earlier Chasidim, the Gemara's time they already referred to them as earlier Chasidim, you imagine how far back we're going, היו שוהים ג' שעות, three hours when they would daven: one hour before they would actually daven, the hour davenen itself took them an hour, after davenen was an hour, three hours. What did they do for three hours? So the Gemara explains that they would meditate and think about Hashem, and it says actually that this is what we're supposed to do also. And it's divided in two parts, which is basically one: we have to think about גדלות הקל, the greatness of Hashem, or another expression, רוממות הקל, how Hashem is elevated, ושפלות האדם, and how the person is low, which really are connected. If you know think about the greatness of Hashem, then you realize that you're nothing, and if you realize that you're nothing, then you know Hashem is great, it goes together. And this is what davenen is, a time when we connect ourselves to Hashem. And this is learned out from the פסוק, ועבדתם את השם אלקיכם בכל לבבכם ובכל נפשכם, or ולעבדו בכל לבבכם ובכל נפשכם, you should serve Hashem with your whole heart, with your heart your whole heart, and with your soul, with your nefesh, which is similar to the pasuk where it says, ואהבת את השם אלקיך בכל לבבך ובכל נפשך, where you should love Hashem with all your heart and with all your soul. Now, love is in the heart, it's a feeling, you could say with the soul, but serving, la'avod, which means to serve, serving is something practical, something tangible, something physical. What do we mean you should serve Hashem with your heart? So the Gemara says, איזו היא עבודה שבלב, what is considered the avodah, the service of the heart? זו תפילה, that's davenen. That means that when we daven, we have to actually feel that we are getting closer to Hashem. This is a second aspect of davenen. So basically, davenen has in itself two inyanim: one is we call it בקשת צרכיו, that we have to ask Hashem for our needs, and that's a mitzvah; the other part is another part of the same mitzvah, that we have to do things to get the feeling that we get close to Hashem, that's the תפילת הנפש, the tefillah of the heart.

Now, from when the beginning, when the mitzvah of tefillah was given by Hashem together with all תרי\"ג מצות, all 613 mitzvot, every individual fulfilled this mitzvah on his own. Everyone was able to do it on his own. People knew how to speak, people knew which words to use to express their needs to Hashem, people knew which words to use to express their closeness to Hashem and to express how they feel that they want Hashem to be close to them and their communication to Hashem, etc., etc. But this was all in the beginning, till the end of the first Beit Hamikdash. People People knew the proper language. When you talk to Hashem, you have to use the proper words. Imagine you stand in front of the king, you have to use the proper words. You can't miss out a word, but you can't be speak extra words. You can't just stand up and blabber there and say things which don't make sense if you're standing in front of the king. There's a pasuk that says: אלקים בשמים ואתה על הארץ על כן יהיו דבריך מעטים. Hashem is in heaven, you're down here, therefore your words should be few. Don't talk too much. But the people knew how to speak. People were in a higher madreigah, in a higher level. So they were able to get the feeling and they were able to communicate with Hashem, so to speak, each one in his own way. And therefore there was no set nusach, there was no set time except once a day. Every person whenever he had this feeling would be able to daven to Hashem and fulfill the mitzvah of davening with both of these aspects. But when the בית המקדש was destroyed, the first בית המקדש was destroyed, then started the ירידת הדורות. Then the generations started descending and becoming lower. And we know that not only concerning davening. All the דינים, I wouldn't say all mamash, most of these rules and laws that the חכמים established, which were basically to be סייגים, fences not to do any עבירות against the Torah, all of them started in the beginning of the בית שני, in the beginning of the second בית המקדש. Till then it wasn't needed. People were in a high madreigah, and people were able to keep the mitzvot, and people knew what they were doing. At the time of the חורבן בית המקדש, there was a change, a complete change in the level of the of the Yidden. And we can understand that that at a certain period there should be changes. People who just lived before the Second World War can testify and everyone feels that the war, that period made a change between before and after. Always hear the expression from people who lived before: such Yidden like you had before in the shtetl, such Yidden, such tzadikim we don't have now. You have finer Yidden, and you have people who learn and people who daven, but there is something there, there is epes a certain change that took place, a certain ירידה that took place in that תקופה and this תקופה, that period and this period. It might be a difference in a few years, but there was some kind of change in תקופה. And the same thing happened, probably even much more, in the time of the חורבן בית המקדש. So when the בית המקדש was destroyed and there was גלות בבל, and then came the second בית המקדש with Ezra, the חכמים of that time saw that the people cannot express themselves properly, people don't have the right words. First of all, the Rambam says people don't even have the right language. The Rambam says in the time at the beginning of the second בית המקדש, the people couldn't even speak לשון קודש, couldn't even speak Hebrew properly. They couldn't even express themselves in the right words. Certainly they didn't know which were the proper words to use when you speak to Hashem. They didn't know exactly which words would contain the right way of asking Hashem for their needs, which words would contain the right way of expressing their closeness to Hashem, their yearning to Hashem, their love to Hashem. They didn't have the right words. So the חכמים of that generation decided that the time has come for us to establish a set type of tefillah that everybody will have to daven this tefillah. There's another thing that happened at that time: when the Beit Hamikdash was destroyed, we stopped having korbanot. We stopped having sacrifices, no more korbanot. When they used to bring korbanot, that itself was a help to the people to be able to be close to Hashem. We all know what was the idea of korbanot amongst many other things. The idea of korbanot was that by bringing an animal as a sacrifice on the mizbeach, this would bring the person to become closer to Hashem. That's why the word korban doesn't only mean that you're makriv, you're sacrificing the animal to Hashem, but it means that you would be mekarev yourself, make yourself closer. The word korban, it says it's from the words קירוב הכחות והחושים, and a person would become closer to Hashem. The Ramban says that when they would sacrifice an animal on a mizbeach, the person who brought the korban had to have in mind that whatever is done to the animal really should have been done to him. When they would shachat the animal, he would have to feel that. When they would sprinkle the blood on the mizbeach, he'd have to feel that. And that would bring the person to do teshuvah. Especially if they would bring a קרבן חטאת. A חטאת, which is a korban for an aveirah, for a sin. There is a halachah that the only time you can bring a korban is if you're שב מטעותו, if you actually do teshuvah. If a person wouldn't do teshuvah then his korban was pasul. Korban came together with teshuvah. This was the idea of korban. And therefore, in the korban itself, we find an interesting thing: the main part of the korban was, of most korbanot, that they would sprinkle the blood on the mizbeach and they would be makriv, they would burn on this, on the mizbeach the fat. And the sefarim say that this would show the person that the blood, which represents the heat, the koach, the excitement of a person And the fat, which represents the pleasure, because it says fat comes from pleasure, these are the main two things that a person was supposed to sacrifice to Hashem. So they had korbanot, and by bringing a korban in the בית המקדש, a Yid was able to become closer to Hashem. He would come to the בית המקדש, he would bring the korban, and just being in the בית המקדש itself, that would bring a kedushah on the person, and that would give the person the koach to accomplish what the tefillah is supposed to accomplish in his own personal way: the, the בקשת צרכיו, would be able to ask Hashem differently, would be able to get close to Hashem differently. Then there's another thing that happened when they brought korbanot. When they brought korbanot, this was the means of how they would bring down from Hashem the different השפעות, the different things Hashem wants to give to the world. It says through the different korbanot, the world would get different advantages, different things that Hashem wants to give to the world, not only for the אידן, להבדיל, for the גוים. For instance, it says that Sukkot they would bring 70, during Yom Tov they would bring 70 special sacrifices. And it says, why 70? Because there are 70 nations in the world. And by bringing these sacrifices, this would give the גוים their strength for what they were supposed to be. That's why the מדרש says that if the גוים would only know what the בית המקדש did for them, not only they wouldn't have destroyed it, they would have taken an army to surround the בית המקדש, to guard it, to protect it, because the korbanot brought it for them. We see that Noach, when Noach wanted to get Hashem to agree that He will never bring a מבול again, how did he do it? He brought korbanot, he brought sacrifices, וירח השם את ריח הניחח, השם smelled the, the smell of the korban, and because of the korban, Hashem agreed not to bring a מבול again. Even Bilam the גוי, when Bilam wanted to accomplish something, he told Balak, \"Make a מזבח, let's bring sacrifice on the מזבח, and through that, I will be מקבל, I will be able to receive.\" So korbanot were things, were ענינים that brought, they made Hashem give to the world the certain things. But when the Beit HaMikdash was destroyed, there were no more korbanot. So this was also missing. So two things were missing: the korbanot weren't there to help a Yid express himself properly and get close to Hashem properly, and it didn't, it wasn't there to bring down the different השפעות it was supposed to bring down to the world. Now, when the second Beit HaMikdash was rebuilt, we had the korbanot again. But the truth is that the korbanot that were in the second Beit HaMikdash were not on the same level as the first Beit HaMikdash. We know that in the second Beit HaMikdash, five major things were missing. That's why when the pasuk speaks about it, it says ואכבד, the word ואכבד is missing a ה, a ה represents five. There were five things missing in the second Beit HaMikdash. Amongst them, the ארון, the holy Ark, which was the place of the לוחות, the place where the Shechinah dwelled, that was missing, and other things were missing. And בכל אופן, it says that the level of the korbanot in the second Beit HaMikdash was not as great. It says that the fire on the מזבח in the first Beit HaMikdash looked like a lion, was, the flame was shaped like a lion, and in the second Beit HaMikdash, it was shaped like a dog, to show that it's not the same level. And therefore, even though they brought korbanot in the second Beit HaMikdash, but the chachamim of that time, after the churban of the first Beit HaMikdash, saw that it's not the same. And therefore, we have to have something together with the korbanot or instead of the korbanot.

And therefore, the chachamim of that time got together, and these chachamim are known as the Anshei Knesset HaGedolah. And they had 120 chachamim, imagine, the greatest chachamim, and amongst them, many of them were nevi'im, prophets, and they sat down and they worked out a schedule, and they established a נוסח התפילה. And they established berachot that everyone should say, and they said, \"If you will say these berachot,\" and mainly we're talking here about the Shemoneh Esrei, the Amidah, they said, \"If you will say these berachot in the way we have established it, that will help you, that will be the way you will be able to ask Hashem for your needs, and that's the way you will be able to communicate with Hashem and get yourself closer.\" And we takeh see when they established the 18 brachot, they have two parts to it. Actually they have three parts, but the three could be divided into two. First you start off with סיפור שבחו של מקום, speaking about the greatness of Hashem, then is בקשת צרכיו, then the other brachot are asking Hashem for all your needs, and then you have other brachot which is again thanking Hashem for giving you everything. So we have two parts, the beginning and the end, which deals with our communication with Hashem and our feeling close to Hashem, and the middle we have a בקשת צרכיו. So they put both things in it, and they established specific brachot. And they said, \"When you say these brachot, you will include every possible need that will ever be, you will have included in these brachot.\" The chachamim with their רוח הקודש saw, they saw all the Yidden in all all the generations, and they saw all the needs that the Yidden will have, and they made such brachot that within these brachot, everything is included. They tell a story, once somebody came to the Rebbe, I think it's the Rabbi Rashab, and he told, he told him that there's a certain thing he needs, and he doesn't feel that it's included in the brachot in Shemoneh Esrei, and he wants to pray by himself. So the Rebbe told him, \"Even though you don't see it, but it's there. In the words of the Shemoneh Esrei you have your need, the thing that you need, because it's there, whether it's openly, sometimes it's hidden, but all the needs of any Yid that will ever be are all included there.\" And also in the Shemoneh Esrei includes any words that will bring a person, if he wants, to feel closer to Hashem, to have that ladder that will make him climb and get closer to Hashem. But when the chachamim established the nusach, what they did was they did not establish specific words that these are the words that you have to use when you daven. What they did was they established general rules: these are the eighteen brachot that you have to say, type of things, later on they added a nineteenth, so now we have 19, it's in the time of Rabban Gamliel, they added a 19th, so we have 19 brachot. They said, \"These 19 brachot have to contain,\" and they said certain things that they have to contain. They have to have this type of a beginning, this type of an end, this type of a middle, but they did not establish the exact words of what you're supposed to say. Had they established the exact words, then in truth, there wouldn't be a possibility of different nuschaot, then there would be one thing. Just like we have one Gemara, all Yidden learn the same Gemara, whether you're a Chassid or a Misnaged or an Ashkenazi or a Sephardi, everyone has the same Gemara, we would have all had the same nusach of davenen. What they did was they established the general rules of how these brachos are supposed to be said. And as we see, all the nuschaos, they all have the same Shemoneh Esrei. They're talking about the same, the first brachah is the same, of Magen Avraham, and the second brachah is מחיה מתים, and אתה קדוש, and then you have חונן הדעת. All the nuschaos have the same general rules, they contain generally the same type of things. The exact wording at that time wasn't established, but every individual when he would daven would have to know what the rules are, what the general thing is supposed to be, what it's supposed to contain, and every person would daven in his own words. But he had to have the beginning as the chachamim established, the end as they established, he had to say ברוך אתה ה׳, he would have to say these words, he would have certain, and he would have to have, the words he would use would have to contain what the chachamim want him to put in, wanted him to put in, but it would be in his own words. And that's why you find so many halachos in Gemara which otherwise are not even understood. For instance, the Gemara says that if a person gets up to daven for the amud, and he feels that his tongue is not fluent in the tefillah, then he knows his tefillah is not accepted. What do you mean his tongue is not fluent in the tefillah? You have a siddur, you look into the siddur and you daven! If you know Ivri, your tongue is fluent. Or a lot of times you find the Shulchan Aruch even mentions that in certain tefillos you're allowed to, if you want you could say this pasuk, if you want you could say this pasuk. I remember when I was a kid I could never understand it. I learned the Shulchan Aruch, Hilchos Rosh Hashanah. In Hilchos Rosh Hashanah it says concerning Mussaf of Rosh Hashanah, it says that you have to say מלכיות, זכרונות, שופרות, you have to have pesukim, 10 pesukim that discuss Hashem's being a king, then you have 10 pesukim that Hashem remembers us, and 10 pesukim where it discusses shofar. So it says in the Shulchan Aruch even that if you want you could use this pasuk, this type of pasuk you cannot use because it doesn't talk exactly about this. I couldn't understand what do you mean you could use this pasuk, you could use that pasuk? I have a siddur, the siddur tells you, it has the pesukim that you're supposed to use! What do we mean you could use this pasuk or that pasuk? And the same in many halachot we find that this word could be used, this word can't be used. These are halachot that were there originally, when the chachamim established tefillah, they did not establish the exact words. For instance, using this example of the tefillah of Rosh Hashanah, the Mussaf of Rosh Hashanah, they said in the Mussaf of Rosh Hashanah you have to have these three things, מלכיות, זכרונות, שופרות. Each one has to have a mention of 10 pesukim in this, in that category, and it says there has to be three pesukim from Torah, three pesukim from נביאים, three pesukim from כתובים, and one more pasuk back to Torah. Now everyone could have chosen his own pesukim. And there are guidelines which type of pesukim you could use, which type of pesukim you can't use. And everyone would davven on his own. And when you would send up a person to the amud, people would listen and see, and sometimes it says in Gemara that people got up to the amud and they forgot. It says a din in Gemara if a chazan got up to the amud and in the middle he got stuck, couldn't continue. So someone else takes over, there's a whole discussion where do you take over, from where he stopped, or from the beginning? What do you mean he got stuck? All of a sudden he can't read עברי, he can't read the siddur? It means that he couldn't, he just couldn't think of the way to say it. And that will be a certain siman. It says that if you say, if he got stuck in middle of ולמלשינים, which is the 19th extra berachah that they added, which talks about asking Hashem to get rid of the people who nusach. Because when you say the words of the berachot, you have to have it should fit to the halachah what the chachamim established, that's number one. Then it also has to fit to the grammar of Hebrew. Then it also, some people who were מקובלים who studied Kabbalah, had to make sure that what you're saying fits to the כוונות, the way they are al pi Kabbalah, according to Kabbalah. So some people to them was better, more important the Kabbalah aspect. So they made that tefillah, the way they expressed it, to fit to Kabbalah. But some people, they made it fit more to the halacha aspect. Some people made it for, fit more to the דקדוק, or different other things that people felt. And that's where you had many many נוסחאות established based on the same tefillah that the chachamim gave us. Now this is all concerning the Shemoneh Esrei. Now, in addition to the Shemoneh Esrei, which is the main part of tefillah, we have other parts. We have Pesukei Dezimra, we have other things. Because as the generations continued, there were different chachamim of different generations that felt they couldn't add anything to Shemoneh Esrei, but at different times added certain things. And then as time passed, it all developed into a set order of what we have to daven, and it turned into a siddur. They wrote it down, and then it became a book, a siddur. And this siddur contains the way a Yid is able to properly express himself, to ask Hashem for his needs, to be closer to Hashem, and all other things that come along with this ענין of davening. And it's all in the siddur. And this takes the place of korbanot. It says that the tefillot are in the place of korbanot. When we daven properly, we will be we are able to accomplish what the korbanot accomplished at that time. The korbanot made us, easier for us to get close to Hashem, made it easier for us, express ourselves properly, this is what the siddur has. We said that through korbanot, Hashem gave to the world certain השפעות, certain things. When we daven properly, and we ask Hashem, this will bring it down. But it's only if we do it properly. Now, in the siddur, we have the proper words. So basically, if we want to look at it, the siddur is a mobile Beit HaMikdash. It's a Beit HaMikdash that we can always carry along with us and accomplish what the Beit HaMikdash accomplished at the time when we had a Beit HaMikdash. And not like the second Beit HaMikdash, like the first Beit HaMikdash, because in the second Beit HaMikdash they already had the tefillot. It wasn't in a form of a siddur yet, it wasn't written down yet, because there was nothing to write. There was just הלכות that were said of how the davening is supposed to take place. But as time passed, it turned into a siddur. We find in the time of the Rambam already, the Rambam wrote a siddur. Rav Amram Gaon wrote a siddur. Which means he took the tefillot and put it down and wrote it and said, \"This is the way to daven.\"

Now basically, when we look into Shemoneh Esrei, and this also extends to the whole davening, what's included, if we look into the berachot, what's included in the berachot is mainly four things. Number one is the יסודות, the foundation of our emunah. When we talk, we express our emunah and many things which are the יסודות of our emunah and bitachon are there. Also, like I said before, you have in the tefillot all needs of the individual or of the klal, the way the chachamim understood the needs, because sometimes we don't even understand ourselves what our needs are. Like we say in the סליחות, מרובים צרכי עמך ודעתם קצרה. The needs of your people are a lot, but their mind is small. We don't even know what our needs really are. But the chachamim understood, so they put into the tefillot all the needs, all the possible needs. And then you have in the tefillot our understanding of the future, our expectation and our hope and our emunah in the coming of Mashiach, and in all the good that will come along with it. That's what's included in the tefillot. But the way we have it now in our siddur, it's basically made up of four steps. That's why in the Zohar, it's called a סולם, a ladder. And it says a ladder in the time of the Gemara, at least, a ladder generally had four steps. And the siddur also has four steps. When we start from the beginning, we are still on a very very low level. Just like a ladder stands on the floor, and you start from the bottom, then you walk up till you come to the shamayim. So we, too, we start off in the morning when we just wake up, we are in a low, spiritual level. But when we start davening, we start climbing the ladder. And we go, I don't want to go to the details of all the four steps of davening, but what happens is we get closer to Hashem and closer to Hashem, till finally we come to Kriat Shema, Kriat Shema, where we recognize and we realize: שמע ישראל השם אלוקינו השם אחד, השם is one, ואהבת את השם אלוקיך, you have to love Hashem. And we actually think about it. We close our eyes, we cover our eyes, and we think השם אחד, השם is one, and ואהבת את השם אלוקיך, you have to love Hashem. So at that point, the way it's supposed to be, you're already supposed to be at a point when we actually feel close to Hashem. But then we go further, and we come to the fourth level, which is the Shemoneh Esrei. And at that point, we're supposed to stand up, and we're not allowed to look out, we're not allowed to move. It says we're supposed to stand כעבדא קמיה מריה, like a slave or a servant in front of his master, because at that time, we're supposed to get the feeling already that we're mamash standing close to Hashem. Kriat Shema, which is a very high level, we already think השם אחד, השם is one, the din is you're allowed to sit. That shows that you're not really so batel to Hashem at that point yet. But Shemoneh Esrei you must stand up, unless a person is sick, then that's an exception, but normally you have to stand up, and you're supposed to stand just כעבדא קמיה מריה, כעבד לפני המלך, like a servant in front of the king, because at that point, you're supposed to get that feeling. And the way it's established now, that after davening, we still have some parts to daven, what that what happens then is, after davening, we actually take from the level that we reached, and we take it down, we go down the ladder, and we bring it along with us. That's the most important part. It's easier to go up the ladder and become close to Hashem and get that feeling, but it's it's easier than bringing it down that when we come back down here to this world, we should take along of that feeling, and that closeness to Hashem should be throughout the day. Now, the truth is, it wears off after a while, that's why you have to daven again. And it wears off again, you have to daven again. The chachamim saw it could wear off pretty fast, so they said three times a day you have to daven, because three times a day you have to get this feeling and bring it back down. There were great tzadikim that would spend more time davening after Shemoneh Esrei, from Shemoneh Esrei and on, than before Shemoneh Esrei, because they claim, till Shemoneh Esrei, נו, till after Shemoneh Esrei you reached your high level, you're going higher and higher, but to come down in the proper way and bring it along, that's harder. The Mezritcher Maggid would not daven with a minyan. He felt that if he would daven by himself, he could be mechaven, he could meditate and think, and he would not daven with a minyan. And that's something that, על פי הלכה, okay, even though you should daven with a minyan, because when you have 10 people, you're davening together, it's a tzibur, Hashem listens to you, etc., so many things about תפילה בציבור, but it says also, if you feel, says the Maharam Rothenburg, felt that he couldn't be mechaven, couldn't have the proper kavanot when he davening with a minyan, he would daven at home, would דאווען ביחידות. Anyways, the Mezeritcher Maggid would daven alone. But after shemoneh esrei, he would go out, he said, \"I need a minyan.\" Himself he can't do it. It's so hard, he says, \"I need the help of other Yidden,\" because that's the time when you come back down, and you bring down from that high level that you reached, and you bring that level back down. So this is the general seder, the general tefilot that we have. But there's one more aspect that is important to explain. We said in the beginning that there are two parts to tefilah: one is the asking Hashem for our needs, and the second is feeling close to Hashem, feeling that Hashem is the greatest and we are nothing. Aren't these two things a contradiction? The more we feel batel to Hashem, the less we feel that we have any needs. In order to feel that you need something, you have to feel yourself as something. And if you are, you feel that you're batel to Hashem, and Hashem is the real being and real, the more you feel that way, the less you feel your own needs. And here we have two opposites: tefilah is that you have to have the feeling of bitul to Hashem, closeness to Hashem; at the same time, בקשת צרכיו, there's a mitzvah, part of the mitzvah is, like I said before, to express your emunah that when you need something, tell Hashem, \"Yes, I need this.\" Who am I anyway? At the same time when I'm supposed to work on myself that there is no I, there is only Hashem, I'm supposed to feel that I ask Hashem for my needs. And the answer is, the Rambam says, in a similar thing, he says that the Torah says that if a person follows His ways and does the mitzvot and learns Torah, Hashem will give us rain, and give us food, and give us health, and give us a lot of things.