It's very practical, psychological reason why it's important to pray. But this is not really what tefillah, what prayer, what davenen is the way it is according to the Jewish religion, according to the Torah. According to the Torah, it is a mitzvah to daven. It is a mitzvah, it's a positive commandment to pray. We know there are 613 commandments in the Torah. There are 365 negative commandments where the Torah says you're not allowed to do certain things. And then there are רמ״ח מצות עשה, ר-מ-ח, 248 positive mitzvot. One of these positive mitzvot, one of these positive commandments that a Jew is obligated, must do, is to pray. And this is one of the commandments of the Torah. And where is this mitzvah of praying taken from? There is the verse, the pasuk which says ולעבדו בכל לבבכם, that you should serve Him, serve God, serve Hashem with all your heart. And the Gemara tells us, איזו היא עבודה שבלב? What's called service of the heart? זו תפילה. That's tefillah. Davenen, prayer is the service of the heart. And this is where we take out the idea of prayer. What is the mitzvah of prayer? I'm going to go into a lot of these details, I'm just saying general points and then I'm going to explain them as we go along. What is the mitzvah of prayer? So there is the way the mitzvah is from the Torah, and then we have what the חכמים, the Sages instituted. Because we know that a lot of things that we do in our Jewish religion was established, instituted by the חכמים, by our Sages. But we must keep it, because God told the Jews and in the Torah that whatever the Sages throughout the generations will tell you, you must listen. So we listen to the Sages because the Torah told us, so we're basically listening to God. The mitzvah of prayer as it is from the Torah is that a person must pray to God, which means to ask God for his needs at least once a day. And whenever a person feels he's in need, whenever a person feels that there is some trouble he has and there is something that he needs, he must, it's a mitzvah, an obligation, he must turn to God and pray to God. There is no set expression that you have to use, no set words that you have to use. Whatever you feel, however you feel, you could express it whichever way you want. That's from the Torah. Came the חכמים, the Rabbis, the Sages, and they instituted that you have to pray three times a day, Shacharit, Mincha, Maariv. And there are certain things that you have to say. They made up the Shemoneh Esrei, the 18 or 19 blessings, that that's what you have to say. But that's all miderabbanan. That's what the mitzvah of prayer is from one angle. There's another aspect to the mitzvah of prayer, and like I said, I'm going to get more into the details, is that this is a time when you communicate and you connect to God. And I'm going to explain the connection between these two because they seem to be two separate things. One is that when you have a need you must pray to God or every day ask for your needs from God, and the other thing is that it's a way you feel close to God, you bring out your feeling towards God, you express your feeling towards God. But they're connected, and I'll explain it by first starting: What is this idea that a person must pray to God, must ask Him for his needs? What's the idea behind it? If a person needs something, it's only natural that you're going to ask for it. And if you don't want to ask for it, that's your tough luck. You don't want, don't. Why is there a mitzvah, why did God give us a commandment that you must pray to Him and ask Him when you feel in need that you must ask Him? What's the idea behind it? Why is there a commandment like that? And the answer is the mitzvah of prayer is part and connected to the concept of emunah and bitachon, to the concept of faith and trust in Hashem. When a person prays to God, he expresses the fact that he believes—and sometimes I hate to use the word believe, because believe means, you know, I believe, you could believe differently—it expresses that a person, a Yid knows that the one that's able to help him is God. That means he believes in God, that means he has faith in God, that means he trusts God. So this is a form of expression of his emunah and bitachon. And Hashem wants us to express it. Just like there is an obligation, a mitzvah for a Jew to believe in God, it's an obligation, you can't say, \"Well, it's up to me,\" the same way there is a mitzvah that God gave us to express our faith and our trust in God through our prayer when we feel in need. And God wants it to happen. Why? There's a sefer, a holy book called the Sefer HaAkedah, written by a great, great tzaddik. So he writes there, God is טבע הטוב, he's good. We have no other words, so we use the word nature, he's naturally good. But there's no such thing as nature by God, but he is good. And he always wants to, if you need something, he always wants to help you. But sometimes you don't deserve it. But he would like to help you anyway, even if you don't deserve it. So he wants you to deserve it. So he said to us, if you pray to me, and you express the feeling that you believe in me, you express the fact that you trust me, that itself is a zechut, is a merit for you to deserve to get helped. And he says besides that something else. He says that the way God has established, and even though God is the boss and he could do whatever he want, but he has established, as we learn in the Torah, that there is a בית דין של מעלה, there is a court up there in heaven, and God put everything in their hands that they should decide what should be given down here, what should happen, and he doesn't, so to speak, mix in. And they are very, very critical, and they're very, not always will they agree that this person should get what he's asking for. But God wants to overrule them. So he said, pray to me, and if you pray to me, what's going to happen? Then this will make you deserve and they won't be able to stop me from helping you and giving you what you need. But the bottom line is that praying is an expression of a person's faith and bitachon, trust in Hashem. And that's why davening is connected to the service of the heart, because this is an expression of the person feeling that Hashem, God is the one in control. That's how you serve. How do you serve God? By giving yourself over to him, self-nullification, expressing the fact that you believe and you know that he's the one that's going to help you, and that's what happens during the time of prayer. So even though we say prayer is בקשת צרכיו, it's a time when you ask for your needs, this itself is also a service of the heart, of a feeling that you have towards God. And that's why the Rambam says that it's not enough just to ask God, you know, please give me what I need, or when we say the Shemoneh Esrei, you have to beg. He says the expression ויתחנן, you have to feel begging. What is the idea of begging? When you beg somebody, what are you doing? You're showing I need you! I have nothing of my own, I need you to give me. God wants us to do it when we ask for our needs because that's a way we serve God with our heart.

But then the question is, why do we have to say it with words? Why is it not enough if we think in our mind? God knows what we think, God knows the thoughts of a person, so why do we have to say it בדיבור? Why do we have to say it with words? And the answer is, if we want to express to Hashem, not if we want to, God wants us to express to him the fact that we believe and know that he is the one to give us, and we put our whole self into it, the most important part, attribute that a human being has is the כח הדיבור, is the ability to speak. Even though normally we know that the highest attribute of a human being is the brain, with which way is a human being greater than an animal? A human being has שכל, and an animal doesn't. Nevertheless, we know in the Rambam and in all Kabbalah and all other places, when we want to describe what is the specialty of a person, we call him the מדבר, the one that could speak. Why the מדבר? We have, you know, in the Rambam we learn, all over in Chassidus we learn there are four categories: דומם, צומח, חי, מדבר. דומם are the unmovable objects, צומח is plant life, חי is animal life, and then the human being. So the human being is not called the משכיל. משכיל would mean the one with שכל, with brains, with ability to understand. We call him the מדבר, the speaker, because that represents the greatest part of the person, and this includes the שכל also, because in order to speak, you have to have שכל. I mean, there are some people who speak without שכל, okay, but we're not talking about that, you have to have ability, you have to have שכל. Why can't a an animal speak? Because he doesn't have that level of שכל. Why can't a little child speak? Doesn't have that level of שכל. You have to have שכל to speak. So when we say a person is able to speak, that includes everything. So when we want to describe, what is a human being? The speaker. So when we want, when the Torah, Hashem wanted that the Jews, a Yid, and actually every human being, should express his faith to, in Hashem and his trust in Hashem and become deserving of Hashem to help him, he has to do it through speech. By doing it through speech, you're using the most important part of yourself in order to show Hashem that you believe in him and you trust him. Which is a way you express the feeling of your heart.

But the truth is it goes a little bit further also. Davening, besides asking for our needs, davening, tefillah, prayer, is a time when we basically connect to Hashem, which is a time when we communicate with Hashem. We know what it says in the Zohar, in the holy Zohar, written by Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, he says that in Chumash we find the story of Yaakov Avinu when he lay down to sleep and he had a dream. In his dream, he saw a ladder, and the pasuk, the verse says it was a סולם מוצב ארצה וראשו מגיע השמימה. There was a ladder standing down on the ground, and its tip, its top touched the Shamayim, touched the heavens. And the Zohar says: סולם, דא צלותא. That's Aramaic, the Zohar was written in Aramaic. This ladder is davening. When you daven, what you're really doing is you're starting off on the bottom, just like the ladder on the bottom, and there are steps, and you're walking up the steps, and you're getting closer to the top. The bottom is down here, the top is to heaven, which represents God, and we are traveling, walking all the way up. And there are different steps, and I might explain it later if we have the time, the different steps, but we're going up steps. So, a time of davening is when a person is supposed to communicate and give himself over to God, besides asking for his needs, which in itself, as I said, is an expression of your feeling and your trust in Hashem, but it's a time when you're supposed to feel connected to Hashem, connect yourself as we go along the davening, to connect yourself to Hashem. That's why the word for prayer in Hebrew is tefillah. The Rabbi explains that there are three words which there is no real translation for it in English or in any other language, because the word in Hebrew means something else. We know there are three main things in Judaism: tefillah, and tzedakah, and there is Torah, there is tefillah, and tzedakah, and teshuvah, doing teshuvah, repentance. In English, teshuvah is repentance, tefillah is prayer, tzedakah is charity. And the Rabbi says these words are mistranslated, but there's no other way. Charity means, \"I'm giving you a present, a gift. It's not yours, it's mine, but I'm giving you, doing you a favor.\" According to the Torah, that's not what tzedakah is. The word tzedakah in Hebrew comes from the word tzedek. What's tzedek? Tzedek means right. Charity is not right. If I don't want to give you, there's nothing wrong. I don't have to give you my things. If I'm a nice person, I'll give you. Torah tells you that's not true, you must give, because when you have a lot of money, it's not all yours. Some of it God gave you to be the messenger, or the, I would say, the treasurer for the people who don't have. So, when you give, it's a tzedek, it's a must. In English, we translate it as charity. Same thing with teshuvah. Teshuvah is repentance. What does repentance mean? Repentance means you go away from yourself. You behaved in a certain way, and you repent, you leave it and you go away. You know what teshuvah in Hebrew means? To return, just the opposite! Because we know that every Jew in essence is good, when you do something wrong, you went away from yourself, and teshuvah means to return. And the same thing the Rebbe says is tefillah. Tefillah has another meaning. In English, it's prayer. Prayer means you're praying to somebody, you're asking somebody, who's God, you're asking God to give you what you need. The word tefillah has another meaning. Tefillah means to connect. In Hebrew, the word tefillah means to connect. When we daven, it's the time when we connect to Hashem, which means we elevate ourselves, we're supposed to, that's really what davening is really supposed to be. We're supposed to have in mind things which will elevate us and bring us closer to God. It says in the Talmud that חסידים הראשונים, now, the earlier chasidim, which means the earlier sages, imagine at the time of the Talmud they already called them earlier sages, the Talmud has been written close to 2,000 years, and this goes back before, when they davened, they used to spend three hours every time they davened. So, when they davened three times a day, they spent nine hours: one hour before, meditating before they davened, an hour the davening, an hour after. Together, it's nine hours. What did they do through these these nine hours? What they did was they were constantly thinking and meditating and working on themselves to reach levels of unclothing themselves, so to speak, of all the physical desires and start thinking more and more and get closer to to Hashem, get closer to God. Actually, if you look in the Shulchan Aruch, which is the Shulchan Aruch is what guides us in our life, in Shulchan Aruch it says that before you start davenen, you have to meditate, contemplate on what? So it says two things: רוממות הקל ושפלות האדם. רוממות הקל means the greatness of God and the lowness of a person. It doesn't mean a person should become, God forbid, sad or depressed, but to realize that the real being is God, and what am I am nothing but an expression of God's will. That's what I am. And that you could take at the time of davening. When you daven, that's what a person is supposed to feel. So davening is really an עבודה שבלב. Really, it's a service of the heart. So it's a service of the heart even in the simple meaning of davening that you pray to Hashem, asking him to give you your needs, because then you express your trust and belief and faith, and all the other words that we can use, in God. Besides that, it's a time when a person really is supposed to elevate himself and unclothe himself from all the physical desires and go up and get closer to Hashem. This was the This is what tefillah means. This is the way the mitzvah of tefillah was given by Hashem. That's why it's called עבודה שבלב, it's a service of the heart.

But this went on like this for many, many years. Every Yid fulfilled the mitzvah of tefillah in his own way. Everyone was able to express his feeling, and asking Hashem for his needs in whatever words he wanted. But people were in a higher level, so people were able to express their feelings, and able to elevate themselves and unclothe themselves from all the physical desires and the low things, the coarse things of this world, and purify themselves and elevate themselves, get closer to Hashem. And everyone was able to do it on their own. But as time passed, and it came to the time at the end or even after this first temple, the first בית המקדש, that was a big change in the level of the people. We know that in many things. There was we call ירידת הדורות, the generations came down. There was a descent in the spiritual level of the Yidden. And the sages of that time realized that no more can most of the people express themselves, first of all, express themselves in how to beg Hashem, because you're talking to Hashem, you got to use the proper words, you got to use the words that fit to speak to a king, especially to a king of the kings. And not everyone is able to do it. Not everybody was able to express their feelings and have the proper words that will bring out their elevation and their level of getting closer to Hashem. So the Chachamim decided what we got to do, we got to establish certain times when we feel is the right time, and certain things that I would we tell them to do to say, and those things that we tell them to say, those words, will contain the ability of elevating themselves and contain the proper ability of asking Hashem for their needs. So they established Shemoneh Esrei, the 18 berachos that we say. They established those berachos, and later on Rabban Gamliel added a 19th one. And these berachos include, I have to tell you, include all possible needs that a person might have throughout all generations. The Chachamim were such great sages, great tzadikim, they saw the future, and they put into the small Shemoneh Esrei everything a person is able to ever want and ever need. Once somebody came to the Rabbi Rashab, the fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe, and said he has a certain thing that he needs, so the Rebbe told him, \"So, daven for it.\" So he says, \"I I don't know where to daven. I don't know what to say.\" So he says, \"I could tell you look for it. In Shemoneh Esrei you'll find it. Whatever you need, you'll find it in the Shemoneh Esrei. It's there.\" So these are the words that will express everything that a person might need, and these are the words that contain the idea of a person elevating himself. And then there's another thing that happened at the same period. Besides the fact that we said there was ירידת הדורות, the descent in the high spiritual level, and the people on their own couldn't do it, so they needed a set thing that would be given by the sages, another thing happened:

the Beis Hamikdash was destroyed. The temple was destroyed. And what happened when the temple was destroyed? We have no more korbanot. In the time of the Beis Hamikdash, we had korbanot, sacrifices. After the Beis Hamikdash was destroyed, no more sacrifices. When the first Beis Hamikdash was destroyed, they had no more sacrifices. And that was a big problem. I'll tell you why. Because the Ramban says that when a person brought a korban, what it really meant was this was just a physical act, an expression of what really it made the person who brought the korban go through. When a person brought a korban, you know what he had to think in his mind? That whatever is done to this animal really has to be done to me. And Hashem was so kind that he made it that we should do it to the animal. But really it has to be done to me, because I deserve it. And when a person brought a korban, this was supposed to bring through his mind the understanding of getting closer to Hashem. You know what the word korban means? Well, everyone translates that korban is sacrifice. The word korban comes from the word kiruv, closeness. קירוב הכחות והחושים, it says. It's close to making your your your your senses and your attributes closer to God. That's what a korban is. You know what the main part of the korban was? They would sprinkle the blood on the altar, on the mizbeach, which had the fire, and they would sacrifice, they would burn the fats of the animal. And all the commentaries say that this represented to the person, when the person saw that, what it made him think, that what I'm really sacrificing to God is my blood. What's blood? Blood is the heat, blood is the excitement, blood is the life. I'm giving up to God, I'm sacrificing, I'm putting on the altar, and it represented me. And the fats, you know what fats represent? Fats represent pleasure. It says in the Gemara that fats by a person comes more from the pleasure you have than from what you eat. Maybe that's a good idea for a diet. If someone wants to go on a diet, don't have to eat less, you just don't eat with such a geshmak, such such taste. It says that makes you fat. So, when they put the fats on the mizbeach, burned it in the fire that had come down from heaven, that was a representation and every person had that in mind, that I'm giving myself over to God. קירוב הכחות והחושים, my kochos, my senses, my my all my middos, my attributes, are all given over to God. When the Beis Hamikdash was destroyed, we had no more of it. So the korbanot, which helped out a lot in the concept of of what of what you he's supposed to do, was missing. This was another reason why the chachamim said we have to do something to substitute the korbanot. And not to substitute the physical part of it only. That we don't have it. But to substitute the deeper meaning of the korbanot, which is the time when a person is able to get close to God. So they said, \"We'll make the tefillah.\" And that's why the Talmud says, תפילות במקום קרבנות תקנום, that tefillot come in the place of the korbanot, of the sacrifices, because this is what really the sacrifices were. What we have now in davenen, the inner meaning of davenen, this is what the korbanot meant. So, they established tefillah in such a way that we should take place of the korbanot. And there's another thing. We said before when a person prays to Hashem to ask him for his needs, and makes him worthy and deserving of Hashem giving him what he needs. When they had korbanot, the korbanot themselves brought down from Hashem all the needs that people need, or it says the expression, all the השפעות, all the the influences, things that Hashem wants to give to the world, came through the korbanot. We know that during the holiday of Sukkos, they brought 70 korbanot, and it says why? Because there are 70 nations in the world and this would give the 70 nations their nourishment. This brought it down. When Noach after the flood, he brought a korban, korbanot to Hashem, this made Hashem be משפיע, give to the world a promise, he'll never destroy the world. When Bilam wanted to do something and have some kind of influences coming down from heaven, what did he tell, if you learn Chumash, what did he tell Balak? Be מקריב a korban, go sacrifice a korbanot, korbanot had this quality of bringing down all these great השפעות and things that Hashem wants to give to us. When the Beit Hamikdash was destroyed, that was lost. So, a few things happened as we see. When the Beit Hamikdash was destroyed, at that time, that same period was ירידת הדורות, the level of the people went down, that they were not able to feel the same way and express themselves the same way. What happened was the korbanot were not there anymore, and since the korbanot were not there anymore, the feeling that the korbanot brought in closeness to Hashem was not there anymore. The korbanot were not there anymore and therefore, these השפעות, these things that Hashem would give through the korbanot weren't there anymore. So, the chachamim said we'll substitute it with something that is similar. And that was tefillah. That's why we always know, we learn always, that davenen is in place of korbanot. When it says in Pirkei Avot that the world stands on three things, על התורה, על העבודה ועל גמילות חסדים, on the Torah, on the service, and on good deeds, on mitzvot. What is avodah? What is the service? Simple. translation, simple interpretation is korbanot, sacrifices. Also, avodah is davenen, because they go together. Davenen accomplishes the same thing as the sacrifices. So this is what the chachamim did and they said, they decided, and they figured it out, and who were these chachamim? These were the Anshei Knesset HaGedolah. These were the greatest sages, a group of 120 sages that lived at that time that was right at the end of the first Temple throughout the 70 years of exile of Bavel into the second בית המקדש. And they established this to substitute the korbanot. Now one might ask, but then they rebuilt the בית המקדש, so they brought korbanot again. But the truth is the level of the second בית המקדש was not the same as the first. So it didn't have that same influence, the same accomplishment of the first. Besides the fact after they established the davenen, they're not going to take it away even though we have the בית המקדש, but anyway it wasn't the same. We know there were five major, major special things that were there in the first Temple were not there in the second. The level was much lower. So the people still needed this tefillah in addition to the korbanot that they had then, but the korbanot did not accomplish as much as before, and they continued with this. Certainly after the destruction of the second בית המקדש, certainly we needed tefillah to take the place of what was there before. So they established these berachot, these 18 berachot, called Shemoneh Esrei, 18 blessings. They established, then later on they felt that there's a new one and they needed it also, they established a 19th, and that was the foundation of what tefillah is. That means that mi-de'oraita from the Torah, we said there's no time and no set wording that you have to use, but the chachamim saw that in order to accomplish what the Torah wants us to accomplish, at this point, from then and on, we have to use the special words and we have to have special times, and they felt this is the right time, and they worked on it and they set it up. As time passed, there were other sages who added certain things, and eventually it turned out into the whole davenen of Shacharit. Originally it was only the Shemoneh Esrei, and added came out to the whole Shacharit where we start from Hodu all the way to the end of davenen. Slowly, some chachamim added this, some chachamim added this, and that turned into the, and they each saw in his generation what's needed for that generation, and it got developed by the sages into what we have now in the siddur. And that took place of the korbanot 100%. So if you want to call it, you could say that the siddur is a miniature בית המקדש. When you have the siddur and you use the siddur in the proper way, the proper times, it's a miniature Beis Hamikdash, and you're able to accomplish what they accomplished in the time of the Beis Hamikdash.

And the way it's set up is, as I said in the beginning, that it's like a ladder, and there are different steps. And that's why generally speaking we have in the davenen, we have four sections. We start from the bottom, and we go up. The Yerushalmi says, Yerushalmi the Talmud Yerushalmi, says that a ladder has four steps, which means a simple ladder, I mean I'm sure that ladder there are ladders with many steps, but a general ladder is four steps, so the ladder of davenen has four steps. What are the four steps? The four steps as as it was established by the sages, like I said through the generations, is from ברוך שאמר, and I'm sure most of you know all this, and if you, those that are just starting, just to hear, from ברוך שאמר till ישתבח is one section, that's one step, that's what we call פסוקי דזמרה. Then after ברוך שאמר, after I mean ברכו, after ישתבח, ברכו, till קריאת שמע, to שמע ישראל, is a second step. That's called ברכות קריאת שמע, the blessings of קריאת שמע. Then you have the section of קריאת שמע, from קריאת שמע on, and then you have the fourth section which is the Shemoneh Esrei. And these are basically four steps of a person elevating himself. If a person would understand everything that he says and looking deeper into the commentaries, and certainly learning it in Chassidus, you will see how these levels are steps. See, starting from הודו, which is till ברוך שאמר, according to Nusach Sefard and Nusach HaAri, our nusach, that's not part of davenen. It's not davenen, but it's only like the preparation to your service. ברוך שאמר starts the service. And you have four steps in going up higher and higher. And just to go a little bit, just a little bit in Kabbalah, the Kabbalistic explanation, the four steps are parallel to the four worlds. And everyone knows, we learn in Kabbalah, we learn in Chassidus, there are four worlds: אצילות, בריאה, יצירה, and עשיה. I'm sure you all learned this already. This the, the most fundamental concepts of Chassidus. There are four, four spiritual worlds, and then we have the physical world. אצילות is the highest, that's a world which is the closest to God. Then you have בריאה is a lower one, יצירה is lower, and עשיה is even lower. And we're all the way down in עשיה, but in the physical עשיה. And when we daven, we're supposed to go up because when we think of these four worlds, I want to tell you, and I'm sure you learned this in Chassidus, so you know, it's not that you have אצילות over there, בריאה is over there. Someone asked me, \"How far, how many miles away is אצילות? Where's that? That's next to the moon? That's that's Jupiter? Where where is אצילות?\" These are four spiritual levels which are down here. A person, a איד, could be in the level of אצילות. If he really feels close to God in the most refined, highest level, he is in the level of אצילות. Some people are not that high, so they would feel their closeness to God like the level of בריאה. Some would feel like the level of יצירה, and some the lowest like the level of עשיה. It says in the Alter Rebbe, the Baal HaTanya writes in Torah Or, when Moshe Rabbeinu spoke to Paro, we're learning these weeks' parshiyot, Moshe spoke to Paro, and they were standing as close as this, within a few feet. What you had was אצילות standing next to the most deepest, worst levels spiritual levels of קליפה, of the evil forces, because אצילות is not up there. Moshe Rabbeinu represented אצילות, because his closeness to Hashem was so great. Paro represented the other extreme, the worst. But they were next to each other because it's not place over there, over there. It's a level. When we start davenen every morning, we start from the beginning. We are very low. We wake up in the morning, from sleeping, we start. So, the first level is going to the step of עשיה. We're reaching a level of feeling we should be feeling close to God in the level of עשיה. Then we go a second step, the level of יצירה, then the level of בריאה, and finally, when we get to Shemoneh Esrei, we should be at the level of אצילות. Why is it that by Shemoneh Esrei, you have to stand? You're not allowed to look out. You're not allowed to motion to anybody. You have to stand using the expression of the Shulchan Aruch, taken from the גמרא, כעבדא קמיה מריה, like a slave in front of his master. Like a person standing in front of the king. And the Talmud tells us if a person stands in front of the king, you can't move. Imagine if a person would stand and talk to the king, and all of a sudden he sees somebody pass by, he'll say, \"Hello!\" The Gemara says, you know what happens when when you do that? You're put to death! Because you're standing in front of the king. By the time we get to Shemoneh Esrei, you're supposed to feel that you're standing in front of the king. That's why you have to stand. You can't sit. See, when you come to קרישמע, שמע ישראל ה' אלקינו ה' אחד, we say, \"Hear, O Israel, God, our God, God is one.\" And when we say, \"Hear, O Israel,\" we don't mean hear, use your ears to hear. Hear means to understand. So, at that point, you should already be be at a level where you understand ה' אחד, that God is one. But still, you're able to sit. But when it comes to Shemoneh Esrei, you must stand up, and you must stand and not move. And really, the way it says in Shulchan Aruch, you should stand like this and not move. We do shake, but that's not because we're trying to do some we're doing something against our respect for God, but it's because in order to bring out our excitement, so we do that sometimes. And it says also shaking by davenen is like it says by Matan Torah, when Hashem gave the Torah at Har Sinai, it says וירא העם וינעו, the people saw and they shook. So, from there, it comes that you shake. So, every Yid, if you notice, a Yid when he daven, he shakes. When a Yid learns, he shakes. Says another thing why we shake is because says נר ה' נשמת אדם, the neshamah, the soul of a person, of a Yid, is like a candle. A candle always flickers. So, our neshamah shakes. They tell a story that once was the Maharal of Prague, the great Maharal of Prague, a great tzadik. So, there were some people who wanted to like test him. So, they got a non-Jewish boy, they taught him Yiddish. And he was a very smart boy. And they taught him how to learn a piece of Gemara. And then they brought him to the Maharal to test him. And the Maharal tested him. And when he finished, he walked away. He knew everything. As he walked away, the Maharal turns around to his students, \"This this kid is a שקץ, he's a goy.\" So, they said, \"Rabbi, what makes you say so?\" \"He didn't shake once,\" he said! \"Nisht gegeben kein shakl, he didn't shake once.\" So, the fact that we shake is not in any way an expression of disrespect. But at that point, we're supposed to have the greatest respect, not only because of respect, because we feel that way, because this is what davening is, as I said before, avodah shebalev, the the service of the heart! That we feel that we get close to Hashem, we get close to God. That's what the mitzvah of tefillah is. And this how the Chachamim established, and this is what we have to do, and this is how we daven.

There's only one question that we have to answer. It seems like there's a contradiction between the two things that we said. We said davening is basically asking Hashem for our needs. We call it בקשת צרכיו, asking Hashem for our needs. And then we say it's a time when we self-nullification, we give ourselves over to God, and we're supposed to reach a level of אצילות, and we're supposed to reach the highest level, communicate with God, the greatest things. How do the two match? How do the two fit together? If you reach a level when you're completely self self-nullified let's call it, I don't know, in Hebrew, in Chassidus we call it bitul, you have the greatest bitul to Hashem, you don't think of yourself at all. Asking for my needs means I'm thinking of myself. If I don't think of myself, I don't have any needs. Why does a person have needs? Because I care about myself, I need! But how do the two things together? You have to ask God for your needs, and at the same time we say you have to feel completely batel, and we say ask, it's a mitzvah to ask for your needs, and it's an obligation to ask for your needs. And the truth is that this question is even more if we were talking about the Rosh Hashanah. See, Rosh Hashanah especially we see, what do we pray for on Rosh Hashanah? Well, everyone knows Rosh Hashanah is the day of judgment, and we ask Hashem to give us a happy and a healthy year. We should be healthy, we should have a lot of money, we should have all the physical needs things that we need, spiritual things that we need. We ask Hashem for our needs. That's what we're supposed to do. And that's mentioned in the tefillot of Rosh Hashanah that the Chachamim established. And at the same time we say, what is the real thing of Rosh Hashanah? Is accepting God as our king. Rosh Hashanah is considered the day of the coronation of God, of the acceptance. We express the fact that we accept God as our king. If you look through Shemoneh Esrei, there are so many parts, so many verses that deal with it. We say ומלוך אתה השם לבדך, you shall reign over us, we give ourselves over. The whole thing is it's a day when we accept God as king. As a matter of fact, the reason the real reason of the mitzvah of shofar is this is the way they used to crown the king. Even up today, when you have an inauguration of the president, they blow trumpets. So shofar represents the fact that we're crowning Hashem as king. What do you mean you crown a person as king? You give yourself over, say, \"Well, you're going to become our king, we are your servants, we give ourselves over to you.\" And at the same time, we daven to Hashem, yeah, we give ourselves over to you, we're nothing, and you're the you're really what it is, and we're only an expression of your will and of your desire, whatever it is. And at the same time, we need this, we need that. How do the two things fit together? And the answer is that when a person reaches a level where he recognizes the truth of God, the truth of Hashem, then he's really able to ask for his needs in a proper way. Now, I'll explain what I mean. Why does a person need something? Well, why do you need to eat? Because you're hungry. Your body is hungry. Why do you need money? Because I have to live, I have to buy food, I have to live. I have to, you know, it's a physical world here, we got to live. That's not the real thing. The real way a Jew is supposed to reach, the level he's supposed to reach, he's supposed to feel, I have one thing, I have a mission here in this world. God gave me a mission. Why did God put me here? To have fun? I doubt it. I mean, even people who do that, they know deep deep down that's not the reason why they're here. Why did Hashem put us in this world? You live how many years you live and then you indulge and that's it? That's not it. What is the real reason why we were put in this world? God gave us a mission, put us in this world, and He wants us to transform this physical world into a spiritual thing. Like it says, Hashem had a desire, God had a desire to make this physical low world into a dwelling place for Him. And how do you do that? Through doing mitzvot, learning Torah. You can't do a mitzvah if you're not healthy. You can't learn if you're not healthy. You can't give charity if you don't have money. You can't send your children to have a good Jewish education if you don't have money. You can't buy a nice pair of tefillin if you don't have money. So, in order for us to fulfill our mission in this world, we have to have all the needs that that that a person needs. So, you could ask for your needs because I need it, or you could ask for your needs, we tell Hashem, \"Because You need it! You need it! It's for You! It's not for me, I don't care about myself. I care about You!\" Because at Shemoneh Esrei you reach a level where you care only about Hashem. And because of that, this is why I'm asking for my needs. And therefore, the two things are not a contradiction. You're asking for your needs, and at the same time you don't exist so to speak, almost, but at that time you ask for your needs because your needs are really asked the way it should be asked for. There is a story told that the Rabbi Maharash, who was the fourth Lubavitcher Rebbe, when he saw once he was sitting by the window and he saw two of his children, one became Rebbe later years later, and one was his brother, the Raza, and one was Rabbi Rashab. And they were talking, and they were discussing, \"What do we see the difference between a Yid and a goy?\" And the Rabbi Maharash called them in and said, \"I want to show you something.\" And he says, \"Please do me a favor. Go call the goyishe wagon driver. I want to talk to him.\" So he called him in and he says, \"Did you eat today?\" He said, \"Yeah, sure I ate.\" \"Did you eat good?\" \"Sure, plenty, I'm full.\" \"Why did you eat?\" \"Why did I eat? So I should be able to have a good time. I'm healthy. I'm able to take a drink, you know, the Russian goyim, they take a good drink of vodka and have a good time.\" So, good, told him to go. Then he says, \"Call me in the Jewish wagon driver, the Kutcher, Ben Tzion the Kutcher.\" He was the the the wagon driver, בעל עגלה. And he called him in, he said, \"Did you eat today?\" \"Yeah, I ate.\" \"Did you eat enough?\" \"Yeah, enough.\" Other guy said, \"Yeah, full.\" \"Why did you eat?\" \"Why did I eat? So I should be healthy.\" So he said, \"Why do you have to be healthy?\" \"Why have to be healthy? So I should be able to say a chapter of Tehillim, I should be able to learn a little bit, I should be able to fulfill a mitzvah.\" He says, \"This is the difference. This is how it's supposed to be.\" And this is on Rosh Hashanah, we ask Hashem for our needs, at the same time we say to Hashem we're nothing, but we're asking for our needs because this is what you want. And every day by davenen, we ask for our needs, this is really what it should mean. But one could ask a very, very simple question: How many people do you know that when they ask for their needs have this in mind? We're saying this is what really davenen is, you're supposed to get close to Hashem, and you ask for your needs because this is what Hashem wants, and you don't care about yourself, and you're really there just to fulfill the mission that Hashem put upon you in this world. How many people do you know that do it? I mean, there are, I'm sure there are some people that actually feel it, feel that way, feel it, but most people don't. And the answer is, and the Rebbe once explained this, even though we don't feel it, when we daven for our needs, we we we really mean our needs. But our neshamah that's inside, our neshamah really feels that the needs are there only for just this for this reason. We might not feel it superficially. There's a very interesting interpretation of the Baal Shem Tov on a certain verse. There's a pasuk that says like this, \"רעבים גם צמאים נפשם בהם תתעטף.\" I'll translate: \"The hungry ones and the thirsty ones, their soul is wrapped around it.\" Now, simple meaning is that when a person is hungry or thirsty, his whole soul is is involved, you know, he's hungry, he's really hungry and thirsty. The Baal Shem Tov said, \"No. You think you're hungry because your body wants to eat. You think you're thirsty because your body wants to eat. נפשם בהם תתעטף, it's your neshama that's, the nefesh, it's your holy soul that wants it, because by eating and becoming healthy, you're fulfilling the will of God, because you're able to be healthy to serve God. So, you think, you superficially think that רעבים גם צמאים, I'm hungry. Comes the Baal Shem Tov and says no, נפשם בהם תתעטף, what's wrapped around it, what's really in it, it's your soul that is hungry. So every Yid who davens to Hashem because he's hungry and he needs food, or he needs money, and he thinks he needs money because he needs to buy groceries and he doesn't have it for the physical reason, his neshama wants him to buy it and get it so he should be able to serve God. So as much as you don't feel it, we don't feel it, but the neshama feels it and it's there automatically.\" It's like the Rebbe once said, there's an expression in Gemara that you should, really have to do everything with the proper intentions, which we call lishmah. Lishmah means for the rights, for the sake of God. So it says even if you don't do that, מתוך שלא לשמה בא לשמה. If you do many times without the proper intentions, you'll reach the level of doing it with intentions. So the Rebbe says the word means something else. Not mitoch, \"through\", mitoch means the inner part, the inside of doing it for whatever reason we think we're doing it, is what? Is the real reason. So every Yid essentially, whether he knows it or not, whether he believes it or not, inside him when he davens, your neshama davens along with you, even though it's your physical mouth that's davening, but your soul, your holy soul is praying along with you, and your holy soul is praying for the right reasons. So as much as we might not feel it, you're praying for the right reasons. And this is what the whole idea of prayer is, to ask Hashem for our needs because we express our belief and faith and trust and all these other words in Hashem, that we know that he's the one that's able to help us. We say words that express the fact that we're elevating ourselves and trying to get closer to him, and this is the beginning of the day. Beginning of the day is when we stand the foundation and all day our day is different. But since a few hours pass and it wears off a little bit, so we got to have a miniature davenen, a little bit of davenen. So we say Mincha. Then when it gets Wake up in the morning, we got to start all over again. But hopefully when we start all over again, it's not the same level. There's a little bit of a trace left of what we did yesterday and now we're going to a higher level. This is what it's supposed to be.

I just want to add one thing which probably bothers many people. If the חכמים established the nusach, we call it, what you're supposed to say, how do we have so many different versions of davenen? So I just want to explain just once the the חכמים did not give the exact words to use. They gave the rules of what each tefillah, each prayer, each berachah has to contain. And different great people established different words. So the יסוד, the foundation, the the נקודה, the most important part of each of the davenen is all the same by everybody. All Jews daven the same. Just a different wording, because they all express the same thing, and there are different wordings how to express it. Our nusach, which is nusach HaAri z"l, the one that we daven, that Lubavitch davens, which is the nusach of the Alter Rebbe, is called the nusach HaAri z"l. It wasn't written by the HaAri z"l, by the famous Ari z"l. It's על פי האר\"י ז\"ל. That means the Alter Rebbe looked into the Kabbalah according to the Ari z"l, and based on what the Ari z"l writes, he figured out how according to that Kabbalah the davenen has to be. So according to the Ari z"l, Hodu has to come before Baruch She'amar, and every other things. And just to mention another thing, the Alter Rebbe when he established his nusach made sure that everything fits according to grammar, according to Kabbalah, according to halacha, according to every thing that is possible. That that's the Tzemach Tzedek, his grandson, the third Lubavitcher Rebbe writes that my grandfather chose out of so many different versions of דאווענען, סולת נקיה, the most the most fine flour after it was sifted and sifted and sifted, and he took it all out, and he established the nusach. And this nusach is something that through this these words of davenen, you could reach the highest levels. And any thing that a person needs, or you could say your own words, but that's not the most important. You could in Shemoneh Esrei, in davenen you have it, and we ask Hashem, and if you daven the right way, Hashem will answer. He will answer, and he will listen to the prayers, cuz then if we daven the right way and we become deserving of his accepting our tefilot and answering, he will answer us. And what I'd like to say is that the main tefila we need, which is Shemoneh Esrei is mention many times, is that we need Mashiach. And if we really pray properly, with the whole heart, Hashem will bring Mashiach very, very soon, בקרוב ממש. We have five minutes if you want, because I have five minutes till I leave, to ask if anybody asks wants to ask any questions? Yes? I have a question. Yes. Could you please talk a little bit about offering of incense, how that differs from the actual animal sacrifices? Okay, just Okay, I'll I'll I'll just answer you in in in very short, without explanation, just I said before that the word korban means kiruv, closeness. The word ketoret, which is the incense, comes from the word קטר. קטר means a knot. Korbanot made the Yidden closer to Hashem. A knot is not only close—you could have two things that are close, but they're not tied together. A knot is even closer. The greatest connection that a Yid gets to Hashem in the time of the Beit HaMikdash was through the ketoret. That's why the ketoret was considered the most important korban that the Yidden brought. Yom Kippur, when the holy the the Kohen Gadol, the high priest, would go into, once a year, into the Holy of Holies, what did he bring there? קטורת, because קטורת represents the highest level of connection a yid can get to Hashem. And we see that the difference between korbanot and קטורת, korbanot is basically an animal, which is food, or flour, oil, these are it's food type of things. קטורת is something that you smell. The sense of smell is a much more refined sense than eating. That's something that has to do more with the spiritual part of the person than with the physical part of the person. So the same thing in the Beit HaMikdash, what was more spiritual, which connected in this more spiritual way to God, was the קטורת, because it has to do with smell. Just to mention, the Alter Rebbe said once, once they bought him a present, somebody bought him a present, he wouldn't take, but once they bought him a present, a tobacco box, you know, to hold tobacco, in a silver box for tobacco. Those days people used to go around smelling tobacco. So he didn't want to use it, and he said, there is, I'll say it in Yiddish, then I'll translate: ס'איז דא איין אבר אין דעם מענטש וואס ער איז נישט קיין בעל תאוה, וויל מען אים אויך אנשטאפן מיט תאוה? There's only one limb in the person which is not a baal taavah. I don't know how you say in English a baal taavah. There is no such thing as baal taavah in English, I don't know. A baal taavah is somebody who has like desire, things which, you know, which are not holier. A person has a desire to eat. If it's non-kosher food, God forbid, and it tastes, looks good, we but no one has a special taavah, a yetzer hara, to go smell bad smells. So he said, and you want to also, שטאף אים אן, fill him up with taavah, because smell is a higher level. The Gemara says smell is something that the neshamah feels. That's why מוצאי שבת, after Shabbos, we smell besamim. Why? Because it says that we have an extra neshamah on Shabbos, and it leaves us. So you feel bad, so you want to bring it back something, so you smell it. So smell is this more spiritual thing, and that's the inyan of קטורת. Okay, one more question? Yes. Okay, you said whatever we need is somewhere in the Shemoneh Esrei, right? But then when we daven, probably most of the things that we daven about are not going to be things that we like immediately need. Ah, that's the thing. It's not immediately, and you can't see it. You got to work hard to find it, but it's there. And if you're there and you rely on the chachamim, on the sages, that they put it in, so you have it in mind, and it's someplace there, and God will already take it out and know exactly which words it fits to. If you have that in mind, that's okay, then then he'll have it. Or, it says that the angels, they take up our prayers to Hashem, they'll know already which word to connect, they make the connections. The Rebbe used to give before Yom Kippur used to give lekech to the people, used to give honey cake as a symbol of a sweet year. And the people who were out of town and they would come for Sukkos, for Simchat Torah, so Hoshana Rabbah he would give. So I remember once my father came over to the Rebbe to take lekech, and a few people who lived in Cleveland asked him to take. So he went over to the Rebbe, and the gave him gave him lekech, then he said, I want for Mr. So-and-so and for Mr. So-and-so. And as the Rebbe is giving him, as he's asking, he the Rebbe notices that he's making sure to remember which one is for Mr. Wollman, which one is for So the Rebbe turns around to him, says, don't worry, the malachim will take it apart, will take care to know the right ones, he said angels will take care of it. So I'm saying by the tefilot, the angels will take care and they'll know which things to put to which, but we could think it in mind, and it's there in the davenen. There is no question about it, the chachamim saw it and put it in, and it's there. Okay, thank you very much.