Best Weapon

Mashiach’s Greatest Weapon

Mashiach’s main weapon is prayer. All Mashiach’s conquests... will come through the power prayer and, as Reb Noson says, prayer is the essential weapon of each Jew.

The attachment that each Jew has to HaShem is through prayer and it is through that self same prayer attachment that the Jew acquires mastery and control over his desires. __[Rebbe Nachman] And the very essence of our life-force is by way of prayer.

There are three kinds, or types, of prayer. There is the prayer of David, as you find it in Psalm 86. There is the prayer of Moshe, as you find it in Psalm 90. And there is the prayer of the - Common Man, - which, again, you find it in Psalm 102. Don’t believe me. Go look it up. The Schottenstein Edition of Tehillim is an excellent choice of not only finding these Psalms in the original Hebrew and the interlinear direct English translation (without appealing to the ‘Masses’ by use of KJV outdated sweet poetic verse) along with explanatory footnotes.

Of these three Psalms, we are told that the Psalm, the Prayer, of the Common Man is by far the most powerful for here we find the prayer of the broken heart. A pauper stands before G-d, his maker, and cries; “Why me?” “Why do I have to suffer?” When the spiritual pauper cries out, that prayer goes directly to the ear of G-d. He hears the earnest prayer of the Common Man. How often have we been told that HaShem seems to have a Great Love for the ‘common’; after all Shabbat is the most ‘common’ of the Holidays that we observe. Fifty-two times every year we have the opportunity to enjoy the Greatest of Holiday’s - Shabbos! We have also hear the comment made; “G-d must really love the poor (Common) man - He made so many of them!”

Now we come to a different thought on Prayer. Or an elaboration on Prayer: “Faith, Prayer, Miracles, and the Holy Land... are but one concept!” Nu? How’s that? The idea is that when we pray, we are expressing an element of our faith or why would we be involved in prayer at all? So, therefore, Prayer increases faith and gradually we become (a little more) intimate in our feelings for our Creator and, guess what!, this leads to our observation of and awareness of miracles. It follows then that by prayer we ‘attain’ a mastery over the elements because our prayers are directed to HaShem and He is the Master of All, Rebono Shel Olam! And finally, these miracles and prayers are conceptually associated with and related to the Holy Land (why else would it be called the “Holy Land”?) for it is there they reveal the Kingdom of Heaven.

All this said, we come to understand the Power of Prayer, along with its associates and associations, but we have not come to the central question. This is not uncommon because the Shabbos Torah Study Group likes to dance. We are, it seems, always dancing around the fringe of any given topic which seems to provide an emotional wall for us. We don’t seem to want to reach out and become involved in the essential core of a topic. Let’s relax. Take a Deep Breath and ask:

What is Prayer?

Some fifty years ago (give or take) a Comic from “Second City” and a graduate in Philosophy from the University of Chicago; Severn Darden, presented his ‘paper’ to the inmates of the Second City as commented as follows:
“Now, thought.” “For centuries philosophers have told us that thought cannot be seen, it cannot be heard, cannot be felt, smelled, cannot be tasted.” [the same we say about Prayer] “It is not in the key of G - or F. And it is not blue - nor is it mauve. It is not a pot of geraniums. It is not a white donkey against a blue sky. Or a blue donkey against a white sky. Nor does it have aspirations to become archbishop. It is not a little girl singing an old song. Thought is not a saffron-robed monk in the snow. In other words, philosophers can tell you millions of things that thought isn’t, and they can’t tell you what it is! And this bugs them!”
Now, Severn having had his say, we can also say what we know what Prayer is not. Who would venture to say what Prayer is?

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We are instructed on When to Pray, How to Pray, Where to Pray, and often What to Pray... but: What is Prayer? Is it a collective of all the above? What is the meaning of “to Pray”? We are told that we need to pray with concentration - with kavanah... with strength... and we are told to never let shame stop you from prayer.

We have a story that comes to us from the final days of Rosh HaShannah 5571 when Rebbe Nachman was deathly ill and he asked his grandson to pray for him.
“G-d! G-d!” “Let my grandfather be well!”
The Rebbe said; “This is how to pray. Simply! What other way is there?”

So, is prayer anything other than saying exactly what is in your heart? Do we think that we can do anything other than that when we address G-d? Do we have the chutzpah to think that we know something that G-d does not know? Don’t we pray to do just what Sigmund Freud said the ‘patient’ needed to do - to express what we know in out heart in a manner that our head understands? Perhaps, I suggest, that is what Prayer is. Or not.

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