Avraham and Prayer

Parshat Lekh Lekha

by Rabbi Avi Billet

There is a series of books that have been published in recent years by the Mesorat HaRav Foundation – thematic volumes of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s thoughts and teachings. One of the books is called “Abraham’s Journey” in which Rabbi Soloveitchik outlines many thoughts about Avraham’s experiential journey, mostly in creating and fashioning the concept of what Rabbi Soloveitchik often refers to as the Covenental Community. 

The concept of the Covenant is presented twice in our parsha, both in the Bris Bein HaBsarim and the Bris Milah. Covenants drive our connection to God and how the Covenental Community communicates with God. 

Avraham in a sense becomes a model of prayer when he initiates the “calling out in God’s name” in Chapter 12. We have to imagine that when he built his altars (מזבחs) to God, that his prayer at these places was sincere, devout and uninterrupted.

Rashi notes, for example, that both in Shechem and Ai Avraham prayed for his descendants who would have difficult encounters there. We know what Yaakov and family experienced in Shechem, and what Yehoshua and the people faced at the failed first battle of Ai, shortly after their success in the battle of Yericho. 

So Avraham took his tefillah moments seriously. He surely had proper kavvanah, because he knew what he was thinking about. He was probably also praying that he should have a child, a theme that appears over and over in the parsha as well. 

We can likely assume that he let his wife and nephew know, as well as whichever people were in his life, this is uninterruptible time. I am communicating with God. I will allow and tolerate ZERO distractions. 

With this in mind, perhaps it is worth taking the time to review a few important halakhic and common sense notes regarding tefillah. 

In general, those in tune to what tefillah is know very well that davening – especially the personal and more private components of davening – should take more time to say, not less time. Sometimes this is actually easier to achieve when praying alone (though it’s certainly not always the case), but this is not to say that a shul can’t also aim to take more time than less time for davening. 

There are halachos about whether it is appropriate to learn Torah during the lulls in davening. Whether it is right or wrong, perhaps to fill the time, one might consider reading the English translation or commentary in the Siddur so one is involved in Tefillah even when not focused directly on one’s personal prayers in the moment. 

Chazaras Hashatz is a time to follow along and to pay attention to the words we might not have understood when we said them in Hebrew. Follow in English. Pay better attention to what is being said. Catch up on what was missed which includes both portions we may have skipped, but also portions we said but did not understand. Perhaps we neglected to think about how the portions of tefillah can be meaningful to ME in what is going on in my life TODAY. 

The main goal of coming to shul, and certainly of engaging in Tefillah is to communicate with the Almighty. In the Lonely Man of Faith, Rabbi Soloveitchik wrote, “Prayer is basically an awareness of man finding himself in the presence of and addressing himself to his Maker, and to pray has one connotation only: to stand before God.” 

“The very essence of prayer is the covenantal experience of being together with and talking to God, and that the concrete performance such as the recitation of texts represents the technique of implementation of prayer, and not prayer itself.” 

Translation – the siddur is a tool to help us get to tefillah, and to help us get to that feeling of being עומד לפני המלך (standing before the King). But let us not think that simply “saying the words” and “finishing a paragraph” or a particular “tefillah” means I have prayed. What was that experience like? How was I moved? 

 Conversations of any kind are distracting to those who are still engaged in the physical act of praying and communicating with the Divine. Whether the one still praying is focused on simply saying the words, or more deeply, on understanding the words, anyone near that person should be cognizant of that person’s need to be able to concentrate and should make every effort to not present a distraction 

 Always remember the poster some shuls have אם באת לביה"כ לדבר לאן תלך כשתצטרך להתפלל? (If you came to shul to talk, where will you go when you need to daven?) A polite way to let someone else aware of their disturbance is to gently tell them “I come to shul to daven in a quiet space. Thank you for helping maintain that.” 

Every weekday parishioner needs to remember that phones are a distraction. Even if the ringer is off, the phone should really not be accessed at all during davening. A person absorbed in a phone is not “present” and misses just about every aspect of davening going on around the individual and – especially if during Shacharis – is disrespecting the Tefillin, which are considered very holy objects. 

 Let us learn from Avraham Avinu. He was in tune to why he was praying, what he needed to say, and to Whom he was praying. 

 Our goal in life is supposed to be to always be GROWING in our relationship with the Almighty. This is what it means to be a part of the Covenantal Community. 

May we be blessed to fill our place in the covenantal community and create, maintain, or even improve upon our inspiring makom tefillah.