How to Pray So That Your Prayers Are Answered

The Daily Chizuk from our teacher, the Tzaddik, Rav Eliezer Berland shlit"a – Why did Moses need to learn how to plead?

"And I pleaded with Hashem at that time, saying" (Deuteronomy 3:23)

"Yet He looked upon their distress when He heard their song" (Psalms 106:44)

Thursday, 17 Tishrei 5786 – Hashem taught Moses how to pray so that his prayers would be answered

These are his holy words:

There are three types of 'Megaleh Amukot' (the book by Rabbi Natan Nata Shapiro zt"l of Krakow); there are types on the Torah portions and there are those on 'Va'etchanan' which reveal all the secrets of Moses regarding what 'Va'etchanan' (pleading) truly is.

Hashem says to Moses, you do not know how to plead; what is 'Va'etchanan'? You are not speaking correctly; one must first say a song and sing!

Before going to pray, one must sing, perform some melody, say some verse; one cannot just jump into prayer – that is why a person is not answered.

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A person does not understand; he is not blessed with children, he has no shidduch, he does not know how to pray – 'Va'etchanan!' Is that how one pleads? You do not even know how to plead; learn from the Leviathan, because we must merit the Sukkah of the Leviathan, which is the fiftieth gate.

Learn, there is a Leviathan; the whole problem is that we want to reach the Sukkah of the Leviathan, in another 35 days it is already Sukkot. Regarding the Leviathan, it is written 'servant' – in such a way you will not be a servant, you do not know how to plead. One must say a song beforehand, to sing and play music; they play music before and after the Ma'ariv prayer.

Only through melodies does prayer ascend – without melodies, it is just a prayer.

The Rebbe says, "Yet He looked upon their distress when He heard their song" (Likutey Moharan, Part I, Lesson 42: 'Yet He looked upon their distress when He heard their song' – behold, through music, the judgments are sweetened...) Just as the rainbow has colors, there is a green color, there is a red color, so too must prayer have colors.

Without colors, one cannot see anything; without colors, it has no taste – so too, if prayer is without colors, it has no taste; these are the three colors of the rainbow: white, red, and green.

In another 35 days we will already be sitting in the Sukkah and we have not yet prepared the Sukkah; we must reach the Sukkah of the Leviathan – to pray with supplications, you who seal the covenant, 'And he shall be a servant to you forever' (Deuteronomy 15:17)...

A person must be a servant to Hashem.