How to Pray So That Your Prayers Will Be Answered

THE DAILY CHIZZUK OF OUR REBBE, THE GAON AND TZADDIK, RABBI ELIEZER BERLAND SHLIT”A – WHY DID MOSHE HAVE TO LEARN TO PLEAD?

“I PLEADED TO HASHEM AT THAT TIME, SAYING” (DEVARIM 3:23)

“HE TOOK NOTE WHEN THEY WERE IN DISTRESS, WHEN HE HEARD THEIR OUTCRY” (TEHILIM 106:44)

SUNDAY, 8 ELUL 5782 – HASHEM TAUGHT MOSHE HOW TO PRAY SO THAT HIS PRAYERS WOULD BE ANSWERED

THESE ARE HIS HOLY WORDS:

There are three categories of Megaleh Amukot (a book written by Rabbi Natan Natah Shapira zt”l of Krakow):  There are categories on the parasha, and there are those on “Va'etchanan (I pleaded)” which reveal all the secrets of Moshe about what is “Va'etchanan.”

HASHEM SAYS TO MOSHE, “YOU DON’T KNOW HOW TO PLEAD.  WHAT’S THIS: “I PLEADED”?  YOU DON’T SPEAK CORRECTLY.  YOU NEED TO SAY SONG BEFOREHAND AND TO SING!”

Before going to prayer, you need to sing, to make some niggun (melody), to say some verse.  It’s impossible to just jump into prayer.  Therefore, a person is not answered.

A person doesn’t understand.  He doesn’t have children.  He doesn’t have a marriage partner.  He doesn’t know [how] to pray – “I pleaded!  That’s how to plead?  You don’t even know how to plead.  Learn from the Leviathan, because we need to merit to the Succah of the Leviathan, which is the 50th Gate.”

Learn – there is a Leviathan.  The whole problem is that we want to get to the Succah of the Leviathan.  Another 35 days it’s already Succot.   Regarding the Leviathan, it’s written “slave.” – In this fashion, you won’t be a slave.  You don’t know how to plead.  You need to say song beforehand, to sing, to make a melody.  They make a melody before and after the Maariv prayer.

ONLY THROUGH NIGGUNIM DOES THE PRAYER ASCEND.  WITHOUT THE NIGGUNIM, IT’S ONLY PRAYER.

The Rebbe says, “He took note when they were in distress, when he heard their outcry” [in Likutey Moharan 42 – that through niggun the judgments are sweetened].  Like the rainbow has colors – there is the color green, there is the color red – so too with prayer.  We need colors.

Without colors, it’s impossible to see anything.  Without colors, it has no flavor.  So too prayer; if it’s without colors, it has no flavor.  This is the three colors of the rainbow – white, red, green.

Another 35 days, we’ll already sit in the Succah, and we still haven’t prepared the Succah.  We need to reach the Succah of the Leviathan, to pray with supplications.  We forge a covenant – “he shall be to you an eternal slave” (Devarim 15:17).

A PERSON NEEDS TO BE A SLAVE TO HASHEM.