David, your posts seem to magically disappear with your name changes. But a couple of weeks ago you had one on your difficulty with tefillah. That Shabbos I came accross the following from Reb Hirsch on the possuk ויתפלל בעדך. I've been meaning to post it but never had the chance to type it up. Now that your back, I finally pushed myself to do it:
From the root פלל (to judge), related to בלל as we have already seen in the account of the דור הפלגה, the בולל does not mix materials together; rather he introduces a foreign element into a substance and integrates some of the new into every particle of the old, thus creating a new substance. According to the Jewish conception this is the task of the judge. Lies and injustice cause division, create conflict and dispute. A judge introduces justice, the Divine truth of things, into the disputed matter creating harmonious unity where lies and injustice had caused conflict and division.
התפלל means: to perform this task (פלל) upon oneself, to infuse every aspect of one’s being and existence with God’s truth, and thus attain for oneself harmonious integrity of all of life by the light of God’s Countenance.
Jewish tefillah, then, is antiethcial to the common conception of “prayer” Tefilah is not an outpouring from within, an expression of the heart already feels – for that we have other terms: תחנה שיח and the like. Rather, tefillah means infusing the heart with truths that come from outside oneself.
Tefilah is עבודה שבלב; Mispallel means to work on refinishing one’s inner self, to elevate one’s mind and heart to the lofty heights of recognition of truth and desire for serving God.
If this were not the case, if Tefillah were but an outpouring of our emotions, it would make no sense to have fixed times and fixed texts for our prayers. How could assume that all the members of the community would be imbued with the same thoughts and the same emotions at predetermined times?
Moreover, prayer that is merely an expression of feeling is superfluous. Thoughts and emotions that are already alive within us do not require expression, least of all expression in set phrases formulated by others that ourselves. Deep inner experience always finds its own way of self-expression; and when the inner experience is exceedingly grand and profound, it is beyond all expression, and the most appropriate expression is silence.
It follows, then, that the whole purpose of our fixed prayers is to awaken the heart and to revive within it those timeless values that still require reinforcement and special care. One can truly say that the less we feel in the mood of prayer, the greater is our need to pray, the greater is the redeeming power and sublime value of the work upon ourselves hat we perform through Tefillah. The absence of the mood for prayer is in itself the surest sign of the obscurement and dimming of that spirit that is not the basis for Tefillah but its goal and exalted purpose.
