Answers to the Question of the Week #5


In the beginning of the week, we asked the following: 

Identify a line or section of tefillah that you connect with and is perhaps overlooked by others.

Once again, the answers you provided were amazing and I encourage everyone to read them here: shorturl.at/fDE59

I will just highlight a few:

1. During Shemona Esrei, in עַל־הַצַּדִּיקִים we say וְתֵן שָׂכָר טוֹב לְכָל הַבּוֹטְ֒חִים בְּשִׁמְךָ בֶּאֱמֶת וְשִׂים חֶלְקֵֽנוּ עִמָּהֶם – Grant good reward to all who truly trust in Your Name; and place our lot among them.  This could be interpreted as a prayer for Bitachon and the reward for it!

2. The entire Birkat Hamazon is so holy and really one big prayer for parnassah, but at the end, we say יְראוּ אֶת יְיָ קְדֹשָׁיו – Fear Hashem His Holy Ones, which could be interpreted as a prayer for Yiras Shomayim.

3. At the end of Shemona Esrei, we ask Hashem פְּתַח לִבִּי בְּתוֹרָתֶֽךָ וּבְמִצְוֹתֶֽיךָ תִּרְדֹּף נַפְשִׁי – Open my heart to Your Torah and let my soul pursue Your commandments.

4. How special it is on Yom Tovim when we sing in Hallel, זֶה־הַיּוֹם עָשָׂה יְהֹוָה נָגִֽילָה וְנִשְׂמְחָה בוֹ – This is the day Hashem has made; let us rejoice and be glad on it. 

5. On Shabbos and Yom Tovim, we say the beautiful prayer of  קַדְּשנוּ בְּמִצְותֶיךָ וְתֵן חֶלְקֵנוּ בְּתורָתֶךָ. שבְּעֵנוּ מִטּוּבֶךָ וְשמְּחֵנו בִּישוּעָתֶךָ. וְטַהֵר לִבֵּנוּ לְעָבְדְּךָ בֶּאֱמֶת. — Santify us with Your mitzvos, and grant us a share in Your Torah, satisfy us from Your goodness and gladden us with Your salvation, and purify our heart to serve You sincerely.   

6. Each night at Maariv, in the paragraph of הַשְׁכִּיבֵֽנוּ, we say וְתַקְּ֒נֵֽנוּ בְּעֵצָה טוֹבָה מִלְּ֒פָנֶֽיךָ – we ask for good counsel.  We then say וְהָסֵר שָׂטָן מִלְּ֒פָנֵֽינוּ וּמֵאַחֲרֵֽינוּ to remove the satan from before us (so we shouldn’t sin) and after us (so that if we do sin, we don’t get depressed over it and lose faith).

7. On Shabbos in Pesukei D’zimra, in the paragraph of L’Dovid bshanoso, we say קרוב ה’ לנשברי לב ואת דכאי רוח יושיע. God is close to the brokenhearted, and He saves those of crushed spirit. 

8. In נִשְׁמַת on Shabbos and Yom Tovim, we say אֵין אֲנַחְנוּ מַסְפִּיקִים לְהודות לְךָ ה – that no matter what we can possibly do, we still cannot thank You sufficiently! 

9. In the Yom for Thursday, we say הַרְחֶב פִּֽיךָ וַאֲמַלְאֵֽהוּ – Widen your mouth and I will fill it – Hashem is telling us not to limit ourselves — ask for ANYTHING because He, and only He, is capable of fulfilling our requests.

10. Each morning, we say המחדש בטובו בכל יום תמיד מעשה בראשית which reminds us that no matter how challenging your life or day may be Hashem renews creation every day and anything can happen no matter how bleak things may seem. Then we immediately say אהבה רבה אהבתנו which reminds us how much Hashem loves us. These beautiful words should keep us smiling all day. 

Honorable Mentions

The Ribono Shel Olam prayer said on Yom Tovim when taking out the Torah, followed by Brich Shemei.  All of Birchos HaTorah, practically every line of Ashrei including קָר֣וֹב ה לְכָל־קֹֽרְאָ֑יו – Hashem is near to all who call Him, and the perfect way to start Shemona Esrei – ה’  שפתי תפתח ופי יגיד תהילתך asking Hashem to please help us daven. 

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

1 Response to Answers to the Question of the Week #5

  1. Marlene says:

    You might find this interesting:

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s