I put forth a tefilla to the Creator, Blessed is He. Ribono Shel Olam! I want, I need to understand why so many if Your children, B’nai Yisrael do not experience Your closeness to them. I don’t know why they are troubled with so many troubles and don’t seem to know that all the answers are with You. I don’t understand why we are not able to strengthen one another in this: in planting inside each other the firm knowledge that You only want to help us in all our needs and that we must help ourselves through this awesome opportunity which you have given us all, to enlist Your help in all our needs. You listen to all our tefillas. You care about us much more than we can fathom, absolutely endlessly You care for us and desire to fill all our lacks. You only ask of us to bring it up with You, to recognize that You are here for us. I don’t understand why we continue our lives in so much darkness and search so many strange avenues to rescue ourselves. We believe in You very much, apparently, but somehow we’re not finding the way to reach out to You. I say this because I see so many of us in such distress in such confusion in such isolation with their own pain. I don’t understand. You help us and You will continue to help us more and more.
I would like to examine a point concerning Emunah and Tefilla. Hashem, Yisborach, we can readily understand, hears all our tefillot. Coupled with our understanding of His love for us and His compassion upon His entire creation, it is only reasonable to understand that He wishes to fulfill all our tefillot. Indeed the possuk says that He is near to all that call out to Him, all that call to Him in truth. In other words every sincere prayer He answers. It is a phenomena simply understood. A man with riches beyond measure is brought to his front door by the knock of…a poor man lacking everything. “Could you please help me?” Only a cruel person would not answer every need of the poor man that he could possibly cover. All the more so the King of Kings who owns everything, Who is the Master of Mercy, and Who Knows the true situation of he who requests His favor: that he has no possibility whatsoever of fulfilling his own needs, every creature is entirely dependent upon Him for the very breath in his lungs and everything else.
Since this is absolutely reasonable and clear then we must wonder why it seems to many that our tefillot are not answered. The truth is that many better than I have answered this question and their explanations should be sought out in their books and understood well. I could even summarize some of the basic responses that are fundamental, but for the sake of brevity, even this I will omit. I hope to present here my small insight which the Creator inspired me to reveal.
I will try to present first an analogy. A son comes and asks his father for something he needs. The son knows that the father has what he is asking for. He also knows that it is not difficult for the father to part with it, that he will not feel it’s loss in the least. If he thinks a little deeper the son realizes, too, that the father would have pleasure in giving it to him. If he is able to think even deeper he can realize that his father will have very great pleasure in fulfilling his request. The son can understand that by giving his father the opportunity to fulfill his request in full he is actually crowning the father with the title of father. A father who has a son who doesn’t need or ask anything from him, who behaves as an independent, feels just like another man. In fact he is the child’s father but he doesn’t experience this fact. A father’s role is to give to his children what only he can provide them. If the children recognize the greatness of the father, his wisdom, his strength, capability, his love and compassion upon them and desire to see them fulfilled in every way, if the children realize and express this in the proper way, then they are truly giving to their father the crown for his head. They make him what he desires to be, a father in reality.
We are taught “there is no king without a nation.” We are taught that the need for Hashem to create the world, the ‘thing’ that He was lacking, so to speak; that in order to fulfill this ‘lack’ the blessed Creator created all the worlds, was “the will to receive,” or in simpler terms, someone to receive, or someone upon whom He could have mercy.
The analogy is very simply understood. By expressing, in truth; that is, when our hearts and minds are settled and clear about Who really is our Father in Heaven, what are His true capabilities, how wide is His understanding, etc., etc., when we approach Him in supplication with this kind of understanding, we are fulfilling the purpose of creation, we are crowning our King with His glorious crown (this is the peshat for what we are taught that our tefillot make a crown for the Holy One, blessed is He.) It is really no more complicated than this. Please understand. I have written in brevity so as not be burden you with extra words. Please reread it and understand its truth. He should answer all your requests for good. This is encapsulated by what we are taught “know before Whom you stand.” Understand well upon Whom you are dependent and Who you trust and you will increase trust and yearn for His closeness and to please Him and you will see His salvations.
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