The Elixir of Life

Let’s make no mistake and think that we can now put Torah learning aside in favor of prayer – Heaven forbid. One must totally immerse oneself in Torah – day and night – to the very best of one’s abilities. Indeed, Torah strengthens our prayers, as Rebbe Nachman says (see Abridged Likutei Moharan, I:2), “Torah and prayer maintain one another and strengthen one another. Therefore, we must occupy ourselves with both. When a person learns Torah in order to observe and practice, then the holy letters of the Torah – which are sparks of souls – envelope themselves in that person’s prayers and magnify the light of those prayers extremely.”

Prayer without Torah is weak and empty, so we certainly must learn Torah. On the other hand, it’s impossible to gain true Torah understanding without praying for it. Rabbi Akiva spilled rivers of tears in order to uplift himself from a simple peasant to one of history’s hallmark Torah scholars. The famed “Ben Ish Chai” – Rabbi Yosef Chaim of Baghdad – devoted hours upon hours to personal prayer. The Chofetz Chaim set aside two hours a day for secluded personal prayer and soul searching, in addition to his exhaustive daily schedule of Torah learning and prescribed prayers. Our holy Book of Psalms is the exalted remnant of King David’s many personal prayers and the river of tears he shed every single day. The common denominator of the great tzaddikim is the time and effort that they invested in personal prayer.

If those great righteous men who clung to Hashem and to His Torah with all their being and all their might invested so much effort in personal prayer and asking Hashem to bring them close to Him, then one who is far away from Hashem should certainly pray continually in seeking Hashem’s proximity. One should ask Hashem to bring him closer, to help him do teshuva, and to help him learn, observe, and teach Torah. We all must beg Hashem to protect us from sin and from the influences of the evil inclination, both external and the one within us. Overcoming a single bad habit or bodily appetite in itself requires tenacity in prayer and repeated daily requests for compassion and Divine assistance in overcoming and correcting lusts and negative traits that separate between us and between Hashem’s light, Heaven forbid. A person must know that his or her personal salvation depends on prayer!

Frequently, people who have been learning Torah their entire lives come to me with their problems. I ask myself, what could be better than total absorption in Torah since three years old? Nevertheless, many of them are confused and stressed, often despairing and worrying about their respective tribulations and difficulties in life. They seem unable to escape the darkness that envelops them. Why? What are they lacking? They’re light years away from their personal salvation and redemption because they’re light years away from genuine prayer. Without prayer from the heart – and lots of it – they can’t possibly implement on a practical basis what they learn.

The best way to implement what we learn is to pray for it. One who learns day and night, even with the lofty intent that he will practice everything he learns, must nonetheless pray to do so. Furthermore, our sages tell us that if a person has no intention of implementing on a daily basis the Torah he learns, then he’d be better off not learning Torah at all. Since implementing the Torah depends on prayer, then one who doesn’t pray shows that he has no intention of putting what he learns into practice. Also, without prayer, one has no connection with Hashem, for prayer is the means whereby we connect to Hashem. Why learn Torah if one has no desire to connect with Hashem?

According to Rebbe Nachman’s teachings (see Likutei Moharan I:22), the expression of sincere Torah learning is when the light of Torah stimulates a person to prayer. When prayer is combined with Torah, a person steadily ascends the spiritual ladder, and comprehends today what was beyond his comprehension yesterday.

Rebbe Nachman adds (ibid, 25) that a person who prays for Hashem’s assistance in fulfilling the Torah he learns not only merits to find the truth and to attain a full understanding of what he has learned, but Hashem personally directs him on the path of truth and righteousness. More than anything, Hashem derives enormous gratification from a person who brings his Torah learning into his prayers.

Prayer builds receptacles for Divine abundance. Without prayer, a person can’t absorb the light of the Torah that he learns. Without Torah, a person remains an ignoramus; there is no way that he can properly observe Hashem’s commandments, for he doesn’t know what’s permissible and what’s forbidden. But, learning alone is not sufficient. It’s no simple task for the heart to internalize what the brain has learned. That’s why we need extensive prayer, especially personal prayer. Prayer is an important part of observing the Torah.

Rebbe Nachman also teaches (ibid, 101) that acceptance of the yoke of Torah and intensive learning of Torah is conducive to overcoming negative character traits. Apparently, it would seem that learning – especially intensive learning – is enough for character improvement. Yet, without prayer, the power of Torah could be misused to enhance and strengthen one’s negative traits rather than uproot them. Torah resembles atomic power: one can use it to illuminate a city or to destroy a city. Prayer assures that the power of Torah will be channeled into self-perfection rather than self-destruction, when a person uses the Torah to further inflate his ego or to disagree with truly righteous people.

A person needs extensive personal prayer to derive Torah’s true benefits. One must ask for Hashem’s help in learning Torah for the right reasons. There’s a gigantic difference between a person that learns Torah for prestige and for ego enhancement and a person that learns Torah for the sake of acquiring the love of Hashem, a pure heart, and a perfection of character. Therefore, we must all ask for Divine mercy in helping us use the fire of Torah in the proper way. We can’t leave this up to “luck”, for our sages said that Torah properly learned is the elixir of life, but if improperly learned, it’s a deadly poison, Heaven forbid.

Our prayers to learn Torah properly and to apply in our daily lives the laws and lessons that we learn should also be complemented with prayers of gratitude for whatever Torah we have been privileged to learn that particular day, no matter how much or little.