More than Gefilte Fish

 

In Forest Fields, Part 56

 

The rule is that anyone who truly yearns to do teshuva must learn how to pray. For teshuva requires the "labor of the heart", to deal with the fundamental internal points of Judaism, to correct his middot one by one, and to nullify his earthly desires one by one, until he has nullified them completely – something that can be attained only through prayer. To do so, one must stand in front of G-d for a continual and lengthy period of time each day for several months, and plead for that particular trait to be corrected.

 

For a person to be called "religious," he doesn’t need to learn how to pray.   He can suffice in reading from the prayer book along with everyone else, and after one hundred and twenty years can earn the grade "100" in reading skills… Yet if he wants to truly do teshuva, he must learn to pray. For a person cannot truly alter anything without continuous daily prayer. A person can eat gefilte fish on Shabbat be "religious" for a million years, and not merely "religious" but be someone who studies all day long and does mitzvot, yet remain unchanged from within. He may remain with all his negative character traits and physical desires.

 

Furthermore, even if a person does hitbodedut daily – if he does not commit himself to praying on a regular and consistent fashion for a particular matter – he will never realize a true fundamental change in himself. It is true that if he devotes himself to daily "self-examination" he will merit yirat shamayim (awe of Hashem) and avoid transgression, and surely his prayers won’t go to waste and he will be an upright individual. He he will not be able to be cleansed from within of any evil that he possesses, and will spend his life in battle with those evil inclinations.

 

On the other hand, if one begins to practice daily concentrated prayer, every few months dedicated to another issue, he will begin to see true and significant changes. To discover the validity of this claim one does not have to wait years; even after a week of such concentrated prayer, one will feel significant change taking place.   In this way, he will know that he has found the true path to redeem himself of all his earthly desires and bad character traits. He will understand that prayer is redemption!

 

Give Yourself a Chance

 

Every person who cares about himself will give this a try: Concentrate for one week on one particular issue, and for a half an hour or one full hour daily do hitbodedut on only that sole issue. On your own, you will already understand what we are speaking of here. For one practicing this kind of hitbodedut will already see results, and will experience renewed vitality and faith in his prayers; he will not only believe – but see – that through his prayers he can acquire and repair all things.

 

If a person does not give himself this opportunity, he will bring despair upon himself, when he realizes that another day and yet another passes, another Rosh Hashana and then another, year after year, and still he has not attained any true significant change – so why wouldn't he feel despair? He simply is getting himself accustomed to the notion that he cannot do teshuva. And so for him to begin to believe in himself, to believe in the strength of his prayer and believe that he can truly do teshuva, he must take this "project" upon himself at least for one week, to pray for a half hour or preferably for one straight hour on a single specific character trait that needs improvement. He will surely see results and receive great strength to continue and make true repentance.

 

All of this is relevant to both men and women. Women too must labor to nullify their bad character traits and earthly desires. Every man, woman, boy and girl must do teshuva; there are no exceptions. A soul is brought down in order to do teshuva. Without anything to correct, a soul has no need to descend to this world at all. 

 

The main element of prayer is to simply request again and again whatever we desire. Even speaking the same words daily over and over, such as “have mercy on me” or “help me to overcome this issue” will already have a dramatic effect with a week or two. With perseverance, we soon see the fruits of our prayers and witness the first ray of light at the end of the tunnel. We begin to understand that the path of personal prayer leads to our entire personal salvation. Even though we must pray for months in order to correct one single trait, we’ll already sense a change for the good after one week. 

 

A person owes himself this important favor, to strengthen himself through prayer and to believe in his prayer. If he follows our advice as prescribed here, he will begin to believe in his own prayer, and will recognize that he truly has found the direction to do complete teshuva.

 

To be continued.