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358 | A New Light
The fourteenth blessing, “He Who builds Jerusalem,” refers
to the building of the heart (ibid. 20, 24 and II 1). This means that
knowledge and faith will penetrate into the heart, as explained
regarding the blessing, “He Who gathers the scattered of Israel.”
Also, Jerusalem corresponds to faith (ibid. 22, 35 and 280). Jerusalem
was destroyed because of the fall of faith, and it will be rebuilt by
means of faith, which is knowledge.
In the fifteenth blessing, “He who causes the horn of salvation
to sprout,” we must have in mind the principal salvation, which is
the emergence from egocentricity and the attainment of knowledge.
We must look forward and hope that all of our aspirations and
intentions will be to attain knowledge, and that the entire nation
of Israel will want knowledge. Then, when the nation of Israel will
request knowledge, the horn of David will sprout—a reference
to the knowledge of faith and prayer (as stated earlier). As the
verse states: “Afterwards, the children of Israel will return and seek
Hashem their God, and David their king” (Hosea 3:5).
When we say the words, “because we have hoped for Your
salvation the entire day,” we must have in mind that we want to
see the salvation of Hashem: i.e., that all people in the world will
know Him and that the verse will be realized, “The earth will be
filled with the knowledge of Hashem like water covering the sea”
(Isaiah 11:9).
In the sixteenth blessing, “He Who hears prayer,” the
central intent is that Hashem will hear our prayer and give us the
knowledge that we ask for in all of the blessings. And we ask Him
to give us everything as an unearned gift. Therefore, we mention
Hashem’s compassion a number of times: “Have compassion on
us,” “Father of compassion,” “Accept with compassion and with
favor,” “Be gracious to us and answer us.” We emphasize Hashem’s
compassionate acceptance of our prayers twice: “because You are
a God Who hears prayers and pleadings,” and “because You hear
the prayer of every mouth.” These phrases tell that everything is
an expression of Hashem’s compassion and unearned kindness.
Hashem does not hear our prayers because we are deserving or
because we had intent in prayer. To the contrary, the fact that we
had intent, the fact that we want and seek knowledge, is itself due
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with and prevent purity of thought and deep feeling.
Whoever increases his regular practice of this will be
given increased purity in his thoughts while praying. And
this practice is a simple type of meditation.
Since prayer with deep feeling means something different for
different people, every individual must seek and beseech counsel
that is appropriate for him, and he must try with all his might to
pray at a time and in a place in which it is easy to be inspired to do
the work of the will. The halachic authorities state that every person
should do what he feels will help him concentrate: whether or not
to raise his voice, whether or not to sway back and forth, whether
to stand in one place or move from one place to another, “because
Hashem seeks all hearts” (Chronicles I 28). Let us conclude the topic
of how to pray with deep feeling by quoting the wonderful words
of the Nefesh Hachaim (ibid. chapter 12):
Our sages of blessed memory said, “I could absolve
the entire world from being judged for [imperfect]
prayer because, as the verse states, we are ‘drunk and
not from wine’ (Isaiah 51:21) [due to the exile]” (Eiruvin
65a).[If that was so then,] what will we say now in these
generations, when every person throughout his life is like
someone lying down with a wounded head, as though
he is in the midst of the sea, due to the burdensome
toil of earning a living. As a result, no one takes heed
to empty his heart and thought from the confusions
of his enormous troubles regarding the vanities of this
lowly world in order to prepare himself to encounter his
God, may His name be blessed. Nevertheless, certainly
every individual in accordance with his intellect
and understanding is obligated to take counsel and
seek stratagems in the obligatory war, in order to
escape the confusion of impure thoughts, so that
his mind will grow settled and he will be able to
properly engage in the service of prayer.