The Need for Zmanim & Number of Tefillos

כיוון שגלו ישראל בימי נבוכדנצר הרשע during the time of Galus Bavel

נתערבו בפרס ויוון ושאר אומות ונולדו להם בנים בארצות הגויים.

The children who were born in galus, באותן הבנים נתבלבלה שפתם. Their language was very became very mixed up והייתה שפת כל אחד ואחד מעורבת מלשונות הרבה. It's a big mishmash.

כיוון שהיו מדברים אינם יכולים לדבר כל צרכם בלשון אחת.

They couldn't express themselves adequately in any one language ela be'shibush

שנאמר ובניהם חצי מדבר אשדודית ואינם מכירים לדבר יהודית וכלשון עם ועם.

Due to this impairment

ומפני זה כשהיה אחד מהן מתפלל תקצר לשונו לשאול חפציו ולהגיד שבח הקדוש ברוך הוא בלשון הקודש עד שיערב עמה לשונות אחרות.

He needed to again to have some kind of hybrid in order to express himself.

כיוון שראה עזרא ובית דינו כך עמדו ותיקנו להם שמונה עשרה ברכות על הסדר.

The Rambam tells us he understands that the background to the takana of Anshei Knesses HaGedola again was this linguistic impairment, the inadequacy that they had. והנה אם ירצה השם we'll try to in the future try to understand that a little bit, but for now let's just fast forward to halacha hei for the moment. וכן תיקנו שיהיה מניין התפילות כמניין הקורבנות. Ezra u'veis dino and Anshei Knesses HaGedola so they also then introduced that the number of daily tefillos would correspond to the

כנגד מניין הקורבנות שתי תפילות בכל יום כנגד שני תמידים.

So what jumps off the page here ve'omer darshani in the Rambam is that the way the Rambam describes the original de'Oraisa was that a person in halacha gimel we saw a person is

מדבר כפי יכולו ובכל עת שירצה וכן מניין התפילות כל אחד ואחד כפי יכולתו.

The Rambam emphasized three things: A, that there was no set text so a person just expressed themselves albeit in the structure of shevach bakasha vehoda'ah. There was no set time, it was whenever a person wanted and there was no set number of tefillos. So there was a development that people were no longer able to express themselves. So the Anshei Knesses HaGedola needed to respond to that. So why did they also then change the fact that how many times a day you daven was up to the person? They should have just addressed the problem. The problem was the linguistic impairment so they should have then said: okay, we can no longer say that it will be medaber kifi yochlo, we're going to give you a text, but then it should still be ובכל עת שירצה and it should still be וכן מניין התפילות כל אחד ואחד. It's clear that according to the Rambam that again there was something very very far reaching in the takana of Ezra u'veis dino when they introduced a set text for tefillah so they almost totally transformed tefillah from something which was just a personal expression and now it has a fixed text. The other two aspects that a person daven ובכל עת שירצה and how many times a day he wanted, that's all one, that's all a chativa achas with the fact that it was personal expression. Kol zman that it was personal expression, so then a person expressed himself again albeit within shevach bakasha vehoda'ah, that subjectivity so that's what also allowed for the ובכל עת שירצה and the minyan ha'tefillos being as many as a person wanted. Once Ezra u'veis dino, once their hand was forced as it were by again by that linguistic decline and it was no longer one's personal expression so then there's no there's no rationale and there's no basis for just getting up and repeating someone else's text as many times as you decide or whenever you decide. Now Chazal also had to introduce zmanim and minyan hatefillos and then in the be'ezrat Hashem we'll talk. And the question which I'd like to ask today is, what is the status of the tefillos of shacharis, mincha, and maariv? Are they tefillos of bakasha, of petition, or are they tefillos of shevach, of praise? Are they tefillos of viduy? Because if they are tefillos of shevach, then it doesn't matter what your personal situation is. If it's tefilla of bakasha, then there has to be a relevant request. We also have to understand whether there is a difference between shemoneh esrei, which we call tefilla par excellence, and the rest of the davening. Let's look at the gemara in Berachos on דף כו עמוד א. The gemara there asks: tefillos kineged what were they tikon? And we have two de'os. One is tefillos avos tiknum. And the other is תפילות כנגד תמידין תקנו.