Tefillah 7 – Simcha & Yira

Tanu Rabanan.

אין עומדין להתפלל לא מתוך עצבות ולא מתוך עצלות ולא מתוך שחוק ולא מתוך שיחה ולא מתוך קלות ראש ולא מתוך דברים בטלים אלא מתוך שמחה של מצוה.

The launching pad for Tefilla is Simcha shel Mitzva, the Braysa says. Simcha shel Mitzva. Tosfos sees this not as an alternative, not as a competing mode of preparation to what the Mishna says of אין עומדין להתפלל אלא מתוך כובד ראש because Tosfos al hadaf 31 says that

ולכן אין מתפללין מתוך קלות ראש ושחוק אלא מתוך כובד ראש ושמחה של מצוה כגון שעסק בדברי תורה ולכן נהגו לומר פסוקי דזמרה ואשרי קודם לתפילה.

Psukei d'zimra and Ashrei is supposed to generate a Simcha shel Mitzva. So let's try to understand how is Simcha shel Mitzva the way of creating the frame of mind and the way of creating the proper mindset for Tefilla. Rather the Simcha shel Mitzva is a דבר העומד ברומו של עולם, so that we know, the Rambam at the end of Hilchos Lulav where the Rambam just tells us to take seriously the pasuk

תחת אשר לא עבדת את ה' אלהיך בשמחה ובטוב לבב.

So that's clear. I would have thought that when the Rambam in Perek daled of Hilchos Tefilla tells us how to prepare for Tefilla, so that we understand, right, that we can relate to: יפנה לבו מכל המחשבות, have to clear your mind, and you have to think about your encounter, the impending encounter with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and not just Simcha shel Mitzva. So let's try to understand a little bit about Simcha in general, about Simcha shel Mitzva in particular. There is a din that אין נושאין נשים במועד because אין מערבין שמחה בשמחה, because you're not supposed to be me'arev Simchas Nisuin with Simchas Yom Tov. So therefore אין נושאין נשים במועד. Now lichora, I don't know if I'd been consulted, I would have had a simple logistical solution. There's plenty of time to be sameach with both. It's 24 hours in a day and there's plenty of time to give each its shiur. Ella mai, the pshat is like this: if you take a look in the Rambam in Hilchos Yom Tov where the Rambam describes the Seder Hayom on Yom Tov day. Yom Tov night the Rambam lets you go to sleep and catch a few winks, but Yom Tov day, so the Rambam programs from morning till night. From morning davening kevasikin is the mashmaos in the Rambam. How exactly that shtims with Gemara in Megilla, מאי אחרא מאי פריס is a different story, but the Rambam says משכימין לבתי כנסיות ולבתי מדרשות and the entire morning you spend davening and lerning other than a little kiddush, and then the entire afternoon you spend in the chatzi lachem with achila u'shsiya other than Mincha. And the Rambam has the entire day is devoted to Simchas Yom Tov. So the pshat is that Simcha carries with it a notion of hispashtus. Wherever the simcha, simcha is supposed to be all-encompassing. If there's a mitzvah of simchas yom tov, so that means that simchas yom tov is supposed to dominate the day. Simchas yom tov is supposed to mispashet and dominate the day. So mimaila is אין מערבין שמחה בשמחה, because by definition simcha is exclusive. By definition simcha, simcha dominates, because simcha has an equation between simcha and hispashtus. Now, that being the case, now we even find this idea that simcha again is just all-encompassing and dominates. We even find that in the I guess the guf beli neshama of simcha is holelos, what in modern society is called humor. Even there you see that you tell people you tell people a joke. So if the joke's good enough, so it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter how down the dumps they are, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter what what what very trying situations they find themselves in, you're able to let them be distracted and forget everything else. And for a minute as long as until the until the joke wears off, for a minute they if the joke's good enough maybe you'll keep them in the situation for two minutes, but as long as as long as you're able to hold them in the grips of the humor, so they takeh don't think of anything else. Why? It's the same koach, same koach of simcha, of hispashtus. So these are very beautiful I think it's a letter here from from the Sfas Emes, it's in in a likut of the Sfas Emes on tefillah. So in the course of this letter he touches on, he touches on a few phrases from tefillah, so it's reprinted here. על ידי חשבון גדול שכר המצוה. The Sfas Emes in his ksovim on Torah, so the Sfas Emes wrote half sentences. He wrote very much bekitzur and it requires tremendous amount of yegia ve'amala to to appreciate, על אחת כמה וכמה to begin to fully appreciate. Here in this letter he wrote more ba'arichus. It's easier to be doleh pninim. So he writes as follows.

על ידי חשבון גדול שכר המצוה שאדם זוכה לעשות רצון הקדוש ברוך הוא.

Person thinks to himself, schar mitzvah,

שכר מצוה מה שאין שום בריה זוכה לזה שאף מלאך אינו עושה אלא שליחות אחת.

A malach is just created for one shlichus. He doesn't have taryag shlichusim.

ומה גם שכתבו חז"ל שיש להקדוש ברוך הוא נחת רוח ממצוה של אדם יותר ממלאכי עליון וכל המלאכים מצפים שאדם מישראל יעשה מצות המקום באהבה כי כל העולמות תלוים במעשי האדם.

When a person realizes the zchus that he has in doing a mitzvah, when a person realizes the incredible sachar which awaits him for doing a mitzvah.

אם יזכור זה אף הפחות שבישראל צריך להיות מלא שמחה וחדוה שזכה לעשות נחת רוח להקדוש ברוך הוא.

Person should be so filled with simcha that he's given the the indescribable privilege of doing something which again kaveyachol brings a nachas ruach to the Ribono Shel Olam. What should the result be? עד שצריכים לשכוח כל ענייני עולם הזה בשעה זו. Why? Because what's the pshat? It's what we were saying before, because simcha is mispashattus. Simcha dominates. When a person experiences a real simcha, so it's all-inclusive. It's all-encompassing. A person experiences a simcha shel mitzvah. Again, a simcha shel mitzvah means the simcha which accompanies, which informs the ma'aseh hamitzvah because a person recognizes the zchus that the Ribbono Shel Olam gives him to do the mitzvah, the zchus that the Ribbono Shel Olam gives us to do mitzvos.

אשר בחר בנו מכל העמים ונתן לנו את תורתו עד שצריכין לשכוח כל ענייני עולם הזה בשעה זו.

And kshe'adam margil atzmo, kshe'adam margil atzmo, bore'ach hayetzer hara and sitra achra mimela. And הכלל כי אין להם שייכות בשמחה של מצווה. And again, all this is understood in line with what we're saying, because simcha dominates. If a person allows himself, works on himself to feel a simcha shel mitzvah, so there's no room for anything else. The same way a full-fledged simchas Yom Tov doesn't leave room for anything else, אין נושאין נשים במועד, because the simchas Yom Tov should spill over, should be mispashet to include everything, so too a simchas mitzvah should dominate a person's consciousness. That being the case, so then we understand very well what the braisa is talking about. Ein hachi nami, the braisa also is seeking to effect that same and create the same frame of mind that the Rambam is talking about. For a person to be omed bitfila, he has to be יפנה לבו מכל המחשבות. Ella mai says the braisa, if a person experiences a genuine simcha shel mitzvah, so then what's the only thing that's on his mind at this point? If a person had a genuine simcha shel mitzvah, the only thing that can be on his mind at this point is the Ribbono Shel Olam. צריך לשכוח מכל ענייני עולם הזה. The incomparable zchus of whatever mitzvah I was involved in, whether it's maybe it's the mitzvah of that the Ribbono Shel Olam wants to hear, wants to hear us repeat the divrei shevach u'tehillah of Dovid Hamelech. That incomparable, indescribable zchus, the simcha shel mitzvah that generates, so the only thing on a person's mind is the Ribbono Shel Olam and is the zchus of doing this mitzvah. If that's the case, that's taka hachana litfila. It's taka hachana litfila, עד שיפנה לבו מכל המחשבות. That's exactly what a real deeply founded and deeply experienced simcha shel mitzvah will create. The question then is, so if this simcha shel mitzvah is so dominating and so all-encompassing, so how does it coexist with a koved rosh? How does Tosafos tell us that when the braisa says אין עומדין להתפלל אלא מתוך שמחה של מצווה, that that's not competing with the mishna of koved rosh, but it's something which is complementary? But especially, the kasha is there either way, even without anything we said the kasha is there because lichora we sort of associate simcha and yirah with very different frames of mind, very different frames of mind, but על אחת כמה וכמה the kasha is there according to what we're explaining, that the teva of simcha is again to be mispashet and to be all-encompassing. So the answer is, the answer is not so much logical in terms of sechel v'enoshi as it is factual. And that is, there is a Tanna Devei Eliyahu that is much quoted in sifrei Chassidus. The Tanna Devei Eliyahu has the following lashon, that yir'asi mitoch simchasi and simchasi mitoch yir'asi. The Tanna Devei Eliyahu says that my yirah gives rise to simcha and my simcha gives rise to yirah. Yir'asi mitoch simchasi, simchasi mitoch yir'asi. Al derech remez, al derech agada, so that l'chorei is the pshat in לעלות ירושלים על ראש שמחתי, so Yerushalayim is loshon yira, it means that what crowns the simcha is the yira and what crowns yira is simcha. So how do we understand it? Again, so on one level it's a fact. That's what we're told, that yira and simcha, despite the fact that on, sort of on, in the human realm they don't necessarily coexist, they're not necessarily compatible, but in avodas Hashem they do coexist, they are compatible. A little bit of havana in it I think we can have in the following sense. And then even this we have a little bit of a me'ein, right? Ribono Shel Olam created the world in such a way that we should have a me'ein of spiritual matters in this world as well so that we can have a little bit of a hasaga, a little bit of a tfisa of what it's about. Sometimes you'll hear people describe an experience as on the one hand it was thrilling, it was exhilarating, but on the other hand they had goosebumps. You hear such a description sometimes. The source of simcha, when a person, the deeper and more genuine and more profound the sense of simcha is that a person has, the source of that simcha is Oz v'chedva bimkomo, that the source of simcha is when a person feels connected to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, that's a tremendous source of simcha. That's again in the simchas halev, the source of simchas halev is that connection, that feeling of closeness to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. But when a person is zoche to experience that feeling, it's impossible for a person not to simultaneously also have a sense of yira. And Hakadosh Baruch Hu, on the human level it's hard to, it's very uncommon and usually there's an unresolvable tension between something being a source of simcha and something being a source of yira. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is a source of both. The sense of kirva to Hakadosh Baruch Hu is the source of simcha and yet that gufa is also a source of yira. Through simcha a person comes closer to Hakadosh Baruch Hu but the closer he is to Hakadosh Baruch Hu the greater the yira is. The yira leads to a hisbatlus which brings him closer to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, he comes closer to Hakadosh Baruch Hu he feels the simcha. Simchasi mitoch yirasi, yirasi mitoch simchasi. And that's what the braisa says, yeah, there's taka a din in the mishna of אין עומדים להתפלל אלא מתוך כובד ראש, there's also a din that אין עומדים להתפלל אלא מתוך שמחה של מצוה and there's no incompatibility there. The hisbatlus brings a person closer to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, helps him feel simcha, the simcha which is mispashetet, the simcha of having a zchus to fulfill a mitzvah of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu entrusts us to do a mitzvah and that Hakadosh Baruch Hu says that this is important, that this is something that he reacts to as it were. So that tremendous sense of simcha and ahava and hiskarvus to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, a person feels that, he simultaneously feels a sense of eima v'pachad as well, and hence these two states are entirely compatible and l'chorei that's the pshat in the braisa of how the simcha shel mitzvah is a hachana for tfila.