Weekly Story: Doing It Properly

by Rabbi Sholom DovBer Avtzon

I heard the following thought last Shabbos from Rabbi Eliyahu Landau (a son of Rabbi Yaakov Landau of Bnei Brak).

As always, your comments and feedback are appreciated. 

It used to be that weddings were smaller than nowadays, as then you only invited your really close friends. Nowadays, the parents look at the community list and in addition to inviting their close friends, they see who else they have to invite. After all, they don’t want anybody to feel insulted. And sometimes the second group is larger than the first group.

Now, when this person receives the invitation he shakes his head, wondering why he was invited. He thinks, “Yes, we daven in the same shul, but we have nothing to do with each other beyond that. However, even though I have what to do that evening, I must go to the wedding or the host will be insulted.”

So the invitation was sent out in order that the person not be insulted and the person came in order not to insult the host, so tell me, once he is there, is he dancing with enthusiasm and adding to the celebration or is he merely going through the motions? 

If your answer is that he is going through the motions, the question becomes is he truly there mentally or is he there only physically? 

The answer is obvious. 

With this introduction, we can understand a statement at the beginning of chapter 123 in Shulcan Aruch. There it is stated that one who doesn’t take three steps backward after Oseh Shalom, it is as if he didn’t daven at all.

One can understand if it is considered as if the person didn’t daven properly.  But to say that he didn’t daven at all, how can you say that when we see that he did daven?!

The explanation is simple. When one is davening Shemoneh Esrei, he is talking with Hashem. When one is engaged in an activity and then has to take care of something else, he has to make some kind of separation between the two. Otherwise, the energy that he invested in the first thing will continue into the second thing.

Therefore, in order for him to be able to become involved in other affairs after Davening, he takes three steps backward, demonstrating that he was focused on his conversation with Hashem and is now shifting to what he is going to do now. However, when he doesn’t take three steps backward and immediately becomes involved in something else, that indicates that he was going through the motions but wasn’t really davening. Therefore, it is written as if he didn’t daven at all.

An obvious benefit is that once a person realizes that he is talking with Hashem, if a thought comes to mind that is not related to the davening then it is much easier to dismiss it. For after all, this thought is interrupting a conversation with none other than the Master of the Universe Himself.

As with most farbrengens, other aspects that are somewhat to the topic being discussed also come up. Here was no different.

Rabbi Landau mentioned that one Shemini Atzeres while the Radat”z (Reb Dovid Tzvi Chein) was making kiddush, someone asked why we say in the tefilla of Geshem “L’Chaim v’loh Lamuves” – To life and not to death. V’loh is a negative and La of Lamuves is also a negative and two negatives make a positive, which would then mean and to death.

When the Radat”z concluded reciting the Kiddish he said, “We are requesting that we shall live with life and not just that we are not dead.”

This thought should permeate every action of ours. When we daven or learn, as well as when we do a mitzvah, we should do it with vigor and enthusiasm, and not just read some words or mechanically do an action.

Rabbi Avtzon is a veteran mechanech and the author of numerous books on the Rebbeim and their chassidim. He can be contacted at avtzonbooks@gmail.com