Ch. 40 cont'd: A Healthy Thirst

The drive behind every healthy relationship is good chemistry or attraction. What builds our attraction to Torah, is prayer, nurturing a healthy desire for the Giver of the Torah. The Previous Rebbe explains that Prayer must consist of three aspects of knowledge - knowing yourself, knowing the significance of the request or the prayer experience, and knowing and appreciating the power of the One to whom we are praying (On the Teachings of Chassidus, Ch. 6).

The prayer experience is supposed to awaken in us a renewed realization of our need for G-d in our lives and his role in fulfilling our every need. From that posture, I can begin my relationship with the Torah, with the respect and desire befitting His wisdom. Respect and Desire, or Fear and Love, are the wings that elevate our learning or performance of the commandments and raise them above the doldrums of the mundane.

By the way, prayer doesn't happen just in a synagogue. It could take place on a bus, in the kitchen or in your office. Whenever I step out of the noise of my present situation and reflect about something that is bothering me - my own role in helping or hurting someone, my needs and desires for myself, my family or the world, I'm creating a prayer state. At the same time, I have to also make sure that all three parts are equally represented.

Usually, it's easy to know the significance of what you need- that is what is weighing on me so heavily and dragging me away from concentrating on the present. Most people, also, as we get older have a better and better sense of who is the person asking - how much am I deserving of what it is that I'm asking for, and what am I doing on my own to make a vessel for receiving it. What I find most difficult usually is appreciating the power of G-d and His ability to instantaneously release us from what seem like a hopeless situation.

After all, having simple faith and trust in G-d is a lifetime's work - but we have to know that every prayer state has to involve this aspect as well. That is the power of the words of prayer we recite on a daily basis, Morning, Afternoon, and Night. They are the universal and eternal expression of our simple faith in G-d's constant involvement in giving us, and the rest of creation, what we need when we need it.

Prayer fuels our "attraction" to G-d and therefore to his wisdom as accessible in the words of the Torah. When a person realizes their attraction to another person, they want to immediately find a way to get closer to that person, to have a conversation with them, to express your passion in their own way. The Torah is an outlet for that passion. As the Alter Rebbe himself brings the quote from the prophet - one who is thirsty should go to water. Once you are thirsty for G-d, you should know that He is waiting to speak to you, for you to call out to him through the learning of Torah.