Amidah: Refaeinu 3/4/10 Part Four
Transcribed and prepared by Chava Janovsky:
Exercise on
How to Apply These Ideas to Different Brachas
- Do you ever see someone who is hurting themselves because they are not thinking clearly? Before I would daven for myself self in “ata chonane” I would daven for this other person to be granted the necessary clarity to stop hurting themselves
- Do you ever see someone who has good instincts but does not trust them enough to follow up and ends up getting hurt? I would daven for that person before daven for my own needs when asking for bina
Question: if you would take time to pause for people who are not clear about things it would take a half an hour if did this for everyone – how can you practically do this?
Answer: half hour? (laugh) maybe for you because you know the highest quality people. For someone like me it would really take days . I am not saying do for everyone for who you are davening, but need to expand your davening beyond yourself as a first step
How do you do this? By not focusing on you
If you say – grant everyone the daas they need – how much am I going to relate to that?
Heal everyone? How much am I going to relate to that?
Help everyone do teshuvah? Does that really resonate inside of you?
It all sounds like another religion that says love everyone
Class: But we do say in Torah:“Love everyone as yourself”
Answer: But we say “Camocha” – needs to be camocha, we need to have a certain level where you are relating to; but you can’t love everyone the same
So you need to practice and train yourself how to daven with empathy beyond yourself. Once you can reach beyond yourself then you can daven for the Clal: you can daven for a group of people, you can daven for individuals, etc.. But to just say “give everyone the daas they need…” what is that? How does that resonate with you? If does not resonate on a personal level with you then it is not real.