Amidah: Review of Avot: Celebrating Potential

Transcribed and prepared by Chava Janovsky: Bracha of Avos: we are celebrating the potential of a human being. If you can have 3 humans; Avraham, Yitchak, and Yaakov who accomplish such unbelievable things that Hashem says: “I want to be called by their names,” meaning I want to be known as: Elokai (The L-rd of), Avraham, Elokai Yitchak, and Elokai Yaakov, then this means that every person davening to Hashem, face to face with Hashem, has the opportunity to accomplish so much in life that Hashem will say “I want to be know by their name.” This means it is possible for Hashem to say: “I want to be known as (insert your Name)”

It is an unbelievable thing but it is hard for us to accept it. It is a nice thing and a wonderful thing to believe but for any of us to take it as a reality that Hashem would want to be known by our name is hard. It is too much for us to believe. The reason for this difficulty in the belief is because we are closer in many ways to death than we are to life; we are closer to our limitations and more aware of our problems and limitations. Therefore we automatically focus on our limitations. This focus is why when we have a choice of focusing on the infinite potential as a neshuma or on our limitations we tend to focus on latter. This idea is why psychologists say that the negative affect, the power and impact of negative memories, is so much greater than the impact of the positive ones. We simply just focus on the negative more. And this is why the second bracha is resurrection of dead.