Crying Out for the Shechinah: Moshe's Short Prayer

1“And Moshe cried out to Hashem, saying, ‘O God, please heal her, please.’”¹ The wording of the verse calls for a close look, as the Alshich has noted.² Of all the ten expressions for prayer, why does the verse choose vayitzak, “he cried out”?³ The words “to Hashem” also seem unnecessary, since we know that one prays only to Hashem. What is more, the verse goes on, “O God, please,” so it is plain that he cried out to Hashem; why, then, did it need to say first, “and he cried out to Hashem”?⁴ We must also understand the word leimor, “saying.” Wherever the Torah uses leimor, it means passing the words on to others, so what place does it have here?⁵ And why is the word na, “please,” said twice?

2We must also explain Rashi's words: “Why did Moshe not pray at length? So that Israel should not say, ‘His sister stands in distress, and he stands and prays at length.’”⁶ This is very puzzling: what complaint could anyone have about that? On the contrary, when a person is in great distress, he must pray at length and plead insistently!

3aWe can explain this as follows. We know that there are two levels of prayer. The lower level is when a person prays for his own needs, such as his livelihood and material things. If he has only his own need in mind, his prayer is not favorably received, and of this the holy Zohar says, “They cry out like dogs.”⁷ The higher level of prayer is when a person prays for the honor of Heaven, and his whole aim in praying is for the sake of the Shechinah.

3bWe may say that this is the meaning of the Gemara's words: “The early pious ones would wait one hour before praying, and then pray, so that they could direct their hearts to the Omnipresent.”⁸ During that hour before prayer, the early pious ones would pray and ask to be privileged to make their prayer for the honor of Heaven. That is “so that they could direct their hearts to the Omnipresent”: they asked that their prayer be for the honor of the Omnipresent and for the sake of the Shechinah alone. Along the same lines we can explain Chazal's teaching: “Do not make your prayer keva, fixed, but a plea for mercy and supplication before the Omnipresent.”⁹ Keva means the fixed things that people always need, such as livelihood and other material matters. So Chazal are saying: do not make your prayer only about fixed matters. Let it be a plea for mercy and supplication “before the Omnipresent,” arousing mercy for the sake of the honor of Heaven, which is with you in your distress.¹⁰

4When a person is privileged to pray for the honor of Heaven, he is helped as a matter of course in material things too, with healing and salvation. For Chazal said: “When a Jew is in pain, what does the Shechinah say? ‘My head is heavy.’”¹¹ And when a person prays over the pain of the Shechinah, no accusers stand against his prayer, and his request is fulfilled. As a result, every good flows down to Bnei Yisrael.

5This is what the verse teaches here with “And Moshe cried out.” A person cries out when the pain he feels runs deep. Moshe Rabbeinu's pain, and his cry, were above all over the pain of the Shechinah. That is why the verse says “and he cried out to Hashem”: solely for the sake of the honor of Heaven. This answers our first two questions.

6But Moshe Rabbeinu wanted his influence to reach the lower generations as well, so that they too would be privileged to pray for the honor of the Shechinah. So his prayer, both what he asked and what he intended, took in the generations to come. That is leimor, “saying”: passing it on to the generations. And that is why he said “O God, please”: to arouse mercy over the pain of the Shechinah, for the sake of the honor of Hashem's Name. He asked that the generations to come, in the merit of praying for the honor of Heaven, also be granted, as a matter of course, “please heal her”: healing and salvation in material things. That is why he said na, “please,” twice, and also used the Name Kel, “God,” which is the Name of mercy. For when one prays for the honor of Heaven, one is granted, as a matter of course, the attribute of mercy, the attribute of Kel, as in “The kindness of Kel is all the day.”¹²

7We may say that this is the meaning of Chazal's words “so that they should not say, ‘His sister is cast into distress, and he prays at length.’”¹³ Moshe did not want Bnei Yisrael to think that he was praying only for his sister in her distress, and that he prayed at length because her material distress was great. They would not have understood that he was praying for the honor of Heaven. So he did not pray at length, so that Bnei Yisrael would not come to think that a long plea over material distress is the way of prayer.

8May Hashem grant that we be privileged to pray for the honor of Heaven, and so receive every blessing as a matter of course, until the coming of the Redeemer. Amen, may it be His will.