The Seven Explanations

Rav Chaim of Volozhin once spoke with the Gaon about tefillah, and the Gaon told him, “I was once shown from Heaven how awesome tefillah truly is. For twelve weeks I struggled to understand a passage in the Zohar about Rosh Chodesh, but it stayed unclear. Then one Rosh Chodesh, while I davened Shemoneh Esrei, seven different explanations of the passage came into my mind in a single moment.

“I asked myself what to do. Perhaps I could pause for a moment to organize my thoughts, but would that be a forbidden hefsek in my davening? In the end I did pause, for about fifteen seconds, organized my thoughts and went straight back to my davening. When I finished and tried to recall them, they had vanished completely. I was greatly troubled, and I spent half an hour calming my anguish so that I could say Hallel properly.

“When I stood to daven Mussaf, the same seven explanations came back to me. This time I did not interrupt my davening or pay any attention to them. When I finished, there they were, fully organized in my memory, all seven of them sweeter than honey.”

Rav Chaim remarked, “See how great and pure the Gaon’s thoughts were during tefillah, that even Torah ideas counted as foreign thoughts for him while he davened.”