Why Aren’t You Davening for Me?

While Rav Dovid was raising funds to construct his yeshiva building, he told the members of his kollel one day that they were to blame for the fact that the building had not yet been built.

The avreichim stared at their rosh yeshiva in astonishment. They lived on shoestring budgets, following his own example, and none of them was in a position to help pay for a building.

Then Rav Dovid explained. “I don’t expect money from you,” he said. “But why aren’t you davening for me?”

In his view, the only true reality was spiritual. If construction was delayed, the cause was not a shortage of funds but a shortage of tefillah.