Leah named her first son “Reuven, because Hashem has seen my poverty, and now my husband will love me.” The word because, ki, is used three times in this sentence. Her second she named Shimon, “because Hashem heard that I am hated and gave me also this son.” Ki is used two times here. “Her third, Levi, as “This time my husband will join me because I have given him three sons.” The word ki occurs once. Then, Yehuda, “This time I will give thanks to Hashem.” No ki at all. She saw her first three as gifts from Hashem to get her husband’s love and attention. The fourth was just seen as a gift from Hashem.
And another from the same gentleman:
Achen yesh Hashem bamakom haze veanochi lo yadati (There is G-d in this palce and I did not know)
Q: How do we become more aware (like Ya’akov) that Hashem is in this place?
A1: Rashi: We have to wake up and be aware of what we (anochi) already know.
A2: Kotzk: We have to set aside our Ego and make room (makom) for Hashem.
A3: Ludmir: We have to overcome preconcieved notions (lo yadati) that the cause of evil is other than Hashem.
A4: Mezritch: We have to strip away self-reflection (ie.being aware of something other then Hashem), for in truth there is only Hashem (yesh Hashem).
A5: Nachmani: We can’t allow sudden (achen) fear to paralize us from fullfilling our unique chain in history.
A6: DeLeon: We have to align our will with Hashem’s... in order to become one with Hashem and ourselves (yesh Hashem... veanochi).
A7: Ostropol: We have to feel Hashem working through our hands in this very place (bamakom).
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“And he took from the stones of the place and put them under his head” “And he took the stone from under his head” Rebbe Nachman writes in Torah 65, “The general rule is, we need to make a unity out of each whole Tefillah and every word that he speaks will contain all the words of the tefillah, and from the beginning until the end will be one tfillah.” For the 96% of us who do not have photographic memories, one way to approach this idea is to see that each prayer of the 19-part amidah is interconnected to the others. For example, our being (mentally and physically) healed will allow us to better receive Hashem’s blessing, to be redeemed, to be gathered together, to have peace. Our enemies are what prevent us from being healed as a people and as individuals, and therefore receiving blessing, etc. Da’at, knowledge, keeps us vulnerable to enemies, ill, immersed in self-guilt, untrusting of Hashem, etc.
Tfillah is a ladder. One of the many incredible things about ladders is, (and this is a very complicated concept,) when one climbs from the first wrung to the second one does not need to re-descend to the ground level in between. So too in tefillah, if the segments of one’s prayer are disconnected, then one is not really going anywhere. The gemarra in Brachot elucidates the reason for the order of the prayers, building toward a climax (perhaps the bowing of modim, Hashem is actually here! You’d better bow!!). There are infinitely many schemes that lead up to this climax – one student offered this: 1) Hashem is G-d, 2)who is strength and the source of strength 3) Hashem is Other, Holy 4) and the source of Da’at, knowledge 5) Once we have real knowledge, then we might truly ask forgiveness and 6) be redeemed, etc. This is not, however, linear. The sequence is not to only connect one and two, two and three, etc. Rather, one, two, and three should be contained in four as it is connected to five…. Kinda like a ladder….if you catch my drift….