Rav Stavsky resides in Beit Shemesh, Israel.

A message from Rav Stavsky:

The Language of Being and Prayer

You saw that the Lord Gd formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. In the creation of man there are several stages. The Creator of the world makes man, which is the language of correction. He creates man and gives form to his soul and body. Something new comes a out, brings out life from power to action and then man’s thought into action. But there is also the language of being, and man became a living soul, the language of action, creation, creation of being. All this is the totality of man. The totality we can connect to the Infinite One, blessed be He, through prayer.

 Since man is built from the lower and the upper, all the lower aspects wants to ascend Above. This is also the language of a wick. Yes, prayer is a wick. You can ignite man. Therefore, the question is not only how to connect the soul, which is the content, but also to connect the physical framework. How do you direct the body to the Creator of the world? Our class on Tefillah/prayer will be discussing this.  

Rav Stavsky on Prayer and the Baal Shem Tov [Shiur 4]

[Notes from his Hebrew video]

A few things and then we will get into the parables.

What did our teacher, the Baal Shem Tov, innovate in the work of prayer for Am Yisrael?

First, he renewed the faith of every simple Jew that his prayer is important and heard by the Creator, the Blessed One. At that time, about 300 years ago, there was a kind of disdain among the educated class toward the simple people, as if their prayer was not worth it because they did not know, did not study enough, did not know how to work with the Gemara. The simple people began to feel “apparently, they are not and maybe their prayer does not work. Perhaps, Gd forbid, the Holy One, blessed be He, is fed up with their prayer.

Of course, this is explicitly against the Gemara--the Holy One, blessed be He, is not fed up with the prayer of many. And after all, prayer is prayer, a work that is from the heart of the heart, not just the intellect. Yes, intellect is external and the heart internal. Yes, desire is the main dwelling of the heart. And prayer is the ascension of the will. Yes, and the Baall Shem Tov prayed for the revelation of the will of Gd, for much grace and clouds of truth. The Baal Shem Tov had to reinforce some things that were forgotten at that time and he could hear the prayer of every mouth, even explicit verses will even be forgotten. In exile, many things are forgotten. Its just that when you see things before your eyes, you suddenly remember the words of the Torah, see an action, and remember a scripture. So the Baal Shem Tov had to strengthen his faith in his prayer so that my prayer would be heard.

The second thing is the renewal of the work and the person’s arrival in prayer, which until then, had been weak and mostly people prayed out of habit, by rote. In other words, a person invests himself in prayer, preparing himself. He rambles on in his siddur. He dwells on certain words, He invests himself in a particular issue, talking to Hashem, the Blessed One, about certain matters.

The Baal Shem Tov would say to his students, sometimes in this prayer he would tell the student to focus especially on this particular blessing in the standing position and to work on it, delving into that blessing. In all the blessings he would say to the Creator of the World, “Rise before the Creator of the World,” but on this particular blessing he would invest every single word and see with his heart that it was the most important thing for him, for his soul, for his poor status, and lack. And sometimes also in delving into the Shema this way or about accepting the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven, or the yoke of the commandments,  or yes, remembering all the commandments, etc.,-- issues that belong to him personally. So when the Chassid came to him and might say “I have an issue going on,” the Baal Shem Tov replies to him, “You think too much about yourself.” He told one of them, “All your illnesses and problems and all the narrowing of your soul, is because you think about yourself all day long.”

Always  we need a perception of being patient in order to aim for infinity, right? But all day long the Chassid ends up not seeing anything! The Chassid then reduces everything to all kinds of poor precisions, poor grammars, and therefore the Baal Shem Tov says to him, “ You will come out, and come out into a broadened space.”

Everything in the voice is found in prayer. It is work and work on all the powers of the soul—on all the levels of the soul within prayer. A Chassid said “ I worked and reached out in these matters but did not see. Prayer,” he continues, “is something that begins in the Siddur from page 2 to page 48 or so, and I have to go through it as quickly as possible to finish so I can get to work.” They thought that just saying it was enough.

And when the Baal Shem Tov had looked inward with all the ancient tradition (which is actually work on all the powers of the soul), it was the raising all the powers of the soul of the Creator of the world. For this you must work and laboriously strive towards.

The third thing that the Baal Shem Tov restored is the order of adhesion. That is, your soul (which is a part of Gd from Above and an inheritance from Above) needs to cling to mitzvot in order to connect to the Creator of the world. The part within us returns to the whole-- to the whole! meaning you connect the self to Infinity!

A person does not always feel it,  but one of the main things about prayer is to act on it. Just because you don’t feel it doesn’t mean you don’t act on it.

There is a difference between the action and your awareness of the action.

But devotion must be there, and we have these three great rules from our teacher, the Baal Shem Tov that he came long ago for us today to strengthen in matters of work; the work of prayer, faith, work, and devotion.

The work  and devotion is for us to strengthen our belief that “my prayer is worth it.” I must work, work hard, and invest in actions.

The third emphasis of the Baal Shem Tov is devotion and I must strive for devotion with the Infinite, Blessed be He, because I come from Him, and I want the connection with Him.

Rav Stavsky of Beit Shemesh, Israel, is now beginning a 22 week workshop on prayer based upon in-depth understanding of the Baal Shem Tov.

שיעור מספר 4

לגלות את עומק התפילה – לפי תורת הבעל שם טוב

מורנו הבעל שם טוב מדמה את התפילה למסע בארמון המלך – עלייה דרך ארבע קומות, קומה אחר קומה, עד שמגיעים למלך עצמו.

בסרטון מיוחד, הרב סטבסקי מסביר את המשל והנמשל, ומביא תובנות מרתקות על הדרך שבה התפילה מרוממת את האדם ומשפיע עליו

מוזמנים לצפות ולהכיר את העומק שבמשנת הבעל שם טוב על התפילה.

👇👇👇

https://youtu.be/axVwbxE4OPg?si=m5iz-rcWRrWnuQbZ

להצטרפות לקבוצת הוואטסאפ ולקבלת השיעורים הקצרים וכל התכנים החשובים.

לחצו כאן

https://chat.whatsapp.com/Ls8gIHrbSSJE1lK4hXUsR2