Tefillah - 129 Awaiting Salvation

Awaiting Salvation: Awaiting Hashem’s Face

The blessing of את צמח דוד concludes with the prayer of, לישועתך קיוינו כל היום – “We await Your salvation, every day.”

Many times we mention the word “yeshuah” (salvation) in this blessing. We await the yeshuah – we await the future salvation.

A person has the nature to await salvation from his painful situation, but there is a deeper way to use this power. “Yeshuah” is from the word ‘shaah’, which means ‘poneh’, to turn. A person doesn’t just await salvation - he awaits a situation of “poneh”, that Hashem be ‘poneh’ to him – that Hashem turn to him.

‘Poneh’ is also from the words “panim b’panim” (face to face) – hinting to us that a person has a deep yearning that Hashem turn to him face-to-face. That is the deep reason of why we await the yeshuah: so that we will enjoy a relationship with Hashem that is panim b’panim, face-to-face.

So we don’t just await the yeshuah because it will simply take us out of pain. It is because we want Hashem to really turn to us.

Yearning For Hashem

Most people want the yeshuah to simply come out of painful situations. But the real way to await yeshuah is as we say in this blessing of Shemoneh Esrei - that we await the uplifting of the Keren Dovid (pride of David), that it be lifted high; that is what the yeshuah is all about.

Thus, awaiting yeshuah is not simply about coming out of exile, but about the yearning to see the panim of Hashem – when we will see face-to-face with Hashem.

Without this yearning, a person doesn’t really await yeshuah. He merely wants to come out of exile, but he doesn’t want the actual yeshuah, which is to yearn for a “face-to-face” kind of closeness with Hashem.

We yearn, deep down, for the situation of “panim b’panim” with Hashem – this is the deepest yearning of our soul. We all have this yearning deep down, but it is not revealed openly in most people’s lives. But we all have this yearning. Our entire yeshuah which we await for is really to see the “panim b’panim” of Hashem.

To Where Do We Turn To When We Feel Danger?

The more subtle meaning of this concept is as follows.

It is brought in the sefarim hakedoshim that if a person wants to know what his true spiritual level is, he can tell this by seeing what he’s like when he goes through a difficulty (nisayon). Sometimes we go through sudden tests, and sometimes the test are long and drawn out. How are we turning to Hashem during these times? To where are we being poneh? Where do we find ourselves turning to? What is the first address that we run to?

Let’s say a person has a health problem, or a problem with parnassah, or with a shidduch, or with chinuch. Where is the first place that he turns to when he needs serious help?

If a person is drowning and no one can help him, any person would cry out to Hashem to save him. Here it is definite that we will turn to Hashem to save us. But in the more common situations, when people are not so desperate, people to tend to place their trust in others and run to others for security, rather than Hashem.

For example: a person finds out he has a dangerous illness, and he immediately runs to finding out who the best doctor is, from all of the top doctors in the country. A person needs a job, and he immediately seeks someone who will land him the best job. A person wants his daughter to get a good shidduch, so he looks into the best seminary that has the best ‘name’ for his daughter’s resume. He wants his son to get into the top yeshivah, so he relies on a certain Rosh Yeshivah to get his son into the best yeshivah…

When we make hishtadlus (effort), that is fine, but where are we first being poneh to? Most people cannot figure it out and they don’t have time to think about it. As soon as a person runs into a trouble with anything, he usually has bilbul (confusion) and he loses his yishuv hadaas (calm mind). When people encounter difficulty and they try to remember where they were first poneh to, they usually don’t remember.

What we really need to do is that when we encounter difficulty, we need to clarify to where we are first being ‘poneh’ to. If a person first turns to Hashem, then that shows what he considers his main source of salvation to be, and it shows that his true spiritual level is to believe in Hashem’s salvation.

Turn To Hashem First

It’s not enough to wish for a yeshuah and to recognize that only Hashem can do it. That is also good, but the deeper response is that a person has to realize that he is being poneh to Hashem, because that is the whole purpose of why he went through the situation!

The purpose of all that we go through - our goal in life - is to be ‘poneh’ to Hashem. That is our purpose on this world. So when someone has a difficulty and he first turns to Hashem for help before doing anything else, he has succeeded in channeling his nature of dependency on others for help, to instead feel reliant on Hashem.  

First Be Grateful To Hashem For What You Have

However, although this is true, there is more to it that is needed. Our connection to Hashem should not be based on times of difficulties!

Difficulties can definitely aid in our connection to Hashem, as we see from the entire concept of tefillah: we daven even for what we lack. What we lack, though, is only one aspect of tefillah, and it is not everything. The main aspect of our relationship with Hashem is to realize what we do have, and to build our relationship with Hashem from that.

Our connection to Hashem should not be based on turning to Him to give us what we lack. If our bond with Hashem is based on turning to Him in difficulty, then although this will help us gain in that we feel dependent on Hashem, we will still be missing a major part of our bond with Hashem.

We have to thank Hashem for the past – and we need to get used to this before our difficult situations come - so that we have already developed a bond with Him before we ask Him to save us from difficulty. We will then be ‘poneh’ to Hashem when difficulties come our way and ask Him to fulfill what we lack, because we already have been poneh to Hashem beforehand (by thanking Him for what we have).

Thanking Hashem

To practically work on this, we need to thank Hashem on a regular basis. We need to see where we first turn to when we have a problem. In order to get this to be our first reaction, we need to get used to thanking Hashem on a more regular basis, and that should be the basis of our connection to Him.

The Deeper Aspect of The Relationship With Hashem: We Are One With Hashem

There is yet a deeper aspect to be aware of.

In Creation, man is called the ‘giver’, and woman is the ‘receiver’. In the sefer of Shir HaShirim, Hashem is called the chosson (groom) and we, His people, are called the kallah (bride). If so, we have a relationship of always ‘receiving’ from Hashem. So besides for how we need to thank Hashem first and only after ask for what we are missing, there is a deeper aspect to our relationship with Hashem: we must feel dependent on Hashem.

The depth of this is because we are really ‘one’ with Hashem; “Hashem, the Jewish people, and the Torah, are one.”

Thus our bond with Hashem is not defined by the fact that Hashem will give me what I need, nor is it because He has given to me in the past. It’s not mainly about what Hashem gives us; that’s only one side of the coin.

The deeper aspect is, that “Hashem and Yisrael are one”. Not only did He “give” us the Torah and we “received” it; that’s not all there is to our relationship with Hashem. The depth of the bond is that we are really ‘one’ with Hashem!

So when we are ‘poneh’ to Hashem, we can turn to Him from our very havayah (existence). The reality of the Jew’s soul is that it is deeply connected to Hashem.

The Levels of How We Relate To Hashem: Receiving, Thanking, and Oneness

The lower aspect of our relationship with Hashem is that we ask Hashem to fill what we lack. The higher aspect of our relationship with Hashem is to recognize that we are the takers and that Hashem is the Giver, because the Jewish people are like the kallah and Hashem is like our chosson.

A higher level than this is to thank Hashem for what He gave us and to build our relationship on that – on what we received already, and not about what we will get.

But the highest aspect of the relationship – which is the main way to turn to Hashem - is about turning to Hashem because He is called the “rock of my heart and portion”. Besides for recognizing the reality of Hashem, there is no other ‘real’ reality to us.

The give-and-take relationship we have with Hashem is not all there is to the relationship, although it is certainly true that we take and He gives to us. The inner point is to turn to only Hashem Himself; we do this through Torah and mitzvos, but our entire direction of our Torah and mitzvos should be because we should want to turn to Hashem Himself.

Knowing about the reality of Hashem is the purpose of Creation. It is the desire for Ain Od Milvado, to know that Hashem is One and there is nothing else besides Him which we need to time to.

When we realize this - when we agree with conviction that this is the reality - then we are poneh to Hashem because Hashem is our whole life, and it is not about what we personally need. It is about the relationship itself.

Aspiring For Oneness With Hashem

In the depths of our soul we have the power to realize that we have no “private life” of our own. The whole idea that people feel like they have a “private life” - besides for our life with Hashem - is all an imagined reality that a person forms for himself. Our real existence turns to Hashem - just to turn to Hashem Himself, with no personal motive.

These words are about the purpose of Creation. We can’t always experience these words every second of our life, because that is too high of a level. But we need to always be headed in this direction. The words here describe the purpose of life (to feel more and more the reality of “Ain Od Milvado”) and the more we draw ourselves closer to it, the more we are called a ben olam haba (destined for the World To Come).

Because these words are describing the highest level possible, we cannot live these words all the time 24|7 and only turn to Hashem with no personal interest; that is too high of a level, and we will not be on this level until the future. But we await Moshiach and the Next World, and therefore, we must know where we are heading towards and try to draw closer to it.

Of course, we also need to daven for our own needs. But we should also have a few moments in our life where we daven to Hashem solely because we treasure our relationship with Him, and not because we want anything personal out of this.

In Conclusion

וקרנו תרום בישועתך, ולישועתך קיוינו כל היום- We ask Hashem to once again lift the Keren Dovid of the future, which is when all the panim (faces) of the world will be poneh to one thing alone: Hashem Himself.

The true yeshuah that all our souls await for, deep down, is not to so that we should be saved from all our material problems or even from our spiritual problems; it is to long for a world in which there will be nothing except turning to Hashem alone, with no other motivation other than to connect with Hashem Himself.

The more we expand this point in our soul, the more our soul lives a life of the Next World and is headed to the goal of Creation, which is to reveal Hashem Himself; and nothing else other than the full, revealed reality of Hashem.

When this understanding will fill the entire Creation in the future, the Keren Dovid will be raised with the rebuilding of the Beis HaMikdash. May it come speedily in our days, Amen.