Illustration credit: Rebecca Kerzner
Prayer in the Parashah תְּפִלָּה
The Gemara (Bavli Berakhot 6b) explains that the verb לַעֲמֹד – which means “to stand” – actually refers to praying. What’s their proof? This pasuk from Sefer Tehillim, which describes how Pinhas stopped Benei Yisrael from worshiping idols:
וַיַּעֲמֹ֣ד פִּֽ֭ינְחָס וַיְפַלֵּ֑ל וַ֝תֵּעָצַ֗ר הַמַּגֵּפָֽה׃
Pinhas stood, va-yefalel, and the plague stopped.
The word וַיְפַלֵּל (va-yefalel) can mean something to do with judgment—meaning that Pinhas was able to judge who was guilty and stop them. But it also shares a שֹׁרֶשׁ (shoresh, root) with the word תְּפִלָּה (tefillah, prayer)!
So the Gemara is saying that Pinhas’s judgment – which our parashah describes as an act of violence – is also considered a kind of prayer. Why’s that? Because the goal of his action was to stop Benei Yisrael from worshiping idols.
The Gemara connects “standing” to prayer, and it also leads us to see that Pinhas’ “judgements” connect to prayer.
There’s a lesson here about what prayer is. To pray means to turn to God, and to turn away from things that distract us from God (like idolatry, in the case of Pinhas and Benei Yisrael).
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