Massei. Sending Gifts to the Internees of the Arei Miklat

Makkos 11a– the Kohein Godol’s mother used to send packages of food to the internees so that they shouldn’t be mispallel for her son’s death. R Meir Zvi Bergman in his Sha'arei Orah II, pp.215-217 asks, how would this help? Would nice food replace freedom and make imprisonment tolerable?

He answers that the packages would make them sympathize a little with the Kohein Godol’s mother, and so their tefillos would not be 'b’leiv sholeim,’ their prayers would not be with a whole heart. There is something called tefillah b’leiv shaleim, and there is something else called tefillah that is not b’leiv shaleim. A tefillah b’leiv shaleim is a powerful thing; but even a little dilution makes a critical, an essential difference. When a person is praying that someone should die, sympathy with his victim is a distraction. His sympathy would compromise his ‘yichad leiv.’

Also, see Mo’ed Kotton 18b: Ein nos’in nashim b’moeid, but if he’s afraid that someone else will get her, he can be me’areis. Gemora asks, but “arba’im yom...bas ploni l’ploni,” so why is there any concern? The Gemora answers that there is a concern that ‘shemo yikd’menu acher b’rachamim,” But it’s bashert! The Ribono Shel Olam was machriz! The answer is that a tefillah can change the course of history.

So we see that tefillah is a very powerful thing; it can change a gzeirah of a zivug, it can cause a Kohen Godol to die prematurely. And we have the opportunity to do this three times a day. But for tefillah to be this powerful, it requires a leiv shaleim, it requires yichad leiv. That is the tremendous avodoh of tefillah that we learn from the Gemara in Makkos. So the next time you daven, try to focus, try not to be distracted, and try to really understand what you are saying, and honestly and sincerely accept Hashem’s willingness to hear and give effect to your
tefillos.

A friend of mine who lives in Yerushalayim heard me deliver this drashah, and he made a wonderful addition. He said that he always wondered why it is that people’s klalos seem to be fulfilled more often than their brachos. Now, he said, he understands it: because when a person curses someone, he does it “mit zein gantzen hartz.”

This reminds me of the very German proverb, (I normally wouldn't quote it in German, but, as you will see, this is a saying that really sounds at home in German,) “Schadenfreude ist die schönste Freude, denn sie kommt von Herzen”: "Gloating over another's misfortune is the most superb kind of joy, since it comes directly from the heart."