Cry Out, Even for Small Things

Q: Are we really supposed to cry out for even relatively minor misfortunes?

A: Wise is the man who will use even the smallest misfortune to improve by calling out to Hashem and becoming more aware of Him.

You’re standing in your store and no customers are coming in. Why are you wasting that great opportunity?! Cry out to Hashem! “Ribbono Shel Olam! Please send me some customers!”

Opportunities like those are endless. Every day, all day long, there are bumps in the road. Just because there’s no taskmaster standing over you with a whip doesn’t mean you can’t use the opportunities of tza’ar in your life — from the smallest things to the biggest — to call out to Hashem.

Don’t let your Shemoneh Esrei go to waste! You mean to say you’re going to spend your years just mumbling your tefillos every day by rote and not thinking about Hashem?! Shemoneh Esrei is a gold mine. When you’re standing in a gold mine, even if you grab only one handful, you’re already a wealthy man. But you must know how to grab!

“If you’re not begging Hashem for mercy, if you’re not crying out and begging, your tefillah is not a tefillah” (Brachos 29b). You must daven like a poor man begging at the door of a rich man (Orach Chaim 98:3). It’s talking about a man without shoes; he’s hungry and cold, and he’s begging for something to eat. That’s a man who knows how to cry out! And that’s how we’re supposed to daven.

When you daven Shemoneh Esrei, concentrate on the gold mine of at least one brachah to say b’tachanunim, with feeling. Cry out to Hashem instead of running through the words. You have a cold? “Refa’einu, Hashem, v’neirafei!” Cry out! Trouble with parnassah? Cry out, “Bareich aleinu!” There’s fighting in the house, machlokess with your neighbor? Sim shalom!

Don’t just mumble the words to yourself. Cry out to Hashem! At least in your mind. At least inside you should be crying out. It should be a cry of the mind up to Hashem.

Sometimes things get more difficult. What that means is that Hashem wants even more awareness from you. When things are difficult with parnassah, you get desperate. You were hoping this job would work out or maybe this deal would go through, but nothing is happening. You’re at wit’s end! Your rich uncle won’t take your phone calls, the bank won’t lend you more money, and welfare won’t pay the bills. So you have to cry out to Hashem. Oh, that’s a hatzlachah! That’s more important than your parnassah!

Now, once we understand that the purpose of tefillah is awareness of Hashem, so you’ll see that we’re not talking only about tefillah when something already happened. We’re also talking about tefillah that bad things shouldn’t happen. Tefillah kodem l’tzarah — how important that is! When you fall on your arm after Shemoneh Esrei and say Tachanun, don’t just rush through and mumble the words. Tachanun is tachanunim — you’re crying out and entreating Hashem for mercy. “Rachum v’chanun — Hashem, You’re the merciful One.” Say it with feeling. Mean it! “Please, Hashem, don’t rebuke me in Your anger. Please don’t chastise me in Your wrath.” Be wise enough to call out to Hashem before the tzarah even comes. Why wait, chalilah? Maybe it will be too late then. “A man should always pray before he needs something, before the troubles set in” (Sanhedrin 44b).

That’s a real sign of yiras Hashem, when you are always aware of what could be — so many things can go wrong in a man’s life, and you must cry out to Hashem so that He should save you from them all. That’s the system Hashem set up for mankind. That’s His prescription for the world. So if you say to Hashem, “I’m going to cry out to You even when there’s no trouble,” you are fulfilling His prescription of yiras Hashem in the best way possible.