Why can't we pray whenever, wherever and however we want to? Shavuot 5778; Westhampton Beach Minyan

(1) Moshe received the Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Yehoshua, and Yehoshua to the Elders, and the Elders to the Prophets, and the Prophets transmitted it to the Men of the Great Assembly. They said three things: Be deliberate in judgment, raise up many disciples and make a fence for the Torah.

(7) Then he took the record of the covenant and read it aloud to the people. And they said, “All that the LORD has spoken we will faithfully do!”

(2) Know that a person is influenced by his actions and his intellectual and emotional life is conditioned by the things that he does, good or bad. Even if he is thoroughly wicked and his mind is dominated by evil thoughts the whole day long, if he bestirs himself and endeavors to be constantly occupied with the Torah and its mitzvot, though not with godly intent, he will inevitably veer towards the good. From the wrong motive will be led the right one and by the forces of his actions, he will kill the evil inclination, since it is actions that shape character.

(3) And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because on it God ceased from all the work of creation that He had done.

(17) God heard the cry of the boy, and an angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heeded the cry of the boy where he is.

And behold the main object in the tabernacle is the place that the Divine presence would rest, which is the ark, as He said (Exodus 25:22), "And I will meet with you there and I will speak with you from above the ark-cover." Therefore, He had the ark and the ark-cover precede here, as it has precedence in [its] level. And He placed next to the ark, the table and candelabra (menorah), since they are also vessels like it. And [then] they were instructed about the matter of the [actual] tabernacle, for which it was made. But in Parshat Vayakhel, Moshe had the tabernacle and the tent and the cover precede (Exodus 35:11) - and so did Betsalel (Exodus 36:8) - as it was appropriate to have it precede in the [actual] act. And the secret of the tabernacle is that the glory of God that dwelt on Mount Sinai, [also] hiddenly dwells upon it. And it is like it is written there (Exodus 24:16), "And the glory of the Lord dwells upon Mount Sinai," and it is written (Deuteronomy 5:21), "Behold, the Lord, our God, has shown us His glory and His greatness." And so [too] was it written about the tabernacle, "and the glory of the Lord, filled the tabernacle" (Exodus 40: 34)." And with the tabernacle, it twice mentioned, "and the glory of the Lord, filled the tabernacle" - corresponding to "His glory and His greatness." And the glory that was shown to them on Mount Sinai was always with Israel in the tabernacle. And when Moshe came [to it] (Exodus 34:34), the [Divine] speech that spoke to him at Mount Sinai [came] to him. And as [Moshe] said at the giving of the Torah (Deuteronomy 4:36), "From the skies, He made you hear His voice, to discipline you, and upon the earth, did He show you His great fire"; so too, about the tabernacle, it is written (Numbers 7:89), "and he would hear the voice speaking to him from above the ark-cover, between the two cherubs and He would speak to him."

(6) And from here, in that this is the grounding of our opinion about the matter of His commandments, blessed be He, we are obligated to say that the building of the House for God, may He be blessed, for us to do our prayers and sacrifices to Him in it - it is all to prepare our hearts to His service, may He be elevated. [It is] not from His need to sit in the house of people and to come under the shade of their beams - whether they build it from cedars of Lebanon or from cypresses, 'as the heavens and the heavens of the heavens cannot contain Him,' and they [only] stand by His spirit; 'surely the house that people built' would [not] be needed for His glory, God forbid. Are the things not known and clear that it is all for the refinement of our bodies? As bodies are refined by actions; and by the multiplication of good actions and their great constancy, the thoughts of the heart become purified, cleansed [and] sanitized - and God desires the good of the creatures, as we have said. And therefore, He commanded us to fix a place that would be pure and completely clean to purify the thoughts of people there and to refine their [our] hearts towards Him in it. And maybe He, blessed be He, chose that place and prepared it for the good of people from its being exactly at the center of the world, and the center is choicer than the ends; or for [another] reason that He, blessed be He, would be [its] Knower. And through the refinement of action and the purification of thought that we will have there, our minds will rise to clinging with the Highest mind.

(27) “But will God really dwell on earth? Even the heavens to their uttermost reaches cannot contain You, how much less this House that I have built!

(3) One who was fluent, would offer up many prayers and supplications. If one was slow of speech, he would pray as he could and whenever he pleased. Thus also, the number of separate services depended on an individual's ability. One would pray once daily; others, several times in the day. All, however, turned during prayer to the Sanctuary, in whichever direction that might be. This was the uniform practice from the times of Moses to those of Ezra.

(4) When the people of Israel went into exile in the days of the wicked Nebucednezzar, they mingled with the Persians, Greeks and other nations. In those foreign countries, children were born to them, whose language was confused. Everyone's speech was a mixture of many tongues. No one was able, when he spoke, to express his thoughts adequately in any one language, otherwise than incoherently, as it is said, "And their children spoke half in the speech of Ashdod and they could not speak in the Jews' language, but according to the language of each people" (Nehemiah 13:24). Consequently, when anyone of them prayed in Hebrew, he was unable adequately to express his needs or recount the praises of God, without mixing Hebrew with other languages. When Ezra and his Council realized this condition, they ordained the Eighteen Benedictions in their present order. The first three blessings consist of praises of God and the last three, of thanksgiving to Him. The intermediate benedictions are petitions for the things which may stand as categories of all the desires of the individual and the needs of the community. The object aimed at was that these prayers should be in an orderly form in everyone's mouth, that all should learn them, and thus the prayer of those who were not expert in speech would be as perfect as that of those who had command of a chaste style. For the same reason, they arranged [in a fixed form] all the blessings and prayers for all Jews so that the substance of every blessing should be familiar and current in the mouth of one who is not expert in speech.