{"id":8124,"date":"2016-02-01T00:04:49","date_gmt":"2016-01-31T22:04:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ph.yhb.org.il\/en\/?p=8124"},"modified":"2018-05-24T12:22:03","modified_gmt":"2018-05-24T09:22:03","slug":"03-01-04","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ph.yhb.org.il\/en\/03-01-04\/","title":{"rendered":"04. Is Prayer a Biblical Obligation?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"left\"><span style=\"margin: 0px;font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">The Rishonim disagree about whether there is a Torah commandment to pray every day. According to Rambam (<\/span><i><span style=\"color: #000000;font-family: Times New Roman\">Sefer<\/span><\/i> <i><span style=\"color: #000000;font-family: Times New Roman\">Ha-mitzvot<\/span><\/i><span style=\"color: #000000\">, mitzva 5), there is a biblical commandment to pray daily, as the Torah states (Shemot 23:25), \u201cServe God your Lord,\u201d and (Devarim 6:13) \u201cRevere the Lord your God and serve Him.\u201d Although these verses contain a general commandment to serve God, they also include a specific commandment to pray. The Sages interpreted \u201cservice\u201d (<\/span><i><span style=\"color: #000000;font-family: Times New Roman\">avoda<\/span><\/i><span style=\"color: #000000\">) to mean worship through prayer, as it is written: <\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;font-family: Times New Roman\">\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"color: #000000\">\u201cLove God your Lord and serve Him with all your heart\u201d (Devarim 11:13), and they explained (<\/span><i><span style=\"color: #000000;font-family: Times New Roman\">Ta\u2019anit<\/span><\/i><span style=\"color: #000000\"> 2a), \u201cWhat is serving with the heart? It must mean prayer.\u201d By praying daily, one fulfills her biblical obligation to pray. To fulfill one\u2019s obligation, one must begin with praise to God, then petition God for her needs, and conclude by thanking God for the good He has bestowed upon her. The Torah does not specify how long one\u2019s prayers must be. Therefore, some shorten their prayers and others lengthen them, yet they all fulfill their biblical obligation (MT, Laws of Prayer 1:2-3). Later, the Men of the Great Assembly formulated a set prayer text, as will be explained below (section 6). <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><span style=\"margin: 0px;font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">However, according to Ramban (Glosses to Rambam\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\"color: #000000;font-family: Times New Roman\">Sefer Ha-mitzvot<\/span><\/i><span style=\"color: #000000\">), there is no biblical obligation to pray every day, because, in his opinion, the extrapolation from the verses that Rambam mentions is not a bona fide exegesis, but merely an <\/span><i><span style=\"color: #000000;font-family: Times New Roman\">asmakhta<\/span><\/i><span style=\"color: #000000\"> (reference). Rather,<\/span><i> <\/i><span style=\"color: #000000\">the Men of the Great Assembly instituted daily prayers but based their enactment on biblical verses. Ramban maintains that only in times of trouble is there a biblical commandment to pray to God, as we learn from the mitzva of the trumpets (<\/span><i><span style=\"color: #000000;font-family: Times New Roman\">\u0125atzotzrot<\/span><\/i><span style=\"color: #000000\">), where it says (Bamidbar 10:9), \u201cWhen you go to war against an enemy that attacks you in your land, you shall sound a <\/span><i><span style=\"color: #000000;font-family: Times New Roman\">teru\u2019a<\/span><\/i><span style=\"color: #000000\"> (short blasts) on the trumpets. You will then be recalled before the Lord your God and will be delivered from your enemies.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><span style=\"margin: 0px;font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">Thus, according to all opinions, there is a biblical obligation to pray in times of trouble. Therefore, anyone who finds herself or her friend in a state of crisis is required to add a special request for assistance in her prayer, since it is a biblical commandment to petition God to save her from that trouble. It is certainly a mitzva to pray communally when the public or the nation is in danger. The Sages even instituted fast days for that purpose. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><span style=\"margin: 0px;font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">Next, we will continue to study the order of the prayer service instituted by the Men of the Great Assembly, and in chapter 2 we will learn which specific prayers are incumbent on women.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Rishonim disagree about whether there is a Torah commandment to pray every day. According to Rambam (Sefer Ha-mitzvot, mitzva 5), there is a biblical commandment to pray daily, as the Torah states (Shemot 23:25), \u201cServe God your Lord,\u201d and (Devarim 6:13) \u201cRevere the Lord your God and serve Him.\u201d Although these verses contain a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-03-01"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>04. 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According to Rambam (Sefer Ha-mitzvot, mitzva 5), there is a biblical commandment to pray daily, as the Torah states (Shemot 23:25), \u201cServe God your Lord,\u201d and (Devarim 6:13) \u201cRevere the Lord your God and serve Him.\u201d Although these verses contain a [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/ph.yhb.org.il\/en\/03-01-04\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Peninei Halakha\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-01-31T22:04:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-05-24T09:22:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"orah765768\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"orah765768\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ph.yhb.org.il\\\/en\\\/03-01-04\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ph.yhb.org.il\\\/en\\\/03-01-04\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"orah765768\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ph.yhb.org.il\\\/en\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/0996d17962bfd8ffd1c8ef7117a4204b\"},\"headline\":\"04. 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