Today is Rosh Hodesh Tamuz, so we will share a thought on Hallel from Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, from the sefer Gadol Yisrael. He was once asked why we say the words Ana Hashem Hoshea Na Please Hashem save us Ana Hashem Hatzlicha Na Please Hashem let us see success in the middle of Hallel? Seemingly , H allel is all about th anking Hashem and praising Ha shem , so where does Ana Hashem fit in? Rabbi Shlomo Zalman says that when we are th a nking Hashem for all the kindness that He d id for us, we get the strength to ask that He should continue to save us and give us success, in order that we can continue to prais e H im and thank Him forever and ever. So the requests for salvation and success are, as we just said, because we want to be able to have the ability to continue to praise Him . This is a beautiful thought. It is similar to a certain Kabbalah brought down by the Kaf HaHaim in the name of Yehuda HaHasid, t hat when a person is in a difficult situation , he promises that when he gets out of the situation , he will say Nishmat/Thank you. It is almost like every month, at the end of H allel , we say, “ Hashem next month I will say H allel again.” It's important to realize that we are going month to month, to be able to say Hallel. Rabbi Miller said that we say Hallel for the previous month. We should back at the month , see what happen ed , and say Thank You. And then we say, “Si nce I said thank Y ou , Hashem please give me another month to once again thank Y ou. ” On the topic of Nishmat , Rabbi Shlomo Zalman would say over with much emotion something that he heard from Rabbi Haskel Abramsky. Rabbi Abramsky was on ce sleeping in a motel , in a room next to the Chafetz Chaim . The w alls were not that thick , and he was able to hear that Chafetz Chaim saying Nishmat in the middle of the night . He translated every word into Yiddish with tremendous feeling and sweetness , t hanking Hashem for what He ha d done for him. On a similar note, he said that he once met someone who was about to go through a difficult medical procedure, and he told him , “T he yesod/ main thing is Hodot U'LHitpalel, th ank Hashem and pray . As we say in Hallel, Hodu l'Hashem Thank You Hashem , and then Ana Hashem' Hoshea Na, please save me Hashem. Before the operation , the first thing that you should do is praise Hashem , And after you pra ise Hashem, then you can ask Him to save you, Because you will further praise Him for that. The major way that we praise Hashem is through our Berachot, especiall y Birkat Hamazon, which is form the Torah. Rabbi Shlomo Zalman was o nce saying B irkat Hamazon and the people around the table noticed that he repeated Nodeh Lecha , a Thank You blessing, a second time. A family member asked him why, and he explained that he felt that the first time that he said it, he wasn't really focusing. He was a little bit detached. He said, “ To say thank you with out Kavana / intention, i s not called saying thank you. A Thank you without a feeling is not a thank you . T herefore, I repeated it.“ And the child that witnessed this said that he then realized th at it meant that obviously, all the years that hi s father had said Node Lecha he really was paying attention ! Imagine if we really paid attention when we said Nodeh Lecha or Modim ? It is the opinion of some Rish onim that in the Amida, just like we have to have kavana on the words that we say in the first beracha , we h ave to have kavana in Modim, because that is also essential. Saying thank you without thinking is not really saying thank you. And there's another thought about saying thank you that hopefully we will remember for Hanuk ah . In the Al Ha Nissim of Hanukah, we say, “ We made these eight days of Hanukah to say p raise and thanks to Y our great name ..” but Rabbi Shlomo Zalman asks why, when it comes to Purim we say, “ and he hung him in the tree. .” but we don't say, “ We made these days to read the Megillah and send Mishkoah Manot.” He answers that when we say, “ and we made eight days of praise ,” those aren't instructions from the rabbis for what we should be doing, it was part of the downfall of the Greeks, no different than the hanging of Ha man on Purim . The greatest blow to the Greeks was th at the Jewish people walked out with another reason to praise and thank Hashem . Their whole goal was to uproot our religion , and it ended up backfiring on them, because we added more thanks and more praise. That is the biggest dagger in the heart of the Greeks, or in the heart of any of those that don't believe . The Ramban said that the Greeks only believed what they saw, that was the whole approach of Greek philosophy. This is also the scientific approach, where if you don't see it , it is not there. But we fight back and our biggest blow to them is to L' Hodot ULHallel- praise and thank Ha shem. That is what our religion is built on. A Yehudi is Modeh / He says Thank you. The first words of our day are Modeh Ani- Thank you, thank you Thankyou, And when we do that we have the power to ask for more, to once again say thank you, thank you .
