This series is dedicated to the memory of Dorina Kalaty, Esther bat Eliyahou A”H, a beloved Torah teacher in our community who left us too soon.
The Rabbis consider the story of Hanna in the Book of Shmuel a critical source for understanding the meaning and proper practice of tefillah. In fact, for this very reason, the Sages chose it as the Haftara for the first day of Rosh Hashana, an essential time for prayer.
The Book of Shmuel opens with the story of a man named Elqanah and his two wives, Penina and Hanna. Penina is blessed with many children but Hanna is barren, and her struggle with infertility becomes increasingly painful with the passage of time. When the family travels three times a year to Shiloh – one of the sites where the Mishkan was located prior to the construction of the Temple in Jerusalem – for the pilgrimage holidays of Pesah, Shavuot and Sukkot, the imbalance is especially obvious. The table is filled with the children of Penina but Hanna is alone. Elqanah attempts to compensate for this by showering Hanna with love and affection but his efforts are futile.
On one particular holiday, Hanna has finally “had enough.” After finding herself too distraught to enjoy the festive meal, she heads to the sanctuary at Shiloh and offers an impassioned prayer to the Almighty. If He will grant her the child for which she yearns, she promises to hand that child over to the kohanim (priests) of the Mishkan where he will dedicate his entire life to the service of God. After a brief interaction with Eli, the Kohen Gadol, she returns home, suddenly relieved of the burden of sadness that had plagued her for so long. Hashem responds to her supplication and finally grants her the blessing of a child whom she names Shemuel. As soon as Shemuel is old enough to be weaned, his mother fulfills her oath and deposits him at the sanctuary at Shiloh. He is raised by Eli, the High Priest, and eventually emerges as the prophet and spiritual leader of the entire nation.
On the surface, this story seems to embody just the opposite of what we would expect from a “feel good” tale about the power of prayer. In the end, Hanna does not actually get what she wants. She dreamed of having a child of her own and presumably raising him or her to adulthood. Instead, she brings a son into the world, only to promptly have him “adopted” by the kohanim who are charged with taking care of and educating him. How is this an ideal vision of what prayer can accomplish in our lives? Wouldn’t we be more inspired by a story of someone who was in distress, implored the Almighty for salvation, and received exactly what they hoped for? In addition, we must wonder – why was Hanna so satisfied after merely offering her prayer, before she knew that it would, indeed, be answered?
Based upon our previous discussion of tefillah as self-judgment and internal shifting of perspective, however, we can see why the narrative of Hanna truly does exemplify what prayer is all about. In fact, precisely because it challenges our preconceived notions about the efficacy of tefillah, the Rabbis pointed to it as an ideal story through which to steer us toward a deeper understanding.
Hanna’s greatness was her ability to rise above the limitations of her own emotional needs and interests and to focus on the bigger picture instead. We know that the Torah promises us that during periods of time when the Jewish people adhere to the laws and values of Judaism they will be the recipients of many blessings, including the blessing of procreation. In fact, the Torah says that no man or woman will be infertile when the Jewish people fulfill their covenant with the Almighty.
So, rather than seeing her struggle to have children as a personal issue, Hanna began to conceive of it as a symptom of a deeper, more pervasive dysfunction in Jewish society. Clearly, the Jewish people were failing to live up to the lofty standards of the Torah, and her barrenness was just one example of the consequences of that failure. And ultimately, she realized that the religious decline of the Jews was the result of the corrupt spiritual leadership to which they were subject.
The sons of Eli, ostensibly the official Torah educators and spiritual ambassadors of Israel, were thoroughly materialistic and selfish. Not only did they neglect to provide proper Torah guidance to the nation, they desecrated God’s name with their improper behavior, further driving a wedge between the Jewish people and Hashem. Once Hanna recognized this, and saw her inability to have children in its broader context, her whole perspective was transformed. It was no longer about HER and her maternal instincts – it was now about the Jewish people and their desperate need for religious knowledge and inspiration. So when she prayed, she asked not simply for a child that would bring her joy, but for a child who would become the kind of leader who could spearhead a spiritual revolution that would once again make the Jewish people worthy of Divine blessing.
Hanna exemplifies the kind of self-reflection that tefillah is supposed to achieve. She completely shifted gears from a frustrated would-be mother to a person intimately concerned about, and attempting to be instrumental to, the salvation of Israel. Deeper consideration of her personal problem led her AWAY from herself and fundamentally reversed the lens through which she viewed her troubles.
This is why, in describing Hanna’s supplication, the text records that she spoke “on her heart” rather than “in her heart.” The Rabbis comment that righteous people are always said to be speaking “to” or “on” their hearts, whereas wicked people are characterized as speaking “in” their hearts. This means that while a wicked person’s thoughts, speech and action is dominated by his or her emotions and instincts, the righteous person uses his or her mind to directs the emotions and instincts, transcending and harnessing those passions to engage with a reality greater than themselves.
We can now understand why Hanna felt relief immediately after offering her prayer, even before receiving an answer. Her prayer represented a turning away from the self, the embrace of a profound insight into her situation that completely changed her whole mentality. Once she looked at her circumstances differently, an enormous burden was already lifted, regardless of the practical outcome (if any) that would result from her supplications.
One of the most fascinating elements of the story is the “what if” question. What if Hanna had never had this epiphany and had never undergone this shift in perspective? Clearly, she would not have played the role in Jewish history that she did. The frustration and difficulty she experienced served as a stimulus to thought and self-improvement. She arrived at a new vision of her predicament, and this actually changed her intentions and desires. If she had been blessed with children naturally like everyone else, she would never have considered giving up one of her children to the Temple as a servant of God. Only once she was prepared to play this role did Shemuel come into the world.
This is what the Rabbis mean when they say “God yearns for the prayers of the righteous.” Nearly all of the Matriarchs were barren and only had children after many tefillot were offered and tears were shed. If anything, their lives were more difficult than those of ordinary women. But it was precisely this difficulty and challenge that forced them to think more deeply about what it meant to bear and to raise children, about what their objective should be as mothers, and this, of course, made them capable of founding the Jewish nation. Had they entered motherhood easily, much of this critical internal growth may never have happened, and history as we know it may not have been the same.
May we all be inspired by the example of Hanna and her tefillah, rising above our personal desires and viewing the world, the Jewish people, and our place in them in a new, transformative light. Not only will it make us more worthy of blessing, it will help us become happier and more satisfied with our respective lots in life.
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