Hashem should be the sole recipient of our praise. The Mezritcher Maggid, zl, was wont to say concerning this pasuk: If you want to determine the level of yiraas Shomayim, fear of Heaven, that you have achieved, you must authenticate your level of emunah, faith in Hashem. Analyze your davening, benching and other forms of tehillah, praise, to Hashem. Is it passionate, warm, with deveikus, desire to cling to the Almighty? The manner in which one expresses his praise of Hashem attests to his belief in Him – and vice versa.”
The Maggid, zl, m’Warsaw would often use the following vignette to describe how lacking our davening is. The wealthy Paritz, non-Jewish landowner, walked by Moishke’s house and saw him swaying to and fro, davening to Hashem. The Paritz was impressed, and, after Moishke concluded his davening, the Paritz said, I want you to teach my bear how to daven.” “But why? Perhaps I can teach him to dance?” “No! All my friends have dancing bears. I want something different, something unique.”
The Paritz was not accepting “no” as an answer. In fact, he gave Moishke two weeks to produce a bear that davens, or else, he and his family would need a new place to live. Moishke picked up the bear, bound it in chains and transported him to his home for the davening tutorial. He did some heavy thinking and arrived at an ingenious plan. He found a large, heavy book and smeared its pages with honey. The bear craved the sweet delicacy and, as soon as he licked the honey off of one page, he immediately turned to the next. This went on for two weeks, which was the allotted time the Paritz granted him to produce a davening bear.
The designated day arrived, and Moishke proudly walked in with the bear in tow. “Let us begin,” the Paritz declared. “I want to see how well my bear ‘davens.’”
Moishke gave the bear a large book with strong, heavy pages, similar to the ones he had been practicing on for the last two weeks. One difference existed between the two: no honey was on these pages. The bear took the book and began making “bear noises” in anticipation of his treat. When he saw there was no honey on the first page, he flipped to the next, all the time making noises of frustration. After turning every page, the bear walked away in frustration.
The Paritz was visibly upset. “I instructed you to teach him to daven, and all you did was train him to turn pages, accompanied by noises. Is that what you call davening?” Moishke was no fool, and he responded, “Let us go to the large synagogue in town, and you will see that, for the most part, people are turning pages and uttering some noise.” The lesson is obvious: Our davening reflects our emunah. Are we davening, or just turning pages?
