By Rabbi Daniel Dayan
The Torah famously begins with the creation of the world, going through what Hashem created on each day.
On the third day, Hashem created plants, trees and vegetation. Nevertheless, the pasuk later says that the plants and grass did not grow above the ground until after the creation of אדם הראשון. At that time Hashem sent rain, and then the vegetation began to grow.
Rashi on the pasuk explains that the reason Hashem didn’t send down the rain was because there was no human being to pray for it. Once Adam was created, he saw that there was a need for rain, he prayed for it to fall, and only then did Hashem send it down.
R’ Yerucham Levovitz in his sefer Da’at Torah explains that from here we learn a very fundamental idea: That a person does not receive anything from Hashem without tefilla. Even if he is deserving of it, and has a tremendous amount of zechut, he still has to pray for it in order to receive it.
We find this same idea by the Avot and Imahot who all struggled having children, and the גמרא says that Hashem wanted their tefillot, in order to bless them with children. As well as with משה רבינו, despite all the zechut he had, what enabled him to see Eretz Yisrael was the tefillot that he prayed to Hashem to enter the land.
Let us all take advantage of this so special gift Hashem has given us, to take our tefillot seriously, and may all our tefillot be answered לטובה.
Shabbat Shalom!!