The Power of Consistency

Dawn and Darkness

The sages in the Talmud present a fascinating tradition about the three daily prayers in Judaism. Avraham instituted the morning prayer, Shacharit; Yitzchak instituted the afternoon prayer, Mincha; and Yaakov initiated the evening prayer, Arvit.

The Talmud derives this from the biblical verses. But what is the thematic connection between our three forefathers and these particular prayers? And why do we have three daily prayers? (Mohammed instituted five daily prayers for Muslims, mimicking our Yom Kippur model; yet on a daily basis we have three.)

Morning brings with it a fresh and exhilarating energy. As a new day emerges, we have this sense (at least till we check our phone) that new possibilities are beaconing upon us. As the first rays of light cast their glow on our horizon, a new dawn also triggers our imagination. Morning brings with it new frontiers to conquer and fresh glimmers of hope. One of the great spiritual masters, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi (1745-1812) writes, that when a person awakes, he or she feels instinctively a sense of happiness and promise. Dawn is when G-d presses the restart button.

This is the story of Avraham. He embodied the morning of Judaism, bringing the dawn of a new era to earth. He opened humanity to a new reality, a new vision of earth. He heralded a novel message. The world is not a hopeless jungle; it is a Divine palace. We are not an insignificant speck of dust on the surface of infinity; we matter. Humanity is not a helpless folk subjected to the whims of competing gods, but part of a single narrative, united in the image of a moral and loving Creator. Avraham taught that there was purpose in history and meaning in life.

Who was Avraham? “Avraham woke up early in the morning to the place where he stood previously,” the Torah states. Then again, when he is instructed to bring his son to Mt. Moriah, “Avraham woke up in the morning.” The Torah rarely presents the details of daily life, unless they convey an important theme. Following a long and dark night, Avraham ushers in the morning for civilization. Avraham instituted the morning (Shacharit) prayer, topping into the unique spiritual energy of daybreak, when you stretch out your arms and embrace a new day.

Yaakov, in contrast, embodies the night of Judaism. The kingdom of night is full of mystique, solitude, darkness, drama, and romance. Yaakov’s life is riddled with darkness, uncertainty, loneliness, and struggle, fraught with drama and mystery. Already emerging from the womb he struggles with his twin brother; later he wrestles with a mysterious adversary, and in the process he receives a new name, Israel, which means struggling with G-d. In the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Why do you say, O Yaakov, why declare, O Israel, ‘My way is hidden from the Lord, my cause is ignored by my G-d’”?

No personality in the Torah is so connected with night as Yaakov. In the middle of the night, the Torah relates, “Yaakov remained alone, and a man fought with him till dawn broke.” Yaakov tells his father-in-law Lavan: “Twenty years I have been with you… scorching heat ravaged me by day, and frost by night; sleep eluded my eyes.” Yaakov, says the Torah, “came upon a certain place and stopped there for the night, for the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of that place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place.” He then dreams of a “ladder standing on the ground, but its top reaches heaven.”

Yaakov taught the Jewish people and the world how to encounter the Divine during the turbulence and obscurity of night. “And Yaakov woke up from his sleep and he said, ‘Indeed! G-d is present in this space, even if I did not know it.’” Yaakov feels the presence of G-d even in a space of darkness and adversity, even if his brain can’t always figure out how. Yaakov created the evening prayer—the connection to G-d amidst the mystery and drama of nightfall. As the sun set again and yet again in his life, he traveled internally to discover the source of light from within.

The Monotony of Afternoons

How about the vibe of the afternoon? Smack in the middle of a long and arduous day, lacking the freshness of the morning and the mystery of night, afternoons are often characterized by monotony. The day in the office is dragging on, and I am drained. If I am lucky enough to be a house mom or dad, the afternoon comes with its own stress: The children are returning from school, dinner is not made, the house is a mess, and I am tired; it’s been a long day.

What is the energy that beacons to us during those dull afternoons? What is the spiritual heartbeat of the flat hours in the day, when I’m just waiting to go home?

It is the story of Yitzchak.

Yitzchak’s life was—superficially speaking—not as colorful as his father’s or son’s life. Unlike his father Avraham he did not wage and win wars, nor did he did not travel extensively and change the vocabulary of humanity. He was never a world celebrity, titled by the Hittites as “a prince of G-d.” He was not a founder of a new religion, or the progenitor of a new nation. He was not the “revolutionary” that his father was.

Nor did his life contain the drama of his son Yaakov. Yitzchak did not flee his brother’s wrath; he did not fight in the middle of the night; he did not fall in love with Rachel, and then experience deceit; he did not lose his son to a wild animal only to discover 22 years later that his beloved child became the Prime Minister of the superpower of the time. He did not relocate his entire family to a new country at an old ripe age.

Yitzchak lived in one location, and he never left it. His was more of a simple life. The only thing the Torah tells us about his vocation is that he grew grain and dug many a well. Yitzchak represents the long and seemingly tedious “afternoon” of Jewish history.

Therein lies his singular uniqueness.

Yitzchak’s life might seemingly lack the grandeur, excitement, challenge, and mystique of Avraham and Yaakov, yet he embodies the essence and foundation of Judaism: The daily consistent and unwavering commitment to G-d and His work. Avraham was a revolutionary; he cast a new light on the world, but it was Yitzchak who created the vessels to contain and internalize the light. Yitzchak dug the wells of Judaism: he went deeply into himself and the world around him and revealed the subterranean living wellsprings of faith and commitment, ensuring that the flow never ceases. Yitzchak’s relative silence in the book of Bereshit ought not to be confused with passivity; it was rather a silence that comes with internalization. Yitzchak knew that revolutions can last for a few decades, but if you do not create solid containers for the energy (represented by the wells in the ground) the energy will fade away.

Yitzchak at one point of his life lay on an altar, ready to become an offering for G-d. This became the hallmark of his life: He embodied absolute dedication and resilience, consistent, unwavering, and unbending.

Yitzchak is the founder of the afternoon prayer, the “Mincha” of Judaism. “And Yitzchak went out to meditate in the field at dusk,” the Torah states in this week’s portion. Yitzchak tapped into the spiritual energy of the “afternoons”, showing us that a relationship with G-d does not consist only of the spontaneous exuberant morning inspiration, or of the drama and romance of the night. A relationship with G-d is expressed even more profoundly in the daily commitment and sacrifices we make for truth, love, goodness, and holiness. He bequeathed us with the internal resilience and strength to bring G-d into the dull and tedious journeys of life.

It is afternoon in your office. You need to respond to dozens of emails, catch the bank, return many a call, and still field a few annoying appointments. But you stand up to daven “Mincha,” to connect with G-d. You are busy, stressed, and tired; yet you leave everything behind, and you take time out and try to break out of the routine to focus on truth, on G-d, on eternity. Here is where the power of Yitzchak lay, the still voice of dedication that never falters.

A Tale of Three Marriages

Marriage, too, has three components: the morning, the night, and the period of afternoon and dusk.

When we meet our soulmate, a new dawn overwhelms our heart’s horizon. We are overtaken by the newness and freshness of the experience. We are excited, inspired, full of hope of what our joined future might look like. This is the “Avraham” of marriage, the morning, shacharit, of a relationship.

Marriage also has those special moments of moonlight mystery and drama. The passion and electricity that comes from the unknown, from discovering the untold layers of depth in our spouse’s soul; the special awareness that is born from dealing with struggle and uncertainty. This is the “Yaakov” element of marriage, the evening, ”maariv”, of a relationship.

But then there is the “mincha” of marriage—the simple, unromantic, non-dramatic, commitment of two people to each other, during the boring and flat days of life. Two souls holding hands together through the vicissitudes of life, in difficult times, in serene times, in monotonous moments, and in thrilling moments. It is the loyalty and trust built over years of supporting each other, day by day, hour by hour, in buying tomatoes, taking the kid to the doctor, and fixing the leak in the basement. 

This creates a unique type of love. There is the love born out of thrill, drama, and exhilaration. This is the love that precedes marriage. You fall in love with your new partner, you are swept off your feet by the sunrise in your life. But there is another type of love that is born out of the daily commitment and dedication to each other. This love can never be experienced before marriage, only afterward.

This was Yitzchak's love. It’s the “mincha” love, the one that comes from an ongoing, consistent bond in the daily grind of life. It is why the Torah states: “And Yitzchak took Rivkah, she became his wife, and he loved her.” First Yitzchak marries her, and only then does he come to love her.

A Tale of Two Loves

What is the difference between the two loves?

In the first love, born out of the ecstasy of a new passionate relationship, the shorter we are married, the more the love; the longer we are married, the more difficult to love. As the thrill wanes, boredom sets in, and we sometimes grow disinterested. In the latter Yitzchak-type love, it is the reverse: the longer we are married, the deeper we grow in love. We don’t fall in love; we climb in love. The love becomes like a deep well, discovered in the depths of the earth, and its life-sustaining waters never cease to flow.

This is not a "boring" marriage. Rather, its intensity is profound and enduring, because it is contained and integrated into the facric of daily life, and into the experiences of two human beings confroting the full spectrum of our emotions and circumstances. 

The first marriage described in Torah is the one of Yitzchak and Rivkah, in order to teach us one of the most important principles in marriage: Passion and romance are awesome, and we can all use a nice dose of them, but as our circumstances change, they can fade away. A marriage must be built on good judgment, sound reason, an appreciation of the inner, enduring qualities and values of the other person, and it must possess the enduring commitment of a couple to each other, day-in, day-out, in a bond of steadfast, and simple faithfulness and trust. It is the capacity to hold your boundaries while connecting to the other person as a mature adult.

This is the reason Jewish law insists on no physical relations before marriage. This ensures that the couple decides to get married not based on physical attraction alone, because this may change with time, but with an appreciation of the character traits, inner personality, and values of the other person, for these will not change. Often, when men or women get physically involved, they become intoxicated by the pleasure and their blind spots cause them to overlook crucial information that might come to the surface a few years down the line and sadly sever the connection.

Our culture knows, perhaps, how to pray “shacharit” and “maariv.” We desperately need the discover the enduring secret of “mincha.”