[Avodah] Tefillas Mincha Voluntary?

[Tal Moshe Zwecker]

Shalom uBracha All,

I am looking for a source that Mincha (the Tefillah not the offering) is 
voluntary and not a chiyuv. I know we say this regarding Maariv that it is 
reshus. I am asking because of the following Kedushas Levi:


Kedushas Levi to (Bereishis 24:63)

"Our Sages say (Berachos 26b): “Avraham established shacharis, the morning 
prayer, as it says, ‘Avraham awoke early in the morning...and he went and 
stood [in prayer] in the place of which G-d had spoken to him’ (Bereishis 
19:27). Yitzchak established minchah, the afternoon prayer, as it says, 
‘Yitzchak went out to pray [לשוח] in the field,’ and sichah is used here to 
connote prayer, as in the verse ‘A prayer for the poor afflicted man when he 
faints and pours forth his supplications [שיחו] before Hashem’ (Tehillim 
102:1). And Yaakov established arvis, the evening prayer, as it says, ‘And 
he prayed, beseeching Hashem’ (Bereishis 28:11). [The literal meaning of the 
verse is ‘He encountered the place’; however, vayifga, ‘he encountered,’ 
also connotes prayer, and hamakom, ‘the place,’ is also a Name of Hashem’].”
But why is [the afternoon prayer] called “minchah”? We pray shacharis at 
dawn — which in Hebrew is shachar. And the evening prayer, arvis, is prayed 
in the evening — erev. But why is minchah called by this name?

The Tosafos Yom Tov (in his commentary to Mishnah, Berachos 4:1) also asks 
this question, and he answers that it is called minchah because it is the 
time when the sun retires — when there is menuchas hashemesh.

It seems to me that we can explain the reason for the name minchah with the 
following idea:

We are obligated to pray the shacharis prayer because Hashem returns our 
souls to us [in the morning], and in these prayers we say [before the 
Shemoneh Esrei] the prayer of Emes V’Yatziv (Hashem is true and steadfast), 
and we thank Hashem for all His many favors, such as the shining sun.

We are obligated to pray the evening prayer because we are now giving over 
our soul to Hashem for safekeeping as a trust [when we sleep], and we 
believe that the Blessed Creator is faithful and trustworthy to return this 
soul with which He was entrusted, and therefore we say Emes VeEmunah (Hashem 
is true and faithful).

However we are not obligated to pray minchah. It is voluntary, and therefore 
it is called “minchah,” which means “gift” or nedavah."

Any ideas? (I thought perhaps he means relative to the way he is explaining 
Shacharis and Maariv then Mincha is a voluntary tefillah.)

Kol Tuv,
R' Tal Moshe Zwecker
Director Machon Be'er Mayim Chaim
Chassidic Classics in the English Language
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