[Avodah] Tachanun

[Micha Berger]

I look at tachanun from the Vilna Gaon's perspective.

Leshitaso, there are two kinds of prayer -- tefillah and tachanunim.
(Perhaps Shema should be counted as a third.)

Tefillah is an excercise in becoming the kind of person who can relate
to the A-lmighty and has the right priorities. That's why we say what
AKhG ("umeihem kamah nevi'im") told us to say as developed by Chazal
and geonim. Also, why the verb is in the reflexice (lehitpallel).

Tachaninim are a person's raw reaching out to their Father in heaven.
They include the Yiddish techines that were collected for women. Also,
anything in the siddur written in the first person singular -- Modeh Ani,
E-lokai Neshamah, E-lokai Netzor, etc... Tefillah, expessing the ideal,
is said as part of the kelal. Anything in singular, therefore, has to
be tachanunim.

See also the distinction between tefillah and baqashah
in BB 123. I discuss this chiluq at more length at
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2008/01/prayers-and-requests.shtml>
    Turning to our Father with the needs actually on our mind is
    called tachanunim. An ideal time for tachanunim is immediately
    after tefillah, as we find in the above-mentioned list of tannaim's
    requests. As well as tachanun. Tefillah is always in the plural,
    placing ourselves in the context of the community. Tachanunim, like
    E-lokai Netzor, can also be in the singular. Because E-lokai Netzor
    exists as a framework for what should essentially be spontaneous,
    we have a long tradition of adding various requests to it, rather
    than preserving the tanna's coinage untouched.

    Just as the tachanunim we say as part of regular davening has this
    element of a pre-written framework, of tefillah, we allso do not call
    for pure tefillah with no element of personal outpouring. We ask
    for the health of a sick friend with an insertion in "Refa'einu",
    or Hashem's help showing our children how to embrace the Torah's
    wisdom in "Atah Chonein", etc... "Whomever makes their tefillos
    fixed has not made their tefillos into tachanunim."

    This inseparability of these two types of worship might be an
    implication of the opening words of Mesilas Yesharim....

Tachanun is a framework for the actual mitzvah, not the mitzvah itself.
A matbei'ah to help codify something whose essence defies the concept
of codification and a matbei'ah.

On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 08:52:09AM -0400, Rich, Joel wrote:
: We paskin tachanun is "reshut" and thus are more liberal in dispensing
: with saying it.

Only the framework, not baqashos.

Which is why it's possible to ask:
: Question: Is tachanun a din in the individual or the tzibbur or both?

If someone is on their own, does he need a trellis about which to grow
his tachanunim or not?

That I believe is the essence of the machloqes acharonim.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 49th day, which is
micha at aishdas.org        7 weeks in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Malchus sheb'Malchus: What is the ultimate
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            goal of perfect unity?