[Avodah] Interesting Tefilla Insights

[Cantor Wolberg]

In the gemara B'rochos 26b  R' Yossi ben Chanina says: T'fillos Ovos  
Tiknum (the t'fillot were instituted by the ovos).  Abraham  
established the shacharis service (B'reshis 19:27); Yitzchok, the  
mincha service (B'reshis 24:63) and Yaakov, the maariv service  
(B'reshis 28:11).
What is fascinating is that it is brought down interestingly in  
S'forim that the second letter in Avraham is beis and it stands for  
boker (morning); the second letter in Yitzchok is a tzaddik and it  
stands for tzaharayim (afternoon); the second letter of Yaakov is ayin  
and stands for erev, arvis (evening). So you see just in the names,  
the second letters of Avraham, Yitzchok and Yaakov, they say, alludes  
to Shacharis, Mincha and Maariv. (If you take the first letters of  
their names you get Aleph, yud yud: One God). The text of davening  
that we have today were instituted by the anshei knesses hag'dola at  
the beginning of the second beis hamikdash.

In contrast in the same gemara, R. Yehoshua b. Levi maintains that the  
origins of three daily services are to be found in the precedent of  
the daily sacrificial service (Korban Tamid) in the Temple: morning  
and afternoon (Shemos 29:38-39).  Ma'ariv, according to this model,  
corresponds to the remaining limbs and fat of the afternoon sacrifice  
which continued to burn on the altar all night long until consumed.

A parallel source in Bereishit Rabba 68:9 records these two views and  
includes a third as well (quoted elsewhere with slight variations):  
"Rabbi Shmuel ben Nachman said: the three services correspond to the  
three changes in the day.  At nighttime one must say: 'May it be Thy  
will God my Lord to bring me forth from darkness to light.'  In the  
morning one must say:  'I give thanks to Thee God my Lord for having  
brought me forth from darkness to light.'  In the afternoon one must  
say:  'I give thanks to Thee God my Lord, for just as I merited to see  
the sun in the east, so too You merited me to see the sun in the west.'"









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