Adon Olam 2

We ended the last segment with the following questions:

• What was the novelty of Avraham Avinu being the first one to call Hashem “Adon”?

• Even though it is nice to connect Adon Olam to Shacharis through Avraham Avinu, what is so earth-shattering about this connection, and what it truly means, that warrants all the prominence and all that has been quoted about this powerful tefilah?

In order to provide the full power of what HaRav Shimon Schwab writes about this tefilah and about how it “expresses the most basic concept of our tefilos,” we share with permission of the copyright holders, ArtScroll / Mesorah Publications, Ltd., a longer than usual excerpt from Rav Schwab on Prayer:

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The world had to wait until Avraham Avinu discovered that HaKadosh Baruch Hu should be addressed as Ado-noi. What did he discover, that none of his illustrious ancestors – M’sushelach, or Noach, or Shem – knew?

To understand this, we must analyze the true meaning of Adon (Master).” A master has a personal relationship with his servant. Whenever the servant performs his duties, he is directly serving his master. By way of contrast, a melech (king) has only a very general relationship with his subjects, because he has an entire nation to govern, and very few people know him personally. We refer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu as Melech HaOlam in all of our brachos, and a brachah is not complete without this reference. However, we preface this appellation with Baruch Atah Ado-noi, meaning that we recognize HaKadosh Baruch Hu as our Master, before referring to Him as the King of the universe. So, when addressing HaKadosh Baruch Hu, we recognize first that He is “my personal Master,” with whom I have a personal relationship – He knows me! Then we acknowledge that my Master is the King of the universe.

So, while the earlier great tzadikim recognized Hashem as Melech HaOlam, the Universal King, it was only Avraham Avinu who recognized that the Adon of the world is really Ado-noi, each individual’s personal Master. He taught that while HaKadosh Baruch Hu is the Melech HaOlam, nevertheless, he is aware of each individual, akin to the relationship of a servant to his master, and thus each individual has a personal relationship to HaKadosh Baruch Hu.

This personal relationship of HaKadosh Baruch Hu with His creatures applies not only to human beings, but also to the universe as a whole. We are aware that there are billions of stars in billions of galaxies in the cosmos, yet HaKadosh Baruch Hu has a personal relationship with each one of them, and He has a purpose for each one of them. This is the meaning of the words we repeat daily in P’sukei D’Zimrah: “He counts the number of the stars, to all of them He assigns names” (Psalms 147:4). To Him, all these billions of heavenly bodies are just a mispar – a small number, because He has a personal relationship with each one. “To all of them He assigns names” means each one has a purpose. So, when a person stands before Hashem in tefilah, he should know that while HaKadosh Baruch Hu is truly the Melech HaOlam, the King of the universe, He nevertheless has a personal relationship with each individual; He is Ado-noi, my Master.

I heard a story from Rav Yosef Breuer, which he told about his father, my rebbe, Rav Shlomo Zalman (Solomon) Breuer. The elder Rav Breuer was a very good friend of Rav Shimon Sofer, the Rav of Cracow, a brother of the Ksav Sofer, and a son of the Chasam Sofer. Once, when the two friends met, Rav Shimon Sofer asked Rav Breuer to tell him a short “vort” from his father-in-law, Rav Samson R. Hirsch, upon which, Rav Breuer told him that Rav Hirsch would point out that while Adon Olam describes the unfathomable eternity and omnipotence of Hashem, it nevertheless makes reference to Him in a very personal way: “v’hu Ei’li–He is My G-d.” Each person in his tefilah says: “I have a personal relationship with HaKadosh Baruch Hu; He is my personal G-d.”

Therefore, whenever a person says the word Ado-noi, my Master, no matter how small he thinks he is, he is in direct contact with G-d. This thought is the introduction to any individual’s iyun tefilah, concentration on prayer. There is nothing mystical or supernatural about it. It should be the most natural thing in the world. Someone once asked me how one davens with kavanah (intent), for one simply cannot concentrate for so long. I advised him to simply start by saying Baruch Atah Ado-noi, and to concentrate on its meaning. He should continue with this thought every time these words occur. If a person practices this often enough, his kavanah will eventually flow over to the rest of the tefilos.

We can now understand why our days start and end with Adon Olam, which expresses the most basic concept of our tefilos, that no matter how insignificant we may be, no matter how full of shortcomings we are, we still have the right to approach HaKadosh Baruch Hu directly.  The Adon of all creation is Ei-li, my personal God. We fall asleep each night with the words: “I entrust my spirit into His hand when I go to sleep and when I am awake. Despite the fact that we live in a dangerous world, and do not know what the next minute may bring, nevertheless, when we are about to drift off to sleep, we entrust our lives to Hashem’s hands. To quote a prosaic commercial slogan, “Relax and leave the driving to us.” So, too, we should also have this feeling that we are in good hands and place our complete trust in our personal Adon. Therefore, we close our eyes at night and say: “Hashem is with me, I shall not fear.”

If iyun tefilah teaches nothing but what to think when we say Baruch Atah Ado-noi, and to say it with meaning, the ensuing tefilah will result in: “[These are the precepts whose] fruits a person enjoys in this world but whose principal remains intact for him in the World to Come.”