Tefillah Tips - Rosh Chodesh Bentching

This coming Shabbat congregations all across the globe will be bentching Rosh Chodesh – blessing the New Moon. We recite this prayer before we return the Torah to the Ark and beseech G-d for long life, peace, sustenance, health, knowledge, honor, and wealth. It is a very serious moment of communal prayer that Jews look forward to each month.

In the opening lines of the prayer it says: Yehi Ratzon ………..shetechadesh… letovah vilevracha – May it be your will G-d the G-d of my fathers to provide for us a New Month that is good and blessed. The commentators discuss the implication of the words good and blessed. If it is good isn’t it blessed? And if it is blessed isn’t it good?

We can understand the prayer based on the teaching of Rav Simcha Zissel zt”l regarding a well known verse in Tehillim. The verse states, “ Hineh Mah Tov Umah naim – Behold it is good and sweet when brothers come together.” The Alter (Rav Simcha Zissel) remarks that there are many things in this world that are good for us e.g. medicines, but may not be sweet. So too there are many things in this world that are sweet e.g. like candy but may not be good for you. The one thing that is both intrinsically good and sweet is when brothers come together.

Applying the lesson just stated we can understand the opening verse of Rosh Chodesh Bentching. Our lives can be good but may not feel like a blessing. Or our lives may seem sweet but they are heading in the wrong direction. We pray at the outset of the month that G-d should bless us with a palpably good month that is genuinely felt and experienced as a blessing.

As we enter the month of Nissan – the month of the Exodus of the Jewish people may all the people of Israel experience joy, fulfillment, and success and freedom.

Shabbat Shalom. Rabbi Ephraim Epstein