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if you daven (e.g. say sefer tehillim) for someone else do you give away all your schar or do you get your schar plus they get your teffilos
I am not sure I understand. Why would you lose your Schar for saying Tehillim for someone else? Aderabe, you would be getting more Schar that way!
Blueprints,
Is there any practical difference? Will you act differently depending on whether you get the additional schar or not?
The Wolf
INteresting that there is a chakira whether tehillim is a din in learning or in davening. I.e., is it that you get schar for Talmud Torah which is used in the zchus of the sick person, or is it considered tefila for the sick person.
i asked my rosh hayeshiva this question, and he answered thus: It’s pashut that you don’t “lose out” by davening/learning etc for someone else. The zchus for the person you’re doing it for is that he is the motivation for you to do it and therefore he gets a share in it, for if not for him, you wouldn’t have done it at all/done it as well. Also, certain things – like tehillim – possess a specific mystical power for certain things, like refuah for a sick person, etc.
He also said that tehillim is not talmud torah but is a form of davening (because, among other reasons, talmud Torah involoves two mitzvas: knowing & ameilus, neither of which is likely to happen when one says tehillim. With the exception of Mishnayos, that has a mystical power to simply saying the words, all Torah shbaal peh is meaningless without knowing the content. (see Rambam at end of first perek of Mishnayos Avos for classification of the words that you speak out if you are just reading the words out loud))
Also, he said that learning is by far the most powerful zchus to give someone.
why would you not?
pischei chochmah:
He also said that tehillim is not talmud torah but is a form of davening (because, among other reasons, talmud Torah involoves two mitzvas: knowing & ameilus, neither of which is likely to happen when one says tehillim. With the exception of Mishnayos, that has a mystical power to simply saying the words, all Torah shbaal peh is meaningless without knowing the content.
I’m moderately sure that tehillim is Torah she’bichsav not Torah sheba’al peh and that all Torah she’bichsav falls into the same category that you describe about mishnayos.
Also,I think I’ve heard that tehillim is both- but lacking a source, I have no proof.
From the preface of book “Praying with fire” (a great book btw)
The mabit writes that tefillah is a mitzvah in the Torah, “To serve Him with all your heart”…. The gemarah says “it means tefillah”…. The form of the mitzvah of tefillah is to express Hashem’s praise and to ask for our various needs, because by doing so, we affirm that the fulfillment of our needs lies in His hands alone….
The Chovos HaLevavos writes that the purpose of tefillah is not to change Hashem’s mind but rather to bring us to the realization that our fate is completely dependent on His will, that we can only survive through His mercy. The very act of prayer, however, elevates, exalts, and transforms us, so that we are no longer the same people we were before……
Rav Eliyahu Lopian said “When people pray for another person, they become like his talmidim in that he is causing them to gain merit.”
In other words, whenever a person causes a good thing, whether consciously or unconciously, he gains merit for causing it.
When we pray for a sick person, we draw closer to Hashem, and we become transformed through prayer. The sick person caused this transformation, and the merit for that goes for him. The more people that pray for him and are elevated, the more merit he accumulates.
So in answer to your question, do you yourself benefit from saying tehillim for another person? Absolutely!!!
Interesting.
To be fair, I did not realize that you were talking about something that involved a substantial effort. I did not realize that you were talking about reciting the ENTIRE sefer tehillim.
The Wolf
blueprints – that is absolutely not true. There is a famous maggid story that many people have a minhag to tell on Tisha Be’av night where the maggid essentially signs away all his olam haba to the town moser. I asked my rebbe if he really lost out because of that and he said absolutely not – HASHEM did not create a system where you can lose out [in olam haba] by doing the right thing, and for sure the olam haba of the maggid wasn’t lacking any from his deed. (The obvious question – so it’s worth it to give up your olam haba because you’ll get it back + more, so of course give it up, so why such a great thing – it only works if you’re doing it l’shaim shamayim – meaning you are really willing to give it up without the assurance of a “makeup”. There’s a story with the Gra, that someone asked him to daven for s/o, he said gezairah in shamayim i can’t, pleaded with him, so he davened, and was informed someway that he had just lost all his olam haba as punishment for “messing up” the gezairah. The Gra then said “Now i know that all my mitzvos were truly “shelo al menas lekabel pras”.)
Anyway, rest assured that you’ll get your full reward in shamayim.
Derech – reading the words of mishnayos doesn’t exactly constitute high-quality learning. The zechus you create from the tehillim has to do with it’s davening component, and more specifically, it’s certain mystical power that Dovid HaMelech imbued within it when he davened that when anyone says tehillim, it would have a special effect in shamayim, etc. Furthermore, one of the reasons that we learn sheba’al peh is that it is a far greater mitzvah than reciting shebichsav; some say that there is no mitzvah of talmud Torah fulfilled by reading words of shebichsav, just it has a certain mystical power etc. (see Derech HASHEM for further exp about this)
It seems that you’re viewing schar in olam haba as a form of currency or “points” chas veshalom. You have to remember that ??? ??? ???”? ???? ??”? and He will definitely reward you for trying to help a sick person by davening.
I always thought that the only reason that somebody can get schar for somebody else’s mitzva if because they helped cause it to happen. In other, them being sick caused you to say tehillim, therefore they receive schar for causing (albeit indirectly) a mitzva to happen. However, the person doing the mitzva undoubtedly receives full schar for what they have done.
I have heard that the real zchus for the sick person is that because of him, people are praying and bettering themselves with Torah, mitzvos, and tefillos. The words of Dovid HaMelech about the dealings with his son Avsholom and the like are not prayers for the sick, they are mostly a zchus for the one saying the tefillos, and the zchus that I said them because so-and-so was sick, or so-n-so needs a yeshua, that zchus goes to the one who needs the yeshua. But the main zchus is for ones self and his connection to Hashem
The person davening isn’t giving away their sechar, they are just giving away the zechusim from that particular davening.
bezalel:
He is not giving away anything that he would have had otherwise. It’s that simple.
klach:
i dont get it – either you get the schar or he gets the schar, or you split 50/50, & 50 no = 100.
bezalel makes more sense
There is a story of woman was driving on the highway when saw a serious accident that had just occurred. Horrified, she recited a chapter of Tehillim on behalf of the injured.
[number] around [something] [such-and-such a date]
Any person who helps another person only increases their zechusim. Just like giving tzedakah or any other help we give.
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