Nefilat Apayim: Tehillim 6

A wife who would not let him say it

Rabbi Eliezer (a leading sage of the Mishnah) was married to Ima Shalom, the sister of Rabban Gamliel, the head of the Sages. After the Sages put Rabbi Eliezer under a ban, she would not let him fall on his face in prayer. One day she mixed up the date, found him lying on his face, and said: "Get up, you have killed my brother." Just then a shofar blast came out of Rabban Gamliel's house. He had died.

Left or right? The siddur gives two reasons

The note above the text in this siddur says some lean to the right, because of the verse "I place Hashem before me always." Others lean to the left, the side people recline on at a meal, where a person looks like a prince, so that is the side to humble yourself on. The custom it names: right in the morning, left in the afternoon.

Why David picked the plague

The Radak (Rabbi David Kimchi, a medieval Torah commentator, around 1200) says famine and war both involve people, and bring shame in front of other nations. A plague is in God's hand alone.

Where the plague stopped

As the angel reached out toward Jerusalem, God said "Enough." The angel was standing at the threshing floor of Araunah, a local man. David bought the floor and built an altar there. In Divrei HaYamim (Chronicles) he says of that spot: "Here will be the House of God." Solomon later built the Temple on that site.

Written for a sick person, or for anyone

The psalm sounds like illness: shaking bones, a bed soaked with tears. The Radak says David may have said it about his own sickness, but he thinks David wrote many prayers so that anyone could use them. Ibn Ezra (a Spanish commentator, 1100s) gives another option: it is a prophecy about Israel in exile, who are like sick people.

At night your soul is a deposit. Here you give it over.

The Zohar (the central book of Kabbalah) says that every night people hand their souls to God as a deposit, and get them back in the morning. After the Amidah, it says, a person should see himself as if he has left the world. This time the soul is not a deposit that comes back, as at night. It is handed over for real, after confessing one's sins. The Zohar says this about Tehillim 25, "To You, Hashem, I lift my soul," which other communities say here. It is describing the falling itself.

כדין בעי ליה לבר נש לאחזאה גרמיה, בתר דסיים צלותא דעמידה, כאלו אתפטר מן עלמא

The kind of awe that makes you hide your face

Rav Kook (the first Chief Rabbi of the Land of Israel, who died in 1935) says falling on the face belongs to two levels: repentance, and awe. He means the awe that feels like shame, as in Iyov (the book of Job): "Young men saw me and hid." So the person covers and hides his face. He is too ashamed to look, the way people are when they feel small. Now think about why you cover your face.

ראוני נערים ונחבאו... כובש ומסתיר פניו, שמתבושש להביט כדרך הנכלמים

If you cannot cry, God still hears the crying

Rav Kook reads the line "I am worn out with my sighing" as a person who wants to change but cannot cry. While something bad still clings to a person, he says, it grips the heart and hardens it, and the eyes will not let a tear out. David wishes his tears matched his groans. Yet the psalm says God heard "the voice of my weeping." For Rav Kook, no tears does not mean the wish is not real.

אין מניעת הדמעות מפני שהרצון אינו שלם

Your pain is not outside God

A teaching in the name of the Baal Shem Tov (the founder of Chassidut, who died in 1760) starts from the Gemara: when a person suffers, God's Presence is pained too. Whatever you feel, it explains, comes from the life inside you, and that life is a piece of God. So your pain is God's pain too. When you cry out in prayer, it says, you lift that pain up into your voice. That is the meaning of "Hashem has heard the voice of my weeping."

וכשאדם מתחיל להתפלל ולזעוק אל ה', הוא מרים הצער של השכינה אל הקול

Do I have to do this at all?

In law, no. The Tur (a major law code from the 1300s) quotes Rav Natronai Gaon (a head of a Babylonian academy over 1,000 years ago) that falling on the face after prayer is optional. The Shulchan Aruch HaRav (the code of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the first Chabad Rebbe) agrees, but adds that all Israel has kept it since ancient times. The Arukh HaShulchan (a code by Rabbi Yechiel Michel Epstein, around 1900) says people today treat it as a kind of duty.

Do I really have to fall on my face?

Not literally. The Mishnah Berurah (a main commentary on daily Jewish law, written around 1900) says people once really fell face down, but today we only tilt the head and cover the face. Your own hand does not count as a cover, since the hand and face are one body and a body cannot cover itself. The Kaf HaChaim (a Sephardic law commentary from the early 1900s) says to cover with the tallit or a handkerchief, so the face does not land on the palm, where one's sins are said to be written.

Which arm do I lean on?

It depends on your custom. The Shulchan Aruch (the main code of Jewish law) says to lean left. The Rema (Rabbi Moshe Isserles, who added Ashkenazi custom to it) says that in the morning, with tefillin on your left arm, lean right out of respect for the tefillin, and otherwise lean left. This siddur's note says the same split, morning right and Mincha (afternoon prayer) left. The Kaf HaChaim reads the Arizal (Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, a Kabbalist of the 1500s) as always left, with the face on the forearm, not the hand.

Do I sit or stand for this?

Sit. The Shulchan Aruch says it is done sitting, not standing. The Mishnah Berurah explains that the Beit Yosef (the longer work by Rabbi Yosef Karo, who wrote the Shulchan Aruch) gives a reason from Kabbalah, while the Rivash (a rabbi of the 1300s) says it is not strict. Later authorities, it says, rely on the Rivash when there is no choice. For example, if the congregation starts while you still have to stand in place after your Amidah, you fall standing with them.

Can I talk to someone before I start?

The Shulchan Aruch says not to speak between the Amidah and nefilat apayim. The Mishnah Berurah explains the worry: if you stop and turn to other things entirely, your plea is not accepted as well. Casual talk is not the problem, and even in the middle you may answer Yehei Shemei Rabba (the main response in Kaddish) and other holy responses. The Kaf HaChaim says that following the Zohar (the central book of Kabbalah) and the Arizal, even casual talk is out. If you did talk, you still fall on your face.

Do I need a Torah scroll nearby?

The Rema gives the practice of covering the face only where there is an ark with a Torah scroll inside. Elsewhere people say the same prayer without covering the face. But if the congregation is praying at that moment, even someone at home falls with them. Sephardic authorities differ. The Ben Ish Chai (Rabbi Yosef Chaim of Baghdad, 1800s) says that by Kabbalah you do it anywhere, even alone. The Kaf HaChaim says each person keeps their own custom.

My friend's siddur has a different psalm. Who is right?

Both are real customs. This siddur has Tehillim 6. The Arukh HaShulchan says that is his community's custom, and that Sephardic Jews say Tehillim 25, "To You, Hashem, I lift my soul," as in the Zohar. (Sephardic here means the Edot HaMizrach siddur, which prints Tehillim 25, not Nusach Sefard.) The Magen Avraham (a commentary of the 1600s) suggests Ashkenazim skip it because the Zohar warns about saying that line without full intent. The Kaf HaChaim, following the Zohar and the Arizal, says everyone should say it daily.