Hear Our Voice

Which brachah in the Shemoneh Esreh do you connect with most? I have a hunch that it’s the brachah of “Shema Koleinu,” the last of our tefillah’s birchos bakashah.

Our focus on specific brachos in the supplicatory section of Shemoneh Esreh is generally dictated by our current life’s circumstances. Someone is sick? Cue the kavanah in “Refaeinu.” Just had an upsetting lapse in observance? “Slach Lanu” is this week’s focus. Suffering a financial reversal? Until things improve, “Bareich Aleinu” is the highlight.

Yet despite our tendency to focus on the brachos that embody our present state of affairs, there’s a universal reaction we share upon reaching the brachah of “Shema Koleinu,” akin to falling helpless into the arms of Someone Who understands us more than we even understand ourself.

Shema Koleinu is, at once, the “summing up” brachah for all the birchos bakashah that preceded it, and a plea for Hashem to accept everything we’ve requested of Him until now. It’s also one of the two places in the Shemoneh Esreh where we’re permitted to insert a tefillah in our own words. The Shulchan Aruch (119:1) teaches, “in ‘shomeia tefillah’ one may request all his needs, for it comprises all other [previous] requests.”