335. A Messenger of the Public
September 14, 1988
It is good for a cantor to have a nice and big congregation. At that time, he is a messenger of the public for a large and respectable crowd. Thus, the greatness of the cantor is measured by the size of the crowd, meaning in quantity and quality. “Quantity” means a large audience and many people. “Quality” means that everyone is listening to what the cantor lets out of his mouth, and not that part of the audience is busy with other matters and have no interest in hearing what the cantor says.
Likewise, when speaking of individuals, every person is a small world that consists of many thoughts and desires. When one comes to pray, he takes his mouth to be the cantor. When the mouth asks his organs and desires what he should pray for on their behalf, the heart replies in the name of all the desires, “You have the phrasing of the prayer that the members of the great assembly established; say this for us.”
When the mouth, which is the cantor, says what is written in the prayer book, sometimes his organs listen to what he says, meaning that throughout the prayer they do not get distracted and they pay attention to what the mouth says. But sometimes he does not hear with all the organs, meaning he hears and does not hear. That is, in the middle of the prayer, he has other thoughts. And sometimes, he does not hear at all what he is saying, and the mouth can say whatever it wants while he can hear what his friends are saying during the prayer.
Even when he hears but does not know the meaning of the words, meaning how he is connected to the words that are written in the prayer, meaning what benefit the things he says with his mouth will bring him, and at times he does… the connection between what he says and his body, but the body disagrees with what he says. And sometimes, the body does agree with what the mouth is saying.
Thus, a nice and big congregation is when the mouth, which is his cantor, prays that the heart will hear what he is uttering with his mouth, in quantity and quality. If he sees that the organs disagree with what he says, this is the real place for prayer, for then he must pray for the exile of the Shechina [Divinity], which is called “Shechina in the dust.”
This means that he has no place in any organ in his body that will agree to walk on the path of truth. When he prays for this, it is considered that he is praying for the exile of the Shechina, meaning that she will emerge from exile to redemption.
This is the meaning of the cantor needing to please the audience, meaning that his servants will agree to what the mouth says. Then he is called “a messenger of the public,” meaning that his organs send him to ask the Creator for what they need.
However, if the public does not agree with what the cantor says, that audience is one thing and the cantor is another thing. Thus, on whose behalf does the cantor, meaning the mouth, pray and ask requests? For this reason, the first Hassidim would wait one hour in order to have a good and large crowd, meaning that the organs will listen to what the cantor says and will agree with what he is praying so that his prayer will be accepted.