What the Rav said:
‘Lishmoa el ha rina v’el ha tefillah’ [listen to the song and to the prayer] (Kings 1, 8:28).
The Chatam Sofer said that a person just starts to sing the niggunim (the melodies) of the prayers, to sing the songs before the prayers, lishmoa el ha rina v’el ha tefillah…
He just starts singing, starts humming the tunes, already he’s sweetening all the judgements.
The Chatam Sofer says ‘the sound of the song’ – even if you just started to sing, even before the prayers, the songs before the prayers start, some dancing before the prayers, any type of melody before the prayers…
‘Adon Olam’ [for example], before the prayers.
‘The sound of singing and salvation comes from the tent of the Tzadikim’ (Tehillim 118, 15).
If you started to sing, if you started to sing a tune, you already received all of your salvation.
My thoughts:
One of the greatest gifts that chassidut brought to Judaism is the understanding that a person doesn’t need to be a Torah Scholar or a Holy Tzadik to connect to Hashem and to achieve anything with his prayers.
Rabbenu took the concept further and taught us that we can achieve amazing salvations just from singing and dancing.
The Rav goes even further! Even if you didn’t yet pray, even if you just start humming a niggun, you just started singing the beginning of a tune...
Guess what, you just achieved amazing things!
You just achieved your salvation!
We have such a yetzer hara that tries to fool us. It tells us that unless we did 27 hours of hitbodedut in the middle of a field, at midnight, and learned all of Shas backwards, then we didn’t do anything useful!
Not so. Just start to sing, just start to dance… you just sweetened a ton of judgments and now all your salvations can come.