Tefillah From The Darkness

ובמדרש תפלת הערב אין לה קבע

And in the Midrash it states that the evening tefillah has no fixed obligation.

The Midrash notes that, unlike Shacharis and Minchah, the evening tefillah was instituted without a binding fixed status. The Sfas Emes will read this as pointing to a deeper avodah of the darkness.

פי' ע"י החשכות בלב האדם שצועק מכאב לבו

The explanation is that it comes about through the darkness within a person's heart, when he cries out from the pain of his heart.

The 'evening' represents the dark times in a person's heart, when he has no clear handle to grasp and instead simply cries out to Hashem from his inner pain.

זה פותח שער לתפלה יותר מכל הזמנים שמיוחדים לתפלה

This opens a gateway to tefillah more than all of the times that are specifically designated for tefillah.

Precisely that cry from a place of darkness opens the gates of tefillah even wider than the set times of tefillah, which have their own fixed framework.

כיון שבנ"י נצבים לפני השי"ת והם למעלה מן הזמן כנ"ל:

Since Bnei Yisrael stand before Hashem Yisbarach, and they are above time, as explained above.

This is because Bnei Yisrael are stationed standing before Hashem, and through that bittul they rise above the ordinary bounds of time, as was explained earlier in the piece.

Summary: The Sfas Emes draws on the Midrash that the evening tefillah carries no fixed obligation. He explains that the 'evening' alludes to the times of darkness within a person's heart, when he can do no more than cry out to Hashem from his inner pain. Davka this cry, rising out of darkness rather than from a set framework, opens the gateway of tefillah wider than even the designated times of tefillah. The reason is that Bnei Yisrael are stationed standing before Hashem Yisbarach, and through that standing they transcend the limits of time. Thus the tefillah born of darkness reaches a place beyond the fixed order of the day.