When we as people bared our hearts, and our suffering morphed into prayer, we turned the page and began our ascent to national redemption. Perhaps this moment was so treasured on High that it merited a colorful description (2:23-24): "[After the Egyptian King died] the Jews groaned [vayey'anchu]...they yelled [vayizaku] and their screams [shav'asam] rose up to Hashem ... and G-d heard their shrieks [na'aka'sam] and He recalled His covenant with Avrohom with Yitzchok and with Yaakov."
Yet what are we to understand from the obviously meticulously chosen terms which change from phrase to phrase all the while portraying the same event? What would we be missing, should we read that the Jews cried out of indescribable pain and Hashem responded to those prayers borne of that very pain?
Indeed the Ohr Hachayim draws the conclusion that the Jews did not initially pray to Hashem and he translates the text to be stressing that the Jews screamed "from their servitude". In other words, they screamed out of terrible torment and despondent gloom and Hashem responded to their screams as if they had been praying.
However the medrash referred to in the Rashi at the beginning of parshas Voeschanan lists at least ten different terms of prayer in Tanach. "Ze'oko", "sha'avo" "na'oko" are amongst them and presumably each reveals a new dimension of prayer. These facets have been explored in the essays of Rav Shimshom Pincus zt"l, one of the inspiring voices of Israel for decades, and his insights shed light on our passage. Rav Pincus explains that we present "bakoshos", requests, in our prayers and behind every request is a "na'ako". For example, in our shemona esrei we list our "bakashos" for wisdom, health, parnosso, the ingathering of our people and our return of Yerushalyaim and we do not readily give expression to the "na'ako".
We may simply ask for parnosso and that is a "bakosho". Yet the "na'ako" is the fear of foreclosure, the anxiety of having to borrow again, the embarrassment of meeting one's creditors, the fear that the next phone call is one of them. Our "bakoshos" may include to be blessed with family. Our "na'ako is the month by month disappointment, the tug every time one sees a friend's baby carriage, hears of a sholom zochor and is part of a conversation about carpool. Our "bakosho" ask for a complete recovery and a life free of a nagging ailment. The "na'ako" wants so much not to ever have to see the young suffer and to be so full of faith and so free of questions and doubts.
We in Mitzrayim, cried out of suffering that defied words. Hashem saw that anguish and heard as well a people whose lives had become seemingly meaningless, whose glorious legacy had been driven down to misery and emptiness.
Perhaps that is what we mean when we say thrice daily that Hashem is a "shome'a tefila" - one who really hears our prayers. Possibly Hashem thus rewarded Moshe who, with great focus and mindfulness, left the comfort of the palace and needed to understand the intense agony of his brethren (Rashi 2:11).
Now imagine how this insight will impact our own prayers on behalf of our friends, as we aspire to mimic the paths of the A-mighty!