Chasidut על ברכות 52:9

And he dreamt, etc, and Yaakov woke up from his sleep and said 'Surely H' is present in this place, and I did not know it! etc This is none other than the abode of God, and that is the gateway to heaven.' (Gen. 28:16-17) And there is a midrash that Yaakov awoke from his mishnah (Bereishit Rabbah 69:7). And this is surprising, and it appears to me [that the explanation is] that it is known that the essence of the service of a person, to come to the objective of completeness in their service to the Holy One of Blessing, to attain the Blessed One's Godliness, happens through Torah and Tefilah, and one cannot exist without the other. This is because an Am Haaretz cannot be a Hasid (Pirkei Avot 2:5), and also, Torah alone will not complete one's soul, as the saying of the sages z"l "anyone who says he has nothing other than Torah, has no Torah" (Yevamot 109b:4), since obviously through doing Torah for its own sake one can come to a great holiness when one learns for its own sake, and clings to one's life-force [nefesh], spirit [ruach] and soul [neshamah] through the letters of the Torah. However, one cannot come to the essence of Awe and Love and Longing in one's service to the Holy One of Blessing , and to grasp Godliness [with Torah alone], rather, through Tefilah, with self-sacrifice and enthusiasm as it is know from the sacred books. And behold the saying of the sages z"l is known: "and he encountered the Place, meaning, he fixed the evening prayer" (Brachot 26b:7) - behold he didn't know until that moment the secret of Tefilah, how great it is, and we find that Yaakov hid in the study house of Shem and Ever (Megillah 17a:5) and learned Torah, and we see that he knew the secret of Torah, however he did not discover God's Godliness until this moment, when it was revealed for him after he stood at the secret of Tefilah. And this is the explanation for the midrash "and he awoke from his sleep - from his mishnah" - they wanted to say from his Torah, that was awaken through this Tefilah, and he understood that he had not reached complete understanding through Torah alone, and so he said 'behold, there is Hashem in this place', meaning, through this tefilah he was able to understand more deeply the revelation of Godliness than he had until that moment, which was through Torah alone. "And I didn't know" this secret "this is but the House of Elokim", meaning through Tefilah, self-awakening and enthusiasm a persn can come to Higher Awe, which is called in the language of our sages z"l 'pity on one who has no courtyard etc' (Shabbat 31b:1). "And this is the gate to heaven" that Tefilah is the essence of the gate to heaven, to come to an understanding of Godliness and awe of heaven, a good treasure, since "awe of Hashem is God's treasure" (Isaiah 33:6) and pay attention to this, because it is correct.

[There follows a paragraph that I have not been able to follow ‎completely, so that I am not able to translate into English ‎without possibly misrepresenting the author’s meaning. ‎Ed.]
An alternate approach to the verse: “Yitzchok went for ‎a stroll in the field close to evening, when he raised his eyes ‎and beheld camels approaching” The Talmud (B’rachot ‎‎26), when commenting on this line says that Avraham, (compare ‎Genesis 19,26) composed the daily morning prayer, the word ‎ויעמוד‎ “he stood,” meaning that he stood engaged in prayer, ‎whereas Yitzchok composed the daily afternoon prayer, ‎מנחה‎. ‎According to the Talmud, the word ‎שיחה‎ when used in the Torah ‎always refers to prayer, ‎תפלה‎. [It does not occur again in the ‎Torah, although it does occur in psalms 102,1.Ed.] Yaakov, the ‎third of the patriarchs, introduced the evening prayer, ‎מעריב‎. ‎This is based on Genesis 28,11 ‎ויפגע במקום וילן שם כי בא השמש‎, “he ‎met G’d there as the sun was about to set and spent the night ‎there.” [The word ‎המקום‎, meaning G’d, is not unusual. Ed.] We ‎need to examine why a prayer is called ‎מנחה‎, “gift.” The morning ‎prayer being called ‎שחרית‎, is easy to understand as the word ‎שחר‎ ‎means morning, when the sun begins to shine. Calling the ‎evening prayer ‎מעריב‎ is also easy to understand as it is offered in ‎the evening, ‎ערב‎. But naming the afternoon prayer ‎מנחה‎ appears ‎somewhat difficult. Tossaphot Yom Tov, already recognized ‎this anomaly and answers it by referring to the period when it is ‎recited as ‎מנוחת השמש‎, “when the sun rests.”
I propose a different explanation. I believe the root of the ‎word ‎מנחה‎ is simply “gift,” not “rest.” This prayer is presented at ‎a time, when man does not think that he has to either thank the ‎Lord for having awoken well from his sleep, or after having ‎completed the day’s chores without problems and entrusting our ‎soul to G’d once more when we lie down, confident that He will ‎restore it to us in the morning. Neither of these considerations ‎motivates us to devote time to prayer in the middle of our daily ‎activities. If we take time out to pray during the day nonetheless, ‎G’d may consider this as a gift from us to Him.‎