Q:  The last section of the shemonah Esreh is supposed to be the Hoda’ah section. The
strange thing about that is that of the 3 berachot that comprise this section, only one of
the three (modim) appears to be thanking Hashem! The other two (retze and sim
shalom) appear to be asking, not thanking.

A: In order to understand why the last section is charachterized as hoda’ah, we need to
examine the 1st and last berachot of that section individually.
 The last berachah, sim shalom, is really not the conclusion of the Hoda’ah section at
all (even though it is referred to that way). The Beis Yosef, Orach Chaim §582, quotes
the Bahag who allows the insertion of personal requests in sim shalom, but not in other
berachot  of the first and last sections of Shemonah Esreh. The Bahag  allows this as
the shemonah Esreh is complete at this point. The Beis Yosef disagrees, and says that
the shemonah Esreh is NOT complete, until the end of the berachah of sim shalom. It
seem clear that the Bahag understands sim shalom to be the conclusion of the entire
Shemonah Esreh, rather than merely of the 3rd section. This explains why it is
bakashah rather hoda’ah.
 This approach is also supported by the Rambam, who writes [in Hilcohot Tefillah V’
Nessiat Kapaim (14:14)] that outside of the Mikdash, we say birchat Kohanim after each
tefillah. This clearly assumes that sim shalom is a postscript to the Shemonah Esreh.
 The other ostensibly aberrant berachah is retze. Again we need to understand the
function of this berachah. The Gemarah [Berachot (34a )] describes the process of
prayer as being analogous to a slave who goes before a king to ask for a gift. The first
section is comparable to the servant’s praising the king. The second is comparable to
his beseeching the king. The third section is compared to “a servant who received the
gift from his master and takes his leave from his master and goes on his way”.
 The implication is that in the Hoda’ah we are thanking God for that which we just
asked for in the Bakashah section, not (only) that which God has done for us in the past.
 The question is, how do we make the transition from the mode of need to that of
having received? In what way does the petitioner go from asking to thanking? The
answer, in a word, is retze. The point of this berachah is to ask God to accept our
prayers, and to transform the belief in God’s help from hope to reality. In saying retze,
we change our stance from one of bakashah to one of hoda’ah. As such, retze is a
crucial component of the hoda’ah section.

[Note: The difference between retze and shema kolenu will be discussed in another
article, b”h.]