Thoughts on Praying

On Monday, we began the new month of Elul, the final month of the Jewish year.  This is the month of preparation for the new year, Rosh Hashanah. Our rabbis saw it as a time for reconciliation between us and the Almighty.  Added to the daily prayers every morning and evening throughout the holiday season is the 27^th Psalm, which the sages link to this period of the year. It begins by calling God “my light and my salvation” and concludes with words of hope, “Kavei el Adonay, hope in the Lord.” At weekday morning services throughout the month of Elul until the eve of Rosh Hashanah, it is customary to sound the shofar, announcing the coming day of judgment, Yom HaDin, and encouraging our preparations.

Generally, on these High Holidays, we expect to see many friends and congregants, perhaps some visiting family members, who add to our numbers in the synagogue on these days. Many see this season as a time of reunion with the community and with our religious tradition. During the year, our prayerbook is referred to as a Siddur, from the same root as Seder, both indicating a specific order of the prayers and rituals to be followed.  On the holidays, the prayerbook is designated as a Machzor, a reference to the cycle of holidays each of which has its assigned prayers and rituals to be performed in its season.  Its content, however, is very similar to that of the regular Siddur.  It follows the same order of the prayers, but adds to it some additional poems on the themes of the holidays and elaborates on the regular blessings of the Shabbat service. The Shabbat prayers in the fourth blessing of the Amidah are replaced with specific holiday prayers inserted between the opening three and closing three blessings of the Amidah which remain constant throughout the year. We also find an extended conclusion for the third blessing, the Kedushah, as well. The Machzor also includes the designated Torah and haftarah readings for the holidays all in the same book and, of course we find the ritual of the shofar blowing during the Torah service. Those who are familiar with the Siddur, find the Machzor simply an expanded version of the prayers already a part of weekly worship.

In past writings, I have focused on the order of the service, the origins and the meaning of specific prayers, trying to understand what it is that we are saying in these services, and why they have become part of our ritual.  Our current Machzor, Lev Shalem, provides a new translation, transliterates some of the sections sung congregationally, and offers one sidebar with commentary about the prayers and another with alternative readings on the same theme. All of this is intended to help those who are less familiar with the service or who cannot follow the Hebrew text, understand better what all of that chanting is about. So much for the prayers, but what about the pray-er?  After all, while Judaism stresses the importance of the study of texts, do we really come to the Temple just to read a book and study its notes?  Once we understand what it is that we are saying, I wonder, does it make sense to us?  Do these ancient words, passed on through generations still reflect our own beliefs today?  Do they describe a deity that we can accept?  If we look too close, we may have some questions about that.  Certainly there is a great deal of repetition in the service, often the same prayers are recited multiple times.  How many times and how many ways must we praise God? Some folks wonder if God listens to prayer or responds to it. Does He sit up in heaven basking in our praise? In one of his books, Rabbi Harold Kushner suggests that God does us a favor and allows us to offer these prayers even though He’s heard it all before. Everyone seems to have their own approach to the service and their own ideas about what it means to pray and how they might accomplish it.

In the past, I’ve known people whom I rarely see on Shabbat arrive just as services begin each day of Rosh Hashanah and on Yom Kippur and sit through the entire service to the end. They seem so faithful for those few days and then they disappear until next year. Have they come to recharge their batteries for another year or is there some other impetus to their faithful attendance on those day?

What does it mean to pray and what do we expect from this experience?  For some it seems to be simply the fulfillment of a mitzvah, a requirement, and they want to recite all of the words and not miss anything.  Others come to be part of the community and perhaps to listen to the sermon or to hear the familiar melodies of the prayers and maybe even join in.  For others there may be a sense of nostalgia or a remembrance of parents and grandparents who first took them to holiday services. Some look around the room with sadness as they recall those who are no longer with us who were part of that experience in years gone by.

Beyond all of this, may be our efforts to reflect during this time on our lives, to contemplate our failings, to make resolutions for the future and decide how we can improve in the new year, to do teshuvah. We reach out to God or to whatever power or force we might believe in to support us in our resolutions for the year ahead. For some, prayer brings a sense of connection with the divine, with creation, with the community, with all that exists.  The music may help to inspire us. In many cases, the words may not be terribly important to us, they become background allowing us to meditate and to reflect.  Some prayers are more like a mantra, helping us transcend our everyday lives. Clearly some of the piyyutim, these liturgical poems, seem to be written for that very purpose with repeating phrases, arranged as alphabetical acrostics.

It is fascinating to read what different rabbis and teachers have expressed as their experience of prayer. These experiences vary and people report that they are not constant. There are times when one feels a sense of spiritual uplift, connection to something beyond, and other times when that connection may be lacking and one feels that one is going through the motions rather than connecting with emotions.

As a hospital chaplain, most of the time, I am called upon to offer prayers when a person is very ill or dying and I try to get a sense of what the family wishes to express in prayer and to incorporate those feelings in words.  While one always wants to offer hope, I don’t pray for miracles that are unrealistic, but for mainly for support, for comfort, for strength to carry the family through this time of trial and crisis.  Only once, as I was walking through the Emergency Department did a patient grab hold of me and ask me to stop in their room and help them offer thanks.  The man was so grateful that what he had thought was a terrible illness, was diagnosed as nothing to really be concerned about. For most of us, fortunately, there is a great deal that we can feel grateful for and our tradition urges us to offer thanks every day for those little miracles which are so much a part of our lives, things we do not always take the time to recognize.

So as we approach these annual holidays, all I can suggest is that each of us enter the sanctuary open to the possibilities of life, to find strength to face the challenges of the new year, to offer thanks for the good we have experienced, to express regrets for our failings and shortcomings, to find resolve to do better in the days ahead. We remember loved ones. We think of friends and relatives who are going through difficult times and may be suffering illness. If nothing else, we seek a sense of peace in what we think of as the house of God, we try to find refuge for a time from the tumult in our world. Does prayer work?  Is it answered? For the most part that is up to each of us.

May the new year bring blessing and peace to us all.