EYKEV 5782

Does the Siddur Get in the Way of our Prayers?

Let me ask you: “Does the Siddur—our prepared script of prayers—help or get in the way of connecting with Gd? Is there a point to sticking to a set scheduled text—3 times a day? Why can’t we just pray spontaneously when we feel like it?”

If you’re like me, I know you’ve asked yourself this question many times. Well, this was a famous debate in the Jewish world between Maimonides and Nachmonides. For Nachmonides, prayer is “Gd, I need you.” For Maimonides, prayer is “Gd, I serve you.” In other words, should I wait till I need Gd before praying to Him, or should I pray regularly regardless?

Who’s right? Our tradition (Berachot 4:4) says they’re both right! Crisis can be a powerful incentive to pray, but you need not have a crisis in your life to find Gd and thank Him for all your blessings. Should prayer not be spontaneous? Of course! And anytime you feel the need you should offer a prayer. However, without a formalized prayer service and a set time to pray, let’s be honest, how many of us would ever get around to praying?

The truth is, Gd is always available to hear our prayers. In fact, Kabbalah teaches us a great secret—that Gd waits for us. Sometimes He waits and He waits. If we make Gd wait until we are in crisis, we would miss out on so many opportunities—each one a precious gem in itself—for connection. And then we may not know how to connect with Gd when we really need Him!

There’s a story told about Menachem Begin who, as Prime Minister, held a meeting in his house one late afternoon. A religious cabinet member asked to be excused and tucked himself into a corner to daven a speedy mincha service as it was getting dark.

        “What’s the point?” Begin asked him. “Do you think praying like that accomplishes anything?”

        “Perhaps not,” the cabinet member honestly replied. “But at least I’m trying. If I keep trying 3 times a day, eventually I’ll make some sort of connection. But if I never even go through the motions…who knows if I’ll ever get there?”

This story has a great lesson. Even if we just go through the motions, there’s a point to prayer! The more regularly we pray, the more our chances of making a connection with Gd increases! You may not know this, but just the vibrations of the holy letters, words and chants alone can align our bodies—if not our souls—with Gd. And when we pray, if we can muster a bit of Kavana (focus and intention)—in spite of the busy surroundings we may find ourselves in—we can profoundly make that connection.

The words, the music and the motions of prayer are all part of an elaborate holy dance we do with Gd. And that’s why I call my book on prayer: Dancing With Gd. If you really want to make a connection with Gd every time you pray, you should study it. Here’s the secret, our holy prayer dance Partner (Gd) is ready to dance with us at any time.

The story is told of 2 Chasidim. One prayed with great speed. He could get through his morning prayers in a matter of minutes. The 2^nd took much longer to pray and said to his friend, “When I pray, I just love the words of the prayers. They mean so much to me, that I savor each and every word. That’s why I take so long to daven (pray).”

        “Oh,” said the other. “For me it is different. I too love the words so much. But when I daven, after I say each word, I just can’t wait to get to the next one.”

Which approach is better? It depends. They’re both great. And we see that from Moses in today’s Torah reading.

In this week’s parsha, Moses tells the Jewish people how long it took him to pray to Gd to forgive them after they listened to the evil report of the spies Moses sent to report on the land. After hearing that report, they refused to go to the Promised Land and, in fact, wanted to go back to Egypt. Moses said (Deut. 9:25), “I threw myself down before Hashem for those 40 days and 40 nights…for Hashem decided to destroy you.”

From this we learn that when it comes to prayer, Moses had sticking power—he took 40 days and nights to pray for forgiveness for the Jewish people. Can you imagine? We have trouble getting through 3 hours on a Shabbos morning. But obviously the effort paid off. Moses came back down the mountain with a 2^nd set of tablets of the 10 Commandments that re-established the covenant between Gd and the Jewish people.

But Moses wasn’t always so long-winded with his prayers. When his sister Miriam was stricken with leprosy for speaking lashon hara (gossip) against Moses, Moses turned to Gd and prayed a 5 word prayer, pleading (Num 12:13): Eyl na r’fa na la (Please Gd, please heal her). Let’s see, 40 days and nights for the people and just 5 words for his sister? Does that make sense?

Why was Moses’ prayer so lengthy in one story and so much shorter in the other? Was it a function of the severity of the situation that in one story he was praying for an individual, while in the other he was praying for the people?

Whatever the answer, there is something important we can learn from this, and that is that for Moses, there is no such thing as a prayer that is too long or too short! There is no set amount of time we should spend praying. What is important is that our prayers be heartfelt and meaningful.

Prayer can strike people in different ways. Sometimes, a very few words can mean everything. It might be on a given day that one phrase of our prayers tugs at us, and we just can’t let go of it. At other times, our head is just whirling, spilling out our many hopes and prayers. Both kinds of prayer can move us, and both can be equally effective a prayer experience. Sometimes we may want to go word by word—contemplating every word, every syllable, and every turn of phrase. Other times, we might want to move faster—so that Gd will hear our prayer ASAP, and act on it right away.

Different people will have different experiences. The same person may react differently at different times. Perhaps the lesson is that we shouldn’t come to our prayers with too many expectations about what our prayer experience should be. Instead, we should pray from our hearts and let it happen, with the confidence that we will connect with Gd however it comes.

 As the Midrash (Tehillim 61:2) noting how some people stand much longer in prayer than others, asks: “How long must one stand in prayer? Until one’s heart aches!” My friends, let’s begin to pray till our hearts ache. Amen!