prayer

“Falling upon one’s face” in supplication and confession after the standing prayer/guided meditation is an essential part of the ancient Jewish way of prayer

Bring the body into the moment and the heart out of its shell

It may not be advisable in your synagogue, depending on how educated the crowd is, but it’s definitely a viable option at home or in the forest field

Is prayer broken?

Do you find the act of praying meaningful, or even coherent?

Do you connect to the text of prayer?

Does the melody of prayer resonate with you?

Do you have a praying community?

Do you have a relationship with the one to whom you pray?

Do you find yourself in prayer?

They may not look like it but these are some of the most pressing questions of our times.

Worldwide injustice and social division, the abandonment of the poor and the monopolization of the environment, and so many more ills and madness of our times, all have their roots in an existential and practical state wherein the average human being does not pray.

Worse, for many who pray, the act of praying becomes a barrier between them and the divine.

There are many pathways out of this predicament.

The Jewish path of prayer is not the only path of prayer.

But it is a path with heart – if you can unlock its gates.

“Unscrew the locks from the doors! Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!”

The siddur is not a book.

The language is not important.

The body is not to be left out.

The ancient way of Jewish prayer can meet the psycho-spiritual-eco-political needs of the meta-modern transhuman being – if we take it seriously and free it from the confines of dusty room and printed page and esoteric incantation.

If we transform it from a formulaic recitation into a self-constructive act of divine revelation.

We can fix prayer, if we restore it to what it was always meant to be.

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Fine, you say. High and lofty ideas that are all well and good. But you’re ignoring the elephant in the room.

Where is the God to whom you’re praying?

Where was God during Auschwitz?

You’re right.

This is the most pressing question of prayer out of them all.

And I’ll share with you my simple answer, the fruit of decades of study and reflection:

In Auschwitz, God was in the slave barracks, in the gas chambers, in the crematoria.

With every body and soul made in the divine image that faced the utter inhumanity of human beings.

And I’ll ask you in return,

Where was Man during Auschwitz?

Where was the divine image in those who allowed themselves to be seduced by hate into murdering millions?

The God to whom we pray does not act on the stage of human life with force and might, robbing us of both our freedom and our responsibility – but resorts to fervent whispers in human hearts urging us to see things in a new light and to make better choices.

It is up to us to heed the whispers.

It is up to us to act.

And so it is up to us to pray.

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May we merit to learn to pray in the way of our ancestors, and may the House of Prayer for all nations be rebuilt speedily in our days.

A rough sketch of the ‘amida:

Through systematically developing a concept of the Creator and making that concept real through the act of dialogic address to the Creator, we bring about the redemption.

First, we establish the grounds for the encounter – praise: the ancestral relationship, the omnipotence, the transcendance.

Then, with those principles in mind, we address the Creator as the provider of, and beseech the Creator to bless us with, the following, in this specific order:

Awareness/Knowledge
Rethinking
Forgiveness
Liberation
Health
Prosperity

Ingathering
Lawful leadership
Punishment of the unjust
Reward of the just
Establishment of the perfected city
Emergence of the messianic archetype

…the whole ‘amida is a step by step process of actualization, each step is made possible by and builds upon the previous, culminating in:

Answered prayer

And then, we are ready for the ‘aboda of gratitude, concluding with the blessing of peace.