Why You Can't Pray and What You Can D o About It
GILLMA, NEIL
Why You Can't Pray _AND_ What You Can Bo About It NEIL GILLMAN Nothing in religious living is more difficult to achieve than a moment of genuine prayer. Don't suppose that only you have this...
...Kaplan did not believe in bodily resurrection...
...continued from page 49 Emotions cannot be turned on or off at will...
...the English "you," for example, is gender-neutral, though the corresponding Hebrew terms are different for male and female...
...3eyond this, the act of prayer is ringed with a host of additional obligations...
...These options will take you out of your habitual, passive role and involve you more actively in the worship experience...
...Siddur Kol Ya'akov (Mesorah, 1984), more commonly known as The Complete Artscroll Siddur, is exhaustive, totally faithful to the traditional text and includes explicit directions for the choreography of the service...
...But the choice of a metaphor is far from a trivial matter...
...They depend on the participants to be actively involved in setting their tone...
...Which is not to say that liturgical change should be prohibited...
...Not so...
...Next, don't forfeit your individuality...
...It concludes this way: A learned man lost all his sources of income and was looking for a way to earn a living...
...So why try...
...If your attention drifts, open a commentary to the Bible, a history of the Jews or an anthology of midrashim and study for a while...
...We feel that we should become so totally caught up in the moment of prayer that the rest of the world—the room we're in, our other concerns, even the words of the prayer book in front of us—fall away...
...If you have problems with prayer, look at the rest of your life as a Jew...
...That such an issue arose in the first place testifies to the interrelat-edness of these two forms of religious expression in Judaism...
...Finally, authentic prayer demands a broader context of Jewish religious experience...
...The late Mordecai Kaplan, founder of the Reconstruc-tionist movement and one of the most independent thinkers of our time, insisted that the liturgy be brought in line with his conception of what a 20th century, intellectually sophisticated Jew can believe...
...Some egalitarian minyanim, for example, insert the names of the matriarchs—Sarah, Rebeka, Leah and Rachel—alongside those of their husbands in the first benediction of the Amidah...
...It demands an awareness of our ultimate dependency on a God who is both beyond and yet very near us, however else we want to characterize God...
...Plug back into the service whenever you wish...
...How then do you choose a prayer book...
...Like any work of art, it has to be carefully crafted and it needs a frame...
...This is a much more radical departure from tradition...
...Texts that have become offensive to modern Jews—such as the traditional benediction recited by Jewish males that praises God "for not having made me a woman"—should be changed...
...Be afraid, and pray," was the answer of the rabbi...
...When we read the liturgy, we encounter that statement about resurrection...
...That same design places the rabbi and cantor in performing roles and the congregants in observing roles...
...It's easy to devise a way for congregants to check books out of the library without writing their names...
...When that doesn't happen, we feel let down and we assume that we have failed...
...How often congregants confront rabbis at the bedside of a terminally ill patient to plead: "Rabbi, I want to say a prayer, but I don't know what to say...
...they sit or stand, recite in Hebrew or English, in unison or responsively, turn to a specific page—all at the direction of the rabbi and cantor...
...In the synagogues of Eastern Europe (and in some small Orthodox synagogues in America as well), men used to pray and study in the same room, always surrounded by shelves filled\with books...
...Where are you Jewishly...
...God, in His/Her essence, is neither male nor female...
...and Velaher Libenu (Congregation Beth El of the Sudbury River Valley, Sudbury, Massachusetts, 1980...
...ancient and equally traditional alternative formulations of that benediction exist and appear in recently published prayer books, as in Siddur Sim Shalom (Rabbinical Assembly and United Synagogue of America, 1985), the new Conservative prayer book...
...Ask yourself what it can mean to you...
...But there is really no reason why you have to open your prayer book to page 247, just because the rabbi tells you to, or because that's where the service is at that moment...
...The feminist revolution, which has touched so much of Jewish life in the past two decades, has had its impact on the liturgy as well...
...These services are also usually much more family oriented, more open and flexible...
...l.l.ovi can we learn to pray...
...This differs from the Talmud itself, which records theological positions as the individual statements of specific talmudic masters...
...Whenever he felt the traditional liturgy was anachronistic or primitive, he omitted it or replaced the Hebrew text with another that he composed...
...Don't get hung up on the theology of the liturgy...
...On Wings of Awe (KTAV, 1985) reflects the philosophy of the B'nai B'rith Hillel Foundations, the national organization that serves college students...
...And it demands a readiness to acknowledge that prayer is not simply a matter of saying certain words at certain moments, but that every mitzvah, every sacred act, is "a prayer in the form of a deed" and that every deed is potentially a mitzvah...
...Will you pray on my behalf...
...Kaplan's strategy was honest: If we don't believe it, we shouldn't say it...
...This no-frills approach to liturgical translation sacrifices elegance and poetry for accuracy...
...Designed to accomodate a wide range of approaches to tradition and to worship, it will be most attractive to the more liberal half of American Jewry...
...Compare translations...
...For the observant Jew, prayer is part of an all-encompassing regimen of ritual behavior that touches every moment of daily life...
...Some aim for a precise, literal translation of the Hebrew...
...its integrity should be maintained, no matter where we are theologically today...
...Next, don't let the Hebrew language of the liturgy be an obstacle...
...It demands a sense of the mystery that transcends all that we know and experience...
...it imprisons you in long pews, often for hours at a time, and apart from the Torah reading, little of the choreography of Jewish prayer is left to the congregation...
...The Birnbaum translations retain the traditional liturgy...
...they frequently get in each other's way...
...You will find that the line between study and prayer is very narrow indeed, that frequendy study becomes a form of prayer...
...Use synagogue time to study it...
...We can call it ritual prayer as opposed to the expressive prayer of the chasidic model...
...This model of ecstatic prayer is a legitimate Jewish model— prized by Jewish mystics and Chasidim...
...The most successful of these is Siddur Sim Shalom (Rabbinical Assembly and United Synagogue of America, 1985...
...But there has to be one more or less permanent record of what our community has believed over the ages...
...I know of only three printed prayer books that incorporate this change: the Reconstructionist Kol Haneshamah...
...Read the footnotes and the commentaries...
...We are commanded when to pray, with whom to pray, where to pray and even what words to say when we pray...
...It is unfair, unrealistic and positively wrong-headed to complain that the synagogue service is boring and meaningless if your days, weeks, months and years are lived without a hint of spirituality, without a sense of transcendence, without the slightest concern for the ritual dimension of Jewish living, without the experience of an authentic Shabbat—in short, without God...
...But what happens when you are unhappy with a specific theological claim in the liturgy...
...But at other times, there's nothing wrong with pulling out, now and then, to pursue your own private experience of prayer or study...
...Prayer, however, is not a matter of will alone...
...Kaplan's approach raises problems, including that the liturgy loses its role as one of the few, remaining unifying experiences in Jewish life and that it becomes subject to the shifting winds of theological fashion...
...Siddur Sim Shalom reflects the ideology of the Conservative movement, which permits specific, limited modifications of the traditional liturgy in line with Conservative ideology...
...The more familiar Yiddish term for this ritual model is "davening...
...A chavurah service that meets in the synagogue library, boardroom or classroom is a much more democratic or participatory experience than the sanctuary service...
...Mny congregations now offer alternative, parallel services every Shabbat morning...
...Here the liturgical text represents consensual, or common belief, sanctified by giving halachic status to the specific words of the liturgy...
...It is not, however, the only model, and it is not even necessarily the ideal Jewish model...
...The conclusion of the resurrection benediction, translated by Kaplan above, can be translated "who callest the departed to life eternal" (in The Prayer Book, translated and arranged by Ben Zion Bokser, Hebrew Publishing Company, 1957...
...As if to confirm this, the new Reconstructionist prayer book, Kol Haneshamah [Reconstructionist Press, 1989], reintroduces some passages dropped by Kaplan and further revises some of his revisions...
...Many of our contemporaries have attempted either to neutralize all gender references in the traditional liturgy or to substitute alternate formulations that refer to God in such feminine terms as Bruchah At instead of Baruch Atah as the opening words of the traditional benediction-form...
...The institutional bodies of American Reform Judaism, the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, have produced many liturgical publications for use at home and in the synagogue, all of which reflect current Reform ideology, which differs greatly from that of the earlier Union Prayer Book (Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1940), the predecessor Reform prayer book...
...Here again, prayer book editors use a variety of strategies...
...But the doctrine of resurrection, for example, was interpreted in widely varying ways, even in the most strictly traditional circles...
...In fact, it has long been recognized that the best place to discover rabbinic (talmudic) theology is precisely in the prayer book...
...It is offensive to the traditionalist on halachic grounds...
...But in Judaism the only way to achieve the moment of structured ecstasy is through the structure, through meticulous observance of the regimen of prayer...
...It is somewhat more difficult to begin to observe Shabbat and the festivals or the dietary laws, but if you really want to, you can do it...
...They are widely used in Orthodox congregations throughout the country...
...There are extended discussions in our classical rabbinic sources as to whether we may interrupt our study of Torah to pray at an appointed hour...
...The theatrical design of most of our sanctuaries doesn't help...
...Jewish liturgy is replete with theological statements, mostly biblical and rabbinic...
...He went to his master, the Rabbi of Husiatin and told him...of the invitation to serve as cantor on the Days of Awe, and of his being afraid to accept it and to pray for his congregation...
...The Reconstructionist movement has published Shabbat, festival and high holy day prayer books that reflect its more radical approach to the traditional liturgy...
...Its impact on the liturgy itself is only beginning to be felt...
...It is an obligadon, a command, a mitzvah—-just like giving charity or separating meat from milk...
...This short book contains the single most masterful, modern inquiry into the intricacies of Jewish prayer...
...Kol Haneshamah (Reconstructionist Press, 1989) is the movement's new prayer book, but it is for use on Shabbat eve alone...
...Certain changes, such as the reformulation of the benediction, are now commonplace in all non-Orthodox prayer books...
...The problem with this model is it conflicts with the most intuitive thrust of Judaism—to structure the life of religion...
...Congregants, particularly in non-Orthodox synagogues, assume a passive role...
...The Reform prayer books follow this strategy as well...
...The members of his community, who admired him for his learning and piety, suggested to him to serve as their cantor on the Days of Awe...
...In Judaism, that record is the liturgy...
...Alternate from one to the other...
...If and when it happens, without the inbred regimen, we would probably not know what to do with it...
...The more devotional or poetic translations of the liturgy shade the English version to avoid the theological problems of the Hebrew text...
...But it is a difficult model to achieve, especially for us today...
...Take advantage of this traditional option...
...But it also raises significant theological issues...
...They will also lend a focus to your study program...
...But there is no reason you can't also bring your own prayer book or even prayer books into the synagogue and use them as you wish...
...My advice is first develop the habit of attending the synagogue regularly...
...Such a prayer book is most useful to someone who can daven in Hebrew and would like to know precisely what the prayer is saying...
...Ritual prayer seems to destroy our spontaneity...
...I don't know how to pray...
...Rabbi Jules Harlow's introduction to Sim Shalom is an extremely useful statement on the history of liturgical reformulations in Conservative Judaism...
...But to change the Hebrew text raises a wide range of issues beyond the purely aesthetic and psychological...
...Strange advice, coming from a rabbi...
...More than one rabbi has confessed that running the service provides a convenient way to avoid confronting candidly the rabbi's personal difficulties with prayer...
...There is no question that our liturgy has evolved over the years and should never be viewed as petrified...
...If we wait for lightning to strike, it rarely does...
...You also have the right, of course, simply to avoid saying the offensive statement yourself...
...My sense is that it should remain that...
...It demands an ability to feel, a sensitivity to words, a willingness to step back periodically, to look at ourselves and at our world...
...Here are some strategies, garnered from years of struggling with the problem and trying to teach other Jews about prayer, that may be useful to you as well...
...By far, most of the praying that takes place daily in synagogues around the world is of this variety...
...we may find ourselves struggling with portions of it, but that struggle should take place elsewhere—possibly in adult education classes or in the library—but not in the prayer book itself and not necessarily during the service...
...Ifs also the only prayer book to use for studying the content of the liturgy in English...
...When we read the liturgy, we encounter the classic formulation of Jewish belief as expressed in consensual terms in the formative periods of our history...
...On Wings of Awe (KTAV, 1985), a machzor (prayerbook for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) published for B'nai B'rith Hillel Foundations, edited and translated by Rabbi Richard N. Levy...
...Some English translations do this, without even a note of explanation...
...Make sure your synagogue library is open on Shabbat, evening and morning...
...We may not have bookshelves in our sanctuaries, but at least we should keep our libraries open...
...Conservative Judaism's Committee on Law and Standards, the body that establishes parameters for practice in Conservative congregations, recently approved this practice...
...Attendance provides an experience of Jewish community, an opportunity to encounter other Jews, to tune in to issues on the Jewish agenda, to share your Jewish concerns...
...instead of praising God for resurrecting the dead, therefore, the Reconstructionist prayer book, in Hebrew and English, praises God "who in love rememberest Thy creatures unto life...
...Study it...
...It also assumes, unfairly and inaccurately, that the meaning of certain theological claims in the traditional liturgy is absolutely clear and unequivocal...
...But he considered himself unworthy of serving...as the one who should bring the prayers of his fellow-men to the Almighty...
...Keep in mind that each edition of the prayer book reflects a certain ideology within the Jewish community and a specific approach to the traditional liturgy...
...If all else fails, pray to be able to pray...
...You will probably want to be with the rest of the congregation for a good deal of the service—certainly for the Amidah (the silent devotion) and the three paragraphs of the Shema \ which form the core of each service...
...Other strategies create different problems...
...1. "have frequendy advised congregants—especially on Yom Kip-pur when the service is long and intricate— to bring other Jewish books with them to the synagogue...
...You may think that your rabbi, your cantor or professors of Jewish theology surely know how to pray...
...Use any or all prayer books, depending on your needs...
...But remember, according to Jewish law, one can pray in any language...
...Prayer is an integral part of that structure...
...The quotation in the previous sentence is from Abraham Joshua Heschel's Man's Quest for God: Studies in Prayer and Symbolism (Scribner's, 1954...
...Vetaher L/benu (Congregation Beth El of the Sudbury River Valley, Sudbury, Massachusetts, 1980) uses largely the traditional liturgy but is noteworthy for its English translations, which try to avoid masculine imagery and, according to its introduction, "feudal epithets" in references to God...
...On this issue, Jewish law is absolutely unequivocal: We must pray, even if we don't feel spontaneously impelled to do so, even if our thoughts and emotions are far away...
...Don't suppose that only you have this problem or that it is confined to ordinary lay Jews...
...Read elsewhere in the prayer book...
...This issue is at the heart of much of current Jewish theological debate...
...But one thing that can never be commanded is to feel something...
...If one prayer hits you in a particular way, focus on it...
...Clearly, the Jewish ideal envisions combining both of these impulses in one sublime and rare moment of structured ecstasy...
...As every educator knows, nothing encourages participation in a project as much as being involved in the process of planning it...
...that's why they are used by Orthodox congregations...
...All these obligations are spelled out in minute detail...
...This, from a professor of Jewish theology...
...You should share the leadership roles of the service...
...Again, a person who doesn't understand the Hebrew will not know the difference...
...This is clearly not as literal a translation as "who revives the dead," but it does blunt the theological problem for someone who does not believe in bodily resurrection in the name of a more poetic rendering of the Hebrew...
...But such moments are rare and the two models are in tension...
...It also makes it easier to read other interpretations of the doctrine into the traditional text...
...The translations in Ha-Siddur Ha-Shalem (Hebrew Publishing Company, 1977) of the daily, Shabbat and festival liturgies by the late Philip Birnbaum are particularly successful exemplars of this approach...
...Choosing a Prayer Book Most synagogues adopt a prayer book for use by the entire congregation to lend uniformity and cohesion to the service...
...jFrayer is a subde and complex work of art...
...Frequendy, we anticipate an emotional high...
...It is dishonest, for example, to retain a problematic Hebrew text (out of respect for the tradition) but to omit its English translation, counting on the notion that congregants don't understand the Hebrew and will never miss the translation...
...Sure, you should learn to read and understand (and even speak) Hebrew...
...But my sense is that we should be wary about dropping or changing the traditional liturgy unless we are convinced that there is no alternative...
...Most of us have grown up with a set of expectations about what is supposed to happen to us when we pray...
...Chances are your rabbi or cantor will be thrilled to allow you to lead portions of the service, to read the Torah or even to give a d'var Torah (Torah lesson) from time to time...
...Evelyn Garfiel's Service of the Heart(Thomas Yoseloff, 1958), although not a prayer book, is an excellent introduction to the traditional liturgy, beautifully written for the beginner...
...It requires a coming together of feeling, thinking and discipline, and even if you want to accomplish this, there is no guarantee that you will succeed...
...when we feel we want to pray, the rituals of obligatory times, words and settings frustrate us...
...But it is not always so clear what Judaism wants us to believe...
...The prayer book happens to be one of the wonders of Jewish creativity...
...No other single book except the Bible captures the range and richness of the classical Jewish experience (see box at right...
...Other more radical changes are embroiled in controversy...
...Rabbis, in fact, have more problems than most...
...Suppose the concept that God has chosen Israel from among the nations or that God will resurrect the dead at the end of days or that God should pour out wrath on the nations that ignore God bothers you...
...But a good case can be made for insisting that the prayer book and the synagogue service are not the places to "do theology...
...The goal throughout, both in its masterful translations and in its insertions into the traditional text, many of them composed specifically for this volume by members of the congregation, is to enrich the spiritual experience of Jewish worship in a very contemporary idiom...
...ask yourself what the prayer is saying, what words it chooses, what it meant to the author...
...It is fairly easy to handle the gender issue in English translations...
...In that setting, congregants could easily pull a book off the shelf during the service, if only to look for a commentary on a puzzling verse in the Torah portion...
...Masculine characterizations of God are part of Judaism's classical set of metaphors that are used to characterize God...
...Beyond this, your attendance adds a predictable, regular encounter with Judaism to your life...
...Without a mastery of the Hebrew language, you will always remain a second-class Jewish citizen...
...Translators of the liturgy have various strategies, depending on their goals...
...The New Union Prayer Book: Gates of Prayer (Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1975) offers a variety of services for each occasion and translations that are both aesthetically pleasing and faithful to the Reform version of the Hebrew text...
...Much more radical are the attempts to deal with the issue of gender in regard to liturgical references to God...
...think about it...
...We can experience both at different times in our lives...
...It is relatively easy to be a moral person or to devote a few moments of every day to the study of Torah...
...Ritual prayer and expressive prayer do not necessarily exclude one another...
...We must be much more liturgically creative than we have been thus far, incorporating our own contemporary experience into the prayer book, as previous generations did with theirs...
...The congregant who prays in English needs a translation that is more devotional, poetic and prayerful—even at the expense of literal accuracy...
...reprinted as Quest for God: A fourney into Prayer and Symbolism, Crossroad, 1982...
...Even some Jews who are basically committed to the feminist cause feel that to view God in feminine terms is to raise echoes of ancient pagan religions from which Judaism distanced itself millenia ago...
Vol. 15 • October 1990 • No. 5
