Rabbi Adam Allenberg

Shabbat Behar, May 16, 2008

Pursue Prayer

            I have recently started taking Tai Chi—a meditative martial art from China with deep roots in the Taoist tradition.  While I can’t say that I’ve gained a particularly deep understanding of Taoism during the short period that I have been studying, I can say that I now know how to execute graceful and somewhat aerobic movements with names like Left-Grasp Birds Tail, Carry Tiger to the Mountain, Repulse Monkey, Part Wild Horse’s Mane, and, one of my personal favorites, Wave Hands Like Clouds.

            Tai Chi has always intrigued me.  The slow motion dance of punches and kicks is both firm and gentle.  Tai Chi is somewhere between martial art and contemplative practice.  In high school when I first read the Tao Te Ching, I was fascinated by Taoism’s stress on balance.  Its equal interest in good and evil.  Taoism’s embrace of balance in nature was not what impressed me as much as the stress that this same balance be sought in our selves.

            I have wanted to learn Tai Chi for many years but I finally decided to begin studying it at this point in my life for one compelling reason.  I wanted to try something that I knew would be difficult for me.  I wanted to step outside of my comfort zone, to try and find the value of something foreign for myself.  I have no previous experience doing yoga or studying judo or tae kwan doe.  I can’t even remember the steps to Israeli dances I’ve learned week after week.  I wanted to push myself to try something that looked mysterious and elusive.  I wanted to work at something that I thought would be rewarding even though I still do not know what that reward will be.  I imagined that somehow Tai Chi would put me in touch with myself better, that I might become more self-aware.

            I realize that these might be high expectations of something for which I have no experience, but I am sure that a centuries-old practice must have something to offer that can’t be accessed just from watching or trying it only once.  It must take patience, practice and humility.

            I know, full well, that we Jews have our own spiritual practice that models our own thinking about the world, that uses subtle gestures and movements to teach us about our place in the world and requires a similarly great deal of patience, practice and humility.  Prayer.

            There is an old joke about Jews and prayer.  Mr. Cohen, he goes to synagogue every week to talk to God.  And Mr. Schwartz, he goes to synagogue every week to talk to Mr. Cohen.  All of us have a little Mr. Schwartz in us.  What makes this joke funny is, not only that we see our time at the synagogue as one where we socialize, sometimes at seemingly inappropriate times, but also that prayer for Jews is a touchy subject.  It is something we feel called to do but don’t necessarily know what to do with it.  I think this is the case for two reasons.

            Prayer is hard work.  It requires patience, practice and humility.  To do it well means that you will have to get used to it feeling awkward and strange at times.  It means that some things will come easily and some things will confuse and confound you.  At times you will struggle and at others find reward; there will be periods of profound growth and others of stifling stagnation.  And you will experience all of this.  Sometimes over the course of several years and sometimes in a single service.  Because prayer is just as serious and rigorous a spiritual practice as yoga or Tai Chi, as learning the piano or violin, as riding your bike or going for a hike.

            Actually, I think that prayer is far more difficult than all of the things because I think that our expectations of ourselves are imbalanced.  First, we all come in here with a certain level of competency and literacy—in English literature, in world events, in history and science, even, for some of us, Hebrew.  And because we are handed what looks like a short book, an easy read, we assume that we can handle it.  Or rather we expect that we are supposed to be able to make this thing work.  But no one would expect you, just because you can stand up straight and keep your balance to also be able to do inversions in your first yoga class.  Without having trained regularly, few would think to attempt a marathon or triathlon.  Why do we think that it would be different with prayer?  What makes us think that a general familiarity with the prayer book means we’ve found all that there is to find, learned all there is to learn?

            Second, Jewish prayer is personal and contemplative.  Perhaps this is what can scare us most.  Somewhere along the way we’ve convinced ourselves that proper prayer takes place only at the synagogue, or only when in the hands of a trained professional.  It is as if the prayerbook had a disclaimer on it that read, “Do not attempt this alone.  Please consult a professional before trying.”

            This is simply not the case.  While prayer is a powerful contributor to building our community, so too is it an incredible practice for individuals.  In fact the verb “to pray” in Hebrew, is a reflexive verb.  It points back towards the individual, insinuating that prayer is incomplete without the one doing the praying.  As it says in the Book of Psalms[1], “V’ani t’filati l’cha—I am my prayer to you.”  The rabbis took this idea even further and suggested that, if during the Amidah, a person offering these prayers does not include his/her own words from the heart, their prayer is incomplete.  This teaches us that praying together is important, but just because you are with others that are praying doesn’t mean that you are. 

            Let’s assume for a moment that a person does pray on his/her own.  This would not make the prayerbook less challenging.     Prayer is complex.  Prayer struggles to see balance in the world, to provoke God to maintain that balance and to excite ourselves to work towards that balance.  Each day we acknowledge the power of Creation and the awesomeness of our role in that Creation.  We struggle with our own failings and how to be better people.  We respond to tragedy and express thanks for blessings, great and small.  This is a lot to accomplish.  This is hard work.  And we should treat it that way.                    

            But here is what makes Jewish prayer incredibly powerful and worthwhile.  It is yours.  It belongs to you.  These Hebrew words, daunting and foreign as they may be, belong to you.  They are yours to explore and to question.  The words of our prayerbook have been gleaned from our tradition to guide us through lives, in times of tragedy and celebration.  Our service is full of poetry and music, of subtle movements and gestures, all of which is filled with metaphor and meaning.  We invite all of our senses, our entire being, to be a part of this experience.  The public, our community, and the private, our selves.  We sway and bow and hum.  We toss our tallitot over ours shoulders, we close our eyes, we sway.  Our prayer tradition is as rich and complex is any spiritual practice out there.  Only this one is ours.

            Prayer is elusive and mysterious, strange and rewarding.  During this Shabbat, as we try to bring rest and wholeness to our lives, let us consider the role of prayer in our lives.  Let us find in ourselves the discipline to dedicate to prayer that we give so willingly to other pursuits.  And may our prayers this evening, in this community and around the world strengthen our relationships with God, with ourselves and with our world.