Why Do We Pray?
January 15, 2010
Rabbi David Levinsky
Good evening and welcome to Chicago Sinai Congregation. This week we have watched as a profound tragedy unfolded around us. The earthquake in Haiti has killed tens of thousands of people, injured countless thousands, and left innumerable Haitians without homes and living in the streets. Our hearts cannot help but feel their suffering. Fortunately, there are things that we can do for them. I have a list here gathered by our Temple President Peter Bensinger of the most efficient relief organizations. Anyone who wants this list in order to make a donation they are outside the chapel on a table. Feel free to take one.
As religious people, we can also pray for the people of Haiti. We can pray for inspiration to tangibly help them. We can pray for the strength to follow through on that commitment. We can pray that the people of Haiti find the strength to endued their horrible ordeal.
Yes, we pray at times like this one. We pray in times of desperation. Every Jew is what Rabbi Fred Schwartz called a “heart attack Jew.” When we think that we are having a heart attack, a prayer quickly comes to our lips. What about the other times? What about the times when life is pretty normal? Why do we pray then?
Why do we pray?
This week I put this question up on Facebook and I received a marvelous range of answers to this question.
Some of them were funny.
I pray because who else BUT God will get me out of half the things I get myself into... (Pete Zimmermann).
Some were thoughtful.
Reminds me to show gratitude toward others and not interpret good fortune solely as the result of my own efforts (Ken Kurson).
Some of them were sad.
I once dated a girl who constantly prayed for good parking spots. Strangely enough, it seemed to work more times than not. Of course, it also made me wonder if my tearful prayer for my grandfather to be given the strength to survive leukemia went unanswered because there were too many parking spot requests to be dealt with at that particular time (Darren Robbins).
Why do we pray? Traditionally, there are three answers to this question that correspond to the three traditional types of prayer. We praise God. We thank God. We petition God.
Two of the three of these traditional answers present little or no problems, as long as we believe in God. Why not praise God? There are a myriad of wonderful things that fill our lives. It’s a miracle that we even wake up every morning and breath. We have the supreme pleasure of seeing snow-covered trees blow in the wind, hearing the opening notes of a Beethoven symphony, touching the hand of a loved one. Life itself offers innumerable miraculous experiences, and if we believe that God is one, that God is everything, why not praise God for the creation and continual recreation of the world?
This evening we did this by reciting and singing the Barchu together. We open the main part of the prayer service, the metaphorical heart of the prayer service, by praising God in no uncertain terms. The rabbi, or prayer leader, recites the words, “Praise the eternal God to him all praise is due!” The congregation responds with the words, “Let us praise the eternal God to whom all praise is due now and forever!” The rabbis in their wisdom recognized that opening our hearts and praising God sets the stage for all subsequent prayer. Before we move on to the specifics, we praise God in general.
Why not thank God? Again, as long as we believe in God there is little problem with thanking God for all of the wonders of the world and of our lives. For most Americans, there is one day a year where we concentrate upon feeling thankful for everything that God has given us—Thanksgiving. This is a wonderful tradition and every year here at Sinai we share these feelings of thanks with our neighbors from Holy Name Cathedral and Fourth Presbyterian Church.
Is once a year enough? Surely, it is not. Once again, the rabbis instituted a prayer of Thanksgiving that occurs in every single Jewish prayer service. They realized that feeling thankful is not a once-a-year occurrence; rather expressing thanks can permeate our daily lives. In our prayer book, this prayer is not included in the morning service, but it does occur in the morning service. It is the penultimate moment before we meditate in silent prayer. If you turn to page 87, we can read the words of this prayer together:
We gratefully acknowledge, Eternal God, that you are our Creator and Preserver, the Rock of our life and the Shield of our help. We render thanks unto You for our lives which are in Your hand, for our souls which are ever in Your keeping, for Your wondrous providence and for Your continuous goodness, which You bestow upon us day by day. Truly, Your mercies never fail and Your loving kindness never ceases. Therefore do we forever put our trust in You.
So far so good. Why do we pray? We pray to praise God and we pray to give thanks to God. But what about petition? When we ask God for things, we raise a whole set of questions and problems. If we ask God for a loved one to get well and we do not get our wish, does that mean that God did not hear our prayer? Then God isn’t all knowing. Does that mean that God heard our prayer but ignored it? Then God is not all just. Does that mean that God heard our prayer and could not do anything about it? That means that God is not all powerful.
All of these questions raise serious theological problems. They call into question the way that Judaism traditionally thinks about God. More than that, these questions have a serious emotional underpinning. They are not simply intellectual questions. When someone is suffering and they ask God for help, they expect an answer. Divine silence is painful and all the more so if the person is already suffering.
When I served as a rabbi in California, I made friends with two of my older congregants. They were an older couple. He was a professor emeritus who had a dazzling career as an academic. He helped create the field of health care economics and was spending his retirement writing academic articles, giving talks at conference, and writing op-eds for the New York Times. His wife also was quite active. She worked as a volunteer arbitrator, mediating disputes within her local community. They were both charming and intelligent and an absolute pleasure as friends.
A few years into our friendship she was diagnosed with cancer. She called me up and I offered to go over to her house. We talked about the details of her diagnosis and then she asked me a question. She said that she never really prayed. Sure she went to services occasionally and said the words in the prayer book, but she didn’t connect it to God in any way. She never prayed to God and now all of a sudden she felt a strong urge to do so. What was holding her back was the heartfelt belief that God wasn’t a superhero that was going to sweep in and save her from cancer. If that wasn’t the case, then why pray?
I told her that if she had a strong urge to pray to God, then she should pray to God. There are a lot of ways to pray. One way is to pray for results, to ask for God the superhero to sweep in and destroy her cancer. Another way is to pray for strength, to ask for the power to face the reality of life with cancer as well as possible. Another way is to pray for awareness, to ask for the ability to continue to discern the presence of God in the world and the presence of God in her life even as cancer becomes a part of that same life.
My friend and congregant did die of cancer. I can say with all honesty that she died a beautiful death. The rest of her life was filled with the people who were most important to her. She spent time with her family. She took walks, for as long as she could, with her friends. Towards the end, she took great joy in seeing the flowers that she had planted in her garden from the bed placed in her living room. The heightened awareness of her mortality allowed her to become more aware of that which is divine in the world—family, friends, and natural beauty. She showed profound strength in embracing fully the life that remained for her on earth. Her whole life became a prayer.
These are the reasons why we pray.
This Shabbat as we think of the horrors in Haiti, let us pray for those who need help. Let us pray that they find the strength to persevere amidst all of the pain, suffering, and loss. Let us pray that they do not feel abandoned by God and by the rest of the world. Just as important as prayer, let us give to them so they will be more able to help themselves.
As for our prayers, may we find our own reason for prayer that inspires us to connect with God and our community. May those connections in turn inspire us to improve ourselves and the world around us. May the voice of prayer within each of us find calm and peace in this tumultuous world.
Shabbat Shalom