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I am taking a class about Jewish Prayer this semester. It has really pushed me to think about prayer in the context of the community. My Protestant Liberal mind has trouble understanding that I cannot do things alone. Here are some thoughts I had this week in my journal entry for class.
Peace out,
Mary
Prayer is connected in a deep and intimate way to the world, to God, and to the God's people. The interactions do not work like a flow chart but more like a web that binds the individual and community closer to God than the individual can do alone. Individuals pray but they use the words of the community and thereby engraft themselves into the community in prayer. Kaplan explains, “in order that our participation in communal worship shall enable us to experience the presence of God by bringing into operation our gregarious nature, it is necessary that we feel strongly our identification with the worshiping community and the totality of its interests.” The Jewish community must be a part of the individual’s prayers for those prayers to have context and to make sense. Heschel echoes that when he writes, “we start with a personal concern and live to feel the utmost, for the fare of the individual is a counterpoint in a larger theme.” It is within the community that the individual understands that he or she is a smaller part of an immense picture. It is when you stand beside the ocean that you realize just how small and insignificant you are. The relationship with God makes the individual infinitely significant through God’s love.
Similarly, it is as an infinitesimal part of the picture that we can see the world differently through prayer. Heschel also writes, “we do not step out of the world when we pray; we merely see the world in a different setting.” Prayer allows the individual to see rightly and to orient him or herself on God while out of God’s presence here in the world. Heschel also writes, “We constantly pour our inner light away from Him, setting up the thick screen of self between Him and us, adding more shadows to the darkness that already hovers between Him and our wayward reason.” The community shows the individual how to reorient the light and pulls back the screen. We need to know who we are and to whom we belong. Kaplan also echoes this thought, “The worshipper is made aware of the reality of God and His sway over the human heart, when he joins with the throng in public worship.” Kaplan also explains it this way, “Realizing that others share our needs, our hopes, our fears, and our ideals we no longer feel dependent entirely on our own efforts for our salvation.” We human beings think that we are the center of the universe, that we can control our destiny, and that we are created rather than creation. As Kaplan says, “We see God in relation to the community using it as a reference point.” The community holds up the mirror to show us that this is not the case, and therefore serves as a beacon on the ocean so that the individual can move to the right longitude and latitude to be in relationship with God.
I believe that I have been misinterpreting communal prayer for a long time. I thought it to be restricting, boring, and even trite on occasion. However, I must admit that I was wrong! I cannot pray on my own little island all the time. I need the community, the communion of saints to shape my prayers and help me orient on my creator.
