Making Prayer Real , livre ebook

Making Prayer Real
Leading Jewish Spiritual Voices on Why Prayer Is Difficult and What to Do about It
Rabbi Mike Comins
Making Prayer Real:
Leading Jewish Spiritual Voices on Why Prayer Is Difficult and What to Do about It
2010 Quality Paperback Edition, Second Printing
2010 Quality Paperback Edition, First Printing
2010 by Mike Comins
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or reprinted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information regarding permission to reprint material from this book, please write or fax your request to Jewish Lights Publishing, Permissions Department, at the address / fax number listed below, or e-mail your request to permissions@jewishlights.com.
Grateful acknowledgment is given for permission to use the following: Why Pray?, pp. 26-29, 2007 by Rami Shapiro, which was originally published in the Spring/Summer 2007 print edition of Zeek and is reprinted here with permission of the author; Surrendering to the Preposterousness of Prayer, pp. 34-38, Jay Michaelson, used with permission of the author.
Practices 1, 3, 5, 8, 9 10, 11, 12, 13, 19, and 24 and an excerpt on pp. 102-103 are adapted in whole or in part from Mike Comins, A Wild Faith: Jewish Ways into Wilderness, Wilderness Ways into Judaism . Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2007, pp. 60-61, 79, 82, 90, 98-99, 100, 105-106, 112, 116, 157-158, 164-165. Used with permission of the publisher.
The glossary is adapted from Lawrence A. Hoffman, ed., My People s Prayer Book: Traditional Prayers, Modern Commentaries, Volume 2-The Amidah . Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 1998, pp. 201-213; and My People s Prayer Book: Traditional Prayers, Modern Commentaries, Volume 8-Kabbalat Shabbat (Welcoming Shabbat in the Synagogue) . Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2005, pp. 183-209. Used with permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Comins, Mike.
Making prayer real : leading Jewish spiritual voices on the difficulty of prayer and what to do about it / Mike Comins.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-58023-417-7 (quality pbk. original) 1. Prayer-Judaism. I. Title.
BM669.C66 2010
296.4'5-dc22
2009050594
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Manufactured in the United States of America
Printed on recycled paper.
Cover Design: Tim Holtz
For People of All Faiths, All Backgrounds
Published by Jewish Lights Publishing
A Division of LongHill Partners, Inc.
Sunset Farm Offices, Route 4, P.O. Box 237
Woodstock, VT 05091
Tel: (802) 457-4000 Fax: (802) 457-4004
www.jewishlights.com
For Jody
Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction: The Problem with Jewish Prayer
Part I The Spiritual Dynamics of Prayer
1. The Efficacy of Prayer
2. What Is Prayer?
3. Yearning
4. Gratitude
5. Kavvanah
6. Engaging the Body
7. Listening for God: Silence and Meditation
8. Discerning Divinity
Part II Beginning to Pray
9. Advice For Beginners
10. The Power of You
11. Blessings
12. Cultivating a Personal Prayer Voice
Part III Growing and Healing through Prayer
13. Teshuvah: Personal Change, Communal Responsibility
14. Coping with Loss

Part IV Embracing Traditional Jewish Prayer
15. The Spiritual Dynamics of the Siddur
16. Learning the Siddur
17. Overcoming the Hebrew Barrier
18. Best Practices
19. Between Traditional and Personal Prayer
20. Advice For Beginners Redux
Part V Building a Prayer Practice
21. Starting a Daily Practice
Practices
Y EARNING
Practice 1 Write a Psalm
G RATITUDE
Practice 2 Gratitude List
Practice 3 Thank-You Walk
B ODY A WARENESS
Practice 4 Soul Breathing
Practice 5 25-25-50 Body Awareness
Practice 6 Heart Awareness
B LESSINGS
Practice 7 Blessings Practice
Practice 8 Jewish Blessings
Practice 9 Learn the Traditional Blessings
Practice 10 Blessings Walk
C ULTIVATING A P ERSONAL P RAYER V OICE
Practice 11 Personal Prayer
Practice 12 Talking to God-Rabbi Nachman s Hitbodedut
Practice 13 Write a Letter to God
Practice 14 God Says
Practice 15 Contemplation
C OPING WITH L OSS
Practice 16 Tears
Practice 17 Words
Practice 18 Meditation
Practice 19 Give It to God
T ESHUVAH
E NGAGING THE B ODY IN T RADITIONAL P RAYER
Practice 20 Jewish Chant
B EFRIENDING THE T RADITIONAL P RAYERS
Practice 21 Improvise with the Chatimah
Practice 22 Ask the Siddur a Question
Practice 23 Visualization
Practice 24 Dialogue a Prayer
Conclusion: Letting God In
Notes
Waiting for You at www.MakingPrayerReal.com
Glossary
Resources
About the Contributors

About Jewish Lights
Copyright
Acknowledgments
A s I thanked nearly everyone I ever met in my first book, I will be brief this time around.
Have you noticed that when people get on the air, they thank the radio talk-show host for taking their call? My heartfelt thanks to Emily Wichland and the Jewish Lights staff for their encouragement and guidance in producing this book, and to Stuart M. Matlins, publisher of Jewish Lights, for taking my call.
Over and over in these interviews, I heard the wisdom of two great teachers distilled through the devotion and insight of their students. This book is a testament to their living legacy. On behalf of the many teachers quoted in this book, may I gratefully acknowledge the gifts of Abraham Joshua Heschel, of blessed memory, and Zalman M. Schachter-Shalomi.
Everyone I know who sincerely prays has some words of wisdom on the subject. How could it be otherwise? For every person I interviewed, there were another five I know who should have been interviewed, and another five hundred whom I don t know. Had I lived somewhere else, or been exposed to different people in life, other names would appear in the contributor list. To all those who are thinking, Why didn t he talk to me? I offer my apologies. Your wisdom is missed.
This book was written in a remarkably short period of time as I dropped everything and devoted myself to the project. I have been blessed with the support of an amazing woman, my beloved Jody. Making Prayer Real is her gift to the Jewish People. If you like the book and run into her at the farmer s market, please give her your thanks.
Preface
I f you had asked me, when I was a teenager, why I didn t regularly attend synagogue services, the answer would have been quick and decisive: it s BORRRing!
And I actually enjoyed services more than most. I liked Hebrew and singing; they sparked memories of the fun I had at Jewish summer camp. For ethnic reasons, I was really into being Jewish, and Jews gathered at synagogues.
But my list of complaints was far more compelling. I could mouth the Hebrew, but for the most part, I could not understand it. I didn t know what I prayed when I prayed it, only afterwards when I read the translation. And after reading the translation, I often felt that it would have been better if I had never looked. Why do people think that praising God is such a great thing to do, as if God, being God, needs us to suck up and worship Him? Wasn t worship the term for a pagan s relation to an idol or an immature person s relation to a rock star? And why Him instead of Her ?
And who was this God, who did miracles that I knew were impossible, like splitting the Red Sea? Why would the prayer book try to impress me by making such a big deal out of something so unbelievable, and then brag about saving us by recounting the drowning of an army s worth of Egyptians? The prayers were written a long time ago for a very different audience.
All the personal petitions are phrased in we language rather than I language, as if they, too, knew better than to ask for personal attention. Want to cure disease? we thought in the late sixties and early seventies. Then put your faith in university research hospitals. So soon after the Holocaust, the idea of a God who looks out for righteous individuals, indeed any individuals, was clearly folly.
The creative English readings were often interesting. At least, the first one was. By the third creative reading, my mind was elsewhere. And if I had read it a few times before at previous services, my attention was gone from the start. I was taught to be independent, to value individuality, to be authentic; that is, to do things because I knew that they were right and true. And here I was, reading prayers-the thoughts of someone else-in unison with a hundred other people.
No one talked about God. Not even the rabbi pretended that we were there to pray to this God that few believed in. Like most of us, I was there not because of the prayers but despite them. There was a perverse logic at play. If I do something so clearly unenjoyable as plodding through the service, I m really demonstrating my loyalty to the Jewish community. Why else suffer through this?
The best part of the service was the sermon, because our rabbis knew better than to talk about anything spiritual. Instead, they spoke about politics, Israel, saving Soviet Jewry, Vietnam. The times were hot, and so were we. And then there was the oneg after services. Lots of brownies, plenty of friends, and, most fun of all, Israeli dancing. There were rewards for our suffering. But not enough to draw me to services when I didn t have to go.
Thirty-Five Years Later
Today, when I m not spending Shabbat in nature, I attend a traditional egalitarian service with a full Torah reading. It takes more than three hours, but I do not wear a watch and it never ends too late for me.
If I m really good, I rise early enough to meditate before leaving for services. On the drive over, I sing Jewish chants with my wife, Jody.
I enter the sanctuary. It has no stained glass windows, no elaborate ark, no fancy pews; it is just a meeting room at a community center, some folding cha