Tefillah -- Sermon for RH Day 1, 5767
This morning we read two stories with women as central characters, Sara and Hagar in the Torah portion, and Hannah in our Haftara from First Samuel.
In each of these stories, a woman’s prayer is accompanied by tears, and her prayer is answered.
In the selection from Genesis, Hagar and Ishmael are banished to the wilderness by a very distressed Avraham, obeying Sara and God’s command.
Watching her son suffering from thirst, Hagar prays, “Let me not see my child die,” and bursts into tears.
In the Haftara, Hannah weeps bitterly and prays to God to give her a son. The text says that her lips moved but no sound was heard; she spoke only with her heart.
In the Hagar story, we are told that God hears the cry of the youth.
This is odd, since the text never says that Ishmael prayed or cried.
One Hasidic Rebbe – Mendel of Vorkah -- understands from this that God hears the silent cry of the heart, even when no words are uttered.
Whether God was responding to the silent cry of Ishmael’s heart, or the audible cry of Hagar, the Talmud teaches (both in Brachot and Bava Metzia) that the Gates of Tears are never shut.
Simcha Bunim of Pschischa, a 19th-century Hassidic rebbe, asks:
If the heavens are always open to tears, then why in the Talmudic image is there a special "gate” of tears? Surely a gate is meant to allow entry and to deny entry. His answer: only crying that is authentic is accepted by God.
Why are these texts read on Rosh Hashanah?
One can come up with various reasons. I suggest that they are intended to inspire us to pray with authenticity and emotion. These Days of Awe are a time to pray for our lives and for the lives of those we love, even if we are not in imminent danger as Hagar and Ishmael were in the wilderness.
The emotional, personal prayers of Hagar and Hannah contrast with the solemn, elevated language of much of the Rosh Hashanah liturgy: the majestic proclamation of God’s Sovereignty.
These women’s personal, existential concerns, such as survival and the desire for children -- constitute the sub-text of Rosh Hashanah. The majesty and grandeur of God’s Kingship which we proclaim on this day also implies our own dependence, frailty, and existential insecurity as human beings.
Even the young, the healthy, and the financially comfortable among us cannot know for certain what a new year will bring. Anyone who has lived even a little knows the wide variety of unpleasant surprises—accidents, illness, unexpected financial troubles, deterioration of important personal relationships, not to mention random violence, terror, war and natural disaster — that life can present us with.
This awareness moves us to pray for health, for the well-being of our loved ones, for parnassah tovah (financial sustenance and right livelihood), for peace, and ultimately, for life itself.
Our tradition teaches us that teshuvah (repentance or returning),
tefillah (prayer) and tzedakah (justice), influence our fate – not only whether we will live or die in the coming year, but HOW we will live or die.
The value of Teshuvah – the work of self-evaluation, re-alignment, returning to our most authentic selves, making amends to people we have hurt, and asking for their and God’s forgiveness – is clear.
The importance of Tzedakah -- giving what we can in both time and money to those who need our help – is self-evident. (We will engage in a text study about tzedakah tomorrow after the Torah service).
But Tefillah? Prayer? Its value is perhaps less certain, less tangible, less accessible to some of you than the other two imperatives of this season.
Tefillah is a very helpful part of the teshuvah process. Tefillah is, among other things, an opportunity to reflect on what we need to ask forgiveness for and who from, and an opportunity to think about what we want to change in ourselves and how we might go about changing.
We follow the liturgy in the Machzor, a familiar friend we re-encounter annually during these Days of Awe. Although you may not understand the Hebrew, you may recognize many of the words, and are familiar with many of the melodies sung by the choir & Dana, Meyer & myself.
Some of you are caught between following along in the Hebrew, which you may not understand, and following along in the English, which may or may not speak to you.
If you are unable to pray the words on the page with understanding and kavannah (intention), try not to get hung up on unintelligible Hebrew or uninspiring translations.
What matters is THAT you pray.
Hagar and Hannah did not have siddurim (prayerbooks) or machzorim (High Holiday prayerbooks).
Search for your own prayer, your own words.
What praise, what gratitude, what longings -- lie inside your heart?
Well-known Chassidic story:
Illiterate shepherd boy, doesn’t even know how to speak very well, brings his flute to shul on Yom Kippur unbeknownst to his father. He wants to play but father sternly tells him to keep it in his pocket.
Finally at Neilah, after having listened to others pray all day, with tears streaming down his face, he cannot hold back. He wants to express himself. He wants to reach out to God. He takes out the flute and plays a heartfelt melody.
The father and all the congregation is dismayed, but the Rebbe tells them not to worry.
“This boy saved our prayers. Our prayers were not ascending to the heavens. We were not able to pray with the purity and sincerity that are required to elevate our prayers into the heavenly courts. Suddenly, this boy with his unknowing error but pure heart and tears began to play his flute. His purity was added to our prayers and the doors of heaven opened up and our prayers were accepted.”
On the High Holidays perhaps more than at any other time, we feel ourselves standing before God as naked, vulnerable individuals.
We also feel ourselves standing before God as a collective.
We come together on the High Holidays to be together and to pray together.
We come together on the High Holidays to express our solidarity with the Jewish People, past and present.
We come to synagogue on the High Holidays to express our yearning to connect with God and to reach deeper inside ourselves – to touch our own souls.
Even for those among you who do not pray or reach out to God at other times, this season calls you to bypass your doubting minds.
This season challenges you to consider the possibility that God exists.
It asks us all to examine what the concept of God means to us individually,
and to put some real effort into cultivating a relationship with God,
whether you are more comfortable thinking of God as Lord and King, or as a non-gendered Compassionate Being, or as your Higher Power, your Source, the Cosmic Energy Field, the Overarching Interconnecting Consciousness of all Life -- whatever concept resonates for you.
This season invites us to believe that prayer has real power – to pray as if it really matters.
You might feel more comfortable praying and pouring your heart out when you are alone, out in the wilderness like Hagar, or in the privacy of your own home.
When Hannah was praying intensely and crying in the temple in Shilo,
Eli the Cohen initially accused her of being drunk.
She was not ashamed. What she was doing was between her and God.
Many people are afraid to express intense emotion in public.
There is a fear of being exposed, embarrassed – of looking or sounding odd.
If that’s true for you, I encourage you to spend some time praying alone at home or in the woods during these 10 days. (Try it, you’ll like it! It might even become a habit! When the weather permits me, I often go up alone on a mountain to pray – there are so many beautiful ones around here – and if I don’t have time for a hike, I go out into my backyard.)
Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav (1772-1810) taught that natural surroundings are conducive to prayer and meditation. He said: "Go to a grassy field, for the grass will awaken your heart." He taught that the grasses and other plants and trees actually contribute to our prayers. The plants and trees have their own song. "If only you could hear the song of this grass! Each blade is singing out to God for no ulterior motive, not expecting any reward. It is most amazing to hear their song and serve God among them.”
But there is also something comforting and energizing about praying in synagogue.
Being with others who are praying with sincerity and passion, can help us to concentrate and to pray with sincerity and passion ourselves.
The statement: “The whole is more than the sum of its parts,” applies to communal prayer.
Praying together transforms the whole community.
Studying together – whether it be Torah or contemporary literature -- and engaging in intellectual discussions is one wonderful way to get to know each other and to bond.
Socializing at onegs and potluck meals is another way of getting to know and enjoy one another.
Serving people who come to the Soup Kitchen is yet another meaningful way to build relationships amongst ourselves at the same time that we are helping others.
There are many activities that you have done together as a community over the years.
Praying is one of them.
Praying elevates us.
It brings us to a state where pride, ego, and personality fall away.
We become aware both of our insignificance, and of our interconnectedness.
We are all children of God, all here through the grace of God.
In prayer, we are not relating directly to one another, but we are aware of our community members, sitting or standing around us, sharing this experience with us.
In a way it is like working at the Soup Kitchen, in that the focus is not on one another, it’s on the service, and we are connected to each other through that shared focus on service.
Praying together – truly praying, vs. reciting a bunch of words, however beautiful those words may be -- is a bonding experience.
The time that I most feel this congregation praying together, is when we do the misheberach for healing. Everyone concentrates, because we all know people who are ill, and during the misheberach, we dare to hope that our prayers will bring healing to those whom we love. Likewise, in our monthly healing circle here, the prayers are intense and sincere.
We use few words and a lot of kavanah – intention.
I hope that more of you will come to these short, quiet, healing services in the coming year. (The next one will be on Monday, Oct 23 from 7-8 pm).
While we cannot be sure that our prayers are going to bring about healing for those for whom we are praying, the healing circles are definitely healing for those who participate in them.
This summer at Dance Camp, about 30 of us gathered around a friend who has cancer.
Steven lay down and we all circled around him and lay our hands on him, or on others who were touching him.
We sat together in silent prayer for a long time.
Every one who felt moved to do so, articulated our prayers for him, and those who did not feel called to speak, remained in silence.
Praying for others is good for the ones who are doing the praying.
Any petitionary prayer, whether for other individuals, for Israel, for humanity, for the earth, or for oneself, is healing and centering.
Any praise offered to God – any prayer of thanksgiving, is healing and energizing.
Stopping to articulate our thanks and to sing songs of praise,
helps us to feel gratitude.
Giving praise to God increases our consciousness of what is good in our lives and in the world.
Prayer, whether petitionary or praise & thanksgiving, develops our relationship with the Source of all Life, the Source of all our Blessings.
_____________________________________________________________
(From here on, I ad-libbed from these notes):
Sheila (my very Christian roommate) in Tel Aviv 22 yrs ago – prayed every day in our room. First time I ever lived with some one who prayed regularly.
I felt something happening in her side of the room – real and mysterious.
I was annoyed when I was going through a hard period and found out that she was praying for me; I wanted it to be more direct support. Her prayers for me felt manipulative.
Now I am always very happy and feel very supported to know others are praying for me – and I pray for them.
I pray for some of you.
Email or call me with your prayers. I pray daily, and during the Amidah, I pray for people (in the healing section and the Shma Koleinu -- “hear our prayers” -- section). If you ask me to pray for you, I WILL pray for you.
If you want others to pray for you, have your name put in Hashofar.
Many other shuls do this. It’s one way we can support each other.
Using the structure of our traditional liturgy adds power to my praying. I feel the backing of generations and generations of people who have poured their hearts & souls into these same words.
There is also room built in – into the Amidah – the Standing Prayer – referred to in the Talmud as “THE PRAYER” – for our own personal prayers.
Our liturgy is a beautiful vessel for all the desires of our hearts.
In the words of Kohelet (Eccl) “There is nothing new under the sun.”
Two Suggestions:
1) Choose 1 or 2 lines from our liturgy – (It might be the Shema, although the Shema is a statement, not a prayer).
I recommend the Morning Blessings in AM, Hashkiveinu at night.
Weekday Amidah is very centering – covers all bases; but it may be intimidating at first, as there are a LOT of words there.
If you don’t have a siddur at home, come in to the synagogue and photocopy a few pages from one of the many editions we have here.
Pray every day for a month, and see how it affects you.
And if the already formulated prayers of our tradition feel like a barrier to your praying at this point, then take a few minutes each morning and each evening to pray from your heart, as Hannah and Hagar did.
2) Pray for people whom you are upset with, whom you feel hurt by and angry toward. Pray for understanding – yours and theirs.
Pray for their peace and healing.
May our prayers bring peace to us, peace to our community, and peace to our world.
Adonai Sfatai Tiftach…God open up my lips that my mouth may declare your praise.
Yihiyu l’ratzon imrei fi v’higiyon libi…May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable unto you, Adonai.