A Guide to Jewish Prayer - Softcover

Steinsaltz, Adin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0805211470 ISBN 13: 9780805211474

Verlag: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2002

Inhaltsangabe

From one of the world's most famous and respected rabbis—"a practical explanation of Jewish worship from a spiritual slant" (Detroit Free Press).


For both the novice and for those who have been engaged in prayer for years, here is the one guide needed to practice Jewish prayer and understand the prayer book. From the origins and meaning of worship to a step-by-step explanation of the daily prayers to the reason you're not supposed to chat with your friends during services, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz answers many of the questions likely to arise about Jewish prayer. Here are chapters on daily prayer; Sabbath prayer; prayer services for the holidays; the yearly cycle of synagogue Bible readings; the history and makeup of the synagogue; the different prayer rites for Ashkenazim, Sephardim, Yemenites, and other cultural/geographic groupings; the role of the rabbi and the cantor in the synagogue; and the role of music in the service.

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RABBI ADIN STEINSALTZ is the author of a landmark commentary on the Talmud, as well as many books of Jewish thought. He lives in Israel.

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One of the world's most famous and respected rabbis has given us the one guide we need to practice Jewish prayer and understand the prayer book.
From the origins and meaning of prayer to a step-by-step explanation of the daily services to the reason you're not supposed to chat with your friends during the service, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz answers many of the questions likely to arise about Jewish prayer. Here are chapters on daily prayer; Sabbath prayer; prayer services for the holidays; the yearly cycle of synagogue Bible readings; the history and make-up of the synagogue; the different prayer rites for Ashkenazim, Sephardim, Yemenites, and other cultural/geographic groupings; the role of the rabbi and the cantor in the synagogue; and the role of music in the service.
The book also contains a glossary, a bibliography, and biographical sketches of the rabbis who were instrumental in creating and ordering the prayers through the ages.
Rabbi Steinsaltz's guide is an essential volume both for the newcomer to Jewish prayer and for those who have been engaged in prayer for years.

"From the Hardcover edition.

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CHAPTER TWO
The Essence of Prayer
 
 
Prayer is the salient expression of religious emotion in man and of his relationship with his Creator. There are, of course, many other forms by which people may express their religious feelings—from those fixed ceremonial rites that in themselves constitute a religious ritual, to those acts which man performs in order to obey the will of God, or from which he may refrain because they negate the Creator’s will and command.
 
While these aspects are to be found in every person possessing religious feeling, they are to be found even more so in the Jew, whose life is filled with positive and negative commandments, traditions and customs, and Jewish ways of expression and thought.
 
Yet there are various influences that are prone to obscure or conceal the inherent purpose of those acts that a person might perform in order to express a relationship with God. Habit and routine may cause a person to cease being aware of the reason for the performance of a given action. It often happens that a person living in a society that shares his faith and behaves in a similar fashion will perform these acts because they seem the normal mode of behavior, without attention to their actual content.
 
Even when a person performs a ritual ceremony, there is no assurance that the meaning of this performance will be fully realized, as every act involves an external, technical aspect. By punctilious insistence upon performing it in a precise and particular manner, and in assuring that all the objects required are in proper condition, a person is liable to forget its main purpose.
 
By contrast, prayer is a direct and unequivocal act of relating to God. In whatever way it is performed, and in whatever manner it is uttered, prayer is essentially one thing: an explicit addressing by the human “I” to the Divine “Thou.” In the most essential sense, prayer is direct speech, in which man confronts and addresses his Creator.
 
Such speech may be of many kinds: request, supplication, thanksgiving, complaint, or even simple conversation. All these can be found in prayer, and each one of them can be expressed by personal, individual prayer. The prayers that may be found in the books of the Bible—particularly in the Book of Psalms, which is basically a compendium of individual and public prayers—represent all of the kinds and varieties of prayer with which the individual or public may address God the Creator. The wide range of prayers and benedictions found in the Siddur likewise include the entire spectrum of ways in which a man may address his Maker.
 
Many prayers are requests or pleas in which man addresses God and asks for something—be it life, health, or success, deliverance from disaster or from poverty. Man may appeal on behalf of himself or for others, whether near and dear or distant acquaintances. On the other hand, there may be requests of an entirely different sort, in which a person asks God to consider the shame he had suffered, or voices his desire to be avenged, to have his enemies punished.
 
There are still other prayers that are a way of saying “Thank you,” whether in general—for all the good things in life, or for the existence of something beautiful or pleasurable—or for some personal, private matter—recovery from illness, deliverance from danger, or in acknowledgement of some special event.
 
On the other hand, there may be prayer that is an expression of questioning, of wonder, or even of complaint, such as the bold words of criticism uttered by Abraham: “Far be it from You to do so, to slay the righteous with the wicked. . . . Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Genesis 18:25); or the complaint that also indicated supplication and submission: “Righteous are You, O Lord, when I complain to You; yet I would plead my case before You. Wherefore does the way of the wicked prosper?” (Jeremiah 12:1).
 
There are yet other prayers that have no clear, definite form of address, but are merely a kind of conversation or outpouring of the heart before God. At times, this confession is a declaration of love and yearning such as “My soul thirsts for You, my flesh longs for You” (Psalm 63:1); at others, it expresses a sense of distance in which the person bares his heart before God, asking nothing, yet expressing his grief at his material or spiritual loss.
 
On yet other occasions, a person may wish to “tell” God about his good deeds, and to say with a sense of satisfaction, “Remember this, O my Lord, for my good” (Nehemiah 5:19), or may wish to confess his sins, both overt and covert. All these types, and many others, may be expressed in personal prayer, and are thus to be found in the Siddur, formulated as it is or both personal and public use.
 
This aspect of prayer—of direct speech addressed to God—is essentially very intimate in character. Not only when a person is alone in the darkness of night, pouring out heart and soul, but even when standing in the midst of a large congregation, with everyone reciting the same words aloud, a close, intimate relationship with God is being expressed. This address in the form of conversation, of direct speech of the human “I” to the Divine “Thou,” even when expressed by the entire congregation, is based on the simple assumption that such dialogue is possible.
 
But whether plea or praise, prayer is always speech addressed to God, and such speech is only possible when a person knows that “Verily God has heard me and attended to the voice of my prayer” (Psalm 66:19). This realization that “You hear the prayer of every mouth” is what directs man to pray and to confide in God all those secret, personal matters—needs, anxieties, requests, and heartfelt desires.
 
But in order to pray in this manner, to “pour out his complaint before the Lord” (Psalm 102:1), one needs to feel a sense of intimate closeness to God, as “Our Merciful Father.” The child standing before his father feels he can tell him everything in his heart: to plead, to complain, to thank, or to simply tell him about things.
 
At every such moment of baring the heart, in times of distress or joy, prayer takes place with the same feeling of affinity as that reflected in one of the Piyyutim recited during the Days of Awe, “For we are Your sons, and you are our Father” or, in a more profound and even mystical manner, “We are Your beloved and You our Lover.”
 
But in contrast to this approach to prayer, there is another aspect, deriving from a totally different point of view. There is a different mode of relationship to God—that expressed by the prophet: “For who is this that has ventured to approach Me, says the Lord” (Jeremiah 30:21); or, expressed differently, “For I am a great King, says the Lord of Hosts, and My Name is awesome before the nations” Malachi 1:14).
 
This sense of awed reverence, of standing before the exalted Divinity, is rooted in the recognition of the distance separating Man from God, As Maimonides says, “When he [i.e. man] considers such matters as they really are, he immediately retreats in fear, knowing he is a small, lowly creature standing light-mindedly before the Omniscient God.”
 
Once a person adopts such a point of view, intimate conversation is impossible, and prayer acquires an entirely different character. Confronted by “the Great King,” one can only offer the rituals of sacred service. That is, given such a conception, prayer itself...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2002
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0805211470
• ISBN 13: 9780805211474
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 468
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: preigu; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; 49078; Deutschland