Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: Prayer Is the Ultimate Relationship Building Activity, and It Happens Through Asking

For years I have come home from davening/learning in the morning, change into my biking clothes, pack my lunch, have a quick bite to eat with my wife, then off to work.  Since the last couple of months, the routine has an addition: get breakfast for the grandchildren; it's one of the favorite parts of my day, Baruch HaShem.  Part of the routine goes like this:
Grandchild(heretofore known as gc): May I have a waffle please?
Me: sure, just let me finish ....
Gc: May I have a waffle please?
Me: sure, just let me finish ....
Gc: May I have a waffle please?
Me: sure, just let me finish getting cereal for gc1.
Gc: May I have a waffle please?
... ...
Gc: Thank you!
Even better, they often all three (the baby is too young to chime in, yet) make their requests and request repeats all at the same time.  So I started wondering if that's how I sound.  Every day, three times a day, six days a week, I ask for the same things.  Moreover, HaShem knows what I want before I even ask.  More than moreover, He also knows what I need and whether or not what I want will be good for me.  Why in the world would I ask even once?  If I need it and it will be good for me, then He will have already given it to me; if I don't need it and especially if it would be bad for me, then He -- Baruch HaShem -- will not give it to me.  (No matter how cutely my granddaughter asks for a razor blade, I'm just not going to give it to her.)  So why do I pray?

As long as we're questioning the whole prayer thing, how about the format?  Our prayer is always in the format of praise followed by requests followed by expressions of gratitude.  That is very strict: one is not allowed to make requests in the praise nor gratitude section.  That's what the books all say... but the very last bracha of our prayer, the end of the gratitude section, is a petition for peace, goodness, blessing, graciousness, and kindness.  Hmm... perhaps a perspective adjustment is needed.

And here it is: prayer is not about getting stuff.  If we need the stuff, HaShem will give it to us.  If the stuff would be bad for us, HaShem won't give it to us.  As noted before, we were created to have fun and the most fun is a close relationship with HaShem (since He is the ultimate source of all fun and goodness) and this world is a place to build that relationship.  How do we do that?  There are three main channels: doing mitzvos, learning, and davening.  Doing mitzvos improves us (makes us more fit for that so-desired relationship with HaShem), torah brings more k'dusha into the world (making the relationship we build all the more intense and rich), davning is developing the relationship.

Now let's look a the structure.  Supplication must be the centerpiece of prayer, since our relationship with HaShem is ultimately that we receive and HaShem bestows.  But not all asking creates a relationship.  If you ask me what time it is (you'll be disappointed, as I don't wear a watch), you are looking for facts, not a bonding experience.  If you ask for my opinion, that is better, as only I can give you my opinion.  Still though, you may just be looking to gather opinions.  When you start by explaining that my opinion is valuable to you because you know this and that about me; then I answer in a completely different way.  You have invited a sharing of who am I with who you are.  When we praise HaShem, we put ourselves in the frame of mind for a deep sharing of what we truly seek from the only one who can provide that.  Then I ask for those things that I my life literally depends on -- knowledge/wisdom/common sense, forgiveness, parnassa, health, and so on.  Then I say thank you and acknowledge that there is no place for me to turn except Him.

That last bracha?  That bracha, says the Mishna Brura, acknowledges that HaShem is ultimately the only source of all goodness -- not just for me, but for the entire Jewish community and all of mankind.  There is no greater thanks that a parent can receive than when his child turns to him and him alone for everything.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thought for the Day: Love in the Time of Corona Virus/Anxiously Awaiting the Mashiach

Two scenarios: Scenario I: A young boy awakened in the middle of the night, placed in the back of vehicle, told not to make any noise, and the vehicle speeds off down the highway. Scenario II: Young boy playing in park goes to see firetruck, turns around to see scary man in angry pursuit, poised to attack. I experienced and lived through both of those scenarios. Terrifying, no? Actually, no; and my picture was never on a milk carton. Here's the context: Scenario I: We addressed both set of our grandparents as "grandma" and "grandpa". How did we distinguish? One set lived less than a half hour's drive; those were there "close grandma and grandpa". The other set lived five hour drive away; they were the "way far away grandma and grandpa". To make the trip the most pleasant for all of us, Dad would wake up my brother and I at 4:00AM, we'd groggily -- but with excitement! -- wander out and down to the garage where we'd crawl
Post a Comment
Read more

Thought for the Day: אוושא מילתא Debases Yours Shabbos

My granddaughter came home with a list the girls and phone numbers in her first grade class.  It was cute because they had made it an arts and crafts project by pasting the list to piece of construction paper cut out to look like an old desk phone and a receiver attached by a pipe cleaner.  I realized, though, that the cuteness was entirely lost on her.  She, of course, has never seen a desk phone with a receiver.  When they pretend to talk on the phone, it is on any relatively flat, rectangular object they find.  (In fact, her 18 month old brother turns every  relatively flat, rectangular object into a phone and walks around babbling into it.  Not much different than the rest of us, except his train of thought is not interrupted by someone else babbling into his ear.) I was reminded of that when my chavrusa (who has children my grandchildrens age) and I were learning about אוושא מילתא.  It came up because of a quote from the Shulchan Aruch HaRav that referred to the noise of תקתוק
Post a Comment
Read more

Thought for the Day: David HaMelech's Five Stages of Finding HaShem In the World

Many of us "sing" (once you have heard what I call carrying a tune, you'll question how I can, in good conscience, use that verb, even with the quotation marks) Eishes Chayil before the Friday night Shabbos meal.  We feel like we are singing the praises of our wives.  In fact, I have also been to chasunas where the chasson proudly (sometimes even tearfully) sings Eishes Chayil to his new eishes chayil.  Beautiful.  Also wrong.  (The sentiments, of course, are not wrong; just a misunderstanding of the intent of the author of these exalted words.) Chazal (TB Brachos, 10a) tell us that when Sholmo HaMelech wrote the words "She opens her mouth Mwith wisdom; the torah of kindness is on her tongue", that he was referring to his father, Dovid HaMelech, who (I am continuing to quote Chazal here) lived in five worlds and sang a song of praise [to each].  It seems to me that "world" here means a perception of reality.  Four times Dovid had to readjust his perc
Post a Comment
Read more