| Left Brain | Right Brain |
|---|---|
| Speech | Emotional |
| Rational | Esthetic |
| Logical | Free Association |
Prayer is a right brain activity.
Prayer doesn't "mean" any more than a wonderful musical composition or a beautiful flower or a magnificent painting "mean" something - like them, prayer simply has an impact upon us.
Liturgy unites/theology divides.
Liturgy brings us together by unifying our plea and giving it common form and choreography; it is a uniting mechanism
Theology divides us. There are as many images of God in this sanctuary as there are persons in this sanctuary. And we are all correct, all right, all justified. Some see God as an old man with a long white beard; others see God as a nurturing mother of Israel; others see God as a spectacular supernatural image, like Ezekiel's four-headed dragon or MGM's unforgettable image of the Wizard of Oz. All of these images are ok, they are not wrong, they are not to be corrected by me or by anyone. But they are not a source of our unity. The way we pray is!
The Shabbat prayers are not a final exam in theology. And, my dear friends, the purpose of prayer is not to tell God our theology, who needs no review of our limited vision and our ability to reject yesterday's orthodoxy and embrace today's style on a moment's notice. God knows us. We come to God as a people, not just as a voice in the wilderness.
And surely you know that tefillah b'tzibur - communal prayer - prayer in a minyan, is preferred by our tradition to solitude and private meditation. Indeed our number 1 priority is to be a part of a tzibur, a kahal, a kehilah, a congregation, a community, a unity of Jews. The great Jewish novelist Harry Golden said this first: my father used to say . . . Greenfield goes to shul to talk to God; I go to shul to talk to Greenfield. We are social beings, my friends . . . not intended to live or pray or exist alone. We only laugh at movies when we are with others, we only scream when in the presence of others. Funny and scary movies teach us about ourselves . . . give me a community and make me honest.
Prayer is not coming to Santa with your wish list; or telling God which relatives you would like to see kept safe and secure; or which blessings you would appreciate receiving (must less is it asking for a good grade on the exam, or a speedy and inexpensive closing, or a good diagnosis or a successful jury verdict or happy kids). Prayer is not telling God something He would otherwise not know - as if God needs to be brought up to date on the significance of our little lives. Prayer is coming into God's presence and being changed - transformed - by it. That is why our tradition said that study equals prayer!
Here is prayer par excellence - Jewish prayer at its best. Listen to the words and feel the power of Psalm 73:
Psalm 73 in Hebrew and English
My friends, you should not pray and must not waste your prayer because God will do things for you! You should pray because this is how we cope with reality and with the world in which we live . . . a world full of uncertainty and random evil, a world full of treachery and insecurity, a world in which The Anchor is the only solace and security we have - the only roof permitted on the sukkah is a bundle of branches. That is God, fragile though that protection seems . . . that is Tzur Yisrael, the Rock of Israel, our Protector.
And though the most important prayer we may utter is the prayer of hodo, thanks, and b'racha, praise . . . rapture is a sincere prayer as well, and so is awe, and so is wonder, and so is anger. Yes, anger is a sincere prayer as well. God respects our honesty more than our recitation of conventional pieties. We are surrounded, all of us, by disease, by fraud, by avarice, by hunger engineered by malevolent genocidal tyrants, by rank unfairness which imposes its will day after day after day. The prophets of Israel were nothing if not angry men and women! Yes, anger is a sincere prayer.
And do we pray for miracles? Do we pray that 1 plus 1 equals 3? Do we pray that gravity be suspended or human physiology be suddenly redesigned for one and not another?
Of course we pray for miracles, but for miracles that God can and does perform. What miracles are those? We have all seen them, my friends. We pray for the miracles that God makes possible . . . miracles we have seen . . .
When the weak become strong; when the timid become brave; when the selfish become generous; when a family recovers from a child's death; when tens of thousands of young Jews see their most cherished loved ones perish at the hands of pure indescribable evil and recover their humanity and their hope and their passion to marry again and have children again and dream again of God and tomorrow. These are miracles for which we can pray. But do not be foolish in your quest . . . as Mordecai Kaplan so aptly put it: think not that the bull will not charge because you are a vegetarian.
Be fair, be honest, be direct with the Almighty, but know that science and mathematics are also revealed, they are also God's creation, and they will not be suspended for you or for me.
And so I beckon that you pray . . . pray as if everything depended upon God, but behave as if everything depended upon you. Come here to this sanctuary and seek an audience with the Almighty. Do not pray for gifts or rewards from God. Rather pray that your order of priorities be rigorous and just, be relieved of trivia and enhanced by the discipline of our tradition. Pray that through your prayer, you be transformed. And when you are transformed, your prayer will have been answered. God awaits your psalm.
Amen.