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Ari Lapin
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Subject: ThoughtTools with Rabbi Daniel Lapin-March 6, 2008
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March 6, 2008 - 29nd day of the month of Adar Aleph, 5768
Issue #10
Weekly teaching of Ancient Jewish Wisdom
Featured CD: Clash of Destiny: Decoding the Secrets of Israel and Islam
Free Audio Program of the Week: Restoring America's Respect for the Dignity, Nobility, and Morality of Business
ThoughtToolS With Rabbi Daniel Lapin
Issue #10
View Past ThoughtToolS Issues Online
PRAYER POWER = PaLeiL = To Pray/To Judge All of us recognize that people are not born with the skills needed to dance ballet, perform brain surgery, drive a car, or balance a check book. What is harder to realize is that just as we need to spend time and energy learning, refining and practicing the above talents in order to excel at them, we need to do exactly the same for the life skill of praying.
Let us first agree on what Prayer is NOT. Ignoring God for days, weeks, or even years and then suddenly calling upon Him for rescue when you’re in some sort of trouble is not praying—that is begging. And, yes, while a benevolent God certainly listens to beggars, that is not the ideal situation for us to be in. It is surely better to be praying than begging. Now we are ready to examine what praying IS. The original Hebrew word for prayer, PaLeiL, shows that it is one of the few double Lamed (letter ‘L’) words. Others are HaLeiL (praise God as in HaLeL‐ujah..see the original Hebrew in there?) and KaLeiL meaning to curse or destroy. (see how today’s English word “Kill” retains the double L spelling. The double Lamed words meaning praising God, cursing (or spiritually killing) someone, and praying are all words of immense spiritual power. This is reflected in the shape of the Hebrew letter Lamed—it precisely resembles a bolt of lightning. Not surprisingly, the stylized letter “S” that Heinrich Himmler, the father of Nazi Germany’s storm troopers, selected as the badge for his lamentable band of criminals looks like a double Lamed. You should listen to my audio CD program, Clash of Destiny: Decoding the Secrets of Israel and Islam, to discover the intense interest and awareness of Hebrew and Judaism possessed by the Nazis. It’s pretty mind‐boggling!
Now the root meaning of the Hebrew word for praying, PaLeiL, means to judge. The word appears in Psalms 106:30 “Then Pinhas arose and judged and the plague was stopped. Again, in the first book of Samuel 2:25 “If one man sins against another, the judge shall judge him.” In both cases, the Hebrew word for judging is our word PaLeiL. The final clue we need is that Hebrew verbs reveal much by their form, and the form used for pray is MiTPaLeiL, called the reflexive form—something I do to myself. Now that is strange, isn’t it? I thought that praying was something I do towards God, and yet the very essence of the Hebrew word indicates that it is something that starts with what I do to myself. What do I do to myself? Using the book of Samuel as our clue that the word relates to judgment, we see that the beginning of prayer is self‐judgment or looking at ourselves and asking how we are presenting ourselves to God. Only then can we recognize and acknowledge the gap between what God expects us to be and what we really are. The next step is to commit to making ourselves worthy of having our requests granted. Now, we are ready to make our requests. Praying effectively involves five steps: (1) Candid self‐judgment; (2) Commitment to change; (3) Awareness of God’s love for us (4) Expression of praise and gratitude; (5) Requests. No single text book, let alone just a few paragraphs, could produce dancers or surgeons. And this brief ThoughtTool cannot embroider the fullness of the entire prayer experience. But perhaps it can provide some incentive, encouraging us all to explore and experiment with the exciting power of prayer. Edited by Ari Lapin
This week's ThoughtToolS is sponsored by the family of David and Susan McCoy.
If you would like to sponsor a ThoughtToolS, contact [email protected]
Genesis Journeys: Clash of Destiny-Decoding the
Secrets of Israel and Islam
Two Audio CD Set plus a 16 page full color study guide
reveals:
z
z
z
z
What Muslims know about prayer that most people, even
those who pray regularly, don't
The dark side of laughter
Why recruits in Arab terrorist training camps say "Heil
Hitler"
How to rise above our cultural and genetic legacy
Click to listen to audio sample
Free Audio Program of the Week
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This week we're pleased to offer you:
Restoring America's Respect for the
Dignity, Nobility, and Morality of
Business
This lecture was delivered at the Tacoma Washington Rotary Club
November 30, 2006.
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3/5/2008
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