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EBAYER IN JEWISH LITERAXURE
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In its widest sense, prayer is an attempt on the part of man
to establish contact with the Deity.
Its immediate aim, therefore,
In mysticism that is also the ultimate aim:
is communion with God.
there are no .ther motiveS, or at least they are considered less
important than the goal of communion.
But in most religions this
mystic form of prayer has been rare: it has been the prayer of the
For most people communion with God has been
few} not of the many.
and is only a means to the satisfaction of same
further desire.
That desire may be Simply to offer thanks for the goodness of life
in general? or for some particular happiness or deliverance.
be to acknowledge sins and seek forgiveness.
divine :avourfi either
a
It may
It may bé to ask for
material blessing, such as rain, fertility,
childbirth, recovery from illness, deliverance from oppression or
vistory on the field pf battle; or
a
spiritual blessing, such
as enlightenment, wisaom, humility, codrege, moral strength.
The desire may be even to make a promise, or vow, to the Deity,
to serve God more faithfully, to perform some particular act
pleasing to-Him, to dedicate one's li§e, or the life of one's son,
to His service.
Accordingly prayer may take the form of praise
and thanksgiving, confession and repentance, éetition, dedication,
or pure
communion.
All such prayers may be; further, spontaneous or liturgical.
By
a
liturgical prayer I mean one which is deliberately composefl
for regular use by others than the author.
Both sponseenous and
liturgical prayers employ the medium of language.
But Spontaneous
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prayer can come very near to dispensing with language.
That is to say,
the WOIShipper can be almost unconscious or the words he'is employing,
andi he may certainly utter them.inaudibly$ he may pray only with his
mind, and not at all with his lips.
LituréicaL prayer is muph more closely tied to human language.
It may, of course, be read silently.
or
chanted.
But most often it is read aloud
Poetical prayers especialLy are often chanted.
Many
liturgical prayers are of the nature of poetry; and even those which
are in prose émploy, at their best, a kind of elevated, or poetic,
PIOBG .
Jewish Literature abounds with prayers belonging to every one
of
these categorise.
Some were consciously composed for liturgical
use; others were not so intended originally, but were subsequently
incorporated into the Jewish Liturgy.
their way into the Jewish Prayer-Book;
Still others have never found
but there is good reason to
believe thac.the fineét ofi them will yet find
Prayer Books of the future.
a
place in the Jewidl
A
It is not easy to discern any clear trends or development in
the history of Jewish prayer; but ceitain remarks can be made on this
subject.
It appears that the earliest praye;g were of the nature of
thanksgiving and petition; then came confession; and finally dedibation
and pure communion.
Spontaneous prayers seem to be more ancient than
liturgicgl prayers.
And so far as liturgical prayers are concerned,
poetry seems
to
have preceded prose, and chant preceded speech.
But
by the end of the biblical period, all varieties were well established.
One further_distinction can be made, between individual prayer
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and collective prayer.
Both kinds are common in Jewish literature;
but in the Jewish liturgy ifself collective prayer tends to
Most often prayers are oftened by the Congregation
as a whole, on its own behalf, or on behalf of the whole House bf
predominate.
Israel, or on behalf of mankind.
A
non—Jewish scholar of comparative religion has expressed
the Opinion that the Jewish liturgy is the finest in the world.
It is hard to disagree with that conclusion When we think of the
Psalms, the religious poetry of the Jews of the Middle Ages, and
many other prayers of outstanding depth and beauty composed
throughout the various epochs of Jewish history. We Jews are
probably insufficigntly conscious of the gggatness of our.heritage
And for that reason I am n0w going to present
in this respect.
a
selection of some of the greatest Jewish prayers, expressing the
exgériences and longing: of Jewish hearps from the biblical age to
our own.
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The Bible itself contains many prayers which have becané
a
permanent part of the Jewish liturgy.
The one which comes most
readily to mind is the Shame (Deuteronomy 6:4—9). It is not strictly
a prayer at all, but a declaration of the Unity of God followeq by
an injunction to love Him; i.e. to serve Him, with wholeheartedness.
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But the recitation of this passage as part of the liturgy, which
pre-Christian; renders it into a kind of dedicatory prayer. In
reciting it we dedicate ourselves to remember and proclaim the
unity of God, and to iesyond loyally to God's demQQGS.
\
is.
-4Another famous passage is the Priestly Benediction which
occurs innthe Book of Numbers.
numberg 6:22-27.
for the gift of peace, or rather of
a
This is a petition
halom, which xafixuaaa describes
state of total welfare, physical and spiritual.
That sgontaneous,‘silent prayer is comparatively early, even
of the
dedicatnny kind, can be qecn from the story of Hannah who
1 Samuel 1:10—15.
prayed to be granted a son.
Petition on behalf of others also occurs in the earliest
records.
It will be
remembered how Abraham interceded with God
for the inhabitants of Sodom;
how MOSes,ple31cd that God should
forgive the Childrén of Israel — Exodus
:
l- 2;
how David prayed
how Amos and Jeremiah repeated;y
for the recovery of Bathsheba's son;
begged God to forgive the Israelites, despite their unfaithfulness An early example of personal thanks—
Jeremiah 14;7-9. and 19— 22.
giving occurs in Gengsis/
servant")
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There 819, Of coursg also some very ancient songs or
'
praise, especially after National victory, such as the famous
Song of M0363, some verses of which have found their way into the
Liturgy:
Ezfoc‘ma
15:1—2, 11—13, and i1—l8.
To my mind the greatest prayer inthe Bible, apart from the
Psalms, is that offered by King Solomon on the occasion of the
Gonsecraticn of the First Temple:
I
Kgngs.‘8:22—5
.
Finally, before we leéve the Bible, we must pay attentiun to the
Psalms, for they age undoubtedly the greatest prayer book of the
ancient world.
n
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"They enho the thought and feeling, the aspiration and yearning,
of countless men and wqmen in every era.
In their matchless
phrases the human soul has for tens of centuries found an outlet
in its own struggle from the depths tb reach the heights.
'To'weartravellers of every condition infleveiy period of
history, the Esalms have been rivqrs of refreshment and wells of
consolation.
They alone have known no limitations to a
particular age, country, or form of faith.’
To all seekers of
God they remain a grateful aid in their quest."
It is difficult to select from them, because so many have
a
just claim to distinction.
Here are fhree which exhibit
particularly well the mood of prayer, especially confession,x
Petition, and praise.
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Before proceeding to the next phase in.Jewish Litéruture,
which is the Rabbinic, let us hear two prayers from the Apocrypha.
The first is the Prayer 0: Menasséh, the Efiifi most notorious of
the "bad" kings of Judah.
The author imégiues the king to hgve
confessed his sins, and prayed for forgiveness, in the follo.ing
words.
The Pzaye; of Menagseh.
The second apocry_hal prayer comes from the Wisdom of Solomon,
and is indeed a prgyer for wisaom, uttered, as the author imagines,
by King Solomon himself.
we
WisQOm of Sologog, chagteg
.
now turn to th: Rabbinic literature, and it is here that
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we find many or the greatest prayers included in the Traditional
Prayer Book.
It may be well to begin by recalling some of the
major teacgings of the Rabbis about prayer in general.
Rabbis'attachad great value
a
to
prayer.
The
They said that i$ was
substitute fer the sacrifices which used to take place in the
Temple, and even that 1;.was more efficacious.
They considered
it as important, or nearly as important, as the study of the
They laid great stress on sincerity and concentration.
Torah.
"The pious men of old used to wait an hour before they said tm
Tefiilah, that they might direct their'heartx toward: God.
Even if the King salutes
a
man he may not return the greeting;
and even if a snake was twisted around his heel he may not
interrupt his prayer."
mechanidal.
6361 5:1)
Prayer must not become
"When thou prayest make not thy prayer 3 fixed
form, but a plea for mercies and supplicetions before God."
(Avat 2:13)
Preyér is of course to be addressed
directly to
God, whoéo Fatherly love enableé man to feel his presefice moat
'intimately.
Many of the Rabbinic p;ayers begin with the phrase
"Our Father"; and we read:
"However high God no ébove His world,
let a man but enter a Synagogue, stand behind a pillar and pray
in a whisper, and the Holy One, Blessed be He, heartens to his
prayer.‘
Can there be
a
God nearer than this, who is close
to his creatures as the mouth is to the ear."
Women as well as map are obliged to pray.
(pBer. 15A.)
(Ber.3:3), and
nearly all the most impvrtent prayers may be said in any
language.
(Satan 7(1—2)
ow let us listen to some of the greatest prayers tram the
Most om them appear for the first time in
there is good reason
the Talmud, but in some cases XXXxxxflixxinnit to believe that they
Rabbinic literature.
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go back to the earlier Rabbinic period, and even to pre—Christian
times.
1.
"Oh my God, the soul which Thou gavest me is pure."
2.
"With abounding love hast thou loved us."
Ber. 11v.)
(Singers P.B. fps 39—40;
3.
"Oh my God, guard my tongue from evil."
(Singers P.B. p. 54; Ber. 17)
(Singers x.B. 9.5;
Ber.,60A)
lThe Amidah, also known as the Tefillah, and the
Here are
Shemoneh Esreh was also completed in Rabbinic times.
4.
some or the less well—known of the 19 Benedictionsz—
Nuzfibers 4, 5,
5.
‘6,
s, 9, 13, and 16.
9.13.
pps. 46 — so.)
One of the greatest prayers, perhaps the greatest, of the
Rabbinic period, is the Aleynu.
6.
(Singers
(gingers P.B. 996. 76 - 77)
One or the greatest prayers for New Year
,
the "Uvechen
Ten Pachdecha", is also mentioned in the Rabbinic writings.
(Singers 3.3. p.239.+ 24R.)
7.
One Rabbi used to pray a private prayer as follows:
"May it be acceptable befor
Thee, 0 Lord my God and God of my
fathers, that no hatred against us may enter the heart of any man
nor hatred of any man enter our heart, that no envy.o£ us enter
the heart or any man nor envy of any man enter our heart;
They Torah be our occupation all the days of our life;
words be supplicatién before Thee.‘
added:
may
and may our
To this another Rabbi
'Do Thou unite our hearts in the fear of Thy Name, keep
h/k
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us far
tron whatever is "ateful to Thee, bring as near to all
that Thou luvest; and do justly with us for the sake of Thy Name'
‘
(9. Ber. 7d)
8.
'
Finally there is the great Hymn of Praise, the aflishmat"
68105919 P.B. 125—126)
t
t
t
The Middlé Ages are, above all, the period of the ggxxgiggig,
£he writers of liturgical poems or ggxxgjgg, many of Which have
been incorporated in the liturgy, eSpeciaLly for the High Holydaya.
The first 0: these poems which comes to min& is the Adon 019m.
It was composed by an anonymous author, probably of the Gaonic
Singers P.B. pps Séé.
Age, perhaps of the 10th Century.
One of the greatest Payyeténim, was a Spanish Jewish poet,
Yehudah Halevi, who lived round about the year 1200.
The
£0110w1ng poem, written by him, is included in the Sephardi
'
Liturgy for the Day of Atmnement.
.
Th. Gaster:'
5 "Festivals
of the Jewish Year" pps: 164—155.
Probably from the same period comes the famous "Hymn of
Glory", which is included in the Traditional Prayer Book.
author is unkncwn, but he may have been Judah ben Samuel of
Regensburg, also known’as Judah the Saint, who died in 1217.
Singer's 9.3. pps. 78 — 79, vs. 1 — 9 and 25 - 31.
Its
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The famous Leha D63Di is a hymn composed in tLe 16th 0., at
Saféd in Pulastifie, by Solomon Halevi, who is also known as
Solomon Schechter says about this hymn that it is
AlEabetS.
"perhaps one
existence."
I
the finest
or
pieces of religious poetry in
(Singers P.B. pys. 111 - 112)
Let us conclude tnis éection with a rather interesting
baasage ggggfi prayer which was written in Prague about the
year 1700 by one Jonah Langsofer, and it occurs in his
ethical will. ‘(anxanmnaJianzam_nnh1na1_fliils+_2azx_2+
age. 286 ;_g§§.)
‘
If any evidence is réhuired that the House of Israél
has never bebome entirely estranged from its God, that Judaism
has never entirely lost its vitality and.its power fox grqwth,
that evidence can be fcund in the fact that new prayers have
been composed by Jews in evexy age, down to and including our
Own.
Moreover, some of the modern prayers do not compare at all
unfavomrably with these or former ages.
Here are three specimens.
The iirst was composed by
thu Central Conference of American Rabbis.
The other two were
written by Israel Mattuck.
'
God", L.L.P.B. page 24
1.
"0 Lord our
2.
"0 thou infinite Spirit or the Universe", p.94
3.
"In many and diverse ways", p.200
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Let us end with another prayer by Rabbi Mattuck, which
storms an admirably
fitting conclusion to thin attempt of ours
to survey, in Selection, the prayers. which Jews have prayed
throughout the ages and which héve helped them to attain to
communion with their God.
_L .L-
LB
"When we turfi to God in prayer..",
-
,
’1.
l. Numbexs 6:22—27
.
2. 1 Samuel 1:10—16
5. Exodus 32:31q32
4. Jeremiah 14:7—9, 19-22
5. Genesis 32:10-11 (up to "unto thy servant")
6.
Exodus 15:1—2, 11—13, 17-18
7. 1
Kings 8:22-53
8.
Psalm 25:1-21
9.
Psalm 51:1—19
10. 'Paalm- 105
11. The Prayer of Menasseh
12. Wisdom of Soloéon, chapter 9
13.
O
my God, the soul...", Singer's P.B. p. 5
14. "With abounding love", ditto., pp.
39-40
15. "0 my God, guard my tongue..", ditto., p. 54
\~16. Benedictions 4,5,6,8,9,15 and 16 of the Amiaah, ditto., pp.46-50
17. Thé‘Aleynu, pp. 76—77
181 "Uvechen ten pac£decha", 99.239-240
19. "The breath of every living buiug...", pp. 125—126
Aden Olam, pp. 5-4
I
Gaster: Festivals, pp. 164~165
Hymn of Glory, Singer's P.B.; pp.78-79, vv. 1-9,‘25—51
Lechah Dedi, pp. 111—112
Abrahamg: Hebrew Ethical Wills, Pt.II, 99.286-288
-225. Lib. J. Prayer Bobk, p.24, "0 Lord our God"
26. D1tto., 9.94, "0 than infinite Spirit"
2'7.
’28.
"In many and diverse ways", p.200
“When we turn to God in prayer...", pp.234—235