Why We Pray

According to the rabbis we learned our prayers from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  Abraham instituted the morning prayers, Isaac the afternoon and Jacob the evening.

We read, “Isaac went out praying toward evening.” (Genesis 24) Although the Hebrew word for praying is unusual and used nowhere else in the Bible the rabbis understood it to mean praying.  They argued that Isaac was the first to pray Mincha.  He does so when he first meets his future wife, Rebekah.  The rabbis also suggest she was most impressed by Isaac’s piety.  

“Who is that man praying so devoutly?” she asked the servant leading her to meet Isaac.  And he responded, “That is my master, Isaac!”  The Torah reports, “Rebekah then fell from the camel.”  Rebekah fell in love with Isaac.

We model our lives after our ancestors.  We follow their example.  Like Isaac and Rebekah, we fall in love.  Like them we pray for the same reasons they prayed. 

We pray to connect with God and to connect with others.  Some people come to synagogue to connect with God.  Others come to connect with their friends.  Our synagogue is not just a beit t’filah, a house of prayer but also a beit knesset, a house of assembly.  For some the God talk is immaterial.  For others the prayer service is all about God. 

We pray to gather strength and bring comfort to our troubled souls.  One can arrive feeling beaten up by the week and leave with a feeling of renewed strength.  One can arrive feeling pained and troubled and perhaps leave feeling less burdened by these difficulties.  We also pray to offer strength to others and bring comfort to others.  Sometimes we come to services not for our own needs but to support others.  We come out of a sense of obligation.

Other times we pray because we don’t know what else to do.  There are times when we are so beset by difficulties and challenges that we don’t know what to do.  And so, we pray.  Answers may not arrive in the sanctuary, but it is good to do something.  At least then we have taken charge of our troubles and done something about them even if no cure or solution arrives.

And we pray to give thanks.  When we pray, we fill our hearts with gratitude.  Giving thanks strengthens us.  It fortifies us.  During those times when we feel that our difficulties outnumber our blessings, Judaism insists that we recount our blessings, that we enumerate our thanks.  When we say them out loud, when we, for example, give thanks for something as seemingly mundane as the evening, we add to our blessings.

Most people think that prayer is about making requests.  It is not.  It is about giving thanks.  It is not just about shouting praise, but singing thanks.

Abraham Joshua Heschel teaches, “The primary purpose of prayer is not to make requests.  The primary purpose is to praise, to sing, to chant.  The essence of prayer is a song, and a person cannot live without a song.”

We cannot live without prayer.  We cannot live without song.