Last night we spoke about the nature of God.  Today we have many questions- Does God hear our prayers?  Does God answer?  If not, is it because God can’t or because God won’t?  Does God need our words of praise?  Why must we ask at all, doesn’t God know what we want?  How we understand prayer is deeply connected to how we understand God.
(definition of prayer)
    I am reminded of the sign in a store window which read:  Prayer Doesn’t Work.  Underneath it, in smaller letters, the message continued:  Meditation Doesn’t Work.  This was followed by:  Kabbala Doesn’t Work, and, finally, Psychiatry Doesn’t Work.  At the very bottom, in the smallest print, the sign concluded:  You Have To Work.  In Hebrew we refer to worship as “avoda”, as work.  Yes, we must exert effort if we are to have a meaningful experience when we pray.
Why is prayer so difficult?  Reaching out to God is an instinctive part of every culture on earth, yet it is a tremendous stumbling block for contemporary American Jews.  I think that part of our frustration stems from our culture of instant gratification.  We want there to be a formula in which we just add water and presto, we have a spiritual experience.  Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way.  
    The novelist Herman Wouk, an Orthodox Jew, writes as follows, "For the ordinary worshipper, the rewards of a lifetime of faithful praying come at unpredictable times, scattered through the years, when all at once the liturgy glows as with fire.  Such an hour may come after a death, or after a birth; it may strike after a miraculous deliverance, or on the brink of evident doom; it may flood the soul at no marked time, for no marked reason.  It comes, and he knows why he has prayed all his life."  (Herman Wouk, This is My God)  For me, the greatest reward of prayer is when I repeat the words I have seen a thousand times, and suddenly I see them in a new way, in a single moment they suddenly have a new implication in my life.
    We should give ourselves permission to offer the prayer of the heart.  The fixed liturgy is available as a backup, when we can’t find the right words to express ourselves.  We are inspired by a famous Hassidic story of a shepherd who was in the habit of saying every day, "Ribbono shel olam, You know well that if You had cattle and gave them to me to tend, I would take no wages from You because I love You."  Once a scholar overheard this prayer, berated the man and taught him the traditional prayers.  As soon as the scholar left, the shepherd immediately forgot all that he had been taught, and yet was embarrassed to return to his former ways.  
    In a dream, the scholar heard a voice exhorting him to return to the shepherd and tell the shepherd to say what he used to say, since God felt deprived of the simple prayers of one who truly loved God.  The scholar went at once to the shepherd and told him what he had dreamed, adding, "Continue to say what you used to say.  The Merciful One desires sincerity of the heart."  Whether we use our own words or those of our ancestors, the most important thing is that we claim time for ourselves to turn inward and to focus on what is ultimate in life, and not just what is pressing in the moment.  The words we use are secondary to the experience of a prayerful state of mind and being.
It has been suggested that prayer is to the soul what food is to the body.  "The spiritual glow of one prayer" sustains us from the last utterance until the next, just as the physical strength derived from one meal lasts until the next.  In A Letter on Prayer we read that, "Those who make prayer a rare practice are only acquaintances but not friends of God."  (Herbert S. Goldstein)  We want to develop a close relationship with God, like the businessperson who prayed, "Dear God, You help complete strangers, so why don't You help me?"
    The writer must occasionally sit, uninspired, in front of a blank sheet, and the musician must adhere to scheduled practices regardless of inclination.  The athlete must continue to work out, even when not in the mood.  So it is with prayer.  We cannot sit and wait with our hands folded for the inspiration to come; perhaps it will not?  Inspiration is a rare and sporadic phenomenon.
    We can spend much time waiting for the inspiration to come, and then when it does, we find out that our "prayer muscles" are so under-utilized that we have lost touch with the ability to place ourselves in the Divine Presence.  So, it is necessary to impose a discipline of prayer in our lives.
(why communal?)
    Even if we recognize the value of prayer, why do we need a minyan?  When we pray together with a group, we feel a sense of solidarity with other Jews, coming together to articulate Jewish values.  We are released from our sense of loneliness and isolation.  We are linked to the continuing history of our ancient people.  How can we pray each year, "zokhrenu l'khayyim, remember us for life," knowing full well that the time will inevitably come when our prayer will not be answered?  The answer is found in the communal formulation of the prayer:  we ask not that we, as individuals, survive into the coming year.  We pray that the Jewish people live on.
    Eliezer Berkovits expressed it so beautifully when he wrote, "Every individual Jew, even if he is all by himself with his Maker, prays with all other Jews; every community of praying Jews is united in prayer with all other communities; and all the communities of any single generation are linked by Jewish prayer to all the communities of all generations that ever approached God in prayer."
      When we pray with a minyan we are able to draw on the strengths and weaknesses of each individual, as indicated in the following Hassidic story, "A Rabbi asked the shammes to assemble a minyan to pray for the recovery of a sick person.  When they entered the room, a friend of the Rabbi's was dismayed to see notorious thieves among the group.  "Excellent," the Rabbi noted.  "When all the gates of Divine mercy are closed, it requires experts to open them!"
    Through our prayers with the congregation, we reinforce our appreciation of the ultimate value of every human being.  Almost every prayer we offer is written in the plural.  If we pray only for our own needs, that is not prayer but selfish concern.  By praying together with others, we transcend our own needs and become humbly conscious of the needs of others.  The Talmud advises straight out that a person to whom a calamity has occurred should make it known to as many people as possible, so that many people will pray on their behalf.      As we pray together, as we pray for the needs of others, we reinforce the sense that we are part of something greater than ourselves.
(nature/miracles)
    Personally, I don’t believe that God answers prayers which ask for an interruption of the forces of nature.  Our tradition refers to a “brakha l’vatla- a prayer in vain.” Examples include, praying for the gender of that a child who has already been conceived.  Or, God forbid, when you hear a siren, praying that it not be your home which is in flames.  Such a prayer does not reflect a lack of power on God’s part, but a lack of respect on our part for the reality of the world God created.  Does this mean that miracles never happen?  Hardly.  But it does mean that we can find God more reliably in the steady order of the universe.  It has rightly been said that we should pray as if everything depends on God, and act as if everything depends on us.  
    My friend has a niece who, as a child, would climb to the top of a long staircase and leap into the air, calling out, “Catch me”.  The adults in the house would have to race to the bottom of the staircase before the girl fell and was hurt.  Sometimes I think that we view our relationships with God in the same way.  We want to place ourselves in places of danger, make poor choices, and then cry out for God to “catch us”.  That’s not the way the world works.  Once creation is set into motion, we all live with the consequences of our material nature and the blessing/curse of free will.  It is unwise to rely on prayer for Divine intervention to save us from ourselves.
It once happened, the Talmud tells us, that Rabbah drank so much on Purim that he rose and killed Rav Zeira. The next day, the great sage prayed and resuscitated his friend. The following year, the wise Rav Zeira refused an invitation to celebrate Purim with Rabbah, saying that one cannot rely on  a miracle.   Good decision!
    Rabbi Roland Gittelsohn suggests the following analogy to help us understand that God is not a "cosmic bellhop" waiting to respond to our every whim.  He writes, "At various locations in my home, as in yours, there are faucets.  Each of these is the terminal point of a pipe, which leads back to a water main, which in turn is connected to a pumping station.  When I, in my thirst seek a drink of water, does the engineer in that pumping station respond to my need?  Not in the sense that I petition him for water and he, on the basis of my past conduct or his affection for me, decides to grant my request.  Not even in the sense that he is directly aware at that moment of my thirst.  But in a larger  and more significant way, the engineer does respond to my need:  in fact, he has responded to it even before I myself was aware of it.  He has created a system which makes it possible for my need to be met provided (a) I understand the nature of the system, and (b) I understand the nature of myself and my relationship to the system, and (c) I assume my share of responsibility to activate the system.  Lacking these three prerequisites, I can stand before the faucet all day long, piteously begging for water, and my thirst will not be slaked."
    Yes- we need to acknowledge how the system works and take responsibility for our role in its functioning, AND,  we can also learn from Moses’ example in the Torah. God prohibited Moses from entering the Promised Land, and even gave Moses a direct order not to bring the topic up for discussion again.  Yet Moses continued to pray for a reversal.  So it has been said, we should learn from babies to always cry for what we want.  Our tradition teaches that the gates of tears are never closed. When we feel lost and abandoned, pouring out our hearts in prayer can be healing.  "When you pour out your heart," Maimonides taught, "it feels lighter."
(prayer as cultivating gratitude)
    It is a mitzvah, a religious mandate, to say 100 blessings each day.  This practice reminds us to be grateful for the many blessings we enjoy, and to adjust the balance in our attitude between how often we say “please” and how often we say “thank you”.  Cultivating an attitude of gratitude is the foundation of religious life.  We needn’t look for miracles in the interruption of nature, but, in the language of our prayers, for the miracles that are with us each day- morning, noon and night, if we would but open our eyes.  
    The Talmud compares one who enjoys the beauty of this world without uttering a blessing to one who steals from the sanctuary.  The brakha is the price we pay for being permitted to enjoy this world.  It has been said that if a Jew breaks a leg, he thanks God he did not break both legs; if he breaks both, he thanks God he did not break his neck!  We Jews know what it is to suffer, both individually and communally, and we know the importance of being thankful when things go well.
    Gratitude is the key to happiness in this lifetime.  A person who always wants more will never be satisfied.  There will always be someone with a better car, a bigger house and a heftier bank book.  The tenth commandment prohibits us from coveting our neighbor's property.  To spend one's life envying that which belongs to others is a sorry path.  According to well-known Talmudic tradition, in the Messianic time to come, when all other offerings of sacrifices will have ceased, the todah, or, thanksgiving offering will continue.  With this interpretation, the Rabbis express the vital necessity of reinforcing the quality of gratitude in our selves and in our lives.  We need to be grateful for our friends and family, for those who share the special holidays and who make them special.  We need to be consciously grateful of those who have taught us the skills we use every day, our parents and our teachers, and be grateful for our ability to learn.  We need to appreciate whatever level of health we have been granted.
prayer as reinforcing values- imitation dei)
    The Greek word for prayer means, "to wish for."  The German word means "to beg," and the English word also implies a sense of supplication and entreaty.  In Hebrew the word for "to pray" is "l'hitpallel", which is a reflexive verb with a root meaning of "to judge oneself."  When we pray we look within, preparing ourselves spiritually to stand in God's presence.
    In this sense, prayer is a humbling experience.  It is an opportunity to be completely honest with our selves, and therefore one of the surest paths to see ourselves from a distance, acknowledge our deficiencies, and make those first steps towards self-improvement.  As such, there could be no more opportune moment than Yom Kippur for us to deeply consider the role of prayer in our lives.
    "Our prayers are answered," wrote Rabbi Morris Adler, "not when we are given what we ask but when we are challenged to be what we can be."
    We call prayer “tefilla”, from this root, “l’hitpallel”, to judge oneself.  To me this is the deeper meaning of prayer. Prayer is NOT calling out to God as our cosmic bell-hop.   Prayer invites us to renew our connection to our highest values and examine the priorities in our lives.  
    Remarkably, the tradition addresses the notion that it is not only we who pray, but that God prays for God’s own, internal change- “May it be My will”, God davvens, “that My mercy suppress My anger and that it may prevail over My attributes of justice and judgment, and that I may deal with My children according to the attribute of compassion and that I may not act towards them according to the strict line of justice.”   On this Yom ha-Din, this day of Judgment, we certainly want to say amen to God’s prayer!
    So if our prayers are ultimately addressed to ourselves, to focus on our ultimate values and reinforce our sense of gratitude, why, then, all this language of flattery- “Ha-el ha-gadol, ha-gibbor, v’ha-nora”- great, mighty, awesome, etc., etc.  What is the point of describing the indescribable God as compassionate, kind, loving truth and hating evil, patient and merciful?  Does God suffer from low self-esteem and need us to strengthen the divine ego?
    The Talmud asks the question, “How are we to understand the verse in Deuteronomy 13:5- ‘You should follow in the pathways of HaShem.’  Is it possible to walk after the Holy One, given that God is a devouring fire?  It means to walk after God’s attributes:  as God clothes the naked, you should clothe the naked; as God visits the sick, you should visit the sick;  as God comforts those who mourn, you should comfort those who mourn; as God buries the dead, you should bury the dead.”   What does it mean to be made in the image of God?  Ultimately it means that we are charged to emulate the divine attributes, which we affirm in our prayers when we reach out to the Holy One in all of these aspects.  We pray, first and foremost, to influence ourselves, not, to influence God.  "True worship," it has been said, "is not a petition to God.  It is a sermon to ourselves."  (Rabbi Sidney Greenberg)  
    Prayer, in and of itself, will not make us tzaddikim, but it will expose us to preeminent Jewish values.Through prayer we learn what to cherish- peace and righteousness, justice and holiness, compassion and study, love of God and our fellow humans, and a sense of humility.  Prayer reminds us that we will go astray if we follow the desires of our hearts and our own eyes.
    Ultimately our prayer is meaningless if it is not translated into action.  If we come away from the service untouched, then our prayers have been for naught.  "In worship," wrote Abraham Joshua Heschel, "we discover that the ultimate way is not to have a symbol but to be a symbol, to stand for the divine.  The ultimate way is to sanctify thoughts, to sanctify time, to consecrate words, to hallow deeds."  Prayer, it has been said, is not the overcoming of God's reluctance but the grasping hold of God's willingness.  May we all be blessed this High Holiday season with at least one moment when we know for ourselves why it is that we pray.