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July 2, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The hallmark of a person

Abe Novick: Up, up, and aliya

July 1, 2009

Rabbi Avi Shafran: The Road Taken

The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta: Get into the holiday spirit with these Star-Spangled desserts

June 30, 2009

Rabbi Binyomin Ginsberg: What makes a great parent?

Caroline B. Glick: Ideologue-in-Chief

June 29, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Beware of 'Caveat Emptor'

Steven Emerson: ACLU pushing for more money for Hamas

June 26, 2009

Rabbi Yoni Posnick: Learn the secret to a healthy marriage from a scriptural villain

Caroline B. Glick: Barack Obama vs. International Law

June 25, 2009

Rabbi Shimon Apisdorf: The Absurd Power of Truth

Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip: Everything's Relative

June 24, 2009

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Advancement of technology is a wake-up call for humanity

The Kosher Gourmet by Andrea Weigl: Summer on a stick: Making frozen treats can be easy, creative and fun

June 23, 2009

Martin M. Bodek: 'On Surnames': And so, We Begin

Caroline B. Glick: The Obama Effect

June 22, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Working for a corrupt firm

N. Richard Greenfield : Where are American Jews?

June 19, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Emotion v. intellect

Caroline B. Glick: Israel's rare opportunity

June 18, 2009

Jonathan Rosenblum: Sometimes it is more essential to define the nature of evil than good

Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip: Everything's Relative

June 17, 2009

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Language of Confusion

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Nothing pleases Dad more than a thick, juicy onion-smothered steak. Add home-Baked Potato Chips and …

June 16, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Career v. Careersism

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's losing streak and Israel

Richard Z. Chesnoff: ‘Palestinians’: Never Missing an Opportunity …

June 15, 2009

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu: How Judea and Samaria can become 'Palestine'

Daniel Pipes: Where Netanyahu's speech failed

June 12, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Some big thoughts about not acting so big

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's High Commissioner

June 11, 2009

Victor Davis Hanson: Our historically challenged President

Mitch Albom: Beware the True Believers

Lewis Grossberger: What we learn from the new Hitler photos

June 10, 2009

Mort Zuckerman: What Obama and his advisors won't -- or refuse to -- grasp about Israel and the Muslim world

The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky Lotsa pasta: Tips, techniques and (amazing) taste

June 9, 2009

Anne Bayefsky: Obama's stunning offense to Israel and the Jewish people

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: America's first Muslim president?

June 8, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Merchant must take responsibility for careless shopper?

Mark Steyn: A superpower that feeds on mediocrity cannot survive for long on leftovers from the past

Richard Z. Chesnoff: How do you say 'kumbaya' in Arabic?

June 5, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: In quest of spirituality

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's Arabian dreams

Charles Krauthammer: The Settlements Myth

June 4, 2009

Paul Greenberg: The War Comes to Little Rock

The Kosher Gourmet by Judy Hevrdejs: Splash it on! Tap your inner jazz musician and improvise when stirring up a vinaigrette

June 3, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. Should terrible teacher be exposed?

Jonathan Rosenblum: The Israel Lobby: Missing in Action

June 2, 2009

Dennis Prager: The Speech President Obama Won't Dare Give in Egypt

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Pressure on Israel raises war risk

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Nov. 2, 2007 /20 Mar-Cheshvan 5768

Can a person converse with the Divine?

By Rabbi Hillel Goldberg

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http://www>JewishWorldReview.com | "Why me?"


Such is the plaint, often, of people who are suffering. Rabbi Levi Meier offers an approach that is so direct and obvious that it is virtually never thought of. The obvious, often, is missed precisely for staring us in the face.


Meier is a clinical psychologist and hospital chaplain in Los Angeles, author of "Ancient Secrets: Using Stories of the Bible To Improve Our Everyday Lives." He writes of a hospital patient who had never prayed. "He had thought of prayer as a recitation of a lot of memorized verses; he had thought praying as a form of begging. He did not know — because he had never been taught — that praying is talking to G-d."


Meier writes of another patient who had prayed, the lady who asked him, Why am I suffering?:


"'Ask G-d,' I suggested. 'Include this question in your prayers.'


"She seemed surprised at the suggestion. 'But will I actually hear G-d's answer?'


"When I explained to her that of course she would hear the answer — with her inner ear — she stared at me in disbelief. Although she had prayed all her life, the idea that prayer was a dialogue — not a monologue — was foreign to her."



Not the first person to dialogue with G-d — that was Adam — but the first person to conceive of prayer as a conversation was the Patriarch Isaac.


After long negotiations with Laban, Abraham's trusted servant Eliezer returns to Canaan with Laban's sister Rebeccah as a wife for Isaac.



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As Eliezer and Rebeccah and her entourage arrive, Isaac, coincidentally, has gone out in the field in the evening "and he lifted his eyes and behold camels were coming" (Gen. 24:63). He has gone out, as the verse earlier records, "lasu'ach, to converse." The Talmud and midrash, based on a clearer use of the term in Psalms, take this to mean "converse with G-d."


This is a paradigm of prayer — conversation with G-d. It means exactly what it says. ( Two other paradigms of prayer — those of Abraham [Gen. 19:27] and Jacob [Gen. 28:11] — require a separate analysis. )


"A friend of mine was davening [praying] at the Western Wall during a recent trip to Israel," writes Rabbi J. J. Schacter, "when a blind Sephardi man slowly made his way to the front of the [Western] Wall. He put down his stick and slowly caressed its stones, lovingly running his hands over them. After about two minutes, he recited a few chapters from Psalms and then began to speak to G-d.

"'Ribbono shel Olam [Master of the World],' he said, 'I have not had the opportunity to be here for a few weeks so I need to bring You up to date about my life and my family. You remember I told You about my son who was getting ready to go into the army? Well, he started about ten days ago. I don't know where he is, but You surely do. Please watch out for him. And then, of course, You remember my daughter. I mentioned to You that the last time we spoke that she was ready for a shiddukh [a husband]. In fact, she started dating and she is finding it much more difficult than she thought it would be. Please help her. And then, my third child . . . '

"By this time, my friend was feeling uncomfortable eavesdropping on what was obviously a private conversation, but he was mesmerized by the obvious closeness this man felt for G-d. He had never heard someone speak to G-d in such a real, direct and unselfconscious way. After another minute he could not help hearing him say, 'And about my youngest child . . . Oh I'm so sorry, I don't mean to take up Your time. I just remembered that I told You everything about him the last time.'

"And when I heard the story, I thought to myself, does one have to be blind to see G-d in such a direct way?"


Two schools within modern Judaism have developed conversation with G-d as a regular spiritual pursuit.


Followers of Rebbe Nachman (Bratzlav chasidim) set aside 10 minutes or so every day to talk to G-d. These are not formal prayers sessions. No prayer book is opened. A person articulates his personal thoughts — distressed, joyous, whatever — to G-d every day. Per Isaac our Father and the blind Sephardi, G-d is conversed with.


In the Novorodock branch of the Musar movement, this same discipline was followed, too (alas, not many followers of Novorodock remain).


If G-d is to be conversed with in this informal manner, what is formal prayer for? In Boston, between 1969 and 1972, I heard the following from the late Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, during one of his noted Saturday night public lectures:


Formal prayer in Judaism is an ethical gesture. The essential Jewish prayer is the "Eighteen Blessings" (Shemoneh Esrei). All the blessings are formulated in the plural. As Jews praise, petition or thank G-d, they do so on behalf of the entire community. For example, one does not ask G-d to heal one's illness and pains; one asks G-d to heal everyone. "Heal us," not "heal me," is the formulation. So it goes for the entire Eighteen Blessings.


If this is a conversation with G-d, it's depersonalized, to an extent. Someone in existential straits, be he ill, depressed, impoverished or insulted, will certainly not feel the same sense of closeness to G-d by praying on behalf of everybody as he will by praying from his own pain. Rabbi Soloveitchik observed: The tremendous obligation that the community imposes on each Jew who prays, in the plural, does not exclude personal conversation with G-d. As follows:


The end of the Eighteen Blessings is not its end. A few lines of prayer have been added on. If the Eighteen Blessings were sufficient, no more prayers would be needed. The additional prayers are in the singular. The individual, qua individual, must also converse with G-d.


Just so, a person's own prayers should not be limited by formal lines added to the Eighteen Blessings. That is why, said Rabbi Soloveitchik, the first added line is Psalms 19:15: "May the expressions of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart find favor before You, L-rd, my Rock and my Redeemer." This is meant to sum up one's own conversation with G-d. We have here a sandwich. The top layer is the concluding line of the Eighteen Blessings. The bottom layer is Psalms 19:15 ("the expressions of my mouth"). I supply the food in between — my own conversation with G-d. When I finish, I ask G-d to accept "the expressions of my mouth."


So, built into the structure of formal prayer is a time for conversation with G-d. Plain, simple talk. Besides my prayer for the community, there is a place for me to talk to G-d. Besides being an ethical gesture, prayer is a gesture of the individual's own heart.

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JWR contributor Rabbi Hillel Goldberg is executive editor of the Intermountain Jewish News. To comment, please click here.

© 2007, Rabbi Hillel Goldberg