A Service of the Heart

I have this siddur (Jewish prayer book) that sits atop the night table next to my bed. I pray from it frequently. It's written all in Hebrew and inside the front cover is this inscription: Presented to Wallace Spiegler, Feb. 22-1947 on his Bar Mitzvah. This was a gift from the congregation. Its soft black leather binding, imprinted with gold leaf, now wrinkled with age brings to mind memories compiled for over two decades of thought on prayer.

In 1965, when Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel alongside the Reverend Martin Luther King in the voting rights march in Selma, Alabama, he declared, "I felt my legs were praying". Prayer can assume several forms; at least three according to most counts. Most of us pray with our heads--intellectualizing the words of prayer through responsive reading or seeking to understand the meaning behind the blessings.

A few pray with joyful dance, an expression of some Hassidic communities or Rabbi Heschel's social action march. Unfortunately, even fewer pray with their hearts, the preferred manner established by the Rabbis of the Talmud who proclaimed prayer  "a service of the heart".  The heart is a multi-functioning organ. In one sense, it's the beating, physical heart that pumps life sustaining fluid throughout the body. On another level, it's the seat of the positive emotions of love, compassion and mercy, like the hearts that adorn valentines. The Rabbis had this meaning in mind when they delegated prayer to the heart.

I keep a collection of old siddurim (plural for siddur) on my bookshelves. Some are contemporary and some are so old that they don't have numbered pages. Years ago, people were so fluent with the prayer book that they didn't need numbers; they knew the place by the sound of the chazzan's melody.  There are lots of bittersweet memories buried in the pages of these prayer books. I envision generations of my ancestral grandparents fading into the history of their wanderings throughout Europe, always reciting the very same lines. I behold the ancient aleph-bet whose characters, illuminated the light of Sinai, and were painstakingly taught by the cheder (schoolroom) rabbis.

Prayer is packaged in different wrappers.  First prayer can be celebratory. We pray to unite our sense of community, kinship and connection, as the congregation comes together to celebrate Shabbat, holidays and other life cycle events. Joy arises from a community celebrating together, as embodied by the hymn, Hinei Ma Tov--How good it is for brothers to dwell in unity.

 Prayer has an historical component; it brings us back two thousand years to relive moments in the holy Temple, right now. The chazzan (prayer leader) represents the priestly class who officiated the Temple service to which the congregation answered with fixed responses: "Amen", "Blessed be He and blessed be His name" or "May it be Your will", much the same way as we respond today. The contemporary Torah service is a vestige of the public reading of the Torah in the days of the Temple.

But more important, was the role that prayer was assigned by the Rabbis as the official substitute for sacrifice--the holy ritual that induced union with God, which was abolished in the aftermath of the destruction.  The Hebrew term for sacrifice, the spiritual cornerstone of Judaism, is  "korbonnot" which simultaneously stems from the same three letter Hebrew root meaning, "to draw nearer". It epitomizes the Jewish ideal of coming closer to God.

The Hebrew word designated for prayer is "t'filla", derived from another three lettered root meaning, "to judge oneself".  Prayer, it turns out is an act of self-judgement.  True prayer takes place in the present moment; it doesn't necessarily require spoken words. We can also pray in loving silence. When we luxuriate in the present moment, we judge ourselves to the extent that we experience our being.

In the service of the heart, spiritual seekers are requested to divest themselves of all extraneous thoughts and focus their attention on the Holy One of Being. The liturgy is to be recited just audible enough to hear, and in doing so, they engage the body in prayer. Some sway, bow and bend, to deepen their involvement with the body.  When we're connected to our bodies, and disengaged from our minds, we stand in the present moment, the gate of the Divine. Prayer is the heartfelt expression of our relationship to God and to all of life.

Through the years, I've grown to understand most of the Hebrew in my old prayer book. Since I don't think in the language, it's nearly impossible, at the speed of davenning, to extract the meanings verbatim. I prefer to pray in Hebrew because I'm not distracted by the meanings; I can recite the liturgy as a mantra. In this manner I'm free to focus my entire attention on my feelings, open my heart, and become accessible to the love and awe of the Holy One.