Prayer Begins Where Expression Ends

“A man stands at prayer and meditates in his heart [without uttering a word], and God is near unto his prayer … David said, Answer me when I call (Psalms 4:2). Said God to him, ‘You say, Answer me when I call; by your life, even before you call will I answer you,’ as it is said, Before they call I will answer (Isaiah 65:24).” (Deuteronomy Rabba) God hears not only prayer but also the desire to pray.

Quest for God: Studies in Prayer and Symbolism

Theology of the Common Deed

The teaching of Judaism is the theology of the common deed. The Bible insists that God is concerned with everydayness, with the trivialities of life. The great challenge does not lie in organizing solemn demonstrations, but in how we manage the commonplace. The prophet’s field of concern is not the mysteries of heaven, the glories of eternity, but the blights of society, the affairs of the market place. He addresses himself to those who trample upon the needy, who increase the price of grain, use dishonest scales, and sell the refuse of corn (Amos 8:4-6). The predominant feature of the biblical pattern of life is unassuming, unheroic, inconspicuous piety, the sanctification of trifles, attentiveness to details.

I Asked for Wonder: A Spiritual Anthology

Abraham Joshua Heschel,
Edited by Samuel H. Dresner

Prayer Begins Where Expression Ends

In a sense, prayer begins where expression ends. The words that reach our lips are often but waves of an overflowing stream touching the shore. We often seek and miss, struggle and fail to adjust our unique feelings to the patterns of texts. The soul can only intimate its persistent striving, the riddle of its unhappiness, the strain of living twixt hope and fear. Where is the tree that can utter fully the silent passion of the soul? Words can only open the door, and we can only weep on the threshold of our incommunicable thirst after the incomprehensible.

Quest for God: Studies in Prayer and Symbolism

An Answer of the Whole Person

It is either short-sighted or vainglorious to assume that self-expression as such is the supreme goal of prayer. The supreme goal of prayer is to express God, to discover the self in relation to God.

Quest for God: Studies in Prayer and Symbolism

An Island in This World

Prayer, as said above, is an event that comes to pass between the soul of man and the word. It is from this point of view, that we have to distinguish between two main types of prayer: prayer as an act of expression and prayer as an act of empathy … In the Book of Psalms some chapters begin with the words, To David, a Psalm, while others begin, A Psalm to David. The Talmud explains: when David began to sing and then the inspiration came to him it was To David a Psalm; when first the inspiration came to him and then he sang, it was A Psalm to David … in the prayer of expression we often arrive at thoughts that lie beyond our power of expression. In the prayer of empathy we often arrive at words that lie beyond our power of empathy. It is in such tensions that our worship gains in strength and our knowledge in intuitive depth. Genuine prayer is an event in which man surpasses himself.

Quest for God: Studies in Prayer and Symbolism

Spiritual Ecstasy

Prayer is spiritual ecstasy. It is as if all our vital thoughts in fierce ardor would burst the mind to stream toward God. To pray is to dream in league with God, to envision His holy visions.

Quest for God: Studies in Prayer and Symbolism

The Nature of Kavanah (Inner Participation)

The laws of science we comprehend as rational concepts in critical understanding, while the mercy and greatness of the Infinite we absorb as a mystery. Prayer is a spiritual source in itself. Though not born of an urge to learn, it often endows us with insights not attainable by speculation. It is in prayer that we obtain the subsidy of God for the failing effort of our wisdom.

Quest for God: Studies in Prayer and Symbolism

The Nature of Kavanah (inner participation)

For neither the lips nor the brain are the limits of the scene in which prayer takes place … Prayer is not a thought that rambles alone in the world, but an event that starts in man and ends in God. What goes on in our heart is a humble preliminary to an event in God.

Quest for God: Studies in Prayer and Symbolism

The Nature of Kavanah (inner participation)

All of us, mindful of the ancient distinction between lip-service and the service of the heart, agree that prayer is not a hothouse plant of temples, but a shoot that grows in the soil of life, springing from widespread roots hidden in all our needs and deeds. Vicious needs, wicked deeds, felt or committed today, are like rot cankering the roots of tomorrow’s prayer. A hand used in crime is an axe laid to the roots of worship.

Quest for God: Studies in Prayer and Symbolism

Man’s Ultimate Aspiration

There is no human misery more strongly felt than the state of being forsaken by God. Nothing is so terrible as rejection by Him. It is a horror to live deserted by God, and effaced from His mind. The fear of being forgotten even for an instant is a powerful spur to a pious man to bring himself to the attention of God, to keep his life worth being known to Him. He prefers to be smitten by His punishment rather than to be left alone. In all his prayers he begs, explicitly or implicitly, “Do not forsake me, O Lord.” … God is not alone when discarded by man. But man is alone. To avoid prayer constantly is to force a gap between man and God which can widen into an abyss.

Quest for God: Studies in Prayer and Symbolism