In Defense of the Experience of Prayer

by

Arielle McBride

Copyright 2011, by William McBride ISBN 978-1-257-05427-5

I. Ha-Shem Defending the Praying Individual

1. Ha-Shem, meaning "the name," is the mysterious monotheistic God of our universe and the name we Jews use in place of Yaweh, his divine name to show respect.

2. Jewish prayer, "siddur" plays an important part in our meaningful relationship to our God, Ha-Shem.

3. We believe in Ha-Shem's unconditional Love for all, and that he is not a tyrant as say depicted in John Milton's great epic Paradise Lost.

4. Ha-Shem does not damn anyone, no need to pray therefore out of fear of that.

5. The only method for prayer is the Self's own; the soul of anyone is completely competent to pray their own way.

6. We Jews pray to Ha-Shem out of respect, "devekut," and to be polite to our Lord.

7. Ha-Shem knows that there are obstacles, "dins," to our distance from Him.

8. We are not asked to have faith in Ha-Shem or believe in Him since we already know he exists we are asked to trust in the covenant, trust meaning "emunah."

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9. We must also beware of our own identification with the Lord and so though we should "be like Him" but not "too much like Him," and confuse ourselves with Him.

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10. Learning is the center of our world and the world revolves around it, which means "Ha-Torah," "the learning," the names also of the first five books of the original Hebrew Bible.

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II. The Degree of Need for Prayer

1. We as Jewish individuals make our future through the great and imaginative process of self-creation of a good life.

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2. We Jews can imagine a better future for us and our future generations, one with more Love, Hope "tikvah," Health, remembering of the dead and others, Learning, food, safety, and with less cruelty, pain, poverty, and humiliation.

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3. We feel grateful and therefore the prayers we make express our goodness for what we know as our good life.

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4. Prayer is done best in isolation.

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5. Prayer in solitude is an experience of a growing inner self which has its own light to light the way.

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6. We should never be greedy in prayer, as in life.

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7. We Jews are patient, and believe that the only true sin is impatience.

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8. What there is to pray for or praise, we pray for and praise.

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9. Prayer is one way that we seek Hope over knowledge; it is one form of a time without boundaries.

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10. The Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza said that we should worship and love God without ever expecting anything back in return.

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III. The Ideal Praying Situation

1. Prayer is best done is moderation.

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2. Prayer to Ha-Shem is not something we wish to rush or rush into.

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3. When we are free and the freer we are are the best and most comfortable times to pray.

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4. We should have strength when we pray and find the courage to do so since we care.

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5. Many times just one or two sentences is all that's good for a prayer.

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6. It is just fine to mean a prayer without resorting to a wimpy sentimentality.

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7. The ideal prayer is a sect-of-one.

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8. There are many stories in the world, not just one, and our consensus over how to interpret them is what we found our democracies upon.

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9. Our knowing is one great self-reliance of dependency.

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10. In our communities we seek to raise the divine sparks of those who are further behind in hope in our devotions.

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IV. Thinking Versus Saying it Aloud

1. We Jews ask "Who are we to be if not now, and if not now when?"

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2. The Literary Critic Samuel Johnson said that "prayer was too heavy for the wings of wit" - that prayer and poetry should be kept apart and not be mixed.

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3. Johnson also said that "A man is not obligated to do all that he can do."

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4. Ralph Waldo Emerson has a wonderful sentence which warns us against priests: "As men's prayers are a disease of the intellect, so are their creeds a disease of the will."

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5. The Jewish oral tradition is central to our culture, the Mishnah, which means the act of saying aloud.

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6. We seek to raise the divine sparks of all people by helping them back to their own divine knowledge within them of their original glory.

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7. Some Kabbalists, or "Jewish Mystics," or "Jewish Gnostics," have saught to penetrate their relationship to Ha-Shem by combining and permutating the letters of the Hebrew alphabet so as to help focus their attention, "kawwanah" on God.

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8. In Judaism saying is doing, since the meaning of the word "word" "devarim" is a "saying, action, and a deed."

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9. We may either use our memory to recite prayers or read in from a book, a "sefer."

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10. Some prayers are recited standing and in silent devotion, "devekut."

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V. The Words to Use when Praying

1. Switching words in prayer, substituting similar words is sometimes better.

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2. The more of the divine language you know, Hebrew, the more tools you have to pray with.

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3. To pray well is an act of understanding the fairness of consensus between your God, peers, and yourself.

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4. The word "love" is used in prayers and can be just thought of as "love."

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5. Or the word "love" can be thought in Hebrew as "Hesed" a divine love.

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6. Love may also be election love or "Ahovah."

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7. "Baruch" means "thank you."

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8. "Tov" means "Good."

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9. There are many varieties of improvised prayer as well as habitual prayers, as you shall continue to see.

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10. Learning has no end, which is why at the end of our prayers we say "Amen."

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VI. Being Taught to Pray

1. As Johann von Wolfgang Goethe's motto states, "Forward, Forward," also is our motto for praying.

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2. On good days it is good to pray as well for help of the problems of others.

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3. At our death we recite the Shva if we are able, the last words out of our mouth, as we have done on other important occasions, "Hear O Israel, the Lord Ha-Shem, the Lord our God."

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4. The Shva is the most important Jewish prayer, and a summation of our belief in monotheism.

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5. Some also might be assisted by Angels in their prayers.

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6. The help which Angels can give is one also of consensus, being that they pray and praise Ha-Shem and work with humans to do so to.

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7. Good prayer is an evolving process and means much when practiced much.

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8. Prayer to Ha-Shem is a form of sacrifice, of withdrawal away from our physical activities or more interesting thoughts.

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9. It is important that prayer for us all who seek learning, represent more learning, another branch of our growth as individuals within a community or alone.

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10. Experienced prayer is something which is a form of divine knowing.

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VII. When Not to Pray

1. Prayer is not a revolutionary process, and never should be forced.

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2. "Din" is one commotion which can interrupt the focus on prayers, reading, or free thinking; it has many varieties.

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3. The atheist has no fun.

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4. We should only pray, if we are indeed asked to by someone, by someone we love, and though we may love everybody our judgment must be deliberate as to when we should pray.

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5. We practice our prayers in a reasonable way.

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6. If we are dying, we do not seek to engage in dialectic with another.

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7. We Jews believe in the fairness of Ha-Shem, that he understands our need when to pray as well as our need when not to pray.

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8. Justice is part of each individuals right to pray.

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9. We should be weary of praying when interrupted.

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10. Prayer is the result of your ouwn knowing and receiving of wisdom.

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VIII. Gold Mold's Attempts to Force Your Prayers Out or Keep You Silent so as to Trip You Up

1. Gold Mold is my name for some who are naughty enough to insult others who are seeking to learn.

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2. Who's to say what's Jewish and what is not?

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3. As in the case of the Greek God Zeus, whom we do not worship, no one ever really prays to him, they know better to pray to him.

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4. Bad actions are lies, fraud, and slander which is worst of all.

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5. We have no need for priests; although gurus are welcome to help us gain fresh ideas and redescriptions of ourselves, others, and the stories and world around us.

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6. Even bullies are human.

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7. Naughty people, Gold Moldians, may make it seem as if the physical material world is the only thing, and that transcendence beyond it is not possible.

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8. We Jews pray that pain be eliminated from our world.

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9. We Jews also want the humiliation of others and ourselves to cease forever so that world peace may come soon and stay forever.

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10. Judith Sklar said that "cruelty is the worst thing that we can do."

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IX. Emergency Prayers

1. We exist in a community, and our community is, as it should be, separated completely and is incompatible with our private lives.

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2. That man not be obligated from doing all that he can is something to consider for all time.

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3. In our anxieties we withdraw and from within pray not outward but inward.

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4. We ask of our lost good moment: Where is it now?

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5. I pray when ambulances pass as well as when I am calm.

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6. I like to say Ahovah or Ahovat quietly.

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7. Claudius from Hamlet, William Shakespeare's play, when at prayer, is an example of one who prayest not well.

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8. Because in some sense we Jews have diminished in a fallen sense, that our vessels have been broken which contained the light of Ha-Shem, we seek a "tikkun" a restoration, or restitution which is promised in the cycle of time.

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9. Being Jewish means that we do not think much of apocalypses; learning goes on interestingly forever, that there is no end to inquiry.

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10. We, as Rabbi Tarphon stated, do not have to complete our work, but neither are we free to desist from it.

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X. Finding Out who is Asking You to Pray

1. Salvation is and will always be a private matter, which is one reason our founding fathers here in America put into law the separation of Church and State.

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2. Pharmacutical psychology is not competent to make judgments on religious experience.

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3. Taking Ha-Shem as a fact, then Angels come along with Him.

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4. When I pray I look in specific spots which are important.

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5. I am not asked to look at images when I pray.

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6. Prayer is not a conversation.

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7. Sometimes I loop my fingers when I pray to represent my direction in which I pray.

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8. You have the power to decide what to say when you pray and praise Ha-Shem.

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9. The "tikkun" restoration of yours and others original glories matters to us because we seek to be good and have a good life.

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10. Everything good will be prepared and is being prepared right now.

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FINIS

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