"A prayer of the afflicted when he is overwhelmed and pours out his complaint before God" (Ps. 102:1) is diametrically opposed to "Let him gird up strength like a lion to rise in the morning for the service of his Creator"; the first is the heading of one of the psalms and the second, the very beginning of the Shulhan Arukh, which serves as an introduction to the laws of prayer.[1] These two symbolize and highlight two critically different meanings of prayer.

The first is a human-psychological phenomenon, the expression of an impulse from within, an action which springs from man himself, from an experience he has undergone, or from the circumstances in which he finds himself. It is an action preformed for a man's own need, whether material, intellectual, or emotional. This is prayer for one's own benefit, a service to oneself. There is nothing worshipful about it. It does not represent acceptance of "the yoke of Heaven." In other words, it is not essentially a religious act although, like many other psychologically determined events, it may occur in a religious context as a natural outcome of human manipulation of religious categories.

Prayer, as shaped in the prayerbook, is an entirely different matter. It is obligatory and fixed. Consider what these two properties imply. As obligatory, it is not what a person desires but what is demanded of him; not prayer initiated by him, but one imposed upon him. As fixed, it does not vary with the changing circumstances or states, objective or subjective, in which the praying individual finds himself. Hence it does not reflect the state of mind or situation of the praying person. Such a prayer is not intended to satisfy a need. No two people have identical emotional needs or perceive their position before God in the same way. Their needs and perceptions could not be expressed in the same words at the same moment. Moreover, in the life of a single person no two moments are identical in respect of what he feels or needs. Yet the prayerbook does not take these differences between individuals or between the varying circumstances of the same person into account. The same morning, afternoon, and evening prayers are imposed upon the Jew every day of his life, the only variation being the additional prayers of Sabbath and holidays and the Ne'ilah service of Yom Kippur. The Jewish prayer - inasmuch as it is a distinctive religious institution, determined by religious considerations and a constitutive element of halakhic Judaism - is not intended to serve as an outlet for the feelings and thoughts of man. It is not the spontaneous outpouring of one's soul which necessarily varies with individuals, their moods and states of mind. It is more than an expression of a psychological need which has been granted due place in the religious life. The radical difference between these two kinds of prayer is well brought out in the words of a Tannaite, who apparently was dissatisfied with the kind of prayer embodied in the prayerbook: "Do not make a routine of your prayer, but let it consist in supplication of mercy before God." But the opposite opinion eventually prevailed and was prescribed by the Halakhah.

The sole meaning of prayer as a religious institution is the service of God by the man who accepts the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven. His acceptance becomes real through his assumption of the burden of Torah and Mitzvoth. Only the prayer which one prays as the observance of a Mitzvah is religiously significant. The spontaneous prayer ("when he is overwhelmed and pours out his complaint before God") a man prays of his own accord is, of course, halakhically permissible, but, like the performance of any act which has not been prescribed, its religious value is limited. As a religious act it is even faulty, since he who prays to satisfy his needs sets himself up as an end, as though God were a means for promotion of his welfare. As in the case of any Mitzvah, prayer - especially prayer - is religiously significant only if it is preformed because it is a Mitzvah. Its religious value is minimal when it is preformed out of free inclination.

The grandeur and power of prayer, prayer that is mandatory and fixed by Halakhah, lie precisely in setting aside all of man's interests and motives out of awareness of man's position before God, a position which is always the same regardless of any personal circumstances. Man relinquishes his own will in the recognition of the duty of worship. The same set of eighteen benedictions is required of the bridegroom as of the widower returning from his wife's funeral.[2] The same series of psalms is recited by one enjoying the world and one whose world has collapsed. The identical supplications are required of those who feel the need for them and those who do not.

This characterization of halakhic prayer is not contradicted by its formulations of praise of God and request for the fulfillment of needs. The wording is the ritualistic form prescribed for man's worshipful stance. It is not necessary to request satisfaction of one's needs or to praise God. But because there is a deep religious reason for praying at fixed intervals using unchanging formulas, the carrying out of this prescription has been given the form of praise and supplication. This can be understood by way of analogy with Maimonides' discussion of the sacrifices, which the fixed prayer has come to supplant. There is no reason for sacrificing exactly two sheep or thirteen oxen on a given day. But because there were significant religious grounds for instituting the sacrifices, one form had to be chosen from among the many which, in themselves, were of equal value (or of no value). Moreover, prayer cannot be comprehended otherwise than as having a ritualistically determined content and form. Whoever worships the Creator who has no body and cannot be corporeally conceived cannot imagine that he can truly praise God or that he need inform Him of his needs. He will certainly not seek to influence God, an idea which comes short of being blasphemous only because of its naïveté.

The great religious duty of "intentional prayer" is meaningless unless construed in terms of the general intention to worship God in praying and in employing the fixed formulas of the prayerbook.[3] It is impossible to demand of every man, in each specific life situation, to recite the prescribed words with wholehearted intention when in many of these situations the prescribed praise or the requests are entirely inappropriate. Conversely, to pray because one is obligated to do so, and not because one is prompted by personal feelings and needs, is an entirely fitting expression of one's assumption of the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven and the Mitzvoth. The discussions and controversies in both halakhic and aggadic sources concerning "intention" and Iyyun Tefilah while praying are highly ambiguous.[4] Is Iyyun Tefilah praise-worthy or to be avoided? From a thicket of what seem to be contradictions and confusion, one may glean two meanings of "intention" and two of Iyyun Tefilah. The great principle governing intention in prayer is: "He who prays must direct his heart to Heaven." The required intention is to serve God by observing the Mitzvah of prayer, not attention to the supplications or praises recited.[5]

Several of the greatest Amoraites testify that they were at times unable to concentrate on the content of their prayer. They regarded themselves as properly praying by virtue of their intention to observe the Mitzvah of prayer. The Tossafists make a careful distinction: "There are two kinds of Iyyun Tefilah - awaiting that one's request be granted [which is discreditable] and directing one's heart to Heaven [which is praiseworthy]." As summed up by Rabbi Solomon ben Adreth: "Not all intentions are identical."[6]

A controversy reported in the Midrash brings into clear focus the great difference between these two distinct conceptions of prayer. "Our rabbis declared: it is forbidden to pray more than the three prayers instituted by the patriarchs [or instituted in lieu of the daily sacrifices]... One may not pray more than three time daily." By way of contrast, R. Yohanan said: "Would that one might spend the entire day in prayer."[7] The first view is illustrated by a conversation reported between Rabbi Judah the Prince and the Emperor Antoninus, in which Rabbi Judah explains that "One is forbidden to pray at any time [he be so inclined]... so as not to assume a disrespectful attitude to the Almighty... that one may not disturb Him whenever he may wish."

For these reasons there is no point to demand that liturgical formulas be modified to fit the needs of men or the mental climate of the times. Prayer cut to fit the needs and current attitudes of men loses its religious importance and becomes one of the activities men carry on at their pleasure to satisfy their spiritual needs, much like poetry, music, or the art of cinema. We, of course, recognize that the formulation of our prayers did not descend from heaven and has no special sanctity in itself. It was phrased, arranged, and redacted by men like ourselves in accordance with what appeared to them the most appropriate way of observing the Mitzvah of prayer. Only by virtue of this halakhic decision did the set forms and locutions of prayer acquire their sanctity. In this respect, prayer does not differ from any other religious institution or practice determined by halakhic deliberation within the framework of the Oral Teaching and by virtue of its authority. No doubt, by virtue of this same authority, the formulary of the prayer may be modified, if this appears necessary to the community of those who maintain the Torah and observe its Mitzvoth and who, like the Sages who maintained and shaped the Oral Teaching throughout the ages, sincerely believe that their innovation is called for by the Torah itself. The legitimation of the Oral Teaching depends upon this belief, which is also the condition that permits human decisions on Halakhah to be regarded as the words of the Living God. It is quite different to modify the prayerbook so as to make prayer more palatable to those who participate in it, to adapt it to the spirit of the times or to the prevalent moral and aesthetic values. Such a revision does not perfect the act of prayer; it negates its religious substance. The demand for such reform is not expressive of a religious impulse but of the desire to free oneself from the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven.

The various "occasional prayers" composed to lend a religious halo to personal or collective interests – "prayer for the welfare of the state," "a prayer for the parachutists," "a prayer for submarine crews" - are ludicrous and insipid. All these are either national-religious play-acting or expression of fears which have nothing to do with religious consciousness. By the nature of things as implanted in them by their Creator, if the girls assigned to folding the parachutes perform their work conscientiously and the parachutist follows his instructions carefully and skillfully, he will land safely. If not, the special prayer will be of no avail. "The foolishness of a man perverts his way, and his heart frets against God" (Prov. 19:3). To pray as one who has faith in God, not as one who worships an idol, one must recognize that "the regularity [implanted by God] of the world-order is constant," and that prayer is not the silly and impudent demand that God change the world's regularity for the benefit of the person praying, but is rather a token of man's cleaving to God by serving Him, no matter what occurs in his natural environment. In the words of the Psalmist, "I am continually with you, you hold my right hand... Whom have I in heaven but you and there is none that I desire on earth besides you... My flesh and my heart fail, but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever" (Ps. 73).

By understanding prayer as a worshipful stance and not as an attempt to bring about God's intervention in His natural order, we are able to solve a problem which arises in religious education regarding prayer: why does not prayer - at times, even the prayer of the saintly and just - evoke a response? The answer is, simply: no prayer is without response! Since true prayer is the expression of one's intention to serve God, in praying one carries out this very intention. In other words, "prayer which evokes a response" is a tautology and "prayer without response" an absurdity. This is true whenever one prays with proper intention, the intention of worship. "God is near to all those who call upon him, to all who call upon him in truth" (Ps. 145:18). He who prays without proper intention, with the intention of deriving some ulterior benefit from his prayer, is likely to be disappointed: "they shall fret themselves and curse their king and God" (Isa. 8:21).

The great contrast between prayer expressing consciousness of man's position before God and prayer as request of man's wants is highlighted in the prayers of the Days of Awe.[8] The mandatory portion voices man's apprehension of the glory of God's majesty, which leads to longing and hope that his great Name shall be magnified and sanctified in the world; all this without reference to a man's own concerns and troubles (see the prayers beginning "Now, therefore, impose Your awe," Reign over all the universe in Your glory," and especially "it is incumbent upon us to praise," which is the praise of thanks for Israel's privilege of worshiping God). The essence of the Yom Kippur experience is the consciousness of becoming purified before God and the awareness of the uniqueness of man's position before Him, even though man in himself is as nought. However, popular religiosity was unable to bear this sublimity of faith, and embellished this essential liturgy with prayers expressing man's anxiety about his fate, the fate of the people of Israel, and his relation to God, conceived as master over this fate. Most popular of all is the prayer U'netaneh Tokef.[9] The concern with "who shall live and who shall die," "who will be impoverished and who enriched," and so on, is a general human concern that has no religious bearing. In this respect the man of faith does not differ from the infidel. Nevertheless, this prayer has been accepted as legitimate.

A striking statement of this distinction was made by one of the great latter-day rabbis:

On Rosh Hashanh all men of Israel pray that the Kingdom of Heaven may return to Jerusalem and that God may reign over the entire world. However, in thus praying, not all intend the same thing. One person loves God with all his heart and prays for the enhancement of his glory. Another has in mind the return of Israel to its land... Yet another is insensitive to the troubles of the Exile and prays for his own welfare, which prayer is but a "commandment of men learned by rote." With reference to this the divinely inspired poet proclaimed (Ps. 102:18) "He heeds the prayer of the destitute" - that is to say, of him who, from the depth of his soul, desires to awaken the divine mercy for the sake of the glory of Heaven, and yet "does not despise their prayer," namely the prayer of the many who pray only for their own benefit or merely out of habit.[10]

[1]The Shulhan Arukh is a halahkic code compiled by Rabbi Joseph Caro (1488-1578) and, togethor with its glosses, is regarded as authoritative. The citation is from Orah Hayyim (the first part of the code) A.a - Ed.

[2]What in halakhic sources is technically called Tefilah or prayer, is a set of eighteen benedictions, later extended to nineteen – Ed.

[3]Tefilah bekhavanah is prayer recited with awareness – Ed.

[4]Iyyun Tefilah means careful examination of what one is saying while praying – Ed.

[5]See Jerusalem Talmud Berakhoth, chap. 2 Halakhoth 4,5; B.T.Berakhot 31a, 32b, 54b; sabbath 118b, 127a; Rosh Hashanah 16b and elsewhere. See also Rashi and the Tossafists at these locations.

[6]Responsum 344

[7]Midrash Tanhuma to Gen. 43; 14.

[8]Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur – Ed.

[9]A Piyyut (hymn) included in the Ashkenazic and Italian liturgies for the Days of Awe and describing the divine judgment on Rosh Hashanah – Ed.

[10]Rabbi Naphtali Zvi Yehudah Berlin (1817-1893) was head of the Volozhin Yeshivah from 1852 to his death. The statement in the text is from his gloss on Deut. 26:15 in his commantary to the Pentatuch, Ha'amek Davar (Jerusalem: El Hamekorot), p. 213. The word Ar'ar, usually translated "the destitute," is here interpreted as stemming from a root meaning "to awaken" – Ed.