Resistance to Prayer: Reflections as We Stumble Toward Yom Kippur

Resistance to Prayer: Reflections as We Stumble Toward Yom Kippur

Shannah Tovah to all my blog readers,

Panim Hadashot had a nice piece about it in the Seattle Post Intelligencer on Monday, 10/3. Click here to read it. The reporter, John Iwasaki, captured one of the unique approaches I have taken with Panim Hadashot. My approach to Judaism is to openly acknowledge ambivalence while presenting a rich Jewish menu of learning and celebration that engages people in dimensions of Judaism that are rich in meaning replete with joy. As you can see by the interviews, the message is getting through. I welcome your comments about the article.

Now my focus in on Yom Kippur. On Kol Nidre I am doing something I have never done before: Confront the problem of prayer on the paradigmatic day of prayer-Yom Kippur. I have taught Jewish prayer for many years in the context of learner's minyans, classes, and from the pulpit. I have found that while some Jews love prayer and resonate to the music and form of prayer, most Jews are very confused about the theology and meaning of prayer.

Over the next few days I want to share with you a wonderful piece I discovered back in the late 70s on resistance to prayer. The writer of this piece is a rabbi at the peak of his career reflecting on what he has learned about his congregants views on prayer. It is a startlingly honest and perceptive piece. I would like to bring it to the blog for your reflection as we enter this most holy phase of the Jewish calendar.

RESISTANCE TO PRAYER

Albert A. Goldman

No subject is more difficult to discuss than resistance to prayer. The reasons for the modern negation of the validity of prayer are multitudinous and it is difficult to pinpoint with any accuracy the real and true reasons why men find prayer either awkward or meaningless. Certainly we who had thought that a modern approach to prayer would have alleviated traditional resistance now find ourselves in much the same dilemma as our traditional brethren, the problem cuts across all denominations. None of us has discovered a formula which appeals or applies.

I know of no single study which could guide us in this matter. We can only collate a number of statements and complaints, and attempt to discover some pattern in these objections. Perhaps we also ought to realize that in every age few men have been truly spiritual or motivated by so—called religious feelings. Only a sensitive minority ever has responded to the meaning of prayer as an activity and movement of the soul complete in itself. Perhaps our chief fault is that we expect all men to be qualitatively religious. Since we assume everyone is religious to some extent, we are lead to believe that all men necessarily must respond in the same way. We suffer from our own pathological assumptions, and it might do us well to remember that only the few are so attuned, as only the few develop either aesthetic or poetic sensibilities. Yet we have a mass congregation and we expect the larger number to respond to our appeal. Some may be suffering from the delusion that there was an age not so long ago in which all men were religiously motivated.

I doubt if this were true of the shtetl; and if Isaac Bashevis Singers portrayal of that east European community has validity, I would question the oft-romanticized spirituality of the world of the fiddler on the roof. Of course religion was a strong communal force and an inner bond; yet that world had to give birth to Hasidism to save itself from arid spirituality. There are times when prayer and worship are not consequential. Certainly the Bible would indicate sparse participation by the people at worship. It would be intriguing to study further Y. Kaufmanns characterization of the ancient cult as a cult of silence, where the priest acted but did not speak.

RDG: Since this was written, Israel Knoll, has written a brilliant book on this very subject called the Sanctuary of Silence that explores the cult of silence in the earliest priestly strands of the Torah. The tradition of prayer according to Knoll is a later development of the Torah and is most evident in the Book of Deuteronomy. Knoll argues that a great dispute is embedded in the Torah over the role of prayer and that this dispute has continued in one form or another through Jewish history and thought.

The system of liturgy which we have developed finds itself challenged by a growing indifferentism and by a childish immaturity. Most of what follows is based on many discussions with congregants; conversations held on various levels but without really coming to the nub of the problem. I am sadly impressed by the primitivism of most of our people. They are without sophistication in matters spiritual, and generally reflect ideas which remain on the kindergarten level. For the most part our people would like to believe that their prayers are heard by a personal God and answered by Him: Prayer is literal. There is little sense in attempting to explain it to them on a metaphorical basis. The prayers mean what they say; and yet they suspect that we do not mean what we say and they retreat more often than not into confusion.

We ought to remember that there is a great deal of difference between our public theologies and our constituents’ private theologies or wishes. They wish for a God who is a man, or who is personal in the sense that He will guarantee answers to their prayers. Descriptions of God as spirit, force, process——are really meaningless. These can only betray their fears and their anxieties; and the fatherhood of God means that He will not be indifferent to them.....

There is another private, yet not so private, theology that God is indifferent to human needs and little knows of their presence nor even cares. What are these projecting if not some sense of a lack of worth, or the residue of a scientific age which sees only natural law, cold and unrelated to the needs of men? Certainly, there is little in the education of our people, who by now are becoming a post college generation, to induce feelings of reverence or further their insights into the meaning an purpose of religion. Most men believe that the universe holds no basic meaning. It simply behaves in accordance with its in—built laws and these have no basic relationship to their inner lives.

RDG: Reflecting on this 25 years later I would essentially agree with Goldman's observations that most Jews remain very confused and inarticulate about prayer. Those who do it, generally don't want to think about it. I found this to be true over many years of teaching prayer in a synagogue setting. The form and the melody became very important, but the meaning of the prayers were of little interest. Disputes over prayer in the synagogue setting focused on conduct of the service, decorum, and the people leading the service and rarely engaged in substantive theological issues.

To me the it was a situation of the emperor not wearing clothes, and everyone keeping mum. Most of the people would privately confess to a agnosticism or even an athiesm. The great majority of the Bnai Mitzvah kids wrote in their essays how they did not experience God in their lives. Yet the educational approach focused on the kids mastering prayers they did not believe. Over the years I found that more and more odd and again accepted by all as the norm.

Tomorrow, I will bring more of the Goldman article for you to chew on. Feel free to comment on what I have posted so far.

Rabbi Dov Gartenberg
Thursday, 10/6/05