Guests In The House
of God
D’var Torah for
Parashat Vayeitzei (Genesis 28:10—32:3)
By Rabbi Boaz D.
Heilman
Then Jacob awoke from
his sleep and said, “Surely Adonai is in this place and I did not know
it.” He was afraid and said, “How
awesome is this place! This is none
other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven” (Gen. 28:16-17)
Why do we pray?
The question has struck me many times as I’ve looked at a
congregation assembled before me on a holiday or Shabbat eve. The prayerbook assures us that we all have
different reasons for coming here. Some
are in need, in pain, or in distress.
Others come to be part of a community, or to share a simcha—a joy—in their lives. Some come for the music, which elevates them,
moves them, helps them calm down at the end of a hectic work week. Still others may come for the sermon, to hear
what might be going on in the rabbi’s world, his or her thoughts on a
particular verse from the Torah, or to learn a lesson put forth by our Wise
Sages.
Some pray for relatively silly things. I bet as many prayers were said as bets were
placed for this team or the other to win the World Series.
Clearly God is a Red Sox fan…
And yet some others come to complain to God, to question
God’s fairness when bad things happen, when illness strikes good people, when
anyone seems to bear an unusually heavy burden of sorrows or suffering. They may be saying the same words as everyone
else, intoning the same song or prayer as the cantor and congregation, yet
their hearts aren’t here. Their soul’s
focus is aimed higher, to the Seat of all justice, mercy and power. These people don’t come to find a peaceful
setting for their soul; they come to pick a fight with God. Their prayer isn’t sweet—it’s bitter, like
Hannah’s when she prayed for a child; or mournful, as when David prayed for the
life of the son Bathsheba had just given birth to.
Some pray for material things that they think might make
their lives easier or better. Others ask
for strength so that they might just go on doing what they are, for as long as
they can.
Through all these, however, there is a common
denominator. What we pray for varies
from person to person. Whom we pray to
changes from religion to religion, and sometimes within ourselves. But what is common to all is that we
pray. That with words or thoughts,
silent, spoken or sung, whether they be directed inwards or upward, we
pray.
Why DO we pray?
Perhaps because we can.
Because we realize—or choose to imagine—that we are not alone in the
universe; that there may be a force much larger than us, a collective power of
which we are but a part; and that by somehow connecting to that larger entity,
we cease to be alone. Perhaps we pray
because we believe that when we become connected to some ongoing source of
strength, we, in return, are strengthened.
We pray to be better.
We pray to rise again after falling, and falling, and falling.
We pray because we believe that as we pray, so we are
answered. Like some cosmic karma, when
we open a channel of communication with that greater whole, we initiate a
give-and-take, an ebb-and-flow of ideas, thoughts and inspiration—a stream of energy
that we call “holy.” Prayer makes some
of us sense holiness.
Some of the prayers we say are personal; they relate to our
own individual lives. Others, communal
prayers such as Aleinu, the Kaddish or the T’fillah, connect us with one another, with our fellow congregants,
with the community of friends and family around us. These prayers, however, can do more than merely
strengthen the bonds between us, sitting here together at this moment; they can
also transport us to the past—the distant past of ancestors long forgotten; or
to the more recent past, to connect with people we once knew but who are no
longer with us, and thus kindle within us the reassuring memory of their love
and faith and trust.
Prayer doesn’t have to be addressed to anyone in
particular. It can just express the
thoughts, feelings or emotions that are otherwise contained within our
hearts. Just releasing them out to the
open can make us feel better.
We pray despite our doubts, because hope and faith are built
into our hearts and DNA.
And sometimes there’s just a little bit of wishful
thinking. Like the Sounds and Images from
Earth that NASA put on a golden record and installed aboard Voyager I in 1977, so
we too send out images, sounds, pictures, thoughts, music and words into the
space around us, not knowing how far they will go but still hoping that at some
point they will be picked up, examined, and perhaps sent back to us with some
response.
We pray because we are human—alone, yet also part of
something greater; because we feel—and want to share what we feel; because we sense
a need to say thank you, or I’m sorry, or please—to anyone and no one in particular. We pray because prayer can shed light on the
path we are traveling on, and because prayer gives our wanderings and
meanderings both purpose and a goal.
I wonder what our Father Jacob prayed for on the first night
he was away from his parents’ home, having just started the journey of his
lifetime. Yet the Torah doesn’t reveal
to us what he said or thought, only that, with his head resting on a rock, Jacob
had a vision of a ladder with its top in the heavens, with angels climbing up
and down, and God standing beside him—speaking to him, blessing him, promising
him safe journey and return.
Perhaps we pray because we hope to be like Jacob, to find
that wherever we are, there holiness can be found; hoping to find reassurance
when we are fearful, encouragement when we are anxious.
We pray because we hope to open our eyes after the night’s
restless slumber and realize that God has been walking along with us all this
time, only we did not know it.
May our prayers tonight and always fill us with a sense of awe
and holiness, as they did for our ancestor Jacob so long ago, so that wherever
we are, we, like Jacob, will always find ourselves welcome guests in the House
of God.
Kein y’hi ratzon—may
this be God’s will.
© 2013 by Boaz D. Heilman
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