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Who Needs to Pray?February 2004From the Desk of Rabbi CohonEvery now and then it strikes me how few liberal Jews actually pray regularly, and how far many of us are even from the concept of regular prayer. When you ask members of other religious traditions—say, liberal Christians—how often they pray, they will usually say, “every day,” but, when you ask a group of liberal Jews if they pray regularly, you get a blank look—at best. Some liberal Jews look at you as though you asked if they performed animal sacrifice recently, or painted themselves blue and howled at the moon. The prevailing attitude is, “Why would I do that?” Yet, if you ask if the same people if they worked out today or read the New York Times, they will typically answer “Of course!” And if you ask if they watch TV regularly, they will certainly answer in the affirmative. It seems that preserving physical fitness, intellectual fitness and current-events fluency, or relaxing with one of the 57-channels-with-nothing-on (“Four couples build a house together, but only one will get to keep it!”) are all considered fundamental building blocks of contemporary life, but preserving spiritual fitness is simply not of importance. It’s true that at Temple our attendance at service is considered to be excellent for a congregation of 750 families: we have 200-225 people for a normal Shabbat Friday night service (that is, if we ever had a “normal” Shabbat service) and our typical Shabbat morning attendance without a bar or bat mitzvah is somewhere around 75 people. But that still means that in an average week a much larger number of the members of our congregation are not at Shabbat services than are here… and that’s sort of the tip of the iceberg. If you include all the still-unaffiliated Jews in our community, the non-praying portion of our population swells considerably. And yet, in a society that highlights the commercial and the meaningless, prayer has something profound to offer. Maintaining spiritual health is no less important than preserving physical well-being or keeping our minds stimulated and entertained. We are not merely creatures of flesh and blood, nor are we machines for thinking or sensors for feeling. Each of us—every one of us—has an innate capacity to sense and experience a world of the spirit, a higher realm of sensitivity and consciousness that allows us to appreciate moral beauty and to comprehend universal truth and meaning. We can all reach great moments of spiritual high. But without the regular connection and exercise of those spiritual faculties within us, we are unlikely to cultivate those abilities, and we soon become insensitive to the holiness that is present in our everyday world—and in our families and ourselves. Joining together for prayer regularly gives us the skills and exercises our “spiritual muscles” to respond to situations of holiness, beauty, and goodness in our world. And finding that holiness on a daily, or at least weekly, basis helps keep us centered and balanced, and gives meaning and purpose to our lives. It is written that the one who “rises from prayer a better person” has had that prayer answered by God. I believe that this can be true for anyone who engages regularly in prayer, and that it will be true for you. Join us for Shabbat services regularly, and experience what a little spiritual exercise can do for your own life. You will be pleased—and, perhaps, surprised. L'shalom v'rei'ut, in peace and friendship, Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon |
