Prayer as Resistance and Rebellion—Elul 16

Even solitary prayer takes two:
one to sway back and forth
and the one who doesn’t move is God.
But when my father prayed, he would stand in his place,
erect, motionless, and force God
to sway like a reed and pray to him.

                                            Yehudah Amichai, “Gods Change, Prayers Are Here to Stay,” in Open, Closed, Open
When most people think of prayer, they think of a certain kind of prayer: petitionary prayer in which one asks God for something one does not have.  But prayer takes as many forms as there are persons communing. 
One form that Amichai evokes so beautifully in the image of his father praying is that of prayer as resistance.  Similarly, Isaac Bashevis Singer, in his Afterword to the novel “The Penitent,” speaks of prayer as rebellion.  Other post-Holocaust thinkers have come to similar conclusions, like Eli Wiesel who speaks of the Jews’ ongoing argument with God.  To resist, to rebel, to argue means that one is actively engaged in a relationship with that Presence one can neither control nor comprehend. 
Is this form of prayer appropriate for the Days of Awe?  Don’t we confess, over and over again, as one of our many sins, that “we rebel”? 
Let me ask you this:  If you had a son, a daughter, a partner, a friend with whom you had a misunderstanding or from whom you had grown distant, would you rather they avoid you, keep hostile silence against you, be indifferent to you, or that they start an argument with you and pour out their heart full of grievance and anger in your presence? 
Why do we think that we, human beings, need to protect God’s honor and tell others how to commune with God.  When the Torah was revealed at Sinai, every one of the 600,000 heard God speaking in a voice unique to them.  Theologians like to speak of this as “God’s accommodating” to our limits and limitations in order to pursue a relationship with us.  Surely that God, who is also the Womb of Mercy, the Father of Compassion, is not offended by the sputterings and spittings of troubled hearts or frightened by the anger or even hatred some feel.  Surely the One Who Surpasses All , Encompasses All, and Dwells Among Us welcomes all prayer, all true communing,  in all voices, in all language, in all tones, when they fly from a true heart.