Spontaneous Prayer--Elul 17

Formal, public prayer took hold in Judaism after the destruction of the second temple in 70 C.E., when the rabbis substituted prayer for the sacrifices in the temple. It was never intended to drive out spontaneous prayer of the heart.  The rabbis were clear that Channah, the woman praying so hard for a child on the temple steps that the priest thought her drunk, is the model for prayer.  Moshe's stuttered prayer for his sister Miriam when she is stricken with leprosy is another model: "God, please, heal, please, her."

Since the days of the Torah, spontaneous and personal prayer has surfaced periodically, testifying to its centrality.  Through the ages, Jewish women, who were not obligated to fulfill time-bound mitzvot, wrote techinot, prayers from their hearts that spoke to their needs, just as Channah had done.  Their beautiful prayers range from supplicating God for a child to petitioning for safety for their family to thanksgiving and praise.  Here is one techinah written for Rosh Chodesh Elul by Sarah bat Tovim:

With lovingkindness and great mercy, I entreat You to do with me; accept my petition....I pray that You may accept my tears as You did those of the angels who wept when Abraham, our father, bound his dear son; but the tears of the angels fell on Abraham's knife, and he could not slay Isaac [Genesis 22]. So may my tears before You prevent  me, my husband, my children, and good friends from being taken from this world....'All gates are closed, but the gate of tears is not closed.' Merciful Father, accept my tears....wash away our sins with the tears and look on us, with mercy, rather than with justice. Amen.

And this one for the Days of Awe:

May the four matriarchs' merit, the three patriarchs' merit, and the merit of Moses and Aaron be present for us at judgment....We beg our mother Sarah pray for us at the hour of judgment, that we may go free....Have mercy, our mother, on us your children, and pray for our children, that they are not separated from us. You know the bitterness of a child taken from its mother, as you grieved when Isaac was taken from you.  Pray now, at the blowing of the shofar of the ram, so God may remember Isaac's merit who let himself be bound as a sacrifice. Ask for mercy on our behalf.

I beg mother Rebecca to pray for her children and that our father and mother be not separated from us.  You know how strongly you long for a father and mother, as you wept greatly when you were taken from your father and mother to your husband Isaac.

(Written Out of History: Our Jewish Foremothers, ed. Sondra Henry and Emily Taitz, pp. 193-194)

The women who spoke techinot were not inhibited by the formal prayers of the tradition.  They had the courage to commune intimately with their Merciful Father, unafraid to speak of their daily lives and specific needs.  They, too, are a model for prayer today.

In our day, though, formal prayer seems to have eclipsed spontaneous prayer. Many of us have lost the art of praying directly from the heart.  We seem content or cowed, imprisoned or bored or worn out by our formal prayers.  We're no longer agile enough to make the leap to personal prayer at the end of the Amidah. We are amazed when we hear our Christian friends and relatives pray spontaneously around a hospital bed or in a time of fear and crisis.  We are out of practice.

Elul and the Days of Awe are the perfect time to practice spontaneous prayer and claim it once again for our lives.  The formal prayers are not intended to be a barrier to personal and spontaneous prayer, or a substitute for it, but a guide, a path deeper into our heart, an opening in the hard clay of our hearts where our personal words and silences can flower into teshuvah.