It was toward evening in Rockville, Maryland as the second day of the conference progressed. Dinner was winding down and we anticipated a session from a woman who had sailed the Pacific for 2 years with her husband and two kids after he got laid off, followed by a “best practices” presentation by various city representatives. The evening would close with a soulful musical session of Jewish spiritual tunes.
There was a collective gasp that arose from the front of the room. I casually looked up, expecting the usual relieved laugh and “everyone’s okay” from the crowd.
It did not come.
Instead were swift shouts of “call 911!” “Is there a doctor??” “Is she OK?”
She was not OK.
A woman had leaned on a railing that overlooked a stairwell. The railing broke away from the floor and supporting wall, sending the woman down, down, down… panic, distress, and grief filled the air of that room.
Here’s what I know. I cannot help from a medical standpoint. And people in crisis will not improve with rubberneckers. So I did what I know how to do in a crisis: I prayed. I fished through my handbag for my prayerbook, flipped quickly to the back where the Book of Psalms is printed, and started saying whatever my eyes fell on. I don’t know what happened next, but someone gave me a microphone, directed the women away from the scene of the tragedy, and before I knew it, I was leading the group in saying Psalms, word by painstaking Hebrew word, phrase by painstaking phrase.
This group. Many had never prayed before. Many had no idea what we were saying, or why. I never lead groups in prayer without introducing, explaining, translating. But there we were, as the emergency crew arrived, as she was carried out, mercifully conscious, to the waiting ambulance, as people were instructed to move cars, to move away, we kept going, phrase by phrase, empowered by what we could do. Empowered by the strength in numbers. Empowered by our bond, our solidarity, from that moment of panic to that moment of doing. Empowered by doing just that, saying those words that were not understood but whose cadence reminded us of our common bond: Hebrew, though we may not understand it; spirituality, though our definitions of its expression may vary; care and concern for our fellow sister, though many of us had never even met her.
That moment was magical, transformational. Beauty in the midst of tragedy.
I know I shall never forget it.
Please spare a prayer, in whatever language you know, for Naomi bat Rosalia.
What a terrible story for this woman. In light of how awful the story is I don't want to come off as nitpicking or criticizing. But for the sake of discussion, I ask whether praying together is empowering as you describe it or instead comforting. Of course the ability to comfort oneself and others is a form of power, but your account represents the praying together as though it were empowered toward some other end besides comfort.
Sbw, embedded between the lines if your question is the point of contention that occurred to me as I decolided to publish this here. Which is: what does prayer actually accomplish?
Is it, simply, as you say, a psychological, inwardly-directed source if comfort? In which case, "power" is an out-of-place concept here. Or, does it really achieve something in the big, real world? This interfaces with the Divine Providence idea. If God doesn't intervene in our lives, why pray?
Excuse typos… I'm on my phone
Wow. I did not read that into the question at all! I thought sbw was asking whether there was something more powerful about group prayer than singular prayer, to which I would have answered yes and explained the importance of coming to G-d as a group. I guess that's why you, Ruchi, do what you do and I do what I do. Lol
But seriously, just wanted to add that this post reminded me of the day, almost 25 years ago, when my brothers' best friend drowned in the pool at the day camp we attended and worked at. After they rushed him to the hospital we all sat outside and prayed together. Tragically, he didn't survive, but I still remember those moments of prayer clearly. It still moves me.
I actually meant what Ruchi said. I can imagine praying being comforting and even reminding you of how you should be grateful for all you have. But what does it achieve in the world? Why would God answer some prayers and not others? I know these are things you have talked about before but I don't get it. Beseeching God seems like a bad idea to me–if there isn't any use to beseeching it's a waste of time (unless it's comforting) and if it is of use then … then God does not seem very reliable if he responds sometimes to beseeching and sometimes not (and surely some worthy good people have done beseeching and not gotten their desired results).
I guess there are ideas about group prayer as well, minyan and all, as Ranya alludes to. Never really understood that. This is not to say that I haven't felt the power of singing as a group or demonstrating as a group. That kind of thing is a powerful experience. But groups can also band together and even pray together for really bad reasons and with really bad wishes and purposes, so it's not good in itself.
I could discuss what I believe about prayer, but first I'd like to clarify the first thing you said. Apart from a belief in a personal God, what would be comforting or gratitude-inducing about prayer? And what kind of prayer do you reference here?
I can imagine saying or reading a prayer, especially together with others, being comforting because it is precisely "something you can do" or "what one does in such a situation". It alleviates the helplessness, because it is "what you do", even if you don't believe your prayer has any effect. It can feel meaningful, even if you don't believe in God or only marginally so. The act of praying, i.e. of saying something in a ritual way, perhaps produces a meaningfulness (rather than deriving from one) and therefore would be a comfort in a helpless situation.
Same thing with gratitude. If I intone some prayer of gratitude, the performance of that act evokes my sense of gratitude. Even if I don't really "thank God" himself for all those things.
So that means, to your last question, that what kind of prayer I mean is whatever counts to someone as prayer. Because you "go through the motions" of prayer and those motions can be comforting or unifying even without a belief in God that guarantees or underwrites the whole thing. Maybe you wouldn't call it prayer at that point, i.e. if it were all done without God as the addressee or even in the picture.
Wow. I have such a hard time understanding this. It is so different from how I find prayer comforting.
The reason I find prayer comforting is that I believe I am making a difference in real time. That my words travel up to heaven, that I am changed due the tragedy, and therefore now deserve a better outcome, that the subject of my prayers has effected spiritual change in others due to our relationship to him or her and therefore now deserves a better outcome, and that God desires a close relationship with us so even if the answer to our prayers is "no," our prayers will get stowed away somewhere and saved for a future benefit. Kind of like how physical energy never dissipates but rather gets reappropriated. That's what's so comforting about it.
Yeah, I can see why that would be more comforting than the ritualized aspect itself, or even the togetherness. But the whole thing about deserving a better outcome is tricky, isn't it? Lots of issues there. Why does prayer make you deserving of a better outcome? Couldn't you have undergone deep, maybe even spiritual, change without praying (like in view of terrible poverty resolve to be more grateful and do good for others)? I don't see how prayer makes you a better person, except I guess if by definition prayer is trying to be closer to God and that is by definition always better.
It is, as you say, like physics–it is meta-physics, as if the laws of physics could be applied to other realms. It would be comforting to believe this for sure. It means that prayers are a "real something", the way you describe how they exist, get stowed, count, get saved up. I'm not metaphysical enough for this. If there's God, he doesn't (in my imagination) cure or strike down people on the basis of anyone's prayers. That idea even maddens me. It makes people into hamsters on a treadmill, thinking that they are going somewhere but really possibly not anywhere at all. I can see how praying is a sort of "placeholder" activity for producing comfort, though, in any case.
I don't know God's exact algorithm. No one does. You see people who recover without prayer. Maybe either good deeds or some other merit are at work. Or maybe there's some other master plan at play. Coming close to God IS by definition always better. It's the whole point of it all. I look at praying like eating healthy. It's a good thing to do and it will always improve your life. Is it a guarantor of anything in hard copy? Nah. There are always ither factors at play. Maybe this idea helps with the treadmill thing.
G-d desires the prayers of the righteous. Not only that, He says,"Open your mouth and I will fill it." He's not talking about food. G-d wants us to pray. It is a unique gift and one of the way we were given to communicate with Him. We see over and over that if one prays with kavana like our Avot and Emahot did in Tanach our prayers can be answered.. But first of all you have to believe – to know there is a G-d in Heaven and the Jewish nation has a covenant with Him – that Judaism is not some philosophical, abstract idea. Maybe you should ask yourself this question: Why should G-d answer my question when I don't believe in G-d or in the power of prayer? It's 'maddening', isn't it?
Why shouldn't God answer when you don't believe? He isn't in it for His ego. If you ask, why shouldn't he give you your answer? Then you'll come to believe.
I want to add one more thing. It was very meaningful, this act of spontaneous prayer. Some people would gawk and do nothing. But I find this act of caring, and unity, of compassion and empathy to be very emblematic of what it means to be a Jew.