An Article on Prayer
April 23, 2020
Why is Prayer Taboo
When a group of people who work together, or attend a school together, or make up a family and live together in a single home, find a particular subject offensive or insensitive, cruel or just inappropriate, they feel uncomfortable speaking about it and the subject is avoided. For instance, family members will prevent each other from “pulling out their skeletons from a closet,” and speaking about them even at home, that subject is taboo, and they are quite sure others outside of the family will move away from them if it ever gets known. Using profanity in certain circles is unacceptable behavior and people who hear it spoken will distance themselves. Wearing provocative clothing in public can be frowned upon because they are risqué and others will look down on the one who does so. There is an unspoken rule in cases such as these: do not speak about subjects that upset the group and do not act in ways that they find inappropriate. That is off limits: it is taboo.
Prayer is one of our most wonderful gifts there are because it is a gift G-d has given people. It is the ability to raise our questions, our ideas, our emotional, monetary, and familial problems, and anything else we cannot resolve because they are out of our hands, to G-d where they can be resolved, and it works. People all over the world use payer as the way of choice to communicate with G-d. Just imagine; the creator of the universe communicated to tiny human beings saying; I want you to come close to me.
In Genesis, G-d told Cain and Able, come close to me by bringing sacrifices. For Jews, sacrifices ended when the second Temple (the Bet haMikdash) was destroyed by the Romans, but Jews have continued their closeness with the creator of heaven and earth through prayer. Jews recite prayer services three times a day in synagogues, alone, or anywhere Jews congregate. When prayer is recited with passion it becomes a conversation between G-d and the individual. Unfortunately, in today’s world that kind of elevated prayer is rare. It is the norm to recite services quickly and put very little thought into them. The result is, uncomfortable feelings surround prayer and speaking about that, that one’s unrequited desire to pray with passion has changed into a daily chore, is extremely uncomforting and is avoided. For the same reason, discussing one’s abilities and methods in prayer is a subject that is most often taboo.
There is no doubt about it. When people speak about prayer it is because there is something one wants to share with another, something they read or heard about. They will seldom tell others their prayer methods and techniques, or what they pray for. If one’s prayers have little substance, he will not speak about that with others because that is embarrassing. Reciting passionate warm prayers that come from the heart, a service filled with fervor, is also not discussed because that kind of success is seldom experienced and not even understood. Spiritual level prayer coming from the depths of the soul, that fully connects with G-d, is a mystery. People will hardly ever broach that subject.
1st Taboo – Embarrassment
(Due to our Low-Level ability in Prayer)
You are not Alone
It is likely that the most obvious reason prayer abilities and habits are not discussed is embarrassment. The Jewish prayer book is the siddur. Most of the prayers in our modern-day siddurs were written around two thousand years ago. They can be cryptic, abstract, and seemingly not directed at the needs of the modern day individual. People do not believe they know enough to discuss prayer intelligently and due to one’s lack of substance when he prays, there is a loss of confidence. People keep quiet about that. The one who faces his situation might think, I recall the few times when I prayed and really felt connected with G-d, but I have been praying for thirty years and I still do not know how to pray well enough, I often do not know what I am doing. Over time, my skills have not improved. I don’t even understand many of the words I read. This happens so often that people often think we are all stuck. This self-doubt is increased by the words of our Zadikim who wrote, the final generations will have substantial problems praying. What are the reasons Jewish prayer is in this state?
Where do Poor Prayer Methods and Techniques Come From
There is a wide gap in higher Jewish education In regards to prayer. Torah is taught in-depth all over the world but it is difficult to find institutions that teach in-depth prayer. Without them prayer in depth is almost impossible. It cannot be learned by attending shiurim on prayer because in-depth prayer education is tantamount to Torah education. It takes years of learning, thinking, keeping one’s mind on his prayers throughout services, and later, reviewing content in an effort to improve one’s prayers day by day. The result of following a learning method that works, is having awareness of your gains and increasing your prayer success. Without that kind of education, daily prayer recitations remain repetitious and lifeless.
Prayer Classes
There are classes in prayer education that take place on a continuing basis. Here is the problem. Which groups receive prayer education? In general, prayer is a subject taught to elementary level yeshiva students along with other religious subjects and general education courses but the main subject taught is Torah. Because of their ages, children do not learn higher values inherent in prayer or how to pray in depth. Classroom teachers or rabbis present students with an understanding of prayers in the siddur, especially the Shema and the Shemonei Esre prayers. This education is taught on the surface level and it is likely that most children regard prayer class as another school subject. Some students will enjoy the subject but many will show little interest. They will not learn higher values inherent in prayer or how to pray in depth because at their ages, it is over their heads.
Yeshivas often provide early morning prayer services to students. In elementary level yeshivas classes and even up through high school, students pray together in a sanctuary, an auditorium, or in classrooms with teachers and rabbis present. Some students find prayer interesting while others do not. Without enough understanding and appreciation, prayer recitations become repetitions and boring, of little importance. It is likely that most students find some enjoyment when they pray much of the time. Teachers observe each child in their classes and judge them according to their efforts. If a student’s eyes wander around the room as a habit, as others pray, that shows teachers the student is not focused, he is likely not interested. If that student also sneaks in a few words with a friend at the same time, that can be considered an infraction. If that happens repeatedly, a teacher will say something to the student out loud more than once and the student gets to feel belittled and ridiculed in front of his peers. He was caught in an embarrassing moment. Other students notice that, feel bad, but remain silent as the prayer service continues on. It is a problem that is hard to avoid.
Higher level yeshivas offer adult level classes. Sometimes classes are highly insightful and educational. Enrollment may be limited and what is taught can be academic. Students who want to learn will learn. If one wants to pray with passion, he will learn by adding in outside information and the sky is the limit.
From time to time there are rabbis dedicated to teaching prayer and their classes proceed at a slow pace. Even if you find classes of this type, the student needs to put what he hears into action. Prayer education that moves forward is a long process. Improving our formal prayer education programs to students in yeshivas is a fine choice but that is not our current direction.
If an individual attends a shiur on prayer, he is likely to pick up tips but not master the subject. The people who attend shiurim have all levels of background and the group presenter has to be sensitive to everyone.
The Bal-Teshuva and the Ger
There are groups of individuals who are newly observant Jews. For them Jewish prayer is new, challenging and exciting. Maybe the largest group are the Bal-teshuvas. These are newly observant Jews, who have a limited background in siddur prayer and are open to learning. They may be asked to buy a siddur, enter the sanctuary of their choice and look for guidance. If it is unavailable, they try to watch others pray and copy them. It is difficult to accomplish that because one does not know what another is doing and thinking underneath his tallit.
In recent years there has been a great increase in non-Jews converting to Judaism. They are a group called Gerim. They are open-minded, highly motivated people with little or no Jewish prayer education and it is likely they want to learn Hebrew. It might take a Ger years to feel comfortable praying in Hebrew, and he will regard prayer according to what he sees and learns. Both the Bal-teshuva and Gerim have in common that if they do not receive a well-organized, sensitive, all inclusive, and solid training. They are likely to feel embarrassed by what they don’t know instead of being proud of what they do know.
Buying Books including a Siddur
Jewish book stores offer many books on prayer. There are always new books available so it is quite likely you will find books you are impressed with. Some books offer you insights, while others are for commentaries on the siddur. You may find the books teaching you “How to pray” are the most helpful. However, the one you want to learn from may be hard to come by. Books of this nature are difficult to write. At least one individual of high authority must give acceptance to it, and write a short document of agreement (a haskama), that the book’s content is in accordance with Jewish law and customs.
The kind of siddur a person wants to pray from depends on what he is looking for. The most preferable type for you may be a siddur with commentary. Some siddurs offer a paragraph or two of commentary on a single prayer but others have pages of commentary. One way or another, commentary helps.
Putting the Siddur to Work for You
The one who believes the commentary they read will raise their level of prayer substantially can be making a big mistake. Commentaries are helpful because one may find an explanation on a prayer that makes sense but that is not a replacement for prayer education. Learning how to pray in-depth is done by following a method and using one’s intelligence, understanding, and emotions to boost his prayer techniques, not only learning commentary. It is beneficial to learn one prayer at a time and how all prayers in a service fit together. You will have to experiment, finding spots where you lost your focus and concentration and spots where you could have presented your content better or differently. Little by little, your services will change for the better. At some point prayer will work for you and your habits will improve by leaps and bounds. Unfortunately, that does not change the fact that speaking about prayer is taboo. The one who improves his services knows that If he speaks with others on prayer, trying to help them reach their bright light, they watch them walk away. Prayer is still taboo because others do not believe their prayer will rise.
There is a lesson to be learned from knowing embarrassment makes prayer taboo. People want to pray with passion and fervor. They want to converse with G-d and detect G-d hearing their prayers, but they don’t know how. They believe it is not in their hands to change their outcome. In a way, they insult themselves day by day by not recognizing their own potential.
Does G-d hear our Prayers?
There is a statement many people who have prayed for years ask: if I do not pray well enough maybe G-d does not hear my prayers. There are two opinions. Some say, G-d hears our prayers and the other says not always. We learn, a certain rabbi would not enter a synagogue he was standing in front of. He said, the prayers the congregation had recited here are still laying on the floor. Yet, people who are able to pray with passion and are sensitive can lift the prayers they find inside. Why might prayers go unheard? It is mentioned that those who speak during prayer will not have their prayers heard. On the other hand, others believe G-d hears all prayers. In Pirkei Avot we read, all Jews have a portion in the next world and the Gemora states, even the most secular Jew has performed so many commandments, they are as numerous as the seeds in a pomegranate. We do not want to think of any Jew in a bad light, not lifting their own prayers to G-d. Some will say, anyone who takes the time to go to the synagogue and pray, is doing and act of great importance and G-d will not turn his prayers away. We learn that when we pray together in a quorum of at least ten men (a minyon), G-d hears the entire group, but when one prays at home by himself, if he does not raise up high quality prayers, they are not heard. Yet in our generation, the way prayer is recited today, it is easy for one to believe, his own prayers are not being heard. Let us say, G-d hears all prayers but most of us do not detect G-d’s presence and His involvement in our prayers.
Prayer is supposed to be exciting and a subject that is talked about with pleasure. Being embarrassed by it demonstrates that we are doing things wrong and our attitude is wrong. It will be in our hands to raise the quality of our prayers.
The first improvement will come when we consider the possibility that there is a better way to pray. We will learn how to place G-d before us by looking inside, towards our feelings and then outside of ourselves as far as we can envision. Moreover, one cannot improve prayer significantly unless he improves his behavior at the same time. The main focus of prayer during this stage of human life is likely personal improvement. We will learn the techniques that will make that progress a reality. After some time, we will find that winning means removing habits and behaviors that G-d does not approve of. That is the way embarrassment will leave us and we will experience the feeling of victory. Speaking about prayer will no longer be taboo.
2nd Taboo – Sins
(Due to the Sins we Commit)
The Road that Leads to Passion and Fervor
With lots of hard work and your increased belief in your ability to pray, higher levels of recitation lie ahead. Through your belief in prayer, G-d will be creating for you a self-fulfilling improvement. You can lift your prayers and the result will be life changing. Your first challenge is overcoming embarrassment.
A Mistaken Belief
One may have the belief, prayer that comes from the heart, that has might and spirit, that penetrates the upper worlds, shouldn’t work unless one is a rabbi of great prominence. They actually mean, praying on high is not for those who commit sins. When one prays with spirit, the words on his lips, the thoughts on his mind, and his feelings, are lifted across all heavens. G-d hears them and acts upon his prayers no matter how great or small they are. Only a great tzadik is capable of that. If anyone of less stature believes he can also pray that way, don’t believe him, he is trying to convince people he has abilities. His abilities are only a stunt, like telling the future or communicating with the dead.
We all make wrong choices but sin will absolutely affect your prayers. G-d will not open up the heavens for you, or show you what He is doing. For high levels of prayer to feel natural to you and work, you must engage in doing teshuva with strength. We do not do that: we approach it lightly.
3rd Taboo – Feeling Incapable
(Due to Inner Confusion)
One of the worst feelings comes with the thought – I am incapable. Once in a while a circumstance comes up that makes a person face himself and look inside. He wants to get his problem out, to express his thoughts and feelings, to release himself from whatever he has on his mind. Since he never successfully opened up in prayer to G-d, he expresses his feelings to himself. It is not easy for him to face himself and deal with his feelings: they are chaotic and unexpressed. There are desires he is not proud of and pain that remains from friction he had with others out of disagreements. There is the love he has for another which he finds difficult to express, and maybe there is someone he loves who he wants to love him back. There are bad habits he wants to break, fears about others who he believes might hurt him, suffering, a vacation he wants to take, promises he has not fulfilled, a new house he wants to buy, thoughts he has about others he does not trust, a problem he wants to resolve, a project he wants to complete, a boss he wants to eliminate, memories he wants to erase, and the list of items goes on and on. He knows that they should be expressed in prayer but he finds that each time he prays, G-d may be standing before him, but all is quiet in his thoughts. He is in turmoil underneath. In the back of his mind, he wants all his concerns to come up and in a storm of feelings and words, wild and unleashed, empty out through his heart in prayer. He pictures G-d standing before him as a rock of strength, but he thinks, G-d is in shock, protecting Himself, because the prayer coming forth from my heart and thoughts, is so powerful it will bowl over anything that comes within its path. He wants to pour everything out and clean out his subconscious mind. But he can’t, little or nothing ever comes out.
Prayer is not a mystery, we are. Yet we make prayer a taboo subject because we cannot even accept our own selves. We fail at that. We pray three times a day, but each time we pray, a new opportunity is wasted. While standing before G-d we have the chance to express everything that is on our minds, the storm brewing inside, our unrequited dreams, and the thoughts we have about ourselves and others. You might think, I want to regurgitate it all and be free of it, but all that comes out when I pray is another dry, non-emotional reading of words on a page. One wonders, how is it possible that with all my heartbreak, the aches, and all that lies inside my gut, nothing meaningful ever comes out when I pray.
4th Taboo – The Road that Leads to Passion and Fervor
(Making Progress is not Acceptable)
Where did you Learn That?
Did someone teach you the way we pray is to read your entire service by rote. Say the words in your siddur as fast as you can and pay no attention to them. You must lose your focus and think about subjects we call mind-wandering and maybe catch a quick chat. When you finish, take all the time you want to speak with others. Is that funny or does it hurt? Prayer is the most sensitive kind of communication there is.
Leaving the Past Behind
From time to time someone gets up the courage to toss taboo behind him and wander out into the great prayer unknown, attempting to find the underlying value it has, that others discount. Maybe that is you. Are you ready? You will make this trek alone because it is unpopular, people are skeptical. Others will not want to hear your success stories because they are taboo. They may laugh inside, to themselves, as you tell them some of the most important words they will ever hear.
You are on the road to in-depth prayer recitations. You will come to know what it feels like to improve. Do not allow anyone to convince you otherwise, giving you the message, you will never make it. Nonetheless, when taboo is only a past memory for you, you will not want to slow your progress down.
1st step forward – Acquainting Yourself with Siddur Prayers
Knowing G-d’s expectations is covered in Torah. Relating to G-d with closeness and distance, with love and with fear, and examining yourself as G-d sees you, that is done through prayer. You have a new partner as you go ahead – it is G-d, and the siddur is your guidebook.
Open your siddur and move around in it with no expectations and no hurry. In Shachrit, there are sections that connect with each other. Each one will become an opening to different places in your heart. Moving around in the siddur means you are comfortable with it. In time, you will develop a personal closeness with each page. Whenever you pray, you will look at life. You will approach each prayer in its own special way.
Experience the Moment
Choose a prayer, one that has been a mystery to you or one that is special in some way. What have these words meant to you? How well do you connect with them? Will this prayer lead you toward your life goals, help you through a challenge, or redirect your ambitions? There may be a moment or two of sadness as you start to face your distance from your prayer. You may know what the words mean but not their connection with you. It will be hard to imagine what lies ahead because the future is a blur. That is when it all begins. Forget about the time it will take you to get somewhere in prayer or any other worries that come to mind. Be proud of what you are doing. You are experiencing a moment of true courage. Others that may be seated around you will likely not approve of what you are doing. Don’t discuss it with them but if you do, they may not be honest enough to tell you what they are thinking. Whatever it is, it will not push you forward. They will likely not ask you for an update.
Read the commentary on your prayer. Even if you did that before it will be different this time. Think it through and look at your prayer from another angle. Add in any new thought that come to mind. Your commentary, as good as it is, is only a small part of your prayer. Halacha; it only plays a small part of your prayer and think of your obligation to read your prayer as being almost meaningless. Consider its history, why was it placed in the siddur. What have others been able to take from it through time? What was said long ago is valid today. What means most at this moment is your feeling, that the prayer is important to you.
A Prayer Service is Wide Open Country
As long as you remain praying in a service, and you are aware of what you already communicated, you can change your thoughts around, make additions to them or take a point out. All you need to do is remember what you said and change it around. The entire service is open to changes and improvements.
You can move above and beyond the siddur’s words as they stand. The siddur is meant for that. The best outcome happens when you add in personal prayer. That means you can read words on a siddur’s page and pause. Now add in your own prayer thoughts that relate to an event in your life, or something you need or desire as a personal prayer. The words in the siddur act as gates and entrances, bidding you to add in your own thoughts. Your thoughts should relate in some way to the meanings of the siddur’s words. You are widening your prayer and increasing it’s meaning each time you do. Think of the words in your siddur as holy and also as hangers. They are there for you to hang your personal prayers on before you send them, together as a unit, up past heaven.
A most important prayer ability is being precise. That means, when you add in words of personal prayer, it is important place your thought and feelings into a picture. Then, in your mind, describe your thought to yourself in words. Whisper it. Your words should be crisp and descriptive. What do you see happening? It is awareness. These words make up a prayer thought. In a service, there is no upper limit to the amount of prayer thoughts you can have, all you need to do is want them. You can also have crisp thoughts that relate to the meaning of a verse in your prayer. The way you envision a picture depends on how you think and your addition of personal prayers are abstract thoughts. Being precise is a technique you grow into. It gets better over the years. The more precise a thought is, the better will be its reception in the world above.
5th – Turning Taboo into Passion and Fervor
(Achieving a Thrilling Acceptance)
Praying with Passion and Fervor
It seems, there are many individuals who pray with passion world over but they are not the norm. Maybe they do not speak up because prayer is taboo. There are some qualified rabbis, that teach passionate prayer to students, but finding one and becoming their student depends on where you live, your availability, and it is the rabbi’s choice. There are other rabbis who pray with passion but they do not teach prayer. Maybe in some cases it is difficult for them to teach because no one taught them how to pray as they do. In today’s world, if someone wants to pray on high, he must work with others, learn on his own and not give up.
Jewish prayer services always have structure. It changes according to the style (nusach) one follows and the level of observance he keeps, but structure is continuous. The one who prays with passion, communicating personal prayer information and using methods and techniques, should never wander away from structure. That means, it is fine to add in personal information and stay on one point as long as you need to, pray for others, pray for peace and the world, pray for an extended period of time or for a shorter amount of time, but never lose your prayer structure. The structure of prayer services is the structure of the siddur. In that way, prayer groups always pray together. When you pray, you should feel invigorated.
Prayer works and it should make you feel full of life. The more you tune in the more you will add G-d into your daily life. That may include having abundance or creating a small gain in personal improvement. If you show mercy for others, G-d will show you His attribute of mercy. Distance causes one to lose awareness and it draws one farther away from G-d.
On this level one combines personal prayer with siddur prayer. These are areas where it is important for you to pray to G-d, asking Him to give you His help.
Points on Making Progress
- At least at the beginning, every day if you will, recall a certain sin from the past. If you have not fully turned away from it, turn away some more. This is an internal battle and it adds to the eventual return of man to eternal life. It also helps us avoid the temptation to sin during the day. Everyday, you walk the border between life and death, and reward and punishment. By doing teshuva you remain alive. On this level your desire is to overcome all sin and stand clean before Hashem, because He will not tolerate sin forever.
- Daily prayer and the constant events in your life are fully connected. You take time away from responsibilities three times a day to pray and the personal information you constantly add in is your response, in words, to the events that affect you.
- Learn to think positive even if the world does not want you to put your best foot forward. People for the most part, go about life doing things right and doing things wrong. Sometimes we help another and G-d is there. Sometimes we respond to a situation with anger and G-d is there. There is honesty and dishonesty. Yom Kippur is not the first time we regret our choices, The time to bring a sin up before G-d is the next time you pray. It is best to bring it up then or you will forget about it. Through prayer G-d will help you turn away from committing it again in the future. Don’t play into someone else’s plan for you. Open your spiritual eyes. G-d is giving you your challenges and He can easily take them away. Keep your eye on G-d and make personal gains. That is done in prayers such as Hodu.
- Do not think life works through punishments. They are the result of bad choices. We all eat from G-d’s hand. That means, your life is supposed to go well. Life is not supposed to work by moving two steps forward and one step back, or one step forward and two steps back, certainly not by moving two or three steps back with no moves forward. It is supposed to work by moving three steps forward. Thinking positive means going forward all the time. Imagine yourself walking up a spiral staircase. Sometimes you are on the side where the sun shines most and sometimes you are walking up the side with shade. That means, all experiences, positive and negative are gifts you receive. The more you resolve your life issues, your life missions, and your personal goals, the better life looks. See yourself as only going up. Face your challenges with patience and G-d will help you get out of difficult times. (In Mitzmore Shir Hanukat haBait.)
- Pray for peace but not serenity. With peace comes challenges you will overcome. With peace comes health, prosperity, a peaceful marriage relationship (shalom bait), healthy children, healthy parents and family, structure and everything else. You do have to work on personal improvement, love and fear of G-d. Serenity means, I want all my wishes granted to me without putting in any effort. Serenity causes backsliding. It is a way of life that is at best, taking two steps forward and one step back. When one achieves serenity, he starts to believe all will remain serene because he is in charge of his life. That is when his decisions and his prayers start to suffer. One sets himself up to sin because sooner or later, he will remove G-d.
- There is a law, that for a service to be acceptable one must have G-d before him. It takes time and practice for that to be habit but it is the single act of placing G-d in front that brings in so much joy during prayer. For a service to be fulfilling it needs personal information injected into it, in abundance. For a service to shine with abundant feelings, it is good practice to also place before you, your mental pictures that give meaning to life, such as your nation, the land of Israel, a reddish sky, the heavens behind the vail, family and others who are particularly important to you, a Tzadik, and if you are praying in the synagogue, the people you are praying with, the building itself, and anything else that brings your prayers to life. If your style of praying is Kabbalistic, there is another set of thoughts to have in mind. Putting everything together is what we refer to as having kavana.
- At this level of prayer, you will need to keep sin out of your life. Any sin will break your reception. When your clarity is gone, so is your ability to detect that your prayer is being received. Being insightful and intuitive will return to you after doing teshuva, and taking the time necessary for the sin to be forgotten. It can take a day, or days, or it can take a week or more.
6th – Emotional Level Prayer – Passion and Fervor
(Being Fully Connected)
Do not watch over your every move as you wait for the day when you are embedded in Emotional Level prayer. If you get there you will know it and that time is most likely not in your hands. Those in heaven are motivated to bring you in and when that happens you will feel it with intensity. They wait, looking over the world, finding the next one who is ready to enter.
- Pray to break out of whatever it is that holds you back. Maybe you need a good education, a marriage partner, to purchase a home, to save money, to have children, to raise your level of self-esteem etc. G-d gave you your painful challenges and He is the one that will remove them.
- At this level one who is open-minded may become proficient during prayer at thinking concrete thoughts and abstract thoughts, so he can add expansive meanings to his prayers. The words used in the siddur can be interpreted abstractly or concretely. This is a way to give your services more meaning. Words are printed and words are thought: They are all “Words of power.” In personal prayer one can move back and forth between the concrete and the abstract. It is also important that when you read siddur prayers, read between the lines. That is how one makes prayer new. The more one is creative and open-minded the more interesting his prayers become and the more topics he has to bring to G-d. Learn how to make prayer be alive.
- There is a point when prayer no longer feels like work but in truth, you are working harder than you ever worked before. You will know that “praying” is a fabulous way to use your precious time. That which you did not experience as you prayed in your past, was always in your heart. You may have been seemingly, prohibiting your prayers from rising upward, but now that’s gone. You know how to use the siddur, but prayer in depth is not thoroughly under your belt yet.
- Life does not stay still. According to the events G-d sends you, over the years, your personality and character will change. He has half of the control. You have the other half if you take it. Prayer is likely the best way you have to take control in the improvement of your character and personality. If you pass through the events in your life as they happen, and during prayer experience them and understand them, you will be given solutions and your character will improve. Prayer is communication, it is a give and take which means you communicate upwards and your answers move downwards. At this level, they come your way as you pray. That is, you present a question through prayer, and keep moving ahead in your siddur. Maybe some minutes pass by and the message you want to receive comes to you. You have to halt your prayers at that moment. You will know how and when to do that. Your answer is being communicated back. You feel it, you understand it, it isn’t magic, that is how prayer works. It is an efficient way to live life. Sometimes, you communicate information and questions upwards and afterwards you perceive how your prayers change your life. It is better for you to take a role in the events you take part in than to not experience them and not notice as they pass in and then out of your life.
- Prepare yourself for what comes afterwards. You will discover that although you still have a long way to grow emotionally and spiritually and you continue to make mistakes, little by little you are becoming your best you. Use your time in and out of prayer to do teshuva. Every improvement carries you through an internal struggle, so you do not take your struggles with you after life ends, to a place that is new for you, and face them in a different way. The more you take upon your shoulders now, as you pray, live, and learn, the better things will work out when you leave this world and desire the freedom to experience existence in the world to come.
- There will always be better days and worse days when you pray. Sometimes life is confusing so do not be hard on yourself. It is G-d who gives you your readiness to pray. Stay focused and concentrate but when you can’t, you can’t. When you are at your best, an hour can go by but it feels like a few minutes passed. There are times when you begin your service and there is no one seated by your side. Later on, you look up and there is no one by your side. You can be sure that during the time the service was recited, there were people praying somewhere close by but you never saw them. That is because you were physically present but mentally, 30,000 feet above.
- When you end a service, you can think back and review what you communicated in prayer. You were standing before G-d and His presence was before you. You could detect his presence if you paid attention to it. Notice the small let down that happens when your service ends because you feel you are missing out. Notice that you can deal with that because as you leave, G-d continues along, in your heart and mind. Nether one is missing a step. Yet, you are going out to live life. Have no worry, G-d will be there with you as you plan and partake in life. There is excitement in that. You will be back a little later, in prayer. That is comforting.
- Time moves on and embarrassment related to prayer is farther and farther removed from your memory. Finally, it does not even come to mind. Life is meaningful. You already know that open miracles happen before you quite often. It may be the case that you are able to communicate with others in the spirit world and that it has become natural to you. If not, it is all ok.
7th – Spiritual Level Prayer –
(A Place of Mystery)
It is the nature of spiritual level prayer to be mysterious because the upper world is mysterious. It is mysterious to human beings. When one arrives in the upper world after a lifetime, there is a short adjustment period (it depends on the individual), and all becomes natural to the soul except for one thing. In the upper world, there is absolute justice. That means, do something you shouldn’t do and the strike back the soul experiences comes with no waiting. Once that happens the soul knows nothing will ever be the same again. That which was mysteries becomes a new way of thinking. That is how things work.
Now you are ready to take on a big project. By being involved in spiritual level prayer your intentions change. You want to pray without interruptions and include the entire world along with you. You may also want to include in your prayers, souls who are present with you as you pray, and those who have a connection with you, who you are not aware of.
You have reached the spiritual prayer Level. It is a very high level and it is a blessing you received, a gift that few are given. Your awareness increases exponentially when the spirit world surrounds you. You will likely have much more awareness of the workings of our physical world, and the lower world also takes a spot. There are those in the upper world that tune into your prayers but you cannot see them, hear them, identify them, communicate with them, they are present and you experience them a little.
There is no preparation you need to make before praying at this level because once you reach this level it is there when you pray and when you don’t. You have it all day long. Yet, you may have one special subject you wish to bring into a service. You can prepare for that. Let us say, you wish to pray on behalf of the entire country of Israel, for one area of success, for those who passed away in the holocaust, or for Jews living in America. Praying for the Messiah to arrive is so complicated it is not done through one prayer, it is broken up. Prayers are recited with limits because being precise is totally important. If you cannot be smart and careful enough, and if you are not that cautious, you will most likely not be given the gift of spiritually level prayer. Let us say, one is concerned about subjects when he prays but not about himself most often. That is left in the hands of G-d.
Where is G-d when you pray? There does not seem to be a way to have that awareness. You do know, spiritually, that G-d is close to you. He is in His grandeur. You might seek Him out day by day only to keep your question unresolved, where is G-d? Yet, that is completely acceptable. Even in Heaven, G-d, beyond His essence is a mystery.
Depending on your level of connection, your prayer experiences are never the same. Your prayers can become extremely intense and the power running through you is extreme. There is nothing physical about your prayers but you remain physical. One is not aware how strongly his prayers are affecting things and what they are affecting. Yet, your mind is clear and your thoughts do not wander. Your ability to keep focus increases. You can easily be completely focused with no breaks for more than an hour if you wish.
Your feelings are strong and you feel their intensity. If you are being loved, it is more intense than one can explain. One does not go through negative emotions during prayer unless he wants them and that happens only when they are needed. When they are directed upon a prayer subject it is because G-d is directing that to happen. Your prayer is going against something evil. We do not place negative emotions against a country, a government, or something political, or anything else that you have an opinion on. It must be a source of genuine evil and then, what extreme power comes out. You never use that power against others.
If you reach the level of spiritual prayer there is a supernal reason and you should do something with it. When you are finished, it can be removed. In other words, there are limits. There are limits to what you will do with it, and to the time you will have it. When G-d changes your life around and spiritual level prayer is not needed, you find that it drops a bit to another level, maybe somewhere between emotional Level and spiritual level prayer. When you need your prayers to climb again, they will. Spiritual level prayer is given to you with love. You use it, you appreciate it, and once you have it, you will know beyond a doubt, from then on, that G-d is not a belief; He is real and the entire Torah is true.
It takes many years, maybe an entire generation of work to reach this level of prayer proficiency. Why does it work? The mind functions as an interface between that which is physical and spiritual worlds. In the upper world there is no language as we know it but there is communication. When information flows down, it moves though our spirit which is outside of the body, it comes into the mind, which acts as a universal translator, and information becomes words we understand, in whatever language we know best. When we pray, words we think about are directed to the place above heaven we direct them to. Once more, there is a translation process but we do not need to be aware of it. How words move forward after passing through the mind’s interface, towards G-d, is beyond my understanding. Yet, at least in regards to me, everything sparked my curiosity. I tried to penetrate every gate of understanding I could, that went outside of the physical realm, to know it all. The lesson I learned is, what we need to know on what takes place on the other side of the interface is given to us as needed. We are physical beings and this information has no practical value here.
The one who reaches spiritual level prayer keeps secrets. There are details that cannot be discussed with anyone. They scare people and are easily not believed. Therefore, everything connected with what really happens in the lower world is outside of discussion. The strength of one’s focus in spiritual prayer is within discussion and that spiritual prayer happens for some is an area within discussion.
A Return to the Beginning
Maybe there are individuals who are willing to take this project on. They are willing to improve the way they pray to the level of passion and fervor. There must be a model to follow, a method, and techniques. Ones that really work. Without them there is no way to climb the ladder. What is the ladder?
The highlight of prayer is reciting words that are altogether holy. In today’s world prayer is a Taboo subject. It brings up embarrassment and we feel incapable of gathering the right thoughts and sending them up past heaven. The reason is, down deep we know we are living life wrong. It is as if we all stand before our own tall ladder and we need to climb up to the top, but no one wants to take the first step. All of that is going to change and that is not in our hands.