Rabbi Simon Jacobson: Welcome to Toward a Meaningful Life. Tonight we’ll be dealing with a topic that we hear a lot about and one that very few really know how to master, which is the issue of prayer: what it means in our lives and how we can use it as  a tool. Can you pray too much? Can you pray too little? Sometimes you may have to be careful not to pray because you may get more than what you expect.

These are some of the types of questions that I’ve received from many of you listeners and people I’ve spoken to on my travels.

One question I think I should begin with is, do you have to believe in G-d totally in order to pray? Because we live in a time of crisis, where people have questions of faith and questions about G-d, people often think that it’s not even worth praying because they have questions about faith in general.

However, I do want to say at the outset that prayer is misunderstood—as are many religious concepts—because it seems to be a religious activity for the pious, for the devout, for the faithful.

In truth, prayer is much more profound than that, and I’ll begin by citing a Talmudic statement: The Talmud says, “What is the service of the heart? That is prayer.” In other words, prayer is actually an emotional bonding with something outside of yourself. Now if I were to say that we weren’t going to use the word “prayer” in this show, then I would just begin by saying, “Can you emotionally bond with something outside of yourself or are you only dedicated to yourself?”

Very few would define that as religious. They would say, “That sounds quite beautiful, because so often we’re concerned with our own selfish needs and behaviors—for good or for bad (we just need to survive)—so bonding with something outside of ourselves sounds very appealing.” It’s very uplifting; it’s very transcendental.

For instance, we’re now in the summer months when many people travel. You go to a beautiful, natural place and spend a weekend there—either at a riverbank, beachfront, or perhaps beautiful woods. What draws you there? By stark contrast to an urbanized and industrial environment, you are bonding with something that’s more natural—with the birds, the sunset, the water—the feel and look of something natural.

That is uplifting because it brings us to a greater place. It’s like climbing a mountain, breathing fresh air, experiencing wider horizons.

So if I were to say all that without the word “prayer,” the reaction most people would have is, “Wow! I’d love to have an experience like that.”

Well, my friends, that is true prayer—nothing more and nothing less. Unfortunately, as with much religious dogma and rituals, once they become institutionalized and bureaucratized, they become just another thing you do. For many kids today, prayer service was a place that your mother or father shlepped you to, and you went whether by obligation or guilt to a bar mitzvah, Yom Kippur, or whatever it was.

However, it wasn’t like you were excited and couldn’t wait to go (like when you go on vacation, for example), because prayer has become institutionalized to the point that it’s become a rote activity. You open up the prayer book and read the Hebrew… I’ll never forget the words that a great philanthropist in our times shared with me. He told me that when he was eleven years old, his father took him to a synagogue. His father was fluent in Hebrew and would read the prayers well. Once, when he saw his father reading the Hebrew so quickly and smoothly, he asked his father, “Did you understand what you just read?”

His father replied plainly and bluntly, “No I didn’t. You should know, no one else does either.”

This fellow continued, “I left the synagogue after that never to return for over 40 years. And now I’m dedicating my life to helping other children not experience that same type of turn-off.”

The man is Mr. Edgar Bronfman, Sr., the chairman of Seagrams, a man who’s known for many of his philanthropic activities. But who the man is is not the issue, because that could have been anybody’s story. And it made me cry to hear that type of experience.

Prayer was the thing that turned him off, because it was done mechanically and by rote.

So we have that taste in our mouths and our experiences with prayer. But the truth is, prayer is one of the most freeing experiences—it’s the ability to transcend yourself, the ability to get beyond yourself.

The English translation of the word “tefillah” (prayer) is inadequate to capture the spirit, the soul, and the meaning of the word. Tefillah is associated with the word toifel which means to unite, to combine, to graft and connect things. It’s similar to the word “mitzvah” which is a different kind of connection, and similar to the word bracha, which is another type of connection, but that’s for another show.

Prayer is the concept of binding two things together. What are you binding? You’re binding yourself to something beyond you. And that’s a very powerful opportunity. Maybe that’s the reason why the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of the Chassidic movement (who lived in the 17^th-18^th century), loved to pray in the fields and the woods. He didn’t like confining walls; he liked to be out in the fields.

Traditionally, many Kabbalists and mystics would welcome the Shabbos, the Sabbath, in the field, because there’s something about nature, the natural part of life, that allows us to bond with something beyond ourselves.

So prayer is often associated with the field. As a matter of fact, it says in the Bible: “And Yitchak prayed in the field.” That’s how we derive certain messages about prayer: b’sodeh, in the field.

So we see that prayer opens up an entirely new opportunity—something that is really underused and underappreciated, and more importantly unknown to us today.

You hear about people praying in a time of need. When a doctor, lawyer, or some other friend can’t help you, we pray, we reach, we turn our eyes to heaven and ask for help, we beseech G-d to help us. This is of course one of the most noble and dignified things that human beings can do, to turn to heaven, to reach beyond themselves for their needs.

But what I’m discussing is even when you don’t particularly have an acute need, or a particular pain or despair or loss. Prayer is a freeing experience and an emotional bonding with that which is outside of us (our material selves), with our soul, with nature, and ultimately and obviously with G-d.

That is, in synopsis, the definition and meaning of prayer. So when you think of that in that context, going back to the initial question—Do you have to believe totally in order to pray?—frankly the answer has to be no. You don’t. If you want to become something greater than yourself, if you want to bond and be able to connect to something which is beyond yourself, that’s what prayer is about.

All of us have crises of faith. No one is an absolute believer. What I mean by that is that of course there are believers, but we all go through our ups and downs. Prayer is a tool. Why should you undercut yourself and not utilize all your tools just because you may not have a complete relationship or a complete acknowledgment of G-d’s presence or existence in your life?

But prayer is a tool that we should use, that we should be able to access, to reach out beyond ourselves. So we all should be able to pray. As a matter of fact, if you’re having a crisis, and you’re even having a crisis of faith, prayer may be the perfect thing because in a way you’re praying just to be able to find some solace, some comfort, some freedom, in that context.

So then the question has to be, how does one pray and how does one learn to pray, especially in our hectic lives? What do you do if you’re not accustomed to prayer? As I said in the story earlier, sometimes not being accustomed may be better than being accustomed, and that leads me to another story which I must tell here, because it’s always a very moving one.

This is a Baal Shem Tov story. The Baal Shem Tov was able to present and offer us an unconventional adaptation or unconventional channeling of conventional Judaism, recognizing that rote, mechanical Judaism was beginning to seep in people’s lives. You’ll find many stories of the Baal Shem Tov about how people were able to break through their own boundaries and find some real spiritual epiphany and enlightenment.

So there’s the famous story of a very devout fellow living in those times who never had the opportunity as a child to learn Hebrew or how to pray. So what did he do? He became a businessman, made a lot of money and gave a lot of charity, but he always agonized that he couldn’t study.

He would come early to the synagogue every morning and begin to pray before anybody else even got there for one simple reason: because he was ignorant, he really didn’t know where to begin and where to end the prayers. And he was ashamed to ask anyone, so he would open up the prayer book, the siddur (the word “siddur” meaning organized, an organized form of prayers) which for him wasn’t organized at all because he didn’t know how to pray. So he would begin reading from the beginning of the siddur to the end of the siddur. Every day he would read the entire book, which means, of course, that he began with the blessings and the morning service, followed by the Mincha service (afternoon service), then the evening service, the bentching (the benediction before and after the meal), the Passover seder prayers, bar mitzvah prayers, funeral prayers—the works.

So he would do this every day. He didn’t understand the Hebrew but would just read from beginning to end. And he wasn’t surprised by the fact that others would pray so quickly, because he just thought they were more adept, more fluent in the language than he. So he would spend three to four hours praying every morning.

The Baal Shem Tov came to the synagogue once to prayer there. Everyone had already gone except for this fellow. The Baal Shem Tov was quite impressed, and went over to the table and saw that the fellow was already beyond the afternoon service, into the evening service—and it was only 10:00 in the morning!

Suddenly he saw that the fellow was counting the Sefirah, which is the Omer counting that you do between Passover and Shavuos, but this was Rosh HaShanah time—and then he began reading the Yom Kippur and Sukkos prayers.

So the Baal Shem Tov realized what was happening and waited patiently, and after the fellow finished praying, said to him, “You know, my friend, you really prayed very beautifully. However, I think I can help you make it even more beautiful.”

And the Baal Shem Tov opened up the fellow’s siddur, took little notes for bookmarks, and marked the different parts of the siddur. This is the section that you say in the morning. This is where you stop. In the afternoon, you pray this little section, and then in the evening, you pray this little section. This is what you say Rosh Hashanah, this is what you say on Yom Kippur. This is what you say at a bris. You don’t say everything at the same time.

The man was ecstatic. “How can I thank you?” he asked the Baal Shem Tov. “You don’t have to thank me,” answered the Baal Shem Tov, “this is what you should do.”

The next morning the fellow jumped out of bed even earlier, so excited that now he would really know how to pray. And he prayed.

A few days passed with his new regimen, but lo and behold, the siddur fell down off its shelf and all the little bookmarks flew out all over the place. He had never memorized the order but just followed the bookmarks, so he was desperate. He thought to himself, “The Baal Shem Tov must be the only man who knows the secret,” so he looked around to try to find the Baal Shem Tov to remark his siddur.

The Baal Shem Tov had already finished praying that morning and was already gone, walking very briskly out of the town. So he ran after him saying, “Baal Shem Tov, I need to speak to you!” but the Baal Shem Tov was moving very quickly, and the man couldn’t catch up.

The Baal Shem Tov was already on the road out of the town, into the forests, when he came to a river. The fellow knew that the Baal Shem Tov would have to slow down and find a way to cross the river. But the Baal Shem Tov being the Baal Shem Tov—a mystic in his own way—came to the river and, without missing a beat, pulled out a handkerchief, waved it over the water, and walked across.

This fellow, in his enthusiasm, didn’t really know what he was doing, but pulled out his handkerchief and did the same as the Baal Shem Tov—and also walked across the river.

Finally he caught up the Baal Shem Tov, and the Baal Shem Tov, who was shocked to see him, asked, “What are you doing here?” And he replied, “I’ve been running after you for an hour. My prayer book fell down and I lost all the bookmarks and I don’t know how to pray anymore. I’m stuck. I’ll end up praying the Rosh HaShanah service in the middle of Passover.”

So the Baal Shem Tov said to him, “How did you get here?”

 “Well, I followed you.” So the Baal Shem Tov said, “Okay, but what did you do when you got to the river? When I went across the river, what did you do?”

He said, “You pulled out a handkerchief and walked over, and I pulled out a handkerchief and walked over.”

So the Baal Shem Tov said to him, “If that’s the case my friend, continue praying exactly as you have always prayed.”

We see from this story that prayer is far beyond structure and far beyond our imagination. Even if each of has our own little place in life, where we are, what we know, what we don’t know, never feel bad about that. Prayer is from the heart. G-d reads a human being’s heart.

(Announcement break regarding “Meanings,” the free newsletter of the Meaningful Life Center. Call 1-800-363-2646 or write to us at wisdomreb@meaningfullife.com or write Meaningful Life Center, Suite 303, 788 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY 11213 to receive your free copy.)

Okay, we’ve covered a little ground about what prayer is, and where we have to stand in relation to it. Obviously, the point of the previous story was not to advocate illiteracy, but to teach us the preciousness of the human heart, and that a human being, in reaching toward G-d, toward hope, toward the soul, has his or her own particular way to reach.

So prayer is not conventional and it shouldn’t limit us, yet we find that prayer does have a structure. So when people ask, “How do I learn how to pray?” I think there are two requirements.

The first thing, in the spirit of what I said before, is to know that it is opening yourself up to something beyond yourself. Creating that type of space. As a matter of fact, the Talmud says that some of the greatest pray-ers (meaning people who prayed well) were the Chassidim haRishonim (the “first righteous”) who would spend hours meditating and contemplating on nature to prepare themselves before prayer, just to put themselves in that space.

So prayer is not just a simple activity, you have to create the space for it. There are many activities that you can just jump into. But when you want to emotionally bond with something outside of yourself, beyond yourself, you need to open yourself up to that, and that requires creating space.

So step one in learning how to pray is to create space. You can’t be doing two things at once. You can’t be answering the phone in the middle of a business meeting or thinking about a business meeting while you pray. That’s why the morning is such a conducive time for prayer, before you get out into the rat race, the hectic schedules that we lead. We actually begin the day with a well-known prayer, Modeh Ani, right when you wake up in the morning. This is an easy way to begin to pray because I’ve never met a person who has a business appointment as soon as they wake up. (I’m sure there is somebody out there but I’ve never met that person.)

So right upon awakening, the first moment you’re consciously awake, you create the space of connecting to something outside of yourself. In other words, you’re not thinking about breakfast, about exercise, about the morning papers, the weather. You say, Modeh Ani…, “I acknowledge you G-d for returning my soul to me.”

With this, you’re immediately connecting to your soul through prayer. That’s the first way of creating a space.

Obviously the morning prayer should go beyond that, with a half-hour or hour of the other prayers that are said, but essentially the most important element is creating the space.

Step two is learning the language. You can have space, but you may not know how to fill it. And this brings me to the issue of meditation and prayer. People ask me, are meditation and prayer the same thing?

The answer is yes and no (a good Jewish answer). What I mean by that is that there are elements in which they are similar and elements in which they are not. Aryeh Kaplan has good books on this topic of meditation from a Jewish Kabbalistic perspective: Meditation and Prayer, Meditation and Kabbalah. So if you want more information on this, it’s good to look at Kaplan’s books.

There are two types of meditation. There’s intellectual meditation and there’s emotional meditation. Most of us can relate to intellectual meditation: it simply means that you clear your mind of other thoughts and you create the space to meditate. This is quite popular today.

Emotional meditation is much more complicated because it may even seem like a paradox or contradiction in terms. Meditation seems contemplative, more intellectual than emotional. Emotional meditation means that the same space that you create in your mind (with intellectual meditation) you create in your heart.

So the word for meditation in Hebrew is “hitbonenut,” and prayer is tefillah. Prayer is more than just meditation. There are parts of prayer that are meditative. Relatively speaking, the Pesukai d’Zimrah, the morning prayers that we say before the Shema (I’ll explain what that means in a minute for those of you who are not familiar with these words) is essentially more like hitbonenut, meditating upon G-d’s creation and upon G-d’s greatness, in preparation for v’Ahavta, the love, the emotional connection, which is prayer.

So prayer consists basically of two parts. In essence, I should add that prayer is compared to a ladder. In the Bible, when Jacob had his famous dream, he dreamed of a ladder whose legs were firmly planted on the ground and the top of the ladder was in heaven.

The Zohar, the classical book of Jewish mysticism, explains that the ladder represents prayer. Prayer is like a ladder. When we build this ladder, as I mentioned before, we transcend ourselves, we get beyond ourselves to get to that which is above ourselves.

So it’s like a ladder, which you build from your ego, from your personality, from your space, and you build a ladder to heaven. The ladder, interestingly, the Zohar says, has four rungs. Rung number one in the morning service, in the traditional Jewish prayer, is Birchas HaShachar, the morning blessings (which is really thanking G-d for giving us the resources we have, the faculties we have to function). Rung number two is Pesukai D’Zimra, which means the “Verses of Song,” which are really mostly praise for the beauty of nature and G-d’s greatness, the type of contemplation and hitbonenut I referred to earlier.

Rung number three of the ladder is the Shema, the declaration of G-d’s unity in the universe and the declaration of love—an emotional bonding with G-d, with your soul, with that which is beyond you. It’s not just emotional bonding, it’s recognizing that the universe and existence is one unit, with our material life just one part of the ladder and heaven the other end.

So it’s one ladder that connects us all. This is the emotional bonding, the emotional connection, which teaches us that we are not just self-contained individuals in our private space but we’re connected to a greater space.

Finally, rung number four is the Shemonah Esreh, the “Eighteen Blessings,” or the Amidah, which means “to stand,” which is like a complete sublimation and awe with which one unites with G-d.

So these four steps, four rungs of the ladder, are the method that we use to pray, to climb from earth to heaven and back. First we need to create the space for prayer, then we need to learn the language, and the language requires steps.

The question of course is, do we need to pray in Hebrew, or can we pray in English? Do we need to use particular words, or can we just speak from our hearts and our spirits? If you have a need, can you just cry out?

 (Announcement break for Rabbi Jacobson’s weekly Wednesday Night class at 346 W. 89^th St., corner Riverside Drive in Manhattan at 8pm.)

Okay, let’s get back to prayer. We all engage in a lot of communication: we speak to friends and business associates, we learn how to communicate in school, how to make presentations, how to prepare for them, how to be persuasive. All that is fine and good. Prayer teaches us new ways to communicate.

I submit this to you. If you learn how to pray, you will learn how to communicate with other people as well in a more profound way, because prayer is about reaching outside of yourself, about emoting, learning how to communicate to that which is above us, to that which is greater than us, to the greater reality that is G-d.

And when a person learns how to do that, it will spill over and have a direct impact in helping us to communicate with people around us. There’s no question about that. It’s like anything in life. The way you love in your own personal experiences spills over into how you love and how you communicate with others.

So prayer is a very good tool, and maybe should even be introduced into corporate structures—not just to make the workers feel better about themselves, more focused, more wholesome, and more relaxed, but also to teach how to reach outside of yourself and communicate so that your existence is not just about you.

You often meet people who only know how to talk about themselves. Their entire form of communication is about themselves, about their little space.

And then there are those sensitive people whom you sit with, who really are genuinely concerned with what you have to say. When they do communicate, it’s not just about themselves, it’s measured to where you are—it’s communication rather than pontification. It’s a dialogue instead of a monologue.

Which leads us, of course, to prayer. Is prayer a monologue or a dialogue? Is it a two-way street?

There’s that famous line where G-d says, “You speak and I’ll listen.” Is that what prayer is about? That only one of us speaks and the other only listens?

Are our prayers answered? Is a prayer about question and answer, or requests and response, or is something more going on?

(Clearly, I can only talk about those matters that I’m privy to, or have thoughts about, but it is enriching to hear from you, the listener, because you have much to give. I really welcome and invite that you give me your input. Email is obviously one of the easiest ways to communicate today. Our email address is wisdomreb@meaningfullife.com. Or you can communicate through the website at www.meaningfullife.com or you can write us at the Meaningful Life Center (address above) or call 1-800-363-2646.)

My father always liked to say to me, “Let’s have some ‘open-heart surgery,’” which meant of course, not in the literal sense, G-d forbid, but open heart discussion, which is what prayer is about.

So praying to G-d—our souls praying to that which is above us—is heart to heart communication. So do you need to know the language? Do you need to use a language? Does prayer have to be structured?

Seemingly, prayer should just be something that each of us, based on our needs, should just express ourselves. The answer to that is best explained through a musical analogy.

If prayer is the music of our souls, our ability to communicate and play our individual and unique music, then, if you look at music, you find it has a structure. There are just so many notes on the musical scale. There are 7-8 keys on the musical scale; not more, not less.

So a great innovator may come along and say, “You know, I discovered a new musical note.” It’s ludicrous because sound has parameters. There are only that many notes. Yet, we know that music has an infinite number of combinations.

So the prayers that are used traditionally in the siddur definitely have a structure, but that structure is really there to help us free ourselves from the structure. They are infused and blessed with a certain power so that when you use those words, you can imbue them with your feelings, your kavanah, your intentions, your soul. And no prayer should ever be said the same way twice, like no music should ever be played the same way twice.

We do have recordings and all of that. But an artist will never play the same music twice. There may be a nuance or maybe something we don’t notice, but it’s not a mechanical thing. If it gets mechanical it loses its musical touch. You always need that little twist, that little touch. Sometimes the emphasis is on this word, sometimes on this note. Every time is different. Sometimes it’s a little happier, sometimes a little sadder. Upbeat, downbeat, and so on.

It’s the same way with prayer. These are our tools, our instruments, and we have to use them each time in a new way.

The Shema prayer should definitely not be said the same way every time you pray. Each word is fraught with layers and layers of meaning that should be personalized. I reiterate, the key emphasis is on personalized prayer—interactive personalized prayer where you take one word and you apply it to your particular situation. Because you have changed today; you have different needs today.

Now of course people who do not yet know Hebrew should not necessarily wait until they take Hebrew courses and are experts or fluent in Hebrew before they begin to pray. As I stated earlier in the story about the fellow who prayed the entire siddur, prayer is from the heart. Prayer can begin immediately.

However, to pray effectively, to use the time to its fullest, obviously you want to begin to use the musical notes that have been played by others, and building upon the masters of the past you learn to play them in your own unique way.

So it’s a combination of structure and individuality. I would suggest to anyone who wants to try the exercise called prayer to take one prayer and have a teacher or rabbi or mentor or somebody help you personalize it—whether it’s the Shema, the Modeh Ani, or something else.

Then you can say the other prayers either with a quorum in a quicker way, but you should have your personal prayer, your personal line that you identify with. And you can experiment. You can try one line. Next month you can try another one. And slowly you’ll see that you’ll become a master of prayer and teach others who may know better Hebrew than you how to truly pray from the heart.

The sages tell us that the words of prayer without kavanah (intention), are like a body without a soul, which in stronger terms is called a corpse. We can have, we’ll call it prayer of the corpses. That’s a prayer that doesn’t have wings. It’s just words.

What we want to do is have body/substance and soul. Because a soul without a body becomes very amorphous and elusive and is not grounded. We want prayer that’s grounded, like the ladder from earth to heaven and from heaven to earth. You want to have a union, a marriage, between heaven and earth, which is what prayer does.

You don’t just want to escape to the mountains or escape to an oasis, you want to have the ability to integrate the two worlds of body and soul, of matter and spirit.

So that’s the story with prayer. The truth is, in the Jewish prayer service, there are also areas where you should be speaking about your particular needs, and this may not even fit into the particular Hebrew words.

But I think it’s a combination of all of the above. I think all great things occur when there’s structure, and you use the tools to defy or to get beyond structure. Those of us who have no structure at all usually make mistakes and take long roads instead of taking the short cuts. It’s like learning to play music the long way when there are certain methods, techniques, that can be taught to us by the past, by others beyond us, by others who preceded us.

The second half of prayer is using the structure. There are people who are excellent “structurists.” They know how to create structures but they don’t have the spirit. The key is to integrate the two, to synthesize the spirit and the words. That’s what true prayer is about—like it is with music.

So we’ve talked about different aspects of prayer: how to pray, the state of mind you need to be in, if you need to be ready to pray, and so on.

Do we always know what’s best for us when we pray? People feel they have different needs. Some needs seem very legitimate—a person may need a refuah shleimah, which means a healing. Others may need parnassah, which is livelihood. Others may have prayers for children—parents who are unable to have a child. And a prayer to find your soulmate. These are all very legitimate needs, and of course there are many other specific needs.

So there’s an expression, bonei, chayei u’mezonei. There’s a prayer for children, bonei, a prayer for life, chayei (for health), and mezonei for parnassah, for bread, meaning, for livelihood. Yet within these categories, sometimes we pray for certain things that may be foolish. How do we determine what is the appropriate prayer in each particular situation?

So there’s the famous story of the fellow who was being tested from heaven, and everything was stripped away from him, like a modern-day Job. First his livelihood, his money, his home, his family (G-d forbid) and his health. He became a leper and his body itched terribly.

Finally in heaven an angel said, “Have mercy on this man. You’ve taken everything away from him.”

So G-d said to the angel, “You tell this man, then, that he can make one request. Whatever that request is, whatever he prays for, I will give him. One request.”

So the man was made that offer, and as soon as he heard the offer, he had a terrible itch on his lower back which he couldn’t reach, so his immediate request was, “You know, I would really like a good, sharp back scratcher that can really reach that location.”

And of course his need was fulfilled as promised. And that was it. No other needs were going to be fulfilled.

So yes, it’s important to be wise when we pray. When King Solomon was asked what he wanted, he could have asked for wealth or for many things that many of us would ask. Think about it. If you were given one request, what would you ask for? Do you know what he asked for? Wisdom.

Now, I would say that he was pretty wise to be able to ask for wisdom. Some of us may not even have that wisdom. So what do you do then? Well, that’s the Catch-22 situation. You have to be wise to know what to ask for. Therefore there are prayers where you pray to G-d and say, “You know G-d, I don’t really know what I want.” That also can be an acknowledgment. “You may know what I want. Why don’t You give me what I really need.”

But you’ll always hear the skeptic say, “I’m not willing to take that risk because G-d could send me something that I may think I want or need, but I’m not ready for yet.”

I remember there was a guy who came to my Wednesday night class for many, many months. One day he calls and says, “You know, you’ve probably noticed that I haven’t come for the last few weeks. I want to tell you it’s not because of your class—your class is great. The problem is that you’re making my life miserable.

“I had a free life, I was doing what I wanted to do, I had no conscience. And you are beginning to awaken all kinds of things inside of me.”

I tell you, I never had a more gratifying call than that one. And from then on I used to say to myself, “May G-d send me many people I’ve made miserable in that fashion.” Knowledge is painful. Ignorance is bliss.

So I said to him, “If you need any misery, please come back. This is a one-stop place for misery.”

Actually he did come back months later. But what’s interesting is that sometimes we don’t even want what we really need. Like the expression is, when you can’t have what you want, maybe it’s time to start wanting what you have.

So when it comes to prayer, yes it’s important to be wise because you need to know where you stand. And that’s part of integrity and honesty: An honest appraisal of your situation and needs.

If someone says to me, “Hey, who really cares if I’m honest or not?” I can’t have an argument about that, especially not on a radio show like this. You have to have that integrity.

But if you really want to self-actualize and reach a place that’s completely beyond yourself and grow—and I’ll tell you, it’s guaranteed that if you do that it will help you grow financially in your business at work and every area of your life—it requires making a move.

As they say in self-help books, if nothing changes, nothing changes. Or as I like to say, “If you think what you thought, and you say what your said, and you do what you did, you know what you’ll have? What you had.”

People want change but they’re not ready to change. Change comes through cause and effect. So prayer is not just a responsibility, it’s a gift. It’s much more than a responsibility. It’s a gift to open you up to that which is far beyond yourself.

We all have our places that are locked, and prayer helps open up those channels. That’s what it’s about. Look at it as a selfish exercise that will help you in your life.

Yes, there is a certain discipline involved, a certain commitment involved, but it will help you. Anything great in life always comes with a certain level of commitment.

Sometimes we do need to pray to G-d and say, “Hey, G-d, why don’t You tell me what I need, or why don’t You give me what I need because I don’t always know,” because when you ask for what you need, you may end up having that back scratcher. It may be a nice back scratcher, but…  I’m sure we’ve all had those moments whether as kids or adults when you see something in a catalogue and you’re really intrigued by it, it looks so good, and then when you get it it’s a shmattah. A piece of garbage. Worthless.

Now, the question I asked earlier was, is prayer a dialogue or a monologue? What is the relationship of G-d to our prayers? I think it’s a very important question because it addresses the issue of our relationship with G-d in general. Judaism teaches us that G-d is a partner with you in life. This again goes against the misconceptions and the myths that many of us have of G-d. It’s not just that there’s a supreme father or king in heaven and we’re on the receiving end. It’s a dynamic relationship.

In a sense, G-d’s side of the partnership provides us with the resources, and we have to harness and cultivate those resources.

A great scholar was once asked by a philosopher, “If G-d wanted newborn Jewish boys to be circumcised, He should have created them circumcised.”

And the Rabbi answered by saying, “If G-d wanted us to have bread, He should have given us bread. Instead He gives us the ability to plant seeds, grain. We plant those seeds, cultivate our fields, the rain falls, we harvest and thresh the wheat and turn it into flour, we mix the flour with water and bake the bread.”

We have to do our share of the work because we’re partners. One partner provides the investment; the other partner turns the investment into a profit. One stands behind the counter and the other stands behind the bank account. In this case, G-d is the first partner and we are standing at the counter. It’s our job to cultivate that.

That’s our relationship and prayer is part of that. That is why prayer is not just about our needs. Prayer is also in a way demanding, yehi ratzon, meaning, “May it be G-d’s will.” When a person is ill in a hospital we don’t just say, “Hey, this is person is ill and it’s G-d’s decree.” That’s resignation, fatalism.

No, we say that we can change G-d’s mind because we’re G-d’s partners. And we can actually pray to change G-d’s mind. So prayer is a form of chutzpah in a way where we’re challenging G-d. But that’s the dynamic and G-d wants us to do that.

(Announcement break regarding contributing to the Meaningful Life Radio Show.)

I would like to thank the sponsors of this week’s show, Ivan Stux and James and Anne Altucher for their ongoing support of the Meaningful Life Radio Show, a part of the entire project and activities, and exciting new developments.

On a personal note, I think the issue of prayer touches very much upon the philosophy that I continually espouse on this show that you matter. I think that many of us have given up in a way on praying because we have a certain subtle resignation, or as Thoreau said, “a life of quiet desperation” that most people live. True, we definitely want to make ends meet and we’re working very hard at it. And we try to be successful. But deep, deep inside on a cosmic level, on a divine level, we don’t necessarily feel that absolute contribution that we make.

Prayer is a statement of dignity, a statement that you matter, that you have the power to pray. Perhaps the most divine thing that we have in our lives is the ability the pray; not just to develop things, not just to create, not just to make money, but to reach beyond ourselves. To reach to heaven. To change G-d’s mind. I mean, is there anything greater than that?

To change our employees’ minds, or our employer, or to make a sale is one thing. But the power to change destiny is perhaps the most divine power that we have, and we should embrace that. It’s a testimony and a statement of our dignity, of our power, of who we are.

So may we all learn to pray in a better way. Utilize tomorrow morning and say Modeh Ani, you matter. Say it, state it. Share it with your friends. This has been Simon Jacobson with Toward a Meaningful Life. Thank you.