"Watch your Thoughts, They Become Your Words"
Dear family and friends,
Last week I was at a Zusha concert during my Sukkot break (see https://www.zusha.com). At the end of the show, as the lead vocalist rocked back and forth in his bekishe (a long black coat traditionally worn by sects of ultra-Orthodox Judaism), and gave the crowd a blessing for the new year. In his enchanting voice, he blessed us with a year of health, happiness, fulfillment, and tefillah, or prayer. He blessed us that our prayers: 'should be heard before we even speak them'.
The next day, I went for a bike ride and it began to rain. It certainly wasn't pouring, but as the drops of water hit my face, I considered that we hadn't yet re-added the prayer for rain- "משיב הרוח ומוריד הגשם"/"Who causes the wind to blow and the rain to descend"- to our liturgy. According to the season, we need different things from the soil. Every year in the summer we pray for dew in order to harvest our crops, and in the winter we ask for rain to prepare our soil to grow these crops again. As I peddled, I considered that our prayers had been answered before we had even spoken them.
As a tefillah educator, I am most compelled by the conversations I have with teens and other students about what prayer means for liberal Jews in the modern world. I have found that prayer is most effectively explored by my students when it is presented as a means of community building and self-growth, in addition to connecting us to our ancestors, to the universe, and to the divine.
My teens and I often ask each other: Is anyone listening to us when we pray? Should we expect an answer? Does our prayer do anything? Last week, I added another question to the list: What does it mean that our prayers can be answered before we even speak them?
I won't claim to know the answers to any of these questions, but what I do know is that if nothing else, our prayer changes us, and therefore the world. Our prayer reminds us what we want to focus on and how we want to behave. These prayers didn't begin as beautifully crafted liturgy. They started with a small seed of thought. This seed is the most important part. After all, as Taoist philosopher Lao Tzu teaches: "Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny".
Prayer teaches us that simply having a seed of thought doesn't absolve us of the need to vocalize those thoughts. We need to speak out the praises, requests, and words of gratitude that we find in our siddurim and in our hearts. When we vocalize what we want to see and be, we hear ourselves, make ourselves be heard to others, and are reminded listen to those beside us. Last week I considered for the first time how much better the world could be if, even before we spoke these reminders out to ourselves, we were living and breathing them already?
Wishing you all a Shabbat Shalom,
Lara
Last week I was at a Zusha concert during my Sukkot break (see https://www.zusha.com). At the end of the show, as the lead vocalist rocked back and forth in his bekishe (a long black coat traditionally worn by sects of ultra-Orthodox Judaism), and gave the crowd a blessing for the new year. In his enchanting voice, he blessed us with a year of health, happiness, fulfillment, and tefillah, or prayer. He blessed us that our prayers: 'should be heard before we even speak them'.
The next day, I went for a bike ride and it began to rain. It certainly wasn't pouring, but as the drops of water hit my face, I considered that we hadn't yet re-added the prayer for rain- "משיב הרוח ומוריד הגשם"/"Who causes the wind to blow and the rain to descend"- to our liturgy. According to the season, we need different things from the soil. Every year in the summer we pray for dew in order to harvest our crops, and in the winter we ask for rain to prepare our soil to grow these crops again. As I peddled, I considered that our prayers had been answered before we had even spoken them.
As a tefillah educator, I am most compelled by the conversations I have with teens and other students about what prayer means for liberal Jews in the modern world. I have found that prayer is most effectively explored by my students when it is presented as a means of community building and self-growth, in addition to connecting us to our ancestors, to the universe, and to the divine.
My teens and I often ask each other: Is anyone listening to us when we pray? Should we expect an answer? Does our prayer do anything? Last week, I added another question to the list: What does it mean that our prayers can be answered before we even speak them?
I won't claim to know the answers to any of these questions, but what I do know is that if nothing else, our prayer changes us, and therefore the world. Our prayer reminds us what we want to focus on and how we want to behave. These prayers didn't begin as beautifully crafted liturgy. They started with a small seed of thought. This seed is the most important part. After all, as Taoist philosopher Lao Tzu teaches: "Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny".
Prayer teaches us that simply having a seed of thought doesn't absolve us of the need to vocalize those thoughts. We need to speak out the praises, requests, and words of gratitude that we find in our siddurim and in our hearts. When we vocalize what we want to see and be, we hear ourselves, make ourselves be heard to others, and are reminded listen to those beside us. Last week I considered for the first time how much better the world could be if, even before we spoke these reminders out to ourselves, we were living and breathing them already?
Wishing you all a Shabbat Shalom,
Lara
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