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Writer's pictureJosh Scharff

Parashat Eikev - Why We Pray




Shabbat Shalom. I wanted to first share the context in which I am speaking tonight. My rabbinical thesis work - that will be submitted this week b’ezrat hashem - is in the field of Jewish homiletics. The academic piece of the work was a comparison of sermons from American Reform rabbis from October 1973, the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War and October 2023, in the weeks following the events of October 7th. Alongside my research and discovery in this particular field, I took upon myself the task of writing a weekly - sometimes more when a Jewish holiday fell that week -  d’var Torah that would both take the tools and insight I was gaining from my research and also be in conversation with the difficult events of this past year. I am grateful to have been asked by Rabbi Hirsch to invite me to share my remarks about this week’s portion and how we can connect its content to what is happening in the Jewish world. 


Up until this week's Parsha, Eikev, by my count, the Hebrew root ב  ר  כ  shows up 97 times. From this root we derive the verbs, nouns, and adjectives for blessings. Interestingly, up until this portion of the Torah, this root has had two main functions - one is if God is blessing an individual or a nation, the other is human beings blessing one another for success in some task. 


But in this week’s portion we encounter a new function for this root in the Torah. As Moses describes to the Isralites the new land they soon will enter and its incredible bounty they will receive he says: 


 וְאָכַלְתָּ֖ וְשָׂבָ֑עְתָּ


Once you have eaten your fill 


וּבֵֽרַכְתָּ֙ אֶת־יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֔יךָ


And you will give thanks, you will bless, the Lord your God for the good land given to you. (Deuteronomy 8:10) This is the first time that the Israelite people receives the explicit commandment to pray to God. There is of course a great deal of worship of God in the first four books. But the method for communicating with God, for appeasing God, for keeping God’s presence near us at all times through our actions is done through the process of sacrifices. Here, we learn that there is another means of communication, of recognizing God in our lives, through blessing and through prayer. That method of communication has stood the test of time and been an integral part of Jewish life for over 2,000 years. 


These past ten-plus months have been, to put it lightly, challenging in ways we could not have imagined before October 7th. Jews all over the world have been forced to reckon with instability, uncertainty - to ask questions to which there are no simple answers. People have responded to the anxiety and confusion in myriad ways, one of them being an outpouring of writing prayers and blessings: for the hostages, for the safe return of soldiers, for strength, for peace, the list goes on and on. 


For those of us who this response is, perhaps, not our first instinct in response to times of trouble, Parashat Eikev this year provides us an opportunity to ask about prayer and consider an important question: why do we pray? Particularly for us Reform Jews who do not see ourselves as obligated to pray each day like our Orthodox brothers and sisters, what is the utility of prayer? 


I want to offer you all this evening four answers to that question. Four deeply Jewish answers. Yet these four answers were written by very different Jewish authors in very different chapters in history. I think you might be surprised by what we find. 


Yehuda HaLevi wrote and taught in 11th and 12th century Spain. Known as one of the great Hebrew poets, he also penned one of the great works of medieval Jewish philosophy, the Kuzari. The piece claims to take place during the conversion of a Khazar noble to Judaism, working to convince this man that Judaism is the faith he should choose for his conversion. While the historical accuracy of the event is debated, the work’s impact on Jewish is significant. In it, HaLevi explains the benefit of prayer and blessings: 


“The constant practice of Brachot, of blessings, will add sweetness to sweetness…Readiness for receiving pleasure, as well as imagining its absence, together result in doubled pleasure. This is one of the benefits for those who are accustomed to saying Brachot with thought and mental preparation…For example, the Bracha “Who has given us life and sustained us” - the shehecheyanu - automatically entertains the possibility of the absence of life…and therefore illness and death are easier to bear, because they have already been considered…and you will ultimately realize that by rights you deserve no goodness…and then you will enjoy all your days on earth.” (Kuzari, 3:13,17)


For HaLevi, prayer is about perspective. When we constantly make blessings about the things we are about to do or are about to receive, our understanding of those actions and the benefits derived from them deepens. Just as we consider the benefits, in that same moment we are forced to consider a life without them. Prayer and blessings force us to consider all that is present and all that is not in our lives, augmenting the sweetness of moments and emphasizing the gift of life itself. 


Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel studied at an Orthodox yeshiva, was ordained at a non-denominational rabbinical school in Germany, and spent the majority of his life instructing at the Reform and Conservative rabbinical schools in the US from the 1940s until the 70s. For him, prayer was not about making the tangible moments in life sweeter, rather a source of understanding about life. He wrote a great deal about prayer but here are just two thoughts: 


“Prayer is a spiritual source in itself. Though not born of an urge to learn, prayer has the power to generate insight; it often endows us with an understanding not attainable by speculation. Some of our deepest insights, decisions and attitudes are born in moments of prayer. Often where reflection fails, prayer succeeds. What thinking is to philosophy, prayer is to religion. And prayer can go beyond speculation. The truth of holiness is not a truth of speculation - it is the truth of worship. 


He also wrote that:


“Prayer is a confrontation with God who demands justice and compassion, with God who despises flattery and abhors iniquity. Prayer calls for self-reflection, for contrition and repentance, examining and readjusting deeds and motivations, for recanting the ugly compulsions we follow, the tyranny of acquisitiveness, hatred, envy, resentment. We face not only things—continents, oceans, planets. We also face a claim, an expectation.”


For Heschel prayer does not have a tangible benefit to our immediate physical experiences as it did for HeLevi. Prayer is a journey within ourselves, to the depths of our soul - the parallel to thought that is meant to reach the depths of the mind. Prayer brings us into contact with ourselves because it brings us into a confrontation with God who, while not needing our flattery, expects that, through prayer, we can achieve the highest version of ourselves - that we can live the justice and compassion demanded of us by God. For Heschel, the truth of holiness is the truth of prayer - our path to holiness as Jews is through the act of praying


Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks was the chief Rabbi of the Orthodox communities of the United Kingdom from 1991 until 2013. An author and teacher of global renown, his works have greatly influenced the Jewish discourse of the last three decades. In the introduction to an Orthodox siddur he wrote the following about prayer: 


Philosophers speculate about God. Scientists argue about God. Theologians theorize about God. We as Jews do something simpler and ultimately more profound. We talk to God. We bring God our thanks and our hope, our fears and our dreams. That conversation is what we call prayer… 

Prayer matters. It changes the world because it changes us. It brings the Divine Presence into our lives and gives us strength we didn't know we had. It is to the soul (the mind, the self, our inner life) what exercise is to the body. Like exercise, it is important that we do it daily at set times, and like exercise, it makes us healthier (though in a different way) and more highly charged with positive energy. Prayer aligns us with the creative energies that run through the universe, the energies we call life and love, the supreme gifts of God.


For Rabbi Sacks, prayer is a change agent. It changes us and by doing so it changes the world. Prayer is what invites the divine spirit into our lives and plugs us into the ineffable currents that underpin the universe. Prayer is the Jewish means of communication with God. When we choose to engage in that conversation, we are strengthened and it is with that strength that we can go out and influence our world for the better.


The last piece I want to share with you is not from one author, rather from a congregation called IKAR in Los Angeles. It is a non-denominational community. They particularly cater to what they call young and disaffected Jews. Their focus on justice and multifaith partnerships are front and center on their website in how they self-define. Also on their website, they explain prayer as the following: 


Each week, we come together to celebrate Shabbat in prayer. Our kavannah – our intention – is to nurture and inspire, to challenge and to agitate. We know and believe that really good, heartfelt davening can change who we are and how we see the world. It can illuminate the darkest corners of the soul, it can stretch open the narrowest passages of the heart. It can make you cry and it can make you dance. It can awaken you to a deep sense of purpose, give expression to your loneliness, your grief, your yearning and your gratitude. It can connect you to God, it can connect you to community. It can connect you to yourself.

And, most importantly, it can surprise you.


It is a beautiful, moving description of the power of prayer, no doubt. What stands out to me - and this is in no way a criticism - is that even while the vocabulary is that of the 21st century and the jargon might be described as new age, the ideas and sentiments expressed are strikingly similar to the previous three teachings. Prayer can make you feel joy, but also remind you of life’s challenges and downfalls, like HaLevi taught. Prayer connects you to yourself and deepens the connection with your soul, as Heschel explained. Prayer changes you, and the world, like Rabbi Sacks wrote. 


What I want to express by pointing out these similarities is not, heaven forbid, a lack of creativity or insight at IKAR. Rather it is to highlight the wonderful throughlines that connect Jewish understanding of prayer through space and time. From Spain of the 12th century, to the most progressive Jewish spaces of 21st century Los Angeles, the transcendent power of prayer is understood in surprisingly similar ways. It is unquestionably expressed differently, and prayer is done in extremely different ways, but prayer as an essential tool for connection to self, the world around us, and God, has not - as it turns out - changed all that much. 


So why do we pray? Well each of you will, ultimately, have to answer that for yourselves. But as Jews let us not forget our answer in times of trouble, moments of joy, seasons of pain, and eras of healing has always - always - been to keep praying. It serves different purposes for different people, but as Jews we have engaged in this ongoing dialogue with the divine for thousands of years and, I believe, we will continue to do so as we write the Jewish story far into the future. 


This week’s Torah portion set a basic framework for prayer: when you derive benefit from something, give thanks to God. That practice has developed, changed, been reinvented and reimagined in incredible ways over the past two thousand years. And yet, each time we engage in it, every time we turn our hearts to prayer, we open ourselves up for the gifts it can bestow. Now, not every time our mouth forms the words of prayer will we feel that connection to the divine, not every time we recite the sh’ma will we feel connected into something greater than ourselves. But when it works, when it manages to awaken our soul in ways we did not know possible, and trust me - it will, prayer can serve as a tool more empowering than any other. 


My prayer for us all this Shabbat is that we each find our own way to prayer, to be part of the incredible Jewish conversation with the divine, to be awakened and to be strengthened. May prayer be all this and more for you - perhaps it will even surprise you. Shabbat Shalom!

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