Rabbi Abraham Heschel (1907 – 1972), was born in Poland and moved to the United States in 1940. He was a professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. He was active and a well-known participant in the Civil Rights movement and in protests against the Vietnam War. He was highly respected within Christian circles and a man of prayer.
In 1969 he delivered a talk on prayer at an inter-religious convocation held under the auspices of the U.S. Liturgical Conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on August 28, 1969. His words are relevant and still a challenge to us today.
Below are some of the thoughts he shared.
It is a grave self-deception to assume that our destiny is just to be human. In order to be human, one must be more than human. A person must never stand still. He must always rise; he must always climb. Be stronger than you are.
The tragedy of our time is that we have moved out of the dimension of the holy, that we have abandoned the intimacy in which relationship to God can be patiently, honestly, persistently nourished. Intimate inner life is forsaken. Yet the soul can never remain a vacuum. It is either a vessel for grace or it is occupied by demons.
Prayer is either exceedingly urgent, exceedingly relevant, or inane and useless. Our first task is to learn to comprehend why prayer is an ontological necessity. God is hiding, and man is defying. Every moment God is creating and self-concealing. Prayer is disclosing or at least preventing an irreversible concealing. God is ensconced in mystery, hidden in the depths. Prayer is pleading with God to come out of the depths. “Out of the depths I have called Thee, O Lord.” (Psalm 130:1).
Prayer is not a stratagem for occasional use, a refuge to resort to now and then. It is rather like an established residence for the innermost self. All things have a home, the bird has a nest, the fox has a hole, the bee has a hive. The soul without prayer is a soul without a home. Weary, sobbing, the soul, after roaming through a world festered with aimlessness, falsehoods and absurdities, seeks a moment in which to gather up its scattered life, in which to divest itself of enforced pretensions and, flies, in which to simplify complexities, in order to call for help without being a coward. Such a home is prayer. Continuity, permanence, intimacy, authenticity, earnestness, are its attributes. For the soul, home is where prayer is.
Everybody must build his own home; everybody must guard the independence and the privacy of his prayers. It is the source of security for the integrity of conscience, for whatever inkling we attain of eternity. At home I have a Father who judges, cares, who has regard for me, and when I feel and go astray, misses me. I will never give up my home.
Prayer serves many names. It serves to save the inward life from oblivion. It serves to alleviate anguish. It serves to partake of God’s mysterious grace and guidance. Yet, ultimately, prayer must not be experienced as an act for the sake of something else. We pray in order to pray.
Man in prayer does not seek to impose his will upon God; he seeks to impose God’s will and mercy upon himself.
Prayer is more than paying attention to the holy. Prayer comes about as an event. It consists of two inner acts: an active turning and an act of direction. I leave the world behind as well as all interests of the self. Divested of all concerns, I am overwhelmed by only one desire: to place my heart upon the altar of God.
I pray because of God, the Shekhinah, is an outcast. I pray because God is in exile, because we all conspire to blur all signs of His presence in the present or in the past. I pray because I refuse to despair, because extreme denials and defiance are refuted in the confrontation of my own presumption and the mystery all around me. I pray because I am unable to pray.
Prayer is a confrontation with Him who demands justice and compassion, with Him 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 and expectation.
Prayer should be an act of catharsis, of purgation of emotions, as well as a process of self-clarification, of examining priorities, of elucidating responsibility. Prayer that is not verified by conduct is an act of desecration and blasphemy. Do not take a word of prayer in vain. Our deeds must not be the reputation of our prayers.
Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow into ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods.
Prayer will not come about by default. It requires education, training, reflection, contemplation. It is not enough to join others; it is necessary to build a sanctuary within, brick by brick, instants of meditation, moments of devotion. This is particularly true in an age when overwhelming forces seem to conspire and destroy our ability to pray.
The beginning of prayer is praise. The power of worship is song. First we sing, then we understand. First, we praise, then we believe. Praise and song open our eyes to the grandeur of reality that transcends the self. Song restores the soul; praise repairs spiritual deficiency. To praise is to make Him present to our minds, to our hearts, to verify the understanding that beyond all questions, protests, and pain at God’s dreadful silence, is His mercy, and humility. We are stunned when we try to think of his essence. We are exalted when intuiting His presence. While it is true that being human is verified in relationships between one another, depth and authenticity of existence are disclosed in moments of worship.
Worship is more than paying homage. To worship is to join the cosmos in praising God. The whole cosmos, every living being sings, the Psalmist insist. Neither joy nor sorrow, but song is the ground plan of being. It is the quintessence of life. To praises is to call forth the promise and presence of the divine. We live for the sake of a song. We praise for the privilege of being. Worship is the climax of living. There is no knowledge without love, no truth without praise. At the beginning was the song, and praise is man's response to the never-ending beginning.