The First Prayer

..And God heard the boy's cry  and God's angel called to Hagar - what is troubling you? God has heard the boy's call where he is.....get up, take the boy's hand in yours and go - for I will make him a great nation. [Gen 21: 17-18]. 

Imagine Ishmael - a strong, tall boy of 13, an expert at archery crying alone in the wilderness.  Dismissed from his home by the mistress of the house his last moments were of his father's weeping as Abraham slowly packed provisions for the family of his that was not to be.  Now it is Ishmael who is weeping alone in the wilderness emptied  of food, water, home. Even his mother distances herself from him because she cannot bear to see die.

 But his name is  Ishmael and God will hear. 

I believe that this is the bible's first recorded prayer. Consider  the moment when the most spontaneous, unencumbered cry overtakes our souls and escapes.  Physically convulsed, shattered into an emotional mosaic it would seem that  only an angel of God can repair the cataclysm. 

Ishmael does not use words and yet  his name isa declaration of faith - God will hear. His despairing, frightened cry in the wilderness reaches God and the angel who foretold the birth of this child to Hagar re appears and tenderly suggests that she take the boy's hand and accompany him into the future.

Those who pray may assume that God listens.   There are, however, times that we have have gone beyond pain, beyond reason, beyond even memory and feeling and we  pray because there is nothing left to do.  Having entered a suspended, dark, primal corner of psychic uncertainty and despair we cry out.  Out of the depths I call to thee, says the psalmist. 

And god will hear, take us gently by the hand and guide us into the future.

Prayer I

Structured prayer is not spiritually satisfying for me. I do not like referring to synagogue prayer as 'going to services.'  My car needs service.  My soul needs nurturing, care and love.  I therefore wonder how, despite my resistance to relegating  God time to my calendar between 10 a.m and 12:30 pm. on Saturdays I am blessed with unpredictable moments of   palpable internal stillness. These  uninvited moments of being displaces the impact of  the endless, mechanical actions that I  perform to arrive at synagogue   -- waking, drinking coffee, reading the newspaper, dressing, gathering what I need -- a litany of utilitarian action verbs that have seemingly little to do with my relationship to God.  And yet they do.  Each awakening bears the precision and grace of a musical composition - at first slow and  tentative - each movement finding its way into the whole, a complex fugue rich in harmony and texture. 

There are no meaningless actions.  There are only actions that I fail to discern their meaning. I regularly wake, drink, read, gather, dress, drive, arrive. And with each seamless transition from one action to the other to the next I bless the source of life who has opened my eyes, provided me with the strength to stand, to clothe myself, to make choices.  My benign action verbs are cloaked by godliness. By the time I take my seat in shul I have opened myself up to a presence greater than myself, to a depth of meaning and being that I have barely begun to touch and to gratitude.  Once I am wearing my tallit, I feel as if I have entered the heavenly assembly and imagine a radiant tallit of light and splendor hovering over the divine presense [Psalm 104] and I am still.  For one timeless moment I feel the breadth and elegance of pure eternity and I am grateful.