Back in the Saddle Again

Back in the Saddle Again

Rabbi Michael Feshbach

Temple Anshe Hesed, Erie, PA

I have not been able to write this column for some time.  Which… reminds me of a lesson.

The ancient rabbis ordained that Jews were to pray three times a day. I do not do this, nor do I always meet my intended personal target of at least once a day. But I know why they set out this goal. And I know what happens to me when I meet my target. And what happens when I do not.

The rabbis did not believe that every Jew would "encounter God" every time he (or she?) prayed. But in order to maximize the potential for that encounter, one had to try. Like in the play "Waiting for Godot," one had to show up at the scheduled meeting place.

Of course, services were much shorter in the days when these ancient rabbis envisioned Jews praying three times a day ; many liturgical additions have accrued over the years, most of which were met with astonished opposition of more conservative elements when they were first introduced . These have included medieval poetry, signature acrostics, prose explanations of customs, additional songs, mandatory multiple repetitions of the same prayers, and so on.  It has been like a college course whose reading list (in reverse of recent trends in higher education) simply got longer and longer and longer, with some protest at each additional book.

But beyond the protest, something else happens. As the reading list gets longer, the students begin taking short cuts. They skip some classes. They skip some material. They cut comers. What they do read, they sometimes read at such speed that little gets absorbed. And if the reading list keeps getting longer, while at the same time the human attention span seems to be getting shorter, at some point there is going to be a revolution.

To me, this is the experience of a Jewish daily service in its traditional form. Even with practice, even with familiarity, even with experience, I cannot read English as quickly as some people race through the Hebrew of the daily service. It has become so long that the goal is just to do it, not to absorb it. To show up, even if one wanders around for half the time. But if people care at all about the content of the claims we make in prayer, the cognitive meaning of the words , and not just the experience of coming together (although this is the heart of it all for many), then sometime, somewhere, somehow, someone is going to do something about it.

The revolution in this case was the founding of the Reform movement in Germany almost two centuries ago. But the Reform movement was not the first to change the service; it was just the first to change it in the direction of making it shorter.

Eliminating repetition of certain prayers. Cutting out some of the medieval additions. Setting aside certain statements whose content they believed to be outdated, claims which - honestly - only a very, very small minority of those praying those particular words believed anyway.

So the rabbis, when they demanded that all Jews pray three times a day (well, all male Jews), envisioned a much shorter service - and therefore a different, easier and perhaps more contemplative experience - than the traditional service of today. But despite not knowing how the future would change the service, and even with all those differences, I believe they were still on to something. For the more we do something, the more familiar it becomes. The easier it gets. The greater the odds of success.

The more we pray, the more productive our prayers. The more we show up for that meeting with the One we seek, the more likely the meeting will take place. (As my wife said to me once, with insight and wisdom, being pregnant greatly enhances the chances of having a child. It doesn't guarantee it -we knew that already. But it sure made the desired outcome a lot more likely.) The regularity, the requirement, the routine... that gives us the greatest odds for the most powerful prayer in the long run.

Discipline, exercise. Regularity. It makes for better prayer. It makes for better writing. It is a lesson I know well. It is one I teach. It is one I believe in. But it is one I have not practiced during the time I did not write, falling short of the mark.  For missing the target.  It is to get up, and try again. To get back on track. Back in the saddle again. Or, as a certain shoe company is fond of saying: Just do it.

Not as easy as it sounds. But a good description of what we do when we are successful at establishing routines in our lives. And a good goad to get us back when we miss the mark.