In Control

Life is simple.  We are complex.

After all, everything that happens to us is predictable.  The sun rises each day.  The winter is cold.  There will be another bout of flu in December.  We will grow old and eventually die.  

What then makes life knotty is our inability to control the randomness of that order.  The sun may rise at 5 am but we have structured our environment so that it will not interfere with our preset schedule.  Blinds on the windows allow us to sleep late creating our own artificial order.  Winter may be cold but it is infinitely more problematic if the heating system breaks down barring our ability to control our climate.  We will probably get the flu and still become angry when it arrives.  Even the time of dying is rarely chosen and convenient.

We are complex in our inability to accept what life brings to our doorstep.  The exasperation and pain that we invariably feel is nothing more than our powerless.  We can’t control life.

Harold Kushner has written that “Our awareness of God starts where self-sufficiency ends.”  That is we reach for God when we feel helpless.  Certainly last year, when the myth of the invulnerable American soil was shattered our nation turned to religion for an understanding of such a great evil.  It was hoped that at least faith would make sense of three planes hijacked and thousands of deaths.

The question most often asked of me (and I suspect of all religious leaders) is why bad things happen.  Bad things are uncontrollable, unforeseen events.  Essentially, bad things are when we lose control over our local world.

Life is what happens when we are busy managing our schedule and suddenly an unplanned, unpredictable incident occurs.  We then become upset.  Our control has been violated.

Happiness comes either when everything goes our way or we accept the inevitable and unforeseeable as natural parts of life.  Since the first will never happen, the only clear alternative is the realization we have limited control over our world.

The most famous of all Psalms has the line “Though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil because Thou art with me.”  This poignant line expresses a great depth of awareness.  When we understand how vulnerable we are we know two things:

1. We have little control over life and

2. We are never truly alone.  God is here.

Real Prayer

Prayer is not easy.  Real prayer can only come from a deep wellspring of feeling within.   Words are the vehicle of prayer but like any speech between people it can be sated with meaning or vapid. 

When we stand in synagogue or at our kitchen table and review the words in the siddur they are empty, black splotches on white paper.  It is only our yearning that breathes life into the letters.  Sometimes a certain prayer will bring us to an expansive awareness while other times that same prayer will have little meaning.  It all starts with the pray-er, us.

“Startle us, O God

Startle us with the wild improbability of what we say we believe.

Startle us with the incredible beauty and goodness of the affirmations of this place,

And our being in it this morning.” – John M Buchanan

Simply feeling wonder is a great impetus in relating to God.  Expressing awe is the kernel that births a sense of godliness.  That is why the ancient ones used to say, “You are the prayer.”  It is not in the book, not in the words; it is you.  The intentional words of praise that we utter become powerful utterances that rival the prayers of greatest tzaddikim of time.  We do not have to seek out inspirational women and men of renown to experience the sublime.

The Baal Shem Tov once said, Imagine a man whose business propels him through a maze of streets and across the marketplace through the long day.  He almost forgets that there is a Maker of the world.

Only when he realizes that it is time for Minha, the afternoon prayer, does he stop to remember that he must daven.

Then, from the depths of his heart, he sighs.  In that moment he is full of regret that he has spent the full day on vain, idle matters.  He moves into a side street, stands still and prays.  God holds him very dear and his prayer pierces the firmament.

Prayer is many things but the highest prayer is simple awe.