September 22, 2006

“Prayer teaches us what to aspire to.  So often we do not know what to cling to.  Payer implants in us the ideals we ought to cherish.  Redemption, purity of mind and tongue, or willingness to help, may hover as ideas before our mind, but the idea becomes a concern, something to long for, a goal to be reached, when we pray: "Guard my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking guile; and in the face of those who curse me, let my soul be silent".”    

Background

"The most striking finding of our study in connection with God and the synagogue is that, for the most part, the Jews we interviewed do not make any straightforward connection between the two.... They told us time and again that they do not come to synagogue expecting to find God there..." (The Jew Within: Self, Family and Community in America by Steven M. Cohen and Arnold M. Eisen) 

At Micah we take very seriously our search for God and the Sacred.  We are thus incorporating into our Shabbat Evening Services a short text by Abraham Joshua Heschel from his inspiring book Man's Quest for God followed by a very brief private discussion with those sitting around you in the sanctuary.  The Heschel texts will be also be posted here each week.