Why pray

Science and Theology News, August 2001

(August 16, 2006)
To pray is something that we all need and we all cherish because it does do something to us. I believe, naturally, that we must teach each other the art, the necessity, the obligation and the beauty of prayer. Now, if prayer suggests humility, a discourse of prayer implies the opposite.

Therefore, I will tell you a story. It is about a man who stumbles in his prayer. Day after day, every time he is about to say, “You have loved us very much, oh Lord. You have given us an excess of charity and compassion,” he, my hero, must stop. He must. Every word turns into an obstacle. He feels a shadow enveloping his gaze and weighing on his breath. He feels pain, and the pain makes him sad. Profoundly sad. And the sadness overwhelms him with memories and nostalgic images and tunes bringing back a vanished world: his childhood. And through the innocent prayers of that childhood, his pain increases and for a moment he feels trapped. No matter what he would do, what he would say, it would be a lie. A betrayal.

Have a look at the hero of the story. Who is he? Obviously our contemporary. From what we see, we already know that he is religious and observant, that he says his prayers every day and he says them with sincerity. Otherwise, this probably would not touch us at all. If it does, it is because of his desire to pray, while at the same time being unable to do so. His dialectical situation is such that none of his options seem right.

No one has more reasons than he to bow before God. And no one has more reasons to turn away from him. As an individual, he cannot but praise God’s mercy for having survived. But as a member of the most privileged and cursed generation in history, his desire is stifled, he feels he must refuse God such praise.

Each of us may encounter a similar position when saying any prayer.

Either we lie or the words lie. What we wish to say cannot be said. What we want to offer has been taken away from us. And yet, once upon a time, these very words helped link us to what constitutes man’s truth if not his or her immortality. Have we changed? Are we alone? Everything has changed. Only the words remain the same. This is one of the reasons why we find it so painful to use them, as though they have betrayed us and themselves. As though nothing can happen.

Prayer is man’s way of saying “yes.” Yes to the universe and to his creator. Yes to life and its meaning. Yes to faith, to hope, to joy, to beauty, to love. A beacon to the lost wanderer, Jacob’s letter to the dreamer in search of dreams. A window to the soul, prayer is what is most indispensable in our passage on Earth. Consolation or compensation to some, sublimation to others, prayer also means power and adventure. You say prayers hoping that whatever you ask has been received and understood. It also communicates its lasting faith in the power of prayer. Prayer was the shortest way to reach out for answers to misfortune. It was enough to pray, to pray well, for men or women to reconcile themselves with destiny and to receive some happiness, some peace, either as gift or as reward.

Whereas the Torah came from above given by God, prayer was composed by men. In matters of Torah, everything has already been said by Moses or said to Moses — but not the prayer. As we repeat a certain prayer, we identify with its altar and recreate it over and over and everyone can and must give birth to his or her own prayer. Naturally, like everything else in our tradition, prayer exists and vibrates on more than one level. All of Jewish humanism can illustrate the hermeneutic saying that science and prayer have been instituted so as not to embarrass sinners. Jewish philosophy stresses certain conclusions from prayer, namely that God is not indifferent to what happens to his creation.

Prayer was meant to engage man and God in eternal dialogue. Thanks to prayer, we know that God is present — better still, that God is presence, and that everything is possible and meaningful. Thanks to prayer, God descends from heaven and dwells among his creatures. Thanks to prayer, man’s soul lives in its dwelling and ascends into heaven. The substance of language and the language of silence — that is prayer. It brings together more than reasoning. It both causes and shapes events. By explaining existence, it gives both rhythm and density. Take away prayer from our people, and you will have silenced its soul.

As in other traditions, prayer responds to a need — to our need to understand and be understood, to speak and be heard, to sing, to believe, to remember, to share, to dream and to worship. Prayer stems from the need to go under in order to emerge again, more serene than before, atoned and purified, more than before. We want to justify good and evil in the present and we need to glorify our ordeal and then weep over it. Man cannot hold back too long. At one point he must let go. And we do so in prayer, which then becomes the mode of liberation.

Is it possible to live without hope? It is, perhaps, but surely not without truth. But then truth and hope must be reconciled. And they can be reconciled only if we accept prayer as mode of approaching either. Prayer, then, means impulse, movement — inward and outward — movement toward God, movement toward his creatures. Become one with him, one with them.

Prayer means being alive, moving toward life. Basically, prayer is in the fullest sense an act of faith — faith in God and faith in history, in God the source of history, and, therefore, just and not only almighty and compassionate, faith in words, faith in faith.

To pray is to measure what one has and what one lacks, what one is and what one wishes to be, to accept what one is given and given back. Without this ability, we are deprived of an essential dimension. To be closed to prayer is more punishment than sin, for prayer may contain its own reward.

Prayer and study are both given to us to lift ourselves to higher spheres. They are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, they complement one another.

Nobel Peace Prize-winner Elie Wiesel is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University and president of the executive committee for the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity.This article is adapted from “Why Pray?”, remarks given at Boston University. Used with permission.

• Email This Page to a Friend
• Print this Page