Most weeks I give two D’vrei Torah (literally, a word of Torah, a sermon, teaching, discussion). I try to link our weekly Biblical portion to our lives today. It isn’t always easy. I wondered what I could possibly say after yet another mass shooting—this time killing 19 innocent children in their classroom together with two brave teachers. What could I possibly say a week after another mass shooting at a grocery store? My people are understandably on edge. They are frustrated, angry, sad. And scared.

Saturday;’s remarks will be posted tomorrow, Tuesday.  

All week, people had been saying that thoughts and prayers are not enough. They need. We need. Action. I agree. Yet, as a rabbi and a Jewish woman, I am a praying person.  

So I did what I often do. I opened up a discussion. What is prayer? Sounds like a simple question, no? The first person who answered said, “Abraham Joshua Heschel said that his feet were praying when he marched with King. So prayer is action—our feet and our hands.” I reminded them that I had recently read the story in Rabbi Larry Kushner’s Book of Miracles, the short story, “The Hands of G-d” where the rabbi reminds the rich man and the poor man that their hands are the hands of G-d. “Continue baking and continue taking.” We have an obligation to feed the hungry—and that very act is an act of G-d. 

Someone else said that prayer is about gratitude and that no matter what our circumstances, we still have much to be thankful for. Often, we divide the type of prayers into three sorts—prayers of thanksgiving, prayers of request or petition and prayers of praise, expressing our awe.  

Yet Heschel pointed out that “The primary purpose of prayer is not to make requests. The primary purpose is to praise, to sing, to chant. Because the essence of prayer is a song, and man cannot live without a song. Sing we did.  

Someone else said that their daily prayers and meditations ground them and enable them to feel rooted and not so alone. Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, much like Thoreau, said that we should go out daily and spend an hour just pouring out our soul to G-d.  

Abraham Joshua Heschel had a lot to say about prayer. One of my favorites is this short quote in Gates of Prayer, before the Amidah, “Prayer cannot bring water to parched fields, or mend a broken bridge, or rebuild a ruined city; but prayer can water an arid soul, mend a broken heart, and rebuild a weakened will.” (Page 152 Gates of Prayer) That version of the Amidah ends with this Heschel quote: 

“Pray is if everything depended on G-dl act as if everything depended on you. Who rise from prayer better persons, their prayer is answered.” (Page 157, Gates of Prayer) 

A.J. Heschel “On Prayer.” 

Prayer is either exceedingly urgent, exceedingly relevant, or inane and useless. 

Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods. The liturgical movement must become a revolutionary movement, seeking to overthrow the forces that continue to destroy the promise, the hope, the vision. 

The world is aflame with evil and atrocity; the scandal of perpetual desecration of the world cries to high heaven. And we, coming face to face with it, are either involved as callous participants or, at best, remain indifferent onlookers. The relentless pursuit of our interests makes us oblivious of reality itself. Nothing we experience has value in itself; nothing counts unless it can be turned to our advantage, into a means for serving our self-interests. 

We pray because the disproportion of human misery and human compassion is so enormous. We pray because our grasp of the depth of suffering is comparable to the scope of perception of a butterfly flying over the Grand Canyon. We pray because of the experience of the dreadful incompatibility of how we live and what we sense. 

We are therefore back to prayer as action, and as Heschel reminds us in his book, The Prophets, “Few are guilty, but all are responsible.” 

Perhaps as Heschel said, “Prayer may not save us. But prayer may make us worthy of being saved.” (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity),  

And as we got to one of my favorite verses of liturgy, Haskiveinu, which the rabbis added to the evening service because sometimes going to bed at night can be a little scary. The world is more than a little scary, but as Heschel said, “To pray is to dream in league with God, to envision His holy visions.” 

Let us dream together. 

The Aleinu prayer towards the end of the service is a dream of what the world could be, a vision of the world as it might be one day. Often I use Judy Chicago’s prayer as a lead in, a kavanah, an intention:
 

And then all of what has divided us will merge.
And then compassion will be wedded to power.
And then softness will come to a world that is often harsh and unkind.
And then both women and men will be gentle.
And then both men and women will be strong.
And then no other person will be subject to another’s will.
And then all will be rich and varied.
And then all will share equally in the earth’s abundance.
And then all will care for the sick and the weak and the old.
And then all will nourish the young.
And then all will cherish life’s creatures.
And then all will live in harmony with each other and the earth.
And then everywhere will be called Eden once again. Amen.  

I would add to this the line from Micah, And then everyone “neath their vine and fig tree shall live in peace and unafraid.” And into plowshares beat their swords. Nation shall learn war no more.” May it be so. And may no child or teacher fear going to school.

Next Friday I am hosting a meeting about gun violence. It will include religious leaders, heads of mental health agencies and the school district, law enforcement and our local elected officials. It is a starting point again. This is a topic I have worked on consistently since before 2000 when I remember being on the Westford Common for the send off for the Mother’s Day Million Mom March. And you can bet, my feet will be praying, still. But thoughts and prayers as important as they are, are simply not enough. I will keep you posted.

Part of the function of prayer is to give us hope. My chevruta study partner, Rabbi Linda Shriner-Cahn introduced me to this poem shortly before Shabbat. It seems like the perfect anecdote to the week we are having. We read this after Aleinu and Kaddish and just before Adon Olam.

The Gates of Hope 

By Victoria Safford 

Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of Hope—
Not the prudent gates of Optimism,
Which are somewhat narrower.
Not the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense;
Nor the strident gates of Self-Righteousness,
Which creak on shrill and angry hinges
(People cannot hear us there; they cannot pass through)
Nor the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of “Everything is gonna’ be all right.”
But a different, sometimes lonely place,
The place of truth-telling, A
bout your own soul first of all and its condition.
The place of resistance and defiance,
The piece of ground from which you see the world
Both as it is and as it could be
As it will be;
The place from which you glimpse not only struggle,
But the joy of the struggle.
And we stand there, beckoning and calling,
Telling people what we are seeing
Asking people what they see.