Eight Simple Words to a Better Prayer Experience

“Attend services; morning AND evening; take prayer seriously.”


One of the things that has most impressed me about Michael Pollan (author of Food Rules and the Omnivore’s Dilemma) is how he has taken it upon himself to educate himself in a particular field – food and nutrition – and then found a way to communicate that information in a brief and easily understandable form.  Speaking of what human beings should eat, Pollan offers the following seven words - “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.”  Not surprisingly, those words can take a great deal of unpacking – which he does in his many books and articles, but the nugget of his advice is easily understood and remembered.


Following the model of Michael Pollen, as an expert in the field of Judaism, I would offer the following eight words as a guide to having a meaningful High HolyDay season and being a healthy Jew: Attend services, morning AND evening, take prayer seriously.  


Attend services – Communal prayer is not the be-all and end-all of Judaism.  Personal practice, home rituals, and ethical living are certainly an integral part of good Jewish practice.  However, one of the secrets that has kept Judaism alive is the shared moments of community.  Judaism provides specific times for everyone to show up at the same place and go through the same experience together.  We gain not only from the moment – the time to celebrate the new year and prepare ourselves to best engage it – but also from the one time a year that we have a chance to reconnect and see everyone, across multiple generations.


Morning and Evening – At camp this summer, I spoke with a few rabbis who said that they had tried to write High HolyDay services as is my practice – with one theme developing over the four major services (Rosh haShanah evening, Rosh haShanah morning, Kol Nidrei, and Yom Kippur morning), but that too many people complained that they missed one or two and so did not follow the thread.  Setting sermons aside, the machzor – the prayerbook we have specifically for the High HolyDays, also has a theme that develops as the worship continues.  Ideas of repentance are introduced in the celebration of the new year on Rosh haShanah evening (as in the Avinu, Malkeinu).  Different, and more serious notes, are developed in the morning service (for example, the Unetaneh Tokef).  Kol Nidre stands as a climax and adds urgency and a structure to the process of t’shuvah – repentance (beginning the Al Cheit).  Yom Kippur takes us the whole day to push us to complete our self-examination (the Vidui), place ourselves in Jewish history (the Mincha/Afternoon service), remember our loved ones (Yizkor), and relax and rejoice together in our shared forgiveness (N’ilah/Concluding service).  Just like a book or a favorite TV show, it is difficult to come in at the middle, or to miss an episode or a chapter.   Confusion can lead to alienation.  Unfortunately, it is difficult to Tivo the High HolyDays; you really need to catch it live.


Take Prayer Seriously – Prayer is not easy.  The themes, and even the music, of the High HolyDays are difficult and sometimes complex.  The metaphors of royalty and punishment, the language of debasing humility, and the references to cataclysmic retribution can be off-putting.  Yet, this very language, evolving and developing over millennia, is what has allowed our people to renew itself, not only in each generation, but in each and every year.  Much work and refinement went into constructing the form of our communal worship.  It should not be surprising that work is required by the worshipper to meaningfully engage in the difficult task of understanding our own complex lives.  Spiritual exercise, like physical, takes effort and repetition, to receive the benefit that we pursue – a healthy soul.


Attend services, morning AND evening, take prayer seriously.  In this new year, please take these words not as reproach, but as advice offered by one who struggles himself with these concepts each Shabbat, as well as holidays.   As individuals and as a community, we all profit by being spiritually healthy.  Let us hope for health of mind and body in the new year.


L’shanah tovah tikateivu- may it be written for a good year for all of us.


Rabbi Joel N. Abraham