Prayer and Conversation
The first meeting between Isaac and his future wife is captured for us by the Torah in a fascinating scene. Abraham has sent his servant to find a wife for Isaac. He does so, and brings back Rebecca. As they arrive from Haran, Isaac is coming towards them, for he had “gone out into the field towards evening to meditate” (24:63). The Talmud identifies this moment as having historic and halakhic implications: Isaac’s “meditation” was a prayer; “Towards evening” means afternoon. If Isaac’s behaviour had normative implications, it meant that he instituted minḥa, the afternoon prayer.
This identification is part of a wide-ranging dispute recorded in the Talmud, regarding the origin of the three daily prayers. Some sages held that they were a substitute for the sacrifices that had taken place in the Temple. Others hold that their sources go further back into Israel’s past, to the biblical patriarchs and matriarchs:
It has been stated: R. Yose son of R. Hanina said: the prayers were instituted by the patriarchs. R. Joshua son of Levi said: the prayers were instituted to replace the daily sacrifices.
It has been taught in accordance with R. Yose son of R. Hanina, and it has been taught in accordance with R. Joshua son of Levi. It has been taught in accordance with R. Yose son of R. Hanina: Abraham instituted the morning prayer, as it says: And Abraham got up early in the morning to the place where he had stood (19:27), and “standing” means prayer, as it says then Pinchas stood up and prayed (Psalms, 106:30).
Isaac instituted the afternoon prayer, as it says, and Isaac went out to meditate in the field towards evening (24:63), and “meditation” means prayer, as it says: A prayer of the afflicted when he faints and pours out his meditation before the Lord (Psalms 102:1).
Jacob instituted the evening prayer, as its says: And he encountered (vayifga) a place (28:11), and pegia means prayer, as it says: Therefore do not pray for this people nor lift up prayer or cry for them, nor make intercession (tifga) to Me (Jeremiah 7:16).
It has been taught in accordance with R. Yehoshua son of Levi: why did they say that the morning prayer could be said until midday? Because the regular morning sacrifice could be brought until midday. R. Yehuda, however, says that it may be said up to the fourth hour because the regular morning sacrifice may be brought until the fourth hour.
And why did they say that the afternoon prayer can be said until the evening? Because the regular afternoon offering could be brought until the evening. R. Yehuda, however, says that it can be said only up to the middle of the afternoon, because the afternoon offering could only be brought up to the middle of the afternoon.
And why did they say that for the evening prayer there is no limit? Because the limbs and fat that were not consumed on the altar by the evening could be brought during the whole of the night. (Berakhot 26b)
More is at stake in this disagreement than halakha and history. At issue is the very nature of prayer itself.
There were two distinct spiritual traditions in biblical Judaism. On the one hand were the patriarchs and prophets. They were, if one can put it this way, ordinary people with extraordinary gifts – above all, the gift of being able to speak and listen to the voice of God. The patriarchs were shepherds. So too was Moses. They wore no robes of office. They lived far from the cities of their time. Alone – away from the noise of urban civilization – they heard and heeded God’s word. They prayed as the situation demanded. No two prayers were the same. They spoke from the depths of their being to the One who is the depth of all Being. That is patriarchal and prophetic prayer.
There was another type of religious personality: the priest. He did have special robes of office. He was a “holy man,” set apart from others (this is the root meaning of kadosh, “holy,” in Judaism). For him, avoda, divine “service,” primarily meant the offerings. Everything about the sacrifices was subject to detailed prescriptive rules. The temidim, or regular sacrifices, had their own time (morning and afternoon), their own place (the Sanctuary, later the Temple), and their own precisely defined ritual, never varying, always the same. Spontaneity, essential to the prophet, is disastrous for the priest. Aaron’s two sons, Nadav and Avihu, seized by the mood of the moment, made their own offering at the inauguration of the sanctuary, and died as a result ( Leviticus 10:1–2).
If the prophet represents the “now,” the immediate responsiveness of religious life, the priest represents eternity. They speak to different aspects of the soul, and different needs of society. Without spontaneity, the spirit withers; without structure, it lapses into chaos. Without prophets, the faith of Israel would have grown old; without priests, it would never have been able to become the code of a nation.
The question debated between Rabbi Yose son of Rabbi Hanina and Rabbi Yehoshua son of Levi was therefore: to which of these traditions does prayer belong? To the patriarchs or the priests? To supplication or to sacrifice? Is Jewish prayer the personal dialogue of the soul or the collective worship of the nation?
In practice, it is both. One of the most remarkable and little noted facts about Judaism is that to this day we maintain both aspects, saying the Amida (standing prayer) twice: once privately and silently as individuals, and then a second time publicly and collectively as a community (the “reader’s repetition”). The silent prayer belongs to the world of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Rachel and Hannah – it is private, personal and can include individualized requests. The reader’s repetition follows the logic of the sacrifices – it is public, collective and includes no personal requests. That is also why there is no repetition in the case of ma’ariv, the evening service: for there was no night-time sacrifice in the Temple. We thus preserve both the patriarchal and priestly traditions.
Linking the prayers to the patriarchs not only deepens their history and highlights the individual responsiveness that lies at their core, but also points to the differences between the three daily prayers. The divergent personalities and histories of the patriarchs give a unique character to each of the prayers.
My predecessor as Chief Rabbi, the late Lord Jacobovits of blessed memory, used to point out that the position of the sun at the various stages of the day mirrored that of the patriarchs themselves. In the morning, the sun is in the east – and Abraham began his life in the east, in Ur of the Chaldees, namely Mesopotamia. In the early afternoon, the sun is overhead in the middle of the sky – reminding us of Isaac who spent his entire life within the land of Canaan, later to become Israel. In the evening the sun is in the west, as was Jacob who ended his life in the west, in exile in Egypt.
The verbs associated with each of the patriarch’s prayers are also different. Abraham “rises early in the morning” and “stands.” When it comes to prayer, he is the initiator. Acknowledging that he is “but dust and ashes” (18:27), he nonetheless utters the most audacious prayer of all time: “Shall the Judge of all the earth not do justice?” (18:25). That is prayer as Amida, as standing up in the presence of God.
Jacob, by contrast, “encounters.” It is not he who seeks God on his flight from home, but God who seeks him.1.See also “Encountering God” and “The Ladder of Prayer,” pp. 179–189.
The phrase the Torah uses just before Jacob has his vision of the angelic ladder is vayifga baMakom, which in rabbinic Hebrew can be read as “He bumped into God.” There are spiritual experiences we have when we are least expecting them – when we are alone, afraid, thinking of something else altogether. That was Jacob’s vision of prayer. Not everything in the life of the spirit is under our control. The great transformative experiences – love, a sudden sense of beauty, an upsurge of happiness – happen unpredictably, leaving us, in Wordsworth’s famous phrase, “surprised by joy.” The glory of Jacob’s epiphany is that it happened at night, in the midst of fear and flight. That is prayer as pegia.
There is a third kind of prayer. Isaac is “meditating” in the field – but the word siḥa means not only meditation but also, and primarily, conversation. When the Talmud says, in the context of Isaac, ein siḥa ela tefilla, we could translate this phrase as “conversation is a form of prayer” – and in a profound sense, it is so.
Prayer is a conversation between heaven and earth. But conversation is also a prayer – for in true conversation, I open myself up to the reality of another person. I enter his or her world. I begin to see things from a perspective not my own. In the touch of two selves, both are changed.
How appropriate, therefore, is the fact that Isaac is seen praying immediately prior to his first encounter with the woman who was to become his wife. Abraham and Jacob are alone when they pray. Isaac is just about to meet the woman with whom he will share his life. For him, prayer is the prelude to a human relationship. Our openness to God shapes and is shaped by our openness to other people. Love of God is, or should be, interwoven with our love for human beings. That surely is the meaning of the book known as Shir HaShirim, “The Song of Songs,” a poem of love for God cast in the metaphor of a dialogue between two human lovers.
A genuine human conversation is a preparation for, and a microcosmic version of, the act of prayer. For in prayer I attend to the presence of God, listening as well as speaking, opening myself up to a reality other and infinitely vaster than my own, and I become a different person as a result. Prayer is not monologue but dialogue.
Before every Amida we say, “O God open my lips, and my mouth shall declare Your praise.” In a real sense, in prayer we do not simply speak; we are also spoken. God, and the traditions of Jewish faith, speak through us. The very words we use are not our own, but those of thousands of years of our people’s history, distilling the response to innumerable encounters with God. Prayer is like a Bluetooth connection and while it lasts we become a channel through which flows the energy of the universe and Jewish history – the force of creation and the drive towards redemption. While it lasts, we make those energies our own. That is prayer as siḥa.
Thus there are three modes of spirituality and we experience each in the course of a single day. There is the human quest (Abraham, morning prayer), the divine encounter (Jacob, evening prayer), and the dialogue (Isaac, afternoon prayer). That is how three events in the life of the patriarchs – Abraham’s early morning rise, Isaac’s afternoon meditation in a field, and Jacob’s vision at night – became not isolated events in the past but permanent possibilities for those who follow in their footsteps, guided by their precedent, lifted by their example, enlarged by their spirit, summoned to their heights.