By Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal
SAN DIEGO–One of the critiques against fixed prayer (i.e., reading the same prayer book selections over and over) is that it can become boring and monotonous. How can one possibly pour out one’s heart before God by repeating the same words three times a day, seven days a week? Where is the room in a set liturgy for personal spirituality?
Otzar Hamachshava, a commentator on this week’s parasha of Naso, tells us how we should approach fixed prayer in order to make it meaningful and personal.
The last chapter of parashat Naso describes the gifts of the chiefs of the Twelve Tribes of Israel to the Mishkan, the desert Tabernacle, after it was consecrated and ready for use. These gifts consisted of silver basins, grain, and various types of sacrificial animals. Each chieftain’s offering takes about five verses to describe.
This chapter is a Torah Reader’s dream. Why? Because each gift is exactly the same as all of the others. Once you learn five verses, you have mastered the entire section!
Otzar Hamachshava raises the obvious question: what’s with all of the repetition? It is unlike the Torah to waste space, time, ink, and parchment. Why didn’t the Torah just say that each gift is the same as the ones before it?
By now you realize that traditional commentators never ask questions before they prepare their answers (!), so here is what Otzar Hamachshava has to say:
Although each offering was the same, the chieftain’s personal intent and religious fervor was not. Each chieftain brought his offering with a personal spirituality and personal meaning that was his alone. Each gift was special not because of its contents, but rather because of the individual behind it.
We may learn the same lesson about fixed prayer. Although the words on the page are the same each time, how we understand them and what we make of them varies from individual to individual and from time to time. Some days we may recite the prayers with joy because of a special occasion that is illuminating our lives, and other days we may approach them more reflectively due to sorrow we are experiencing. One day we may choose to dwell on one word or concept which intrigues us and another day on another. Some days we may raise our voices with the congregation and other days we may pray silently to ourselves.
What makes our prayer special and personal are not the words on the page, but the personal religiosity and spirituality with which we approach them.
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Rabbi Rosenthal is spiritual leader of Tifereth Israel Synagogue in San Diego. He may be contacted at leonard.rosenthal@sdjewishworld.com