By Rabbi Jessica Fisher
Several years ago, I went through a long, nearly immobilizing, depression. At some point during that time, I made a playlist I called “Morning,” with the hope that it would help propel me out of bed and into my day.
The playlist was made up of contemporary music anchored in traditional Jewish morning liturgy. Each track contained a mantra of ancient verses that poignantly captured essential sentiments — gratitude, desperation, yearning, connection — and wordless melodies that articulated striving, divinity and even joy.
Traditional prayer was difficult during much of this period — both the words and the time-sensitive strictures of daily prayer — but this playlist was a kind of prayer in its own right.
And though it did not by itself lift my depression, it proved to be a surprisingly effective reprieve. Playing these prayer-songs as I woke up, got ready for the day and left my apartment helped me orient myself around these themes, detaching myself, even if only for a few minutes, from the heaviness that surrounded me.
In a recent New York Times “Believing” newsletter, about modern religion and spirituality, Lauren Jackson shared Serena Alagappan’s poem “The Way of a Pilgrim.” The poem, Jackson wrote, demonstrates “how a refrain — mumbled, repeated, half-meant — can still change you. It can be like a prayer.”
The idea that a poem or phrase can be a transformative portal is a powerful opening for people who describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious” or who have stepped away from traditional forms of prayer.
While many people are disengaging from religious communities, others are seeking belonging, meaning and purpose through religious and spiritual experiences. As Jackson suggested, there are ways to think expansively about prayer that can change you.
Poetry may be one such avenue, but Jewish traditions — both ancient and contemporary — can also meet us in so many moments and can encompass rich pathways to connection, fulfillment and healing.
Even as it can offer a moment of escape, prayer does not avoid the hard things about life. Listening to — or in my stronger moments singing along with a song that derived its words from Psalm 130, “From the depths I call to you, God …” — attached me to a chain of thousands of years of people reaching out to God from despair.
Similarly, starting my day with the words, “I am grateful before you, living and eternal Ruler,” linked me to the hundreds of thousands of Jews who were also beginning their day with the same prayer, and gave me a way to externalize the gratitude that I couldn’t quite muster for myself.
Prayer can’t “cure” depression, but people experiencing depression may find echoes of their experiences, comfort and affirmation in prayer and ritual. Liturgy in different forms can connect us to deep wells of history and to others who have cried out for support.
Traditions of Jewish prayer trace back to Genesis and they are still developing today. The Jewish prayerbook is a patchwork, with layers of texts and commentaries from different generations of Jews trying to find the right combination of words to capture our lived experiences, our understanding of and gratitude to God, and our needs.
These layers are also reflected in Jewish legal traditions, where different rabbis have attempted to identify what rules and guidelines can help facilitate the work of speaking to God, including when and where to pray and what words to say.
Despite this rich heritage, many Jews today struggle with prayer, just as our ancestors did. Whether it is a growing emphasis on rationalism or individualism, increasing polarization or the fraying bonds of peoplehood, engagement with Jewish prayer, like religious worship in other faith communities, is waning.
In my work as a rabbi, people have approached me seeking to begin or deepen their engagement with Jewish prayer. Others have lamented their inability to connect to prayer or religious services or find particular prayers challenging.
For some, the liturgy feels archaic or cumbersome. For others, the prescriptions around consistent prayer practices are too onerous. For still others, the absence of obvious efficacy, or doubts about God as a recipient of these pleas, also make prayer feel less relevant or meaningful. And for many, it’s just not the way they want to spend their time.
But thousands of years of Jews grappling with these obstacles have insights and tools to offer us. Sometimes, hearing the words set to a melody can unlock a new relationship with a particular passage, as it did for me in my “Morning” playlist.
Sometimes, choosing just one prayer to study or reflect on can reveal the poetry of our spiritual canon. The routine of attending synagogue regularly and letting the words and rhythms of the congregation wash over you can connect you to both text and community. Even having a conversation about prayer and theology with a friend or neighbor can be a moving spiritual exercise in its own right.
By way of example, over the past year, I have been in conversation with rabbis, scholars, and community members who are also wrestling with how prayer fits into contemporary Jewish life. I pray regularly, but listening to others describe their doubts, joys and search led me to ask myself questions about my prayer life and making new connections to prayer of my own.
When Sara Labaton shared a story about praying for her grandmother’s lost ring and her terminally ill father’s health, I thought about moments in my own life where I felt prayer “worked” or didn’t. Speaking to Elana Stein Hain and Yossi Klein Halevi about the interplay between personal and communal prayer affirmed how much I benefit from praying in chorus with others.
Prayer has met me in so many kinds of moments. In a time when there is so much darkness and fear and loneliness, I hope that even those of us who are skeptical or just too busy or exhausted, open ourselves up to the possibility that prayer might accompany us and even buoy us.
Even, or maybe especially, for those times when we’ve stepped away from prayer, hearing how others wrestle with some of the same questions and struggles might spark new ways to connect. Perhaps, the way into prayer is as simple as settling into one phrase — one word! — and repeating it until it changes you.
Rabbi Jessica Fisher is director of teen and educational initiatives at the Shalom Hartman Institute. She is the host of the podcast “Thoughts and Prayers.” This article was provided by the JTA global Jewish news source.
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