Rabbi's Blog

 With the many problems our nation faces, including the scourge of gun violence, "You are in our thoughts and prayers," has become a reflexive phrase. The term has become an empty slogan for many, who see these alleged prayers as just an excuse for inaction, or at best a passive wish that God will solve problems that we don’t want to address. But the Jewish traditions that I know always link prayer to action. At our latest Shabbat morning service, we wove this topic into the morning through poetry, song, and study.

Here are some things that I’ve learned about the link between prayer and action in Jewish tradition:

First, there are many customs and practices that link prayer with action. At a traditional weekday minyan (prayer gathering), tzedakah (charity, righteous giving) is collected. The Shulchan Aruch (major Code of Jewish Law) states that one must give tzedakah before praying. My teacher, Reb Zalman (Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi), taught us to always give tzedakah when we prayed for people’s healing, with the idea of, “put your money where your mouth is.”  He always had a pushke (charity box) in which he put coins as he prayed.

I also learned that if we are praying for someone who is ill, we should visit them. And conversely, when visiting them we should prayer for them—even a wish of Refuah Shelemah, a speedy recovery, is a type of prayer. 

            During the Days of Awe, we teach our children that we can’t pray to God for forgiveness without first making amends with the person we have wronged. And the High Holy Day liturgy itself calls us to Teshuvah (repentance), Tefilah (prayer), and Tzedakah (charity). Note how prayer is wedged between two kinds of action!

            A second way that Judaism ties together prayer and action is that prayer can give us the strength to act. Prayer services are a time to connect with others, be sustained, celebrate or mourn, and then be restored to act. Our beautiful Siddur Mishkan Tefilah includes a lot of social action inspiration. We nourish ourselves and one another, so that we can give back to others and make our world better. 

In Judaism, prayer is linked to responsibility. The very word to pray, “li-hitpalel” means to examine oneself, to judge oneself.  Brad Sugar of American Jewish World Service, writes, “A true ‘tefillah’—an act of reflective self-examination by one who seeks to emulate compassion and kindness—changes us. Beyond offering thoughts and prayers, the natural next step is to take action to make change in our lives and in the lives of others.’”

Finally, our tradition teaches that sometimes action itself is the best prayer. The great Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, theologian and social activist, friend and supporter of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke of this when he said, “For many of us the march from Selma to Montgomery was about protest and prayer. Legs are not lips and walking is not kneeling. And yet our legs uttered songs. Even without words, our march was worship. I felt my legs were praying.”

I just learned from my local colleague Rev. Marjorie Burns that, Rev. Frederick Douglass, the great Black abolitionist and statesman, had used the same phrase in a different way. He said, "When I was a slave I tried praying for three years. I prayed that God would emancipate me, but it was not till I prayed with my legs that I was emancipated."

We can also go all the way back to the Torah (Exodus 14:15) to find a similar idea:  “Adonai said to Moses: Why do you cry out to Me? Speak to the children of Israel and have them go forward.”

The Talmud explains that this happened on the verge of the splitting of the Sea, when God wanted Moses to pray less and act more quickly:

"At that time, Moses was prolonging his prayer. The Holy One, Blessed be He, said to him: 'My beloved ones are drowning in the sea and you prolong your prayer to me?; Moses said before Him: 'Master of the Universe, but what can I do?; God said to him:  'Speak to the children of Israel that they go forward. And you, lift up your rod and stretch out your hand.'" (Talmud Bavli, Sotah 27a)

            There are some of the many ways our tradition continually reinforces the value that thoughts and prayers should lead to action. I would love to hear from you how you restore your own soul to keep acting for a better world. You can email me or comment on our Facebook page.