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The Prayer of the Poor Man

Does this mean that even the greatest Tzadik in the world, the most developed person on this planet, can fall short of the poor man who is lowly and broken and has nothing? How can this be?

In our opinion, this involves a simple but profound answer to a simple but profound question. First: why is it that we cannot concentrate on what we are saying? As our holy books say, “If a man were to stand before an earthly king, would he not pay attention to every word he says to that king?” Moreover, in our everyday activities, we pride ourselves on our ability to be right on, to be present, to react realistically to every situation, to understand what we hear and to reply accordingly. Why should prayer be any different?

Granted, one major consideration is the fact that G-d is invisible. Thinking and conversing with G-d is perhaps the most intangible thing we can do. Another problem worthy of note is that the words of the blessings and prayers are “set” and unchanging. As such, they do not just pop off the page and into our hearts. In addition, repetition in any sphere of activity makes the heart grow distant. How can we remain inspired repeating even a meaningful act like davening when we do it everyday, three times a day?

How can we expect to pray the same words every day with the required sense of immediacy that one would find, say, in a sealed room in Tel Aviv or Ramat Gan with Scuds flying overhead? (This was first written during the Gulf War, in Israel.) Or in New York and Washington D.C. with jetliners crashing into the heart of our civilization?

Under such conditions, it is not too hard to find G-d, for it is no longer an intellectual issue, but rather one of raw emotion – a heightened awareness of the awesomeness of life and the finality of death.

One problem thus becomes: How can we ever hope to generate that can kind of intense awareness in our everyday prayer-life? My personal response to this is that it is eminently possible. Although most people don’t know it, this is what a lot of Jewish Prayer and Meditation is about. We have written about this in our book Realizing the Unity (and we have much more to say and write about it).

But all this is for later. In my opinion, the basic problem that each of us must address and solve for ourselves is: What is our relationship to the Creator of the world? Why is it so difficult to, as King David exhorts us, “Come before Him” – whether it be with fear and trepidation (Psalm 2:11), or with gratitude and exultation (Psalm 100:2)? Why do we find it so difficult to just be with G-d? What gets in the way? What stops us, not only from knowing, but from feeling that we are in His Presence?

The Problem is the Solution

We do not feel worthy. Deep down, we simply do not feel worthy.

Well, what of it? Maybe we aren’t worthy, in which case not “feeling” worthy would be the most natural human reaction! But wait. This might be the key.

For many reasons, some our fault and some no fault of our own, many of us (at least those who wish to be honest about it) do not feel worthy of standing before Him. The answer must somehow involve this very feeling of not being worthy. Let me describe an experience I once had to get to the crux of the matter:

I was standing in a congregation praying the Amidah (silent, standing prayer) of Minchah by heart. In other words, although I held a Siddur, my eyes were closed and I was slowly talking the words of this awesome prayer – using them to come before Hashem – silently communing with Him.

At one point, someone entered the Synagogue so noisily that I lost my “place.” For a second I was stunned. I simply could not remember which blessing I was saying. This bothered me. A moment ago I had been standing there and praying, and now, all of a sudden, I was bumped off track, and I did not know what to do.

Oh, I could have just returned to the most probable place in the prayer where I had gotten sidetracked and gone on with “business as usual.” But no, I felt that I had to get the bottom of this. First, I started getting down on myself. (This wasn’t completely a conscious process.) All of a sudden I almost heard a “tape” running in my head: “This isn’t the first time you’ve lost your place. It means that you are just saying words. It means that all your idealism of thinking that you are standing before Hashem and praying to Him is just a farce...”

Just put yourself in my position and think how you would feel. Some of the more “religious” among us might pass over the experience and just pick up wherever they think they might have left off and go on. But this negativity bothered me. It reminded me of what the Zohar says about the yetzer ha’tov (good impulse or inclination) and yetzer ha’ra (evil impulse). According to the Zohar, the yetzer ha’ra is likened to a very old king because he enters our consciousness long before we reach maturity and makes himself right at home. By the time the yetzer ha’tov shows up (at the age of 13), the yetzer ha’ra is like an ancient king sitting on the throne of his kingdom. When the yetzer ha’tov, who is merely a young child, comes and says, “I have come to claim my kingdom,” the old king laughs. “This is my territory,” he notifies the boy. “Either submit to my laws and edicts, or leave!”

But the Zohar adds that the old king is also foolish while the young child is very wise. That is to say, in the end, after all is said and done, the old king is exposed as the evil old fool that he always was, while the boy succeeds in claiming his kingdom because of the deep wisdom he possesses.

In the end, the old king must fall. Why? Because the lie will eventually be exposed. Deep down in the shadows of our unconscious the old king is whispering, “You are not free; your life is meaningless; you can do nothing to escape me; your life is meaningless without me...” We may ask, how is that he gets away with such insidious talk? Certainly, if he would reveal himself and say such things in the open, he would never get away with it. But that is just the point. He runs his kingdom from behind the scenes (Sha’arey Kedushah; Rabbi Nachman).

I had been aware of this negative voice in the past. It inevitably played on some weakness in order to make me feel insignificant and low. As noted, it usually spoke from behind the scenes, or below the threshold of consciousness, except at those times when I had become aware of its presence and confronted it.

What stands out in my memory about this particular instance is that, this time, I chose a new way of confronting it. How? I took the advice of the Zohar. I chose to consciously identify with the little boy within me. I said, “Yes, I made a mistake, I lost my way, but that does not mean that I am as low as you say. And even if I am, let G-d Himself judge me, in the open. As His child I do not come before Him thinking how great I am. Your whole argument is insidious: You want me to feel unworthy of approaching G-d. But you are wrong. I know that I am unworthy and that is precisely why He will allow me to approach Him. Don’t you see that the fault you have used to squash me is the very opening I seek to come close to Him!!”

All the while this was going on, I did not forget for one second that I was standing before Hashem in the middle of the most important prayer that a Jew can pray. I began to cry, silently. Yes, everybody around me was still praying while all this was going on, and I began to cry because I knew that the essence of prayer is that we stand in the presence of G-d. Now I was having this “imaginary” conversation within myself and G-d was with me!! So my tears led me closer and closer to my Self, because my only desire at that moment was that Hashem, my Creator, should see and know me from the inside and draw me close to Him, not only despite my very humanness, but because of it.

Eventually I picked up on my prayer and finished along with the others. But deep inside I felt something had happened. There was still much work to do, but a start had been made.

In the process I learned many important lessons. One of these is that the natural feeling of unworthiness is not given to us to make us feel farther away. This is the level of the Oni, the poor man that the Zohar spoke about. This very sense of being alone is not a punishment. It is the most profound way of coming close to the essence of ourselves. For it is meant to make us feel the pain of being human. It is meant to arouse in us the great desire to come close to the One who gives us life, to come close and be healed. The ultimate prayer is spoken softly and truthfully while being intensely aware that we are standing in the presence of our Creator. Such prayer will never degenerate into a slur of meaningless words that separate us from Him. On the contrary, we can approach Him on the level of the Oni, the poor man who knows that he is not worthy, and the young child who desires to inherit his kingdom through his own efforts.

Zohar 3:195a

Why is the prayer of the Poor Man more beloved than all others? It is because the Poor Man’s heart is broken. And isn’t it written, “Hashem is close to those with a broken heart” (Psalms 34:19)! When he therefore pleads before the Holy One, the Holy One heeds his cry and opens the firmaments for all other prayers to enter! His prayer makes an opening for all of them to rush through…

Go to: BEING LIKE G-D

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