„Prayer does not come properly except out of the thought that in truth…”

Do you know the feeling of straining to pray? Really, really trying with all your might to pray. Then the thoughts begin to come—thoughts that fly us off to other worlds, until we notice that the prayer has simply ended...

Look at Rav Kook's description of prayer. A description so different from the strain, from the effort... A prayer that soars, and clings to its Beloved, opens its lovely petals toward the dew. So natural.

'Prayer does not come properly except out of the thought that in truth the soul is always praying.' Rav Kook explains that, in truth, we are constantly connected to the world of prayer—constantly seeing, constantly feeling God. We are not in a performance at the time of prayer, but at the moment in which we can finally show the love that we wanted to show all day—to make the requests we so wanted to make, to say the sayings we wanted to say.

The conception of prayer as something constant that burns within us gives us the ability to pray out of the day in which we find ourselves—to speak about the difficulty, to speak about the need, to say thank you. When prayer becomes natural within the day, and not a thorn in its midst, everything becomes different, so harmonious.

If until now we thought that the most correct thing for prayer is to stop everything—to cease, and out of the stopping to connect and to pray—it seemingly emerges from Rav Kook's words in this passage that prayer continues something, does not stop it: it connects to life and to the day-to-day and continues it, and continues from it...

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Continue to have a good evening

In memory of Tzvi Dov ben Uzi

Feel free to look for us at the stalls of 'Yedioth Sefarim' and 'Divrei Shir' during Book Week, as well as in select bookstores.