Prayer is not an escape, it's a mirror to our true selves
Even in the modern world of science and reason, we know all too well that you don’t have to see something to feel its impact. Those who have truly mastered prayer can attest to the invisible, unmeasurable tool’s power to cleanse, to uplift, and to offer hope
Right in the middle of the workday, a man abandons his phone, his computer, all the devices that hold him in bondage throughout his working hours. He leaves his desk and tells his secretary he won’t be available for the next 15 minutes, because it’s time for him to pray.
He stands in front of a blank wall and seems to address it, murmuring words to someone he can’t see. Yet, he has no doubt that he’s doing something of great significance — something that sustains the entire world, in fact.
Our murmuring man would surely identify with these remarks by Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook: “Tefillah is an absolute necessity for us and for the entire world. It is also the most efficacious form of pleasure, raising our neshamah like the flowing waves. We desire from ourselves and from the world a level of perfection that our limited reality cannot give us… Tefillah literally revitalizes the spirit” (Oros HaTefillah).
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