> It was Rabbi Chaim Weiner who first brought the difference between liturgy and prayer to my attention. He said prayer and liturgy are two very different concepts. Each have their place but they shouldn’t be confused in either form or function. <
> Individual prayer can happen anywhere and at any time and in any language. This kind of prayer follows an emotional, personal impulse. Some people pray like this in a field at dawn hugging trees and others in a bunker at night ducking bullets. This prayer can be a moment of deep contemplation, appreciation or of urgent need. If you are lucky, they can be powerful moments of deep understanding more than was possible to be understood before. Prayers like this involve a shrivelling of the ego and complete humility before the one to whom you are praying. There’s a prime example of this kind of prayer in the parasha today where Moses beseeches God on behalf of his sister Miriam, who has been stricken with horrible white snowy leprosy. <
> Moses cries out to God saying: אֵ֕ל נָ֛א רְפָ֥א נָ֖א לָֽהּ Please God please heal her’ Ibn Ezra, a 12th century scholar says about the words: ‘and Moses cried’ וַיִּצְעַ֣ק מֹשֶׁ֔ה אֶל־יְהֹוָ֖ה ‘This shows that Moses was pained because of what happened to his sister.’ <
> Moses, we know is humble ‘Anav’ more so than any other human being on earth. And now the pain he feels on behalf of his beloved sister, evokes this deep prayer. Moses is partially successful in his prayer; in that she is healed a week later, but not immediately. Everyone must wait for her patiently until she continues along with the rest of the nation on their journey. Her slow recovery is a teaching moment for everyone. <
> This is Moses’s personal prayer - powerful, useful and meaningful, but it is not as popular in our tradition as liturgy. Liturgy is fixed, regular, mandatory and communal. It goes beyond the limitations of individual needs. Private prayer is about the I, and communal prayer or liturgy as about the us. We are all together in this and each person is just one part of the whole. One who is not ill is reminded of others who are ill. Saying the fixed words of the Kaddish in Aramaic, a mourner is heard and held by others. Liturgy restricts self-expression, but there is so much between the spaces of the words. <
> I like the process of saying the same words over and over with my congregation week after week, year after year. I like what it teaches us. Unlike as in other traditions, we don’t speak in tongues or when the spirit moves us. It’s poignant to think we’ve been saying these same, fixed words for so many centuries and in so many places. Some of those words don’t match my beliefs exactly but that’s not what they are for. <
> There are two beautiful examples of liturgy like this taken from the parasha we read today. When we remove the Torah from the Ark, we sing: <
> וַיְהִ֛י בִּנְסֹ֥עַ הָאָרֹ֖ן וַיֹּ֣אמֶר מֹשֶׁ֑ה קוּמָ֣ה ׀ יְהֹוָ֗ה וְיָפֻ֙צוּ֙ אֹֽיְבֶ֔יךָ וְיָנֻ֥סוּ מְשַׂנְאֶ֖יךָ מִפָּנֶֽיךָ׃ When the Ark was to set out, Moses would say: Advance, O יהוה ! May Your enemies be scattered, And may your foes flee before You! <
> And then when we return the Torah to the Aron, we sing: וּבְנֻחֹ֖ה יֹאמַ֑ר שׁוּבָ֣ה יְהֹוָ֔ה רִֽבְב֖וֹת אַלְפֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃ <
> And when it halted, he (Moses) would say: Return, O יהוה, You who are Israel’s myriads of thousands! <
> Ibn Ezra takes this to mean ‘Moses prayed that God would grant rest and quiet to all of Israel, though they be many.’ <
> Twentieth century Rav Meir Simchah of Dvinsk says it means: Come to rest, Hashem, among the myriads and thousands of Israel. He says: ‘The explanation is that the twenty-two thousand Levites who carried the Mikdash should rest from their labour.’ <
> In the Torah, Moses’s prayer that God goes out with the ark to scatter our enemies and then comes back with the ark so we can rest, are the last two lines 35 and 36 in chapter 10 in the book of Numbers. They are held together in the scroll by two inverted nuns. Line 35 and 36 are adjacent to each other in the torah but in the theatre of the liturgy, they are pushed far apart like gates. <
> The torah for us today is the Aron of old then. It’s a circle within a circle. The outside Aron has become the inside Torah. It’s quite mysterious and there’s a lot I don’t understand about it. But I know for sure that if our tradition was given a choice between public liturgy and private prayer what the preferred option would be… <
> In Berachot 6a it says: God is where there are ten people praying together. עֲשָׂרָה שֶׁמִּתְפַּלְּלִין שֶׁשְּׁכִינָה עִמָּהֶם <
> As tempting as it is to hear and feel godliness alone in a field, our tradition wants us to say our liturgy together, even when we don’t know what the words mean or where they come from. They are our inheritance and we carry them whole from one generation to another, as a precious burden. They teach us not to be so self-involved. <
> One last example of prayer in the parasha today… In the wake of still another complaint by the people, Moses tells God that he can’t any more. He says: ‘I cannot carry all this people by myself, for it is too much for me’ It is an experience of total surrender which I think is a condition of real prayer. And in response, God tells Moses to find 70 elders. God says: ‘I will draw upon the spirit that is on you and put it upon them; they shall share the burden of the people with you, and you shall not bear it alone.’ <
> That for me is the experience of being part of this community of prayer and liturgy here today. When it’s all too much for any of us, you can feel the support of everyone around you, and know you are not bearing it alone. I hope you hear it too. <
> Shabbat shalom.
