Jewish Personal Prayer - Create A Spark Chart

An asterisk is a familiar symbol on every keyboard. Asterisk means "little star," but I changed its meaning for my own prayer purposes. I call it a "little spark," because it's more Jewish and more fun for me.

Making an ongoing list of little sparks is how I do two things at the same time: 1) get inspiration whenever needed, and 2) see my progress, quickly and easily on one page.

I call my list a Spark Chart. Just as a prayer notebook or journal can be written by hand or created digitally, so can a Spark Chart. By now you can probably guess I like to write mine by hand!

The idea of a little spark is quintessentially Jewish, originating in the mystical traditions of Kabbalah. "Every soul has its own sparks scattered about in the world, which actually form an integral part of itself: no soul is complete until it has redeemed those sparks related to its being." (quote from Chabad's post on Sparks)

Here's my mentor, Rabbi Yitzchak Schwartz, describing Holy Sparks in less than two mintues:

But we don't have to go deep into mysticism to understand the significance of sparks in our prayer life. We can simply look around us in the physical world and consider how things work.

A spark is required to ignite the transfer of energy. We can thank the brilliant 19th century work of British scientist Michael Faraday for his discoveries in electromagnetism and electrochemistry, and for these words describing an electrical spark, "... the beautiful flash of light attending the discharge of common electricity."

Stoves and furnaces rely on a little spark (pilot light) to start producing heat. Engines in motor vehicles rely on a little spark (spark plugs) to start operating. All our appliances and digital devices rely on electricity based on sparks.

Sparks make things work in the world and in our bodies. Our brains and our hearts cannot function without an internal electrical charge, and some highly-trained physicians are called electrocardiologists. 

What jump-starts my furnace, my truck and my heart is a spark. Very often, what jump-starts my prayers is also a spark, a "beautiful flash of light," just as physicist Michael Faraday described it.

My Jewish personal prayers are usually sparked by gratitude, as well as my questions, concerns and feelings. Those sparks arise from within my heart and soul, percolating up to my mind where I find words to express them out loud and in writing.

And when I pray, I get ideas. I call them "bright ideas." These ideas and answers to prayer are what goes on my Spark Chart, written on paper or typed on a screen.

Chasmal is a Hebrew word that means "electricity," and it also has another spiritual meaning based on the two parts of the word. "Chas" means silence and "mal" means speech. Chasmal is the elusive yet powerful flash that lights up the transfer of Divine energy from silence into speech. We might call it an "ah-ha" or "light bulb" moment, a bright idea or an intuition or revelation.

Each asterisk on my Spark Chart is followed by a brief description of one of these moments. I keep track of them because they are precious and valuable to me. These moments highlight my prayer life.

Many people create charts to summarize their hourly schedule, food intake, exercise and monthly income. They keep track of their time, energy and money regularly.

But how many people keep track of the little sparks occuring to them during or after prayer? 

Historically, Jewish women composed their own personal prayers because they did not read siddurs with men in congregations. 

Some of these prayers, called tkhines, were collected and printed in Amsterdam in 1648, about 200 years after the development of moveable-type printing presses. For centuries, Jewish women have kept track of their personal prayers, in their hearts and in their notes.

"In printed tkhine collections, each individual prayer begins with a heading directing when and sometimes how it should be recited: 'A pretty tkhine to say on the Sabbath with great devotion;' 'A tkhine that the woman should pray for herself and her husband and children;' 'A confession to say with devotion, not too quickly; it is good for the soul...” (quote from Jewish Women's Archive post on Tkhines)

In my spiritual life, each little spark represents a flash of light, a transfer of Divine energy between God and me. They are gifts, homework assignments and revelations. I value them and want to keep track of them, so I created this Spark Chart form to print for use writing by hand, or to use with my word processor.

This is my eighth post sharing about my own experiences with Jewish personal prayer and the experiences I'm collecting from others. Please feel free to share in the comments, or leave a message on 903-642-1449.