Jewish Personal Prayer - Make A Place

Finding a place for Jewish personal prayer begins by looking inside myself, not outside myself. 

We talked about finding a time for personal prayer last week, and you'll notice that's how it starts, too, meaning inside ourselves not outside ourselves. 

Finding a place for personal prayer also happens inside me, in my thoughts and priorities, not outside me where clocks and timekeepers are located. 

So, here's the reality of making a place for personal prayer - Wherever I am physically located, I can pray. Nothing is in the way of my prayer except my own beliefs and excuses. 

With the exception of certain places we may live or visit (such as the Temple Mount in Jerusalem) where political, religious, academic, business or family leadership forbids prayer, any place we occupy is a place of prayer. Standing, sitting or lying down, we can pray. 

Proverbs 20:27 gives us a lovely image of each person as living, breathing lamp of God. 

"Man's soul is the Lord's lamp, which searches out all the innermost parts." Chabad.org

"The spirit of man is the lamp of the LORD, searching all the inward parts. Mechon-Mamre.org

Image from Sefaria.org

This verse has inspired and motivated me for many, many years. It reminds me that God gave me breath and that my breath is my life. 

When there is no breath, there is no life. That's a fact. Having the breath and having the life that God gave me, and continues to give me each moment, is how I know that wherever I am is a place of prayer. 

Interpreting the different Hebrew words for "soul" and "spirit" and "lifebreath" is a bigger subject than our discussion of making a place for prayer. 

All we need to know right now is this - breath is life, and if we are breathing we are alive and illuminated by the One Who Gave Us Life and Breath.

We are His as long as we are breathing. We might as well acknowledge and thank our Creator for our life and our breath. We are the place where prayer happens, or not. I choose to be a place where prayer happens.

That last part of Proverbs 10:27, "...revealing all his inmost parts," is something a Hebrew Bible scholar could interpret more than one way, but it's generally understood to mean our conscience.

When we hear ourselves in personal prayer, we get in touch with our genuine thoughts and feelings, which is one way our conscience gets our attention. 

When we find ourselves completely overwhelmed and speechless, we can rest assured our very breath, each and every breath is a prayer. When it's all we can do is remember to breathe, that's enough. God knows it's plenty.

Here are 5 Easy Tips for establishing a habit pattern of hisbodedut:

This is my third post and OneShul video exploring Jewish personal prayer on my own. It's just the beginning of my sharing about my own experience and the experiences I'm collecting from others. Please feel free to share in the comments, or leave a message on 903-642-1449.