Talmud Class: What is a Good Prayer for an Anxious Time?

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life

Is everything going to be okay? We live with that question every day. Is everything going to be okay with Israel? December 7, marks 14 months of war, and the situation is still murky, unresolved and painful for all. This week when he was in dialogue with Michelle, Donniel Hartman was real, and real was not upbeat. Is everything going to be okay with our country? We are a 50-50 nation. Both halves have deep convictions and deep anxieties. The side that is not in power is worried. Is everything going to be okay with ourselves and our loved ones? When we face serious challenges—relational, emotional, physical, financial, professional—will we emerge okay on the other end? What kind of prayer is helpful when we worry whether everything is going to be okay? The Torah offers us a primer of two different models of prayer, same person, same anxiety, same dread fear, twenty years apart. Young Jacob running away from home worries that Esau will kill him. Older Jacob coming back home to Canaan worries that Esau will kill him and his family. In both cases, he prays. Tomorrow we will consider each prayer in its own context and ask whether we pray a prayer like that, and if so, whether doing so helps. We will also study the interpretation of these two prayers by the late Rabbi Harold Kushner found in his classic When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Rabbi Kushner uses these two prayers of Jacob as illuminating prayers that do and do not work. How is it with your prayer life? Can our prayer life grow so that our prayers help strengthen us when we could use the strength?