It took me a while to settle on using the ladder/prayer imagery for this week. I kept on fighting it because… well, honestly, I’m not very good at praying. But eventually time ran out and the ladder was the best shot I had. So I decided to animate what I think my struggle with prayer is.
The siddur is a pretty big book, considering how much of it we’re expected to recite every single day. It can be daunting, and thus, I’m often tempted to do the best I can, but basically just do a running jump straight to the top of the ladder. But since prayer is a process through which we move closer and closer to G‑d, just Jumping to the top won’t do any good. We have to start at the beginning, look at the world around us and see how the entirety of creation praises the Creator. And slowly we move forward, step by step, rung by rung, and at each step taking the time to experience G‑d on a more personal level.
Wow, It actually sounds beautiful to me just writing about it, but for some reason I’m still heavily relating to the stick man. But hey, learning to appreciate the process can also be a process, right? Btw — perhaps those of you who have an easier/more meaningful time with prayer can give me some pointers.
Chassidus talks about the idea of the word request (bakasha) being related to keshes (a bow). In shemona esrei, we are realizing how we and the world lack the revelation of G-dliness, so we ask for physical, and mainly spiritual blessings. The shema has 248 words, in Hebrew, romach is a spear. That word adds up to 248. In shema, we try to cut away whatever it is in our lives that is preventing the revelation of G-dliness. But a spear can only go so far. A keshes, or bow, can reach much further depending on how far back it is drawn. The shemona esrei allows us to reach hidden negativity within ourselves that we would otherwise overlook. Prayer helps us change our middos, character traits, and helps us bring our animal souls in line with G-dliness as well, which is one reason we mention angels in the davening. They are the source of our animal souls. The earlier sections of davening are more geared to preparing our animal souls to be vessels for
G-dliness.
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