The writer S.Y. Agnon describes his synagogue on Rosh Hashana as being full of worshippers wrapped in tallitot [prayer shawls] and white holiday clothing. Candles were placed in long boxes filled with sand, emanating a "wonderful light and a good smell."
Agnon described himself as a child, "standing at the window of the synagogue, which trembled and then stood still with the voices of the prayers … and it seemed to me that the ground I walked on and the streets I passed through and the entire world were nothing but a corridor to this house [of prayer]."
Everyone prays in his own way, in his own house of prayer, in his own language of prayer, and just like we have different opinions and different faces, we have different prayers. The poet Yondov Kaplon, who edited the prayer siddur Meimcha Eilecha and included sections of philosophy in it, correctly spotted that prayer, for many of us, was a routine social practice – a formal event – that took place within a rigid halachic framework that stipulates times, formulas, and place.
In addition to all these, Kaplon sought to provide a place for "the work of the heart," which is also a form of prayer. Nathan Sternharz (better known as Rabbi Nathan), a student of Rabbi Nachman of Breslev, took the approach of "take hold of both this and that."
"Is it not a wonderful thing to make up new prayers, because a number of great and minor people who composed a number of prayers have already preceded me in this … because [prayer] does not come from heaven," Rabbi Nathan wrote.
So this Rosh Hashana, which begins at sundown on Sunday, don't forgo prayer – in a synagogue, or outside; from the old, familiar prayer book, even if we don't always understand it, or just by pouring out our hearts; in speech or in song; in public or alone. All these are living prayers to the Creator. Pray for yourselves or for your loved ones; pray for everyone and for the well-being of the people and our amazing country, with all its sweetness and stings.
Almost the entire Rosh Hashana prayer litany is aimed at the public rather than the individual, in first person plural: "OUR father, OUR king! Renew us for a good year," or "May WE and all Your people the household of Israel be remembered and inscribed for a good life and well-being in the book of life."
Shmuel Schnitzer, one of the most prominent journalists in Israel, once wrote that if we learned to live that way (in first person plural) and not just pray that way, we could expect a better year. May it be so.
