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Prayers and Blessings

Any Jew can pray on his or her own. However, to say certain prayers or to have what is considered a full worship service, there must be at least ten adults present. This group is called a minyan. The requirements for being a member of a minyan vary among different congregations.

Orthodox congregations require that the minyan comprise ten Jewish men over age thirteen. Conservative congregations will typically include women in the ten-person minyan, and Reform congregations generally do not require a minyan for group prayer.

It is considered somewhat of an honor to be the tenth person to join the group, since then the group can get to the business at hand. I remember occasions when someone had to go hustle up a tenth member, often calling someone on the phone or snatching a person from his office.

The number ten appears quite a few times in Judaism: ten commandments, ten plagues, Abraham’s ten tests of faith, the ten righteous in Sodom and Gomorrah, and so forth. The congregation of “ten” comes from the Book of Numbers: ten of Moses’ spies, returning from the Land of Canaan, had distorted the truth, whereupon God proclaims, “How long shall this wicked congregation complain against me?” (Numbers 14:27).

In services where we read from the Torah, it is customary that when the Torah “stands” (is held or raised), the congregants stand; when the Torah sits (is placed on the reading lectern or returned to the ark), the congregants may sit. Whenever the ark containing the Torah scrolls is open or when the scrolls are being carried, the congregants stand. There are some exceptions, but those are the general rules. Your physical abilities and health take precedence over these rules.

Traditional Orthodox Jews pray in the morning, in the afternoon, and again in the evening (although the afternoon and evening prayers are often said in succession). Depending on how observant they are, other Jews may pray once a day, once a month, once a year, or only when they feel the need to express happiness, grief, or some other emotion.

For years I was under the impression that a person “faces east” when praying. In actuality, a person faces toward Jerusalem, specifically toward the site where the temple once stood. Thus, if you are in Turkey, you look at your compass and face south.

There are several prayers that are common to most services. The first (from Deuteronomy 6:4) is the Shema, an affirmation that announces, “Hear, O Israel!: The Lord is our God, the Lord is one.”

Liberal Jewish congregations now translate prayers so that they are gender-neutral. Here is such a version of the same prayer:

Hear, O Israel: the Eternal One is our God, the Eternal God alone! Blessed is God’s glorious majesty for ever and ever!

The name for God often used these days in prayer is Adonai.

A second prayer basic to the service is the Amidah, generally recited silently while standing. In this prayer we ask God to give us peace and help us solve many of the personal problems and difficulties we all face.

The Aleinu is a prayer that looks to the future as one of hope and peace while reminding us that it is incumbent upon us to give praise to God.

The Kaddish prayer, extolling God’s majesty and kingdom, is recited several times during a service. Although having nothing to do with death, the Kaddish is traditionally recited while remembering the departed. As I get older, I hear (and recite) this prayer more and more as friends and relatives die.

As you might expect, there are blessings for everyday routines, such as waking, eating, traveling, and retiring for the day. Most common is the Grace before Meals, known as the Motzi or HaMotzi. This prayer gives thanks for the “bread of the earth,” bread being symbolic of food in general:

We praise You, Eternal God, Sovereign of the universe, for You cause bread to come forth from the Earth.

Another standard blessing is the blessing over wine, the Kiddush, giving thanks for “the fruit of the vine”:

We praise You, Eternal God, Sovereign of the universe, Creator of the fruit of the vine.

There is also a prayer of Grace after Meals as well as one that is recited before lighting the Shabbat candles.

After thousands of years, you can imagine that special prayers have developed to respond to special needs. Some may be considered bizarre and some unnecessary. Others may actually seem inappropriate or objectionable in this day and age (“Thank you, God, for not having created me a woman” [see “Women and Judaism”]).

Do all Jews recite all of these prayers? Hardly. As I’ve said before, it all depends on a person’s level of religious observance. Someone may use prayer time to offer up personal messages to God or to create his or her own individual devotions. However, the list of available prayers in Judaism is extensive.

Special prayers can be created for special needs. One special prayer thanks God for the creation of the rainbows. Or, remember the scene in Fiddler on the Roof when the townspeople ask the rabbi if there is a blessing for the czar? After a moment of reflection, the rabbi replies, “May the Lord bless and keep the czar ... far away from us!”

Anyone who plays a reed instrument—clarinet, saxophone, oboe, or bassoon—knows the constant frustration of dealing with the fickle reeds. I once asked a rabbi if there could possibly be a blessing made over a saxophone reed or if this was a sacrilegious request. “Nonsense,” he replied, and offered me a prayer using the Hebrew word for reeds, zufim, which is the word used to describe the Reed Sea. Reeds may still drive musicians crazy, but these prayers thank God for creating and giving us the reed, the bread, the fruit of the earth, the rainbow, or whatever. The quality of the gift is not the primary issue.