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THERE IS ONE SPIRITUAL ACTIVITY that the Sages regarded as even higher than prayer: namely, study of Torah, GOD’S word to humanity and His covenant with our ancestors and us (Shabbat 10a). The entire Ethics of the Fathers is a set of variations on the theme of a life devoted to Torah study. In prayer, we speak to GOD. Through Torah, GOD speaks to us. Praying, we speak. Studying, we listen.

From earliest times, the synagogue was a house of study as well as a house of prayer. Gatherings for study (perhaps around the figure of the prophet; see II Kings 4:23) may well have preceded formal prayer services by many centuries. Accordingly, interwoven with prayer are acts of study.

The most obvious is the public reading from the Torah, a central part of the Shabbat and Festival services, and in an abridged form on Monday and Thursday mornings and Shabbat afternoons. There are other examples. In the morning blessings before the Verses of Praise, there are two cycles of study, each in three parts: 1. Torah i.e. a passage from the Mosaic books; 2. Mishnah, the key document of the Oral Law; and 3. Talmud in the broadest sense (pages 14–16 and 24–32).

In the main section of prayer, the paragraph preceding the Shema is a form of blessing over Torah (see Berachot 11b), and the Shema itself represents Torah study (Menachot 99b). The last section of the weekday morning prayers (pages 136–138) was originally associated with the custom of studying ten verses from the prophetic books. Kaddish, which plays such a large part in the prayers, had its origin in the house of study as the conclusion of a derashah, a public exposition of biblical texts. The entire weekday morning service is thus an extended fugue between study and prayer.

This is dramatised in two key phrases: the first is Shema Yisrael, “Listen, Israel” GOD’S word through Moses and the Torah, and the second is Shema Koleinu, “Listen to our voice”, the paragraph within the Amidah that summarises all our requests (see above). These two phrases frame the great dialogue of study and prayer. Faith lives in these two acts of listening: ours to the call of GOD, GOD’S to the cry of humankind.