Pure Prayer of The Hasidic Masters
Hasidic Judaism is an Orthodox movement that emerged in Eastern Europe in the 18th century.¹ This part includes selections from Your Word Is Fire: The Hasidic Masters on Contemplative Prayer and from Pinchas Shapiro of Koretz.
In such prayer
you may come to transcend time…
There all things are as one;
Distinctions between ‘life’ and ‘death,’
‘land’ and ‘sea,’
have lost their meaning.
None of this can happen
as long as you remain
attached to the reality
of the material world.
[Because] here you are bound
to the distinctions
between good and evil…²
One should be so absorbed in prayer
that one is no longer aware of one’s own self.
There is nothing…but the flow of Life;
all one’s thoughts are with God.
One who still knows how intensely one is praying
has not yet overcome the bonds of self.³
As a person begins to pray…
the Presence of God comes
into the [awareness of the] person.
Then it is the Presence
[of Shekinah, the feminine aspect of God]
herself who commands the voice;
it is she who speaks the words
through the person.
One who knows in faith
that all this happens within
will be overcome with trembling
and with awe. ⁴
When you speak,
[know] that the World of Speech
is at work within you,
for without that presence,
you would not be able to speak at all.
Similarly, you would not think at all
were it not for the World of Thought within you.
A person is like a ram’s horn;
the only sound you make
is that which is blown through you.
Were there no one blowing into the horn,
there would be no sound at all.⁵
When a person says the words of prayer
so that they become a throne for God
an awesome silent fire takes hold of them.
Then they know not where they are;
they cannot see, they cannot hear.
All this happens in the flash of an instant—
as they ascend beyond the world of time.⁶
There are times when the love of God
burns so powerfully within your heart
that the words of prayer seem to rush forth,
quickly and without deliberation.
At such times
it is not you yourself who speak;
rather it is through you
that the sounds are spoken.⁷
As long as you can still say the words…
by your own will,
know that you have not yet reached
the deeper levels of prayer.
Be so stripped of selfhood
that you have neither
the awareness nor the power
to say a single word on your own.⁸
The small ratzon [the apparent human will]
meets the great ratzon [the Will of God].
The depths of the heart meet the depths of all.
And the desire to be blessed
unites with the Source of all blessings.
The meeting between the depths of the heart
and the depths of divinity fulfills our desire.
We are not who we were
when we ventured on this journey.⁹
— Melila Hellner-Eshed
The ancient Hebrew canonical text,
the Zohar, refers to two kinds of prayer.
Those that are words of the mouth
and "the Prayer of Silence,"
those that are the secret meditations of the heart.
The Prayer of Silence is said to be a silent,
unexpressed and inexpressible type of Prayer
which conceals the Mystery of Perfect Union
in the Divine Essence.
Further, that the Prayer of Silence
is actually spoken by the Divine Voice within us.¹⁰
— Hans W. Nintzel
People think they pray to the Divine One.
But this is not the case.
For prayer itself is of the essence of Divinity.¹¹
— Pinchas Shapiro
You must surrender so to
the awe of God
that your sense of [the apparent] self is emptied.
Only when you are nothing
can you see the Nothing
Who fills all the worlds.¹²
— Levi Yitzchak
See also Pure Prayer in Torah Science and Pure Prayer: An Overview
Waves of the Ocean
[1] Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasidic_Judaism, 11.03.2024
[2] Arthur Green & Barry W. Holtz, Your Word Is Fire: The Hasidic Masters on Contemplative Prayer, (Jewish Lights Publishing, 1977), p. 56
[3] Ibid., p. 55 [One] replaces “A person'“ and“he,” [one’s] replaces “his”
[4] Ibid., p. 61 • [Shekinah] replaces “God,” [the] replaces “his”
[5] Ibid., p. 63 • [know] replaces “think”
[6] Ibid., p. 83 [them] replaces “him,” [they] replaces “he”
[7] Ibid., p. 62
[8] Ibid., p. 59
[9] Lawrence Fine, Eitan Fishbane, and Or N. Rose, Jewish Mysticism and the Spiritual Life, an essay entitled Praying from the Depths by Melila Hellner-Eshed (Jewish Lights Publishing, 2011), p. 145
[10] Hans W. Nintzel, Meditation and the Western Tradition • http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~panopus/parachemy/parachemyv4.htm • 11.29.2003
• see Zohar (Pt. 1, fol 169a)
[11] Jeff Schulman, Create An Opening, https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/518940?lang=bi 04.19.2024
[12] Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev, @One daily message, January 7, 2002
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