Murray Haar On Religion: The Lord's Prayer: A Jewish Perspective

Friday, March 15, 2019

The Lord's Prayer: A Jewish Perspective

There is a powerful prayer which Christians routinely pray when they get together to worship. They bow their heads, close their eyes, and in respectful solemn hushed tones say the words they believe Jesus taught them to say. It is perceived to be a Hebrew prayer which quietly petitions God for daily bread and forgiveness. It is all that but much more.

Think about what the words of this prayer are saying. The prayer begins by reminding God of God’s intimate familial relation to the community, “Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” The next verse is what the prayer is all about. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” This is a prayer calling on God to act like God and bring in the long-awaited kingdom of God. “On earth as it is in heaven” says the prayer. Implied is the message: There is so much craziness in this world; You, God must act and act now!

There then begins a series of imperatives directed at the deity: “Give us this day our daily bread, forgive our trespasses, lead us not into temptation, deliver us from evil.” These are imperatives directed at God encouraging God to act like God.

The prayer concludes with a later added ending, reminding God “for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory.” That is, you, God have the power and the glory to bring in the kingdom. Get to it and get to it now!!!

This is a prayer from people who are aware of the ambiguity, fragility and unpredictability of life. This is a prayer from people who have experienced the silence of God. The Lord’s prayer is indeed a respectful plea for God to act like God. How such prayers effect God are beyond our ken. But the prayer is intended for us more than for God. It is intended to keep us sane in the midst.

Here is a prayer Jews and Christians can pray together, and together wonder if anyone is listening, trusting against trust someone is.

1 comment:

UnknownMarch 15, 2019 at 8:42 PM
Awesome!
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Notes from The Door

Whenever you care for the neighbor in pain, at that very moment, God is real. At that very moment, the Messiah has returned. In every situation where there is pain and injustice do what you can do to stop the pain. Murray Haar
Religion was not created by God but by people. What God thinks of our religions only God can say. If your religion teaches you to love God and to stand with your neighbor in pain, it is a good religion. If it teaches you to hate and to be indifferent, it is a bad religion. Murray Haar
Get Busy livin or get busy dyin (Shawshank Redemption)
The Holocaust teaches us that it is possible to be alive but no longer human. Murray Haar
I am wiser than this man; it is likely that neither of us knows anything worthwhile, but he thinks he knows something when he does not, whereas when I do not know, neither do I think I know; so I am likely to be wiser than he to this small extent, that I do not think I know what I do not know. Socrates
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead, Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood. For nothing now can ever come to any good. W. H. Auden
For the most part, Christian pastors and priests are not taught to think but to transmit. They go to a vocational school called a seminary where they are taught how to transmit and proclaim the gospel but not how to teach their people to think critically about what they believe. They do not know how to teach their parishioners that Christianity could be wrong. Pastors and Priests are not prophets; they are religious functionaries who care about people and love Jesus. They themselves are usually nice people, will visit you in the hospital and give you bread and wine but they are not, for the most part, great thinkers. So, to expect them to reform the Church is just not realistic. Occasionally though, pastors show up who can think and believe at the same time and it is in them that there is hope for a reformation. I have met them. They are real and I have hope in them. Murray Haar
We do not believe in the Bible. We believe in God. The Bible is a vector toward God and the neighbor. When the Bible points us toward God and the neighbor, it is true. Whenever it does not, it is not true. We have to learn not only to read the Bible but to argue with it. Then the text will become real. Murray Haar
“In religion, the question is more important than the answer to the question.” A Midrash
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Dylan Thomas
“He who saves a single life, saves the world entire.” The Talmud
“We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, or the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time or conditions of our death. But within all this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we shall live: courageously or in cowardice, honorably or dishonorably, with purpose or adrift. We decide what is important and what is trivial in life. We decide that what makes us significant is either what we do or what we refuse to do. But no matter how indifferent the universe may be to our choices and decisions, these choices and decisions are ours to make. We decide. We choose. And as we decide and choose, so are our lives formed.” Joseph Epstein

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Friday, March 15, 2019

The Lord's Prayer: A Jewish Perspective

1 comment: