The discussion of what is meant by prayer is as endless as the flux of religious thought, and extends back to those protean ages when humankind first questioned the meaning of the words, I am.
It would appear that the concept of G-d followed on the heels of this questioning, almost as though once each person saw himself as a separate being, alone within his own head, the void had to be filled with a supreme being who has control of everything we see and feel.
However, the G-d of the Old Testament is not the sort of being most of us would choose to invite home to dinner. This being, who enjoys the smell of burnt animal flesh, and who orders the deaths of thousands of people, because they do not worship him in the prescribed ways, would make most of us too uncomfortable. This G-d who wishes to have the best of the flocks of sheep and goats sacrificed to Him on a regular basis, and who insists that these sacrifices are made only by men who are themselves free of blemish-would we consider Him to be politically correct?
This is the G-d who is invoked in times of war, for whom the power pushers want to get as many young men as possible to line up with their guns, in order to kill those other guys, those guys who do not believe the correct things about G-d the all powerful.
Some of the rabbis have another way to see G-d. a way that is not for the squeamish or the faint of heart. It begins with the notion that if indeed G-d is the supreme force who created the Universe, then before the Universe existed, there was nothing but G-d. And this G-d had no way to know himself, for there was nothing for Him to interact with. So the Universe and all that is of it is of it was created as G-d's mirror. Everything from the cataclysmic power of a distant quasar, and the endless myriad spinning worlds reaching farther than our imaginations can conceive, to the tiniest alpine flower nesteled between the rocks, is G-d's reflection.
Doesn't it say we were made in his image? Now, here is the rub. Without us, G-d has no legs, no arms, and no tongue. V'yit gadal, V'yit gadash, Sh'may raba. Who are we praising when we chant this blessing? If we praise G-d with it, do we not also praise ourselves and each other? For are we not all reflections of the Nameless One? Baruch atah ... Blessings flow through you. But, without us, there is no one to count them, or to nurture them, or to pass them on. And if every one of us is a reflection of the nameless one, to whom do we speak when we open our mouths to say, “Please pass the salt.”? And is that not also praying?
