PRAYER
A Perfect Prayer
People may abandon prayer because they envision a perfect prayer, a brightly radiant prayer. Even though this abandonment is a great loss, when that bright prayer does arrive, it restores the entire loss. This is so in regard to an individual or the community: the entire congregation of Israel.
Prayer will come to the people of Israel. It will come in a very bright form, a form that flows from the midst of the entirety of its soul, from the midst of its inner awareness, from the midst of its view of the world, and from the midst of all its influence upon the world in the past, present and future.
When that prayer of the people of Israel comes, the entire world will be astonished at its glory and splendor, its strength and grace. It will come from the midst of that perfect will that makes the entire world one bloc of holiness, that turns all of life into one chapter of supernal song, a new song, a song of Hashem upon the land of Israel, a song of Zion redeemed and filled with eternal redemption.
Involving ourselves in Perek Shirah-the song of all creation-is the foundation of the service of wisdom, a service filled with eternal life, flowing directly from an immediate union between the human and all existence. This is the precursor to the standard service of God, which comes to humanity by means of the Torah.
Orot Hakodesh III, p. 227
Being Impressed
"One who says Hallel every day blasphemes."
From an ethical standpoint, it is good to be profoundly impressed by something from time to time, but when such an experience is constant, it loses its effect, but arouses an opposite feeling that weakens the ethical senses.
And from the standpoint of the intellect, the impression that something makes on a person in accord with his imaginative faculty is good. However, that occurs only from time to time.
But a continuous arousal indicates that a person is having that experience not only because he is aware of something new but because he has a need for such feelings of arousal. And this is really not proper from the standpoint of the true outlook-for what is the value of anything astonishing when compared to the infinite might of the Master of all creation?
And so if a person recites Hallel every day, he indicates that his intensity of experience is self-contained, and so he blasphemes-unlike a person who has such experiences from time to time, as a result of truly being impressed by something that comes from without.
Kevatzim Michtav Yad Kodsho, p. 103
Jesting With The Words Of Prayer
by Dr. Chaim Lifshitz
One Purim, the man appointed as the yeshiva's "Purim Rebbe" led the prayers and repeated "hamakeh" ("He who strikes) in a humorous, Yiddish accent.
Rav Kook tapped disapprovingly on the table, to indicate that one does not jest with the words of prayer.
Shivchei Harayah
The Constant Prayer Of The Soul
The constant prayer of our soul is always striving to emerge from concealment to revelation, to spread through all the life-powers of our entire spirit and all the life-powers of our entire body.
This constant prayer is also yearning to reveal its nature and the might of its action to all of its surroundings, to the entire world and to life.
To attain such a level, we must engage in a self-inquiry that results from our study of Torah and wisdom.
And so the service of learning all of Torah and all of its wisdom is in itself the constant revelation of the hidden prayer of our soul.
"The soul of every living thing will bless Your name, Hashem our God."
Olat Ra'ayah
