I have to say that over the past few years as I've found myself into a religous synagogue, the Shemoni Esrei has been by far the most interesting of the new found portions of the prayer services that I've discovered in finding Religious Judaism. (remember I was not in a truly religious congregation as a child.) That said, it does have its curiousities and I think that in my more educated mind today, I can answer some of the things that we say a prayer for, but really, what are we really praying for?
Most are self explanitory, redemption, insight, repentance, forgiveness.
But what about healing? Are we praying that our Creator will change the fate of those with medical afflictions? Stage 4 cancer? No, I don't think this is a prayer that we can pray. We can certainly pray for good medical therapy and dare we say in some cases, miracles. I do beleive these things are possible. But so too is the healing of the spirit for which we must pray. This should really be the daveners focus, not physical healing but spirutal healing. Less self anger and detached emotion. Less pain and suffering in the mind and soul and being. Less unanswered prayers of understanding and insights. More healthy minds and healthy sense of beings. I do believe that the soul is the focus of the prayer for health and healing. Not so much the body.
Year of prosperity is not necessarily material, spiritual and financial health. But really just for good conditions in our lifetime. Thats pretty self explanitory too.
In gathering of exiles. This one is worth the read here. I used to think this meant every Jew moving back to the borders of Zion. C'mon. really. Do you really think this is our Creator's plan. I knew it wasn't, but there it was in print. Ingathering of exiles... from the four corners of the earth. To where? to our Land. This I say is more complicated than it appears. Clearly noone can actually imagine that every jew will live in and only in the borders of Zion. And this goes to my point that actually the entire earth is the Jewish heritage as well as the non jewish heritage. When we say "our land" we are really referring to , in my insight, the fabric of the soul. Not a physical bordered dirt and water semblance of geographical order. This is a very important prayer and one must realize to what it refers. I say that this prayer refers to the ingathering of exiles from the law of Torah to becoming Torah and law orientated Jews. To ingather, we grasp at Torah and the law and live our lives accordingly. Wherever physically we are. Its not a call to move to the holy land. But if you do that, may you have G-ds blessings.
Restoration of Justice- I do believe it is possible to live in a system where there are true beit dins. This is exatly what this verse discusses. But so too it means that we must be fair in our enactments of justice in our hearts. We are the judge of one another at a psychospirutal level. We must judge fairly and as we would want to be judged ourselves.
Rebuilding Jerusalem- Another tough one. I had previously thought it meant we would rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, make Jerusalem a Jewish city and the like. Not quite. This is a call for all Jews to be a light before the world. To be a light to humanity, we are rebuilding Jerusalem. The capital spiritual home of the Jewish people is established in justice and peace. This is how we Truly rebuild Jerusalem.
The rest is as it seems I believe, but those few mainly needed some attention. Give it some thought.
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