If we could only stop asking the question, “How does this affect me?” we would see that we are surrounded by miracles. There is the almost infinite complexity and beauty of the natural world. There is the Divine word, our greatest legacy as Jews, the library of books we call the Bible. And there is the unparalleled drama, spreading over 40 centuries, of the tragedies and triumphs that have befallen the Jewish people. Respectively, these represent the three dimensions of our knowledge of G-d: creation (G-d in nature), revelation (G-d in holy words), and redemption (G-d in history).
Sometimes it takes a great crisis to make us realize how self-centered we have been. The only question strong enough to endow existence with meaning is not, “What do I need from life?” but “What does life need from me?” That is the question we hear when we truly pray. More than prayer being an act of speaking, it is an act of listening – to what G-d wants from us, here and now. What we discover – if we are able to create that silence in the soul – is that we are not alone. We are here because someone, the One, wanted us to be here, and He has set us a task only we can do. We emerge strengthened and transformed.
More than prayer changes G-d, it changes us. It lets us see, feel, and know that “G-d is in this place.” How do we reach that awareness? By moving beyond the first person singular, so that for a moment, like Jacob, we can say, “I did not know the I.” In the silence of the “I,” we meet the “Thou” of G-d.