Pouring Out Prayer

In contemporary Judaism, we think of prayer as something that happens in a very particular place at a very particular time. Prayer is a ritual—some might even say a routine—for the synagogue. In this week’s Torah portion, we had an example of a different kind of prayer, the prayer of Isaac.

Isaac had lain on the stone, wood for the fire below him, and he had looked up at his father Abraham, a knife raised in his hand to sacrifice Isaac, his son, whom he loved. Isaac was spared, the ram slaughtered in his place, but it cannot have been an image easily forgotten. His traumatic near-death is followed closely by the death of his mother, Sarah, and Isaac is lost from the story for a number of verses.

“Va’yetzse Yitzchak lashuach basadeh”—Isaac went out to wander in the field (Bereshit 24.63). What does it mean, “to wander”? The Rabbis of our tradition argue that Isaac went into the field to pray.

If Isaac’s walk in the woods contained prayer, we shouldn’t be surprised. After all, he’s got a lot on his mind. His father tried to kill him; his mother is dead. In his youth, he lost his half-brother Yishmael to the fear and jealousy of his mother. His life has been complicated. His stroll immediately precedes the dramatic first meeting between him and his future wife Rebecca (so struck by the image of Isaac in the field that she “fell from her camel” when their eyes met). He walks, as day turns (literally in the Hebrew) to evening, lifting his eyes to see the caravan of camels approaching with the wife who will soon bring him comfort.

The rabbis who interpret Isaac’s walk in the field as prayer clarify that he walks in order “lishpoch sicho,” to pour out his conversation. My classmates and I spend much time thinking about our own current and future practice as leaders of prayer and as pray-ers. How does—or how can—that prayer relate to Isaac’s outpouring of words?

Abraham Joshua Heschel, in Quest for God, argues that prayer is a combination of the material and the spiritual, a constant balance and interplay between keva (formula) and kavanah (intention). He says, “The body is the discipline, the pattern, the law; the spirit is the inner devotion, spontaneity, freedom. The body without the spirit is a corpse; the spirit without the body is a ghost.”

At the Akedah, the binding and near-sacrifice, Isaac was merely a body and almost a corpse; traumatized, he returned to his life only to find himself a mourner, left to his overwhelming grief, a ghost. I’d like to think that in his prayer in the field, in his outpouring of conversation, Isaac became whole again. His prayer brought together body and spirit, flesh and emotion, keva and kavanah, and prepared him to continue living. Prepared him, even, to love (and to love actively, as I learned from the people at Amichai’s this weekend) and to accept comfort.

The rabbis argue that Isaac prayed, and they use his example as part of the reasoning behind the daily afternoon prayer, which takes place in those liminal hours when day turns to evening. I’m not convinced, however, that Isaac prayed only in a way resembling our contemporary prayer service. His was an outpouring of conversation, not a recitation of fixed texts. Did he converse with God, in a reciprocal dialogue? Did he simply expel his thoughts and feelings in utterances, sometimes forming words and sometimes only sounds?

I’m not saying we should throw out our prayerbooks and wander in the fields. But I’d like to learn something from Isaac’s prayer, especially if that outpouring enabled him to find love and comfort, to turn from what could have been utter desperation and disillusionment towards a new family and a new life.