Praying
In Judaism, like in many religions, people are supposed to develop their own relationship with G-d. And how can you have a relationship with someone/something you never talk to! Prayer is all about talking to G-d, thanking him for things, asking him for things, and so on. While there is certainly personal prayer, we also have many structured prayers, all pretty much in Hebrew, that you say in a certain order at certain times of day, or certain days of the week, and on certain holidays.
Praying, or “davening” as it’s known in Orthodox circles, has a lot of structure to it in Judaism. Men are commanded to daven 3 times a day. They can do it alone, although it’s preferable to do it with a group of 10 Jewish men Bar Mitzvah age (13) or older. In the morning, they pray a service called Shacharit, which is pretty long (something like 45 minutes). On Mondays and Thursdays, it’s longer because we read passages from the Torah. In the afternoon, they pray “Mincha” which is more like 10 minutes, and in the evenings, they pray “Ma’ariv” which is more like 5 minutes. Every time you pray one of these services, whether alone or in a group, you face Jerusalem, which is the holiest city in Judaism. In North America, that just generally means facing East. If you’re in Jerusalem, you face the direction of where the holy Temple used to be. (Heard of the Western Wall? Yeah, that’s a retaining wall from the 2nd Temple.)
Once a day in the morning (except for on the Sabbath), men of Bar Mitzvah age or older are supposed to wrap black leather straps around one of their arms and head, called Tefillin. I get questions about this a lot. The leather straps have boxes attached to them (one for your arm and one for your head). Inside the boxes are scrolls with a central passage from the Torah. Tefillin are taken straight out of the 5 books (from multiple spots, but one reference is in Exodus when it says “And it shall be a sign for you upon your hand, and for a memorial between your eyes…” for us to remember the Exodus from Egypt).
Women pray too, of course, but are not bound to this same time system as the men. There are different opinions about how often a woman is supposed to pray, but many hold that she should be praying twice a day. If you’re praying in an Orthodox synagogue, seating would be divided by men and women with a partition in the middle called a “mechitzah.”
On Shabbat (the Sabbath), services work differently. Same thing with holidays. The services are a lot longer. A typical Shabbat morning service (on Saturday morning) could take up to 3 hours. There are set prayers you say, plus on Shabbat morning, you read a passage from the Torah. We read it in order, starting and finishing the whole 5 books on a holiday that falls around October known as Simchat Torah (or Joy of Torah). We literally divide the 5 books into portions, and around the world, all Jews are chanting the same portion each week, until we’ve made our way through it and start it over again. It’s quite the organized system. There’s also an idea that we should always be studying the Torah, hence finishing it and starting it up again on the same day.
Beyond services, there are blessings you say for pretty much everything (for different types of food, after a meal, doing something the first time, surviving a dangerous situation, seeing a rainbow, even after using the bathroom…). All of these blessings are in Hebrew and typically start “Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech Ha’Olam”- Blessed Are You, Lord our G-d, King of the Universe.
One other helpful hint about Jewish prayer is that it’s common for people to have some movement while they pray. We often sway forward and backward while we say our prayers, mumbling the words under our breath. This can look a little funky to people who aren’t expecting it, but there’s an idea that it helps to connect to your prayer and to G-d if you’re really committing your whole body to it. Plus, Jews have prayed that way for generations, and since it’s typical to learn these things from example, it continues to this day.
