Cry to God For Help
Don't just pray.
Standard Jewish prayer is an action of service to the King of all Kings. Three time a day, we stand before God for a three-part ceremony: praise, asking for needs, and gratitude.
Because service-prayer is about our relationship with God, the Rambam (Maimonides) codified its laws in his Book of Love together with other regularly repeated religious rituals.
But there’s another sort of prayer. When we’re in pain or danger, the Torah instructs to cry for help:
When war comes to your land, against an adversary who attacks you, cry out with trumpets, and you will be remembered before God and saved from your enemies. (Bamidbar/Numbers 10:9)
This prayer isn’t the daily audience with the King. It’s when His subjects pound on the palace gates because a ruthless enemy is hot in pursuit. Only the King can protect them behind His impenetrable walls, embracing them with His Almighty presence.
Because war and other unusual troubles don’t come every day, this cry-prayer landed in the Rambam’s Book of Times, together with the laws of Shabbos and holidays.
And yet, Maimonides added (Guide 3:36), this prayer also expresses one of the Jewish faith’s foundational principles: God’s compassionate justice is the source of everything that happens, both good and bad.
When we are being murdered, kidnapped, and terrorized, the first thing we do is reach out to God for help. We shift our reliance away from our own small and shaky worlds - with all its tanks and fighter jets - and join the infinite universe of our Creator, taking refuge in His care.
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How Much to Cry
Regular crying can be short or long, coherent or mumbled, humbled or demanding, pleading or surrendered.
Crying to God is no different. All that matters is that we’re genuinely expressing our anguish, shifting our reliance from our own limited powers to the Almighty master of the world.
The Talmud (Berachos 34a) relates that one of Rabbi Eliezer’s students led their congregation for an unusually long prayer session. When his peers complained, the good rabbi referred them to Moshe’s (Moses) 40 day-long prayer after Israel’s sin of the Golden Calf:
“Did your friend pray longer than Moshe?"
Another day, a different student led an unusually short prayer. Again the peers complained, and again the good rabbi referred them to Moshe, this time to his 5-word prayer for his sister Miriam - “Please God, please heal her!” - when she was struck by tzara’as (a skin condition caused by spiritual shortcomings):
“Did your friend pray shorter than Moshe?”
Both biblical prayers were said in response to trouble, and Rabbi Eliezer taught that we can adopt either of them. Length is external; what matters is intention and feeling.
The Mishnah (Menachos 13:11) summed this up with the famous adage:
Whether he does a lot, whether he does a little, as long as he focuses his heart on heaven.
Here’s how our little Eitan prays, apparently:
During our unfolding tragedy and crisis, there are many ways to cry for help.
Some folks have the presence of mind and heart to recite tons of chapters of Tehillim (Psalms), attend daily prayer gatherings, and read long lists of the names of every hostage. Lots of people join great initiatives like The Shmira Project that matches people up with soldiers and citizens in danger to pray for them and do good deeds in their merit.
But many others, like me, quickly lose focus when reciting thousands of non-intellectually-engaging words. If we force ourselves through long liturgies, lists, and rituals, we’ll either burn out or fly away into self-serving inspiration.
Our path to God in all this pain is primarily through sincere, short prayers:
“Free the hostages!”
“Protect us from harm!”
“Heal our nations’s wounds: physical and emotional!”
“Unify the people of Israel!”
“Help!”
If the congregation recites 5 chapters of Tehillim (Psalms) after the regular prayers, we might join them for the first one - with all our heart. If sometime during the day we’re feeling worried or stressed throughout the day, we’ll say another chapter. Maybe later even a third.
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Small Problems
Just like no cry-prayer is too short, no problem is to small to pray about.
For the millions of Jews not on the front lines - whether we’re a few miles or a few thousand miles a way - life carries on with some degree of normalcy. We’re alive and healthy, and might not even have any family members that were killed or hurt or are currently in danger.
It’s so easy to fall into the comparing trap:
Who am I to complain to God just because the kids are home all day, bored and scared out of their wits? Say thank you that you’ve got kids and a home!
Nobody’s going Foraging Walks in Natural Israel these days, but at least I’m writing and teaching like regular - much more than many people can do now!
If I feel ashamed to pray for my petty problems, I can remind myself that cry-praying is an act of faith in God. When I’m in pain or fear, and ask God for help, I’m telling myself and the world that God runs the entire show of life with compassionate justice. God commanded me to turn to Him whenever I need help, no matter how big or small the suffering.
On the other hand, if I ignore or suppress my feelings, I might be declaring that my challenges aren’t from God, but are just the natural ebb and flow of life. These are things that I need to control myself, with my own power.
Such an attitude is dangerous, explains the Rambam (Laws of Fasts 1). It would build a callous world with no benevolent King, and the King will then allow me - quite fairly - to live there, far away from His love and care.
So I’ll cry to God:
Send the kids to school!
Let me stay focused, not be distracted by news and drama!
End this war quickly so I can get back on the trails of Natural Israel!
The Seventh Blessing
Perhaps the most potent cry-prayer of all is embedded in the Shemonah Esrai prayer that’s been recited by Jews three times a day for the past 2400 years.
The Mishnah (Ta’anis 2) reports that during fast days that were decreed in times of trouble, Jewish congregations add 6 special blessings to the regular 18.1 Not at the end of the regular sequence, but as a natural continuation of the seventh blessing, which reads like this:
See our difficulties, fight our battles, and redeem us quickly for Your Name, because you are the mighty redeemer. You are blessed, the redeemer of Israel.
Whether or not you say all 18 blessing 3 times a day, it’s a great idea to say this one today with concentration and urgency.
This prayer uniquely combines both types of prayer. It’s part of our daily audience with the king, because there are always Jews in danger somewhere. When we are those endangered Jews - like now - this is the source from which flows the Mishnah’s 6 special cries for help.
In this seventh prayer, we’re not banging on the palace gates from the outside, crying to be allowed inside. We’re standing with the King, in our daily audience, begging Him to keep us close.
One suggestion: Cry for help - for yourself, your community, your nation. No problem is too small.
In recent centuries, they aren’t commonly recited here as blessings, but are incorporated into the selichos service (in the selicha that begins el na refa na l’tachalua gefen poriah)