Hello to you, dear Elisaf!
Why wouldn’t you pray for healing, redemption, and rain??
Do you live in a world of your own?
Most prayers are in the plural. You’re praying for us too. For your Jewish brothers and sisters, who first of all need healing from the coronavirus pandemic. But if you visit hospitals, you’ll find that there are many who need salvation and your prayers.
Your brothers and sisters need rain. Your brothers and sisters need redemption. And various other things too.

Maybe things are good for you right now. Perhaps you’re a young man without any burden of family responsibility….
Maybe right now you don’t have worries about making a living, and maybe you were born with a silver spoon for your whole life…

But some of your brothers and sisters need a livelihood and satisfaction from their children. Why think only about yourself??

Did you know that the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself longs for your prayer??
Have you ever imagined that every word of your prayer is bound like a precious stone into the King’s crown??

One has to understand what prayer is. What can you / we accomplish with our speech??

In the spirit of the month of Elul, there are those who go to “say” selichot, and there are those who go to “ask” for forgiveness.

If I could, I would invite you during the High Holy Days to the synagogue where I serve as cantor.
The prayer is conducted with song and melody, and the congregation doesn’t get tired for a moment. In the Temple service of the day, we accept upon ourselves the kingship of God.
It’s no wonder that when people pray in synagogues where the congregation is half-asleep or doesn’t understand what prayer is, then you fall asleep too.
My recommendation: find yourself a synagogue with a cantor and a congregation that give prayer some real flavor.

Sorry for going on so long. It’s for you and for the readers. But yes indeed! Just as Torah requires study, prayer also requires study!
Success, and a good and sweet year!

Tzachi, you’re really sweet, thanks for the invitation.
I’m sorry you went on at such length around a missed point. What difference does it make whether I’m financially set or whether I have one need or another? Everyone has things they need or long for.
The point is that I don’t really think prayer is an interaction with the Holy One, blessed be He. I don’t think rain falls because people pray for rain, I don’t think livelihood comes because people ask for it, and that’s why prayer is difficult for me.
Do you really think there’s a ledger in heaven that records the prayers and decides, based on quantity or quality, what each person’s fate will be?

I’ll try to ask the Holy One, blessed be He, to prove to you (as He proved to me) that what you receive is only by virtue of prayer. And then you’ll start believing in that ledger. (I just hope I pray well enough.)
Sabbath peace and have a good week!

Dear Tzachi, what’s wrong with a concert at the municipal conservatory? Why specifically go hear a concert in the synagogue?

I hope I understood your question correctly. If you’re asking about my invitation to the synagogue where I serve as cantor—
Although I think there is a difference between a concert in a synagogue and concerts in other places.
I myself am not a cantor in a concert style. It’s true that I studied vocal training and the traditional prayer mode, and I use vocal techniques in order to sound refined. But everything is done in the spirit of: honor God with your throat.
My prayer is delivered in a yeshiva-style mode with Hasidic melodies in order to combine things and stir the congregation to sing, praise, and accept the kingdom of Heaven. And if I succeeded, that was my reward.
Have a good week.

Continuation of the answer:
If what you mean to ask is about the very essence of prayer in the synagogue—that is, maybe one can pray alone at home, or maybe I can just create my own wording that I connect to better… and really what you mean to argue is that the whole essence of prayer in the synagogue is “just” a concert…

The truth is that I meet many people who have no idea at all about the work of prayer. I can’t say about myself that I pray like some supreme saint, but I definitely enjoy prayer itself, and I certainly feel connected and that God hears me.

What is hard for me about Elisaf’s question is this: how can it be that a Jew who says he connects to Torah study, in which there are so many sayings about prayer and its greatness, can say, “It doesn’t seem to me that there’s anyone hearing me”?

I won’t go on about it, because time is short, and anyone who really wants to know can study these things.
But take for example the verse in the portion of Toldot: “And Isaac entreated the Lord opposite his wife, because she was barren” — our forefather Isaac prays in order to have children, and God hears his prayer. And in the Talmud, tractate Sukkah: why is the prayer of the righteous compared to a pitchfork? Just as the pitchfork turns over the grain, so prayer overturns the decree.
And similarly in Moses’ prayers for Miriam, for the people, and for himself. And so on and so forth…

And see tractate Berakhot 32b: “The Rabbis taught: four things require strengthening, and they are Torah, good deeds, prayer, and a worldly occupation.” (And the other statements there about prayer.) But there is no doubt that prayer is something that requires ongoing study and strengthening.

And in Ethics of the Fathers: “The world stands on three things: on Torah, on service…” — prayer is called “service.” This is something one has to work on in order to feel connected. And of course, great holiness is needed for this.

Prayer in the synagogue is more readily accepted. Everything appears in the sources, and there is no doubt that it also adds to the awakening of one who prays with a congregation and a large gathering: “In a multitude of people is the King’s glory.”

Finished, but not complete. Still, for now we’ve exhausted the point.