Q&A: Difficulty with the Yom Kippur Prayers
Difficulty with the Yom Kippur Prayers
Question
Hello Rabbi Michi! Every year during the Yom Kippur prayers I find myself thinking, without any disrespect, where did the wording of this whole prayer service come from? For example, "Mighty and radiant" 4 times, "He distinguished and passed over" 2 times, "Forever, O Lord, Your word stands firm in heaven" 12 times, etc.
Has today's prayer book and the wording of the prayers deviated so much from the purpose of prayer—that it has become a collection of exhausting traditions, where people check how many pages are left until the end?
Answer
I completely identify with that.
Discussion on Answer
Obviously our temperament got shorter. But I doubt how much people in earlier generations really took such delight. There is a tendency to idealize, and about that it was said: Do not say that the earlier generations were better than these…
Precisely as someone who more than once finds himself peeking to see how many pages are still left until the end of the prayer service, I always remember people from earlier generations who took delight in every single word and were fully present in the moment. By the way, not only in matters of prayer.
Is it the prayer that got longer, or our temperament that got shorter?