SOME INDIVIDUAL PRAYERS And if I say, ‘I will not make mention of God, nor speak any more in God’s name,’then there is in my heart as it were a burning fire, shut up in my bones, and I weary myself to hold it in, but cannot. Jeremiah 20: 9 I gave orders for my horse to be brought round from the stable. The servant did not understand me. I myself went to the stable, saddled my horse and mounted. In the distance I heard a bugle call, I asked him what this meant. He knew nothing and had heard nothing. At the gate he stopped me, asking, ‘Where are you riding to, master?’‘I don't know,’I said, ‘only away from here, away from here. Always away from here, only by doing so can I reach my destination.’‘And so you know your destination?’he asked. ‘Yes,’I answered, ‘didn’t I say so? Away–From–Here, that is my destination.’‘You have no provisions with you,’he said. ‘I need none,’I said, ‘the journey is so long that I must die of hunger if I don't get anything on the way. No provisions can save me. For it is, fortunately, a truly immense journey.’ Franz Kafka Inscription on the walls of a cellar in Cologne, Germany, where Jews hid from the Nazis: I believe in the sun even when it is not shining.
I believe in love even when feeling it not. I believe in God even when God is silent.
Anon
The prayer of a shepherd who ‘did not know how to pray’: God of the Universe! It is apparent and known unto You, that if You had sheep and gave them to me to tend, though I take wages for tending from all others, from You I would take nothing, because I love You. Sefer Chasidim
A favourite saying of the Rabbis of Yavneh was: I am God’s creature and my fellow is God’s creature. My work is in the town and his work is in the country. I rise early for my work and he rises early for his work. Just as he does not presume to do my work, so I do not presume to do his work. Will you say, I do much and he does little? We have learnt: One may do much or one may do little; it is all one, provided we direct our heart to heaven.
Berachot 17a
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