Home -- Content: Series 7 (Laws) -- Translation: English -- Book: 1 (Tora) -- Part: 1 (Positive) -- Command: 5 -- Text
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The Sharia of Moses in the TORA
Part 1 - The 248 Positive Commandments of the Tora
5 - WORSHIPPING GOD
In the Mishnah of R. Eliezer, the son of R. Jose Ha-Galili, the Sages say: “Whence do we learn that prayer is obligatory? From the verse, You shall fear the LORD your God and serve Him (Deuteronomy 6:13-14).”
The chief thing in prayer is kavvanah, devotion – more literally, “direction of the heart”. Thus, Maimonides writes: “Prayer without devotion is no prayer at all. The man who has prayed without devotion is under obligation to recite his prayers over again… Now what is devotion? One must free his heart from all other thoughts and regard himself as standing in the presence of God. Therefore, before engaging in prayer, the worshipper should collect himself in order to bring himself into a devotional frame of mind, and then pray quietly and with feeling, not like one who carries a weight and throws it away and goes farther; hence after prayer the worshipper should linger a while, and only then depart. The pious folk of old tarried an hour before they engaged in prayer and an hour after completing it, likewise remaining in prayer for a whole hour.”*
To Maimonides the efficacy of prayer was intensely real and as vital as the very breath of his life: “God is near to all who call Him, if they call Him in truth, and turn to Him. He is found by everyone who seeks Him, if he always goes towards Him, and never goes astray.”*
Maimonides also includes among the Thirteen Basic Principles of Faith the absolute exclusion of the thought of any intermediate power, spirit, or angel, from our prayers, which must be wholly and solely directed to the Lord of the Universe.*