A House of Prayer for All Nations
Reflections

The Power of Prayer

· editor
In short: Drawn from the introduction to the prayerbook 'Minhat Yerushalayim,' this passage addresses a universal spiritual worry: that we lack the tools to cultivate our inner lives. The answer it offers is prayer itself — described as a sacred instrument, bequeathed to us by the prophets and the Men of the Great Assembly, capable of transforming a heart of stone into a heart of flesh and clearing the soul of every obstacle rooted there since youth.

(From the introduction to the prayerbook Minhat Yerushalayim🙂

“Perhaps you say to yourself: For working the field, we have plows in our hands — tools passed down to us by those who tilled the soil before us. But for working the heart? I have nothing at all! How can I break new ground in the furrows of my heart? How can I remove every stumbling stone and clear away the thorns and thistles that ravage the soul?

Know this, my brother: we do possess a sacred instrument with which to serve and labor in the service of the heart. It was bequeathed to us by those who served God before us — master craftsmen, ‘the craftsman and the smith’ (cf. Jeremiah 24:1) from the earliest generations: men of spirit, the Men of the Great Assembly, and among them the ancient prophets of Hashem. They gave it as an inheritance to the congregation of Jacob, and they called it by the name tefillah — prayer.

Prayer is a sacred instrument. With it you can work wonders. With it you have the power to turn a heart of stone into a heart of flesh. Prayer — with it you can clear every stumbling block from the furrows of your heart. Prayer — with it you can uproot every thorn and thistle that has taken root in your heart since the days of your youth!”

Such is the immense and sublime power of prayer.