Prostrating Prayer
I am sorry about the short post. School has started and it is taking a lot of my time right now.
A rare posture, once commonly practices, is that of falling prostrate. Kneeling is totally absent from Jewish prayer except as a step in falling prostrate. This takes place today only during the High Holy Days, one on Rosh Hashanah and four times on Yom Kippur. … In most contemporary congregations very few people keep to the tradition of falling prostrate. (To Pray as a Jew - pgs. 40-41)
I have done prostrating prayer (during daily prayers) before and it is truly uplifting.
Has anyone else tried this during prayer? If so, why? If not, would you be willing to try it? Why or why not?
An interesting video: Daily Jewish Prayer & Submission
Hi Rachel-Esther,
I understand that Avraham, son of the Rambam, advocated prostrate prayer. The Karaites still do it. Just google “Karaite Judaism”.
I have not done it, although I might in the future.
I think I would have to spontaneously do it, being overwhelmed by emotion.
I’ve never really given it thought, but I’d like to try now that you mention it. I’m curious about when during daily prayer it is appropriate to do so.
A discussion related to this came up in my Torah study group a couple of months ago. When one prostrates oneself in Jewish prayer, one is supposed to do so on a mat or carpet (Muslims are said to have gotten this from us) because Jews would sometimes find themselves davening where there were pagan symbols in the flooring, and the carpet or mat was supposed to signify that the Jew’s prayer was to Hashem, not to the deities represented in the floor design. Having davened for the High Holy Days in rooms resembling meat lockers, I’d always thought it was to keep from freezing, but apparently this was the real reason.
I’ve always felt a bit funny about the prostrating parts of the High Holy Day service. Funny because on the one hand, there was something meaningful about enacting physically our regard for Hashem as a superior Being (and getting off my feet for a change), and on the other hand feeling weird because we’re not supposed to daven like people from other religions, and it felt foreign to do this.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned our friend Yusef, who posts YouTube videos of his Rambam-based Yemenite mode of prayer. He’s also, like many of us, a ger tzedek (or sadhaq, as he prefers), and he’s got many videos about his conversion journey and his disaffection with Christianity. Such is an example of prostration during Jewish prayer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aHWASyMjwg&feature=related
I find prostration to be very humbling, and am disappointed it’s not done more often. Prostration was the original custom, but because of European/Christian influence it was eventually phased out from Ashkenazic (and European Sephardic) prayers.
I was always taught that Jews pray standing, not kneeling or prostrate, except for the High Holidays so that’s what I’ve always done. I like the idea that we pray standing up and only pray prostrate on very special days.
Should Jews abstain from or feel uncomfortable about prostrating because it parallels other religions? I’ve posted YouTube video link which touches on this question.
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Copying Non-Jewish Customs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgNjuhutLoQ&watch_response
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In short, the prohibition against copying other nations / religions only prohibits doing practices which are contrary to or independent of Torah (commandments and the rulings of the Great Sanhedrin / Talmudic law).
Since prostrating during prayer is not only a Talmudic law, but is also clearly promoted in Torah and throughout the Hebrew Bible, there is no reason to have concern over it. In fact, total prostration is actually an intrigal part of one of the 613 commandments (not merely rabbinic) with regard to bringing the Biqurim to the Temple.
If Jews should have stopped kneeling & prostrating because of Muslims or Christians, then they would have ceased doing so even long before hand, since the Hebrew Bible is filled with record of pagans prostrating, and yet it continues to encourage monotheistic Israelites to do so.
Why avoid or feel bad for prostrating - something specifically ordered in Talmudic law, when there are MANY other practices common among us which are neither based upon Torah and have any support in Talmudic text, and which were undoubtably taken from the idolatrous nations? Ei: kaparos (for which many major rabbis have spoken against in history, to no avail), dressing in black suits with Italian mofia hats, making requests to deceased individuals (violates 13 principles of our Faith and Torah law), …enough examples for now.
And if we shouldn’t prostrate because Muslims do so, then why even pray at all? Muslims also pray… and most of the time they’re standing during their prayers. And forget modesty of dress you for you Orthodox women out there — gotta strip down, cause there are plenty of non-Jews who also dress modestly.
Enough said?
Muslims way of prayer is based on tradition also. There is no reference to that way of prayer in the Koran. It talks about prostrating and kneeling many times, but does not dwell as to exactly how and how often per day.