The basis of all Jewish prayer is the berachah, the blessing. In fact, there is a tradition that we should recite one hundred blessings a day (which averages out to one blessing every ten waking minutes!). The prayer service is for the most part a series of blessings. And so it should come as no surprise that we introduce the central prayers of our service with a call to bless Hashem, the Barchu. “Bless G-d, Who is to be Blessed.”
But what does it mean to “bless G-d?” In the Talmud, there is a daring story about Rabbi Ishmael the High Priest, who saw G-d on the Divine Throne. G-d said, “Ishmael, my son, bless Me!” And Rabbi Ishmael said, “May it be Your will that Your mercy suppress Your anger… so that You may deal with Your children with mercy, and …stop short of the limit of strict justice.” And G-d nodded in agreement.
Rabbi Chaim of Volozhyn explained that by saying a blessing, we call forth the Divine flow of blessing. We help the object of our blessing—in this case, G-d—make actual that which previously was only potential. We become “change agents.” By making our blessing explicit and real, we provoke G-d into making His/Her blessing explicit and real. As Rabbis Nehemia Polen and Lawrence Kushner write, “In blessing G-d, we are blessing ourselves.”
Rabbi Robert L. Wolkoff
If you saw somebody pulling a boat to the shore and were mistaken about mechanics and motion, you might think that he was pulling the shore to the boat. And that’s what prayer is like. You think that you’re pulling God to you, but in fact, if you pray well, you pull yourself to God.
Rabbi David J. Wolpe