We could be forgiven for thinking that prayer is essentially “blah blah blah blah G-d. Blah blah G-d blah blah…” If all we are doing is mumbling incomprehensible words it could seem like that. But if we look more carefully, we will come to see that prayer can be astounding in its audacity.
A great example of this is in the special prayers that are added during the holiday of Sukkot. These prayers are called Hoshanot (sing. Hoshana). Hoshana is actually a combination of two words Hosha=save/help and Na=please, and the hoshanot prayers are long lists of various things interspersed with the words hosha na. The “various things” could be attributes of G-d; synonyms for Jerusalem; references to shabbat; or a variety of other themes.
Each day a different hoshana is recited, until the last day of hol hamoed sukkot (=the day before Shemini Atzeret). On that day, 7 hoshanot are recited, hence the name hoshanah rabbah (=the great hoshanah). The hoshanot may be different, but the introduction to each of them is the same, and stunning: “For Your sake our G-d, save us/ For Your sake our Creator, save us/ For Your sake our Redeemer, save us/ For Your sake our Protector, save us.” The hoshana for the first day of Sukkot continues this theme “For the sake of Your Truth, save us/For the sake of Your covenant, save us…” It continues in the same vein as an alphabetic acrostic, with a different attribute of G-d for every letter of the alphabet.
Why is this so stunning? Because we aren’t asking G-d to save us for our sake, we are asking G-d to save us for G-d’s own sake. It is to G-d’s benefit that we be saved! How does that make any sense? The daring answer our tradition offers is that G-d needs human beings.
Seriously? What does G-d, the Master of the Universe, need us for? G-d could do absolutely anything without us—except for one thing: have a relationship. It takes two to tango and G-d, famously, is One. G-d’s Truth is meaningless if there is no one to hear it. G-d’s covenant is meaningless if there’s no one with whom to make it. G-d can’t be a redeemer if there is no one to redeem. So G-d needs us, and protecting us is a sweet deal, because everyone (or everyOne) walks away a winner.
Jewish prayer is always a negotiation. It is a technique of saying to G-d, “Let me explain to You why doing what I want is in Your best interest…” The chutzpah is astounding. But often quite effective. And always remarkable.