For about the last eighteen months, but particularly since 7 October, I've been focused more with davening on the idea of "covenantal community" that Rav Soloveitchik expresses in The Lonely Man of Faith, the idea that davening is a way of forming a community with God and with the Jewish people, now and across history. In this way, there is less sense of being "unanswered" because the purpose of the prayer is the prayer itself, to join with God and the Jewish people, not to ask for something. (I'm not saying that we don't ask for things, because obviously we do, even in our set prayers, but that I connect less with that aspect of davening.) In this way I've been able to feel a connection to God in the last eleven months, not always, but sometimes, even as I feel confused, frightened and sometimes angry towards Him.
For about the last eighteen months, but particularly since 7 October, I've been focused more with davening on the idea of "covenantal community" that Rav Soloveitchik expresses in The Lonely Man of Faith, the idea that davening is a way of forming a community with God and with the Jewish people, now and across history. In this way, there is less sense of being "unanswered" because the purpose of the prayer is the prayer itself, to join with God and the Jewish people, not to ask for something. (I'm not saying that we don't ask for things, because obviously we do, even in our set prayers, but that I connect less with that aspect of davening.) In this way I've been able to feel a connection to God in the last eleven months, not always, but sometimes, even as I feel confused, frightened and sometimes angry towards Him.
Thank you for sharing that. That's a helpful and important perspective.