A Shared Hopes framework for composing custom-made prayers

Rabbi Alan Abrams (abayye.blogspot.com)


I. The pastoral conversation (assessment) – four areas to try and learn about


Questions should be non-judgmental and genuinely inquisitive – don’t try to fix with advice or “ought’s.”


II. Asking permission



III. A structure for composing the prayer (based on the structure of the עמידה)

Amidah parallel

1) Approaching, (re)introducing ourselves

  • Who are you going to address the Ask to? What is your past relationship?

    • Expresses patients view of God and relationship to the holy

    • “Father above. You are the one who has always directed us and given us strength . . . “

    • “Oh, Source of all life. You have nourished all the plants and trees around us and we find you everywhere we look . . “


Three introductory blessings

  • אבות – A reminder of past relationships with – and help from – God.

  • גבורות – Mightiness, as expressed through God’s life-giving power.

  • קדושה – Holiness


2) The “Ask”

  • What hopes arose in the conversation? Which of those touched your heart the most, so that you can bring genuine כוונה to expressing them? Use the language of "We". Start by introducing the person and his/her situation/concerns.

    • "Dear, Lord. We stand here with J__. She is in pain and the doctors do not know why. Please help us in this time of need. Guide her doctors with Your wisdom . . . “

  • Patients often express hopes for their loved ones, too.



Thirteen בקשות – blessings of petition – in the weekday עמידה, all using the language of we: סלח לנו, רפאינו, שמע קולנו, וכו'


3) Taking Leave


Thanks


  • "Lord, we are thankful for everything you have given. We are thankful for the gift of life, and for the love and joy we have been able to experience . . ."


Peace – starting from the person and moving out to the world


  • "And, please, Lord, we also ask for peace. Peace for J___, for her husband B____, for her children K____ and E_____, and for all she cares about. And please, too, Lord let there be peace for the people of our town and for all people."




Three final blessings – one in hope of restoration of the Temple (רצה) and one of Thanksgiving and one for שלום.


Why custom-made prayer, why Shared Hopes


Bonita Taylor’s guidelines:

  • 1) Ask permission

  • 2) Involve the person – ask him/her to identify a focus in his/her body or spirit for prayer. “Where would you like to focus God’s healing energy?”

  • 3) Address God and connect the person to God (mention the person's name) “I am here with  . . . I lift up to you.”

  • 4) Lament – relate the person’s plight to God. Sing the blues.

  • 5) Hopes – share the person’s hopes with God


Source: The power of custom-made prayers, Bonita Taylor in Jewish pastoral care: a practical handbook, 2nd edition. 150-160.


Strengths of Taylor’s framework:

  • 1) Links the assessment to the intervention (the number one weakness of most extemporaneous prayer is it lacks this link, and is thus does not truly address the person’s needs)

  • 2) Seeks to involve God and connect the person to God (“When individuals are engaged in the process of praying for themselves – even if they don’t compose the prayer itself – they are affirming their connection to God.”) [153]


Limits of Taylor’s framework:

  • Sees caregiver as primarily a technician – someone who uses professional role and tools, like the ability to summarize a person’s hopes, to provide a service.

  • Sees the person as passive – someone who is acted upon by the caregiver.


Shared Hopes –adding relationship

  • 1) To the caregiver – I want the person to feel cared for by me. Thus, I want the patient to know I genuinely care for them and to know something of the feelings I experienced in the encounter.

  • 2) To the community – Use, in the tradition of our liturgy, the language of אנחנו. Help break the loneliness that is often the greatest pain of the sick person.

  • 3) To the world, higher values, the Jewish tradition – pray for peace, use a structure rooted in the tradition

Intersubjectivity: emphasizes that shared cognition and consensus is essential in the shaping of our ideas and relations. Language is viewed as communal rather than private. Hence it is problematic to view the individual as partaking in a private world, which is once and for all defined.

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Why helping may not be enough:

“Helping, fixing, and serving represent three different ways of seeing life. When you help, you see life as weak. When you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole. Fixing and helping may be the work of the ego, and service the work of the soul.”

--Rachel Naomi Remen, Kitchen Table Wisdom


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Reasons to pray, reasons to leave the siddur:

“Canonized prayers contain ancient and eternal wisdom . . . [T]hey link us to our community when we recite them together, and to our history when we remember those very words were uttered centuries ago. . . . They instruct us in the articles of our belief, in our unique bond with God, and in the particular expressions of that relationship.

But what are we to do when the prayer book does not contain the words we are searching for?”

--Naomi Levy, Talking to God, pg. 1-2


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Other resources:

  • On prayer and the use of Jewish sources:

    • To walk in God’s ways: Jewish pastoral perspectives on illness and bereavement, Joseph Ozarowski.

    • The muse of spontaneous prayer, Charles Rabinowitz in Jewish relational care A-Z: we are our other’s keeper.

  • On intersubjectivity and pastoral care:

    • Shared wisdom: the use of the self in pastoral care and counseling, Pamela Cooper-White