Whom do we address when we pray?
What can we say about the "other"
who is addressed? What justifies us in speaking at all? In what ways does the
act of prayer implicate us in relations to other human beings? To ourselves?
These and related questions will be the focus of this issue of the Journal
of Textual Reasoning, which seeks to shed light on the theme of "Prayer and
Otherness."
The issue opens with an essay of mine, which argues that the
use of the word 'you' in rabbinic prayer differs significantly from its everday
use. Applying the linguistic concept of deixis—the way in which certain words
(e.g. 'him,' 'there,' 'now') derive their meaning and referent from the context
in which they are uttered—I explore the implications of uttering 'you' when, as
it were, "no one is there." These odd circumstance of address lead to further
complexities: How does the 'you' of prayer affect the meaning of the names and
predicates that are attached to it? How and why does the 'you' of prayer
demand existential concentration on the part of its speaker? Can the uttering
of the 'you' of prayer be an ethicizing practice?
The issue's subsequent pieces take
up and expand upon these themes, generating a wide range of perspectives. Adam
Zachary Newton's essay, for instance, employs textual-historical,
linguistic-grammatical, and phenomenological methods to extend the analysis of
the use of second-person address in rabbinic prayer. Seeking to examine the
question "how do we pray?" he suggests that the act of prayer, ostensibly
addressed to God, also points implicitly points to our human neighbor and to
the community of prayer. In this way, prayer serves to break down the typical
divisions among first-, second-, and third-persons, thereby forging a connection
to the ethical Other. Steven Kepnes also provides insights into the relation
between prayer, self, and community, as he narrates Hermann Cohen's account of
the liturgical formation of the moral individual. Situating the essential
existence of the "I" within a community of worship with a shared language,
practice, and theology, Kepnes argues that Cohen provides resources for the
philosophical recovery of the self as subject.
Other essays link the theme of
"Prayer and Otherness" to the spheres of Jewish mysticism, empirical
linguistics, and American politics. Shaul Magid provides a commentary on the
Vilna Gaon's erotically-imaged interpretation of the prelude to the Amidah, "Adonai,
open my mouth, and my mouth will declare your blessing." By looking at
questions of speech, silence, and the identity of the one who prays, he is able
to bring a seventeenth-century commentary on rabbinic liturgy into dialogue
with contemporary philosophical investigations of prayer. Michael Dickey's
piece draws on his training as an academic linguist, as he examines the ways in
which my essay both accords with and departs from the treatment of deixis in
traditional linguistics. He also extends the conversation with his use of
empirical data, as he compares the grammatical forms used to address God in
different languages from around the world. Claire Katz broadens the typical
connotation of "prayer" by drawing a comparison between Jewish liturgy and the
U.S. Pledge of Allegiance. After pointing to the ethical and political dangers
that the Pledge may produce, she suggests that Jewish prayer contains helpful resources
for guarding against the temptations of unthinkingness and the exclusion of
"others."
William Plevan and Randi Rashkover provide
strong counterpoints to my essay's treatment of the role of predicates and
proper names in prayer. Drawing upon Martin Buber, Plevan presents an argument
that highlights the importance of the original meaning of the Tetragrammaton,
YHVH. In this account, the rabbinic liturgical practice of pronouncing the
specific and particular divine name simply as adonai, lord, has the
effect of depersonalizing the addressee and thereby impeding the speaker's
awareness of divine presence. Likewise, Rashkover criticizes any approach that
conceives of the 'you' of prayer as "wholly other." Instead, she emphasizes
the indispensability of explicit predicates (for example, "the one who brought
you out of the land of Egypt") that serve to identify the prayer's 'you' and
prevent it from becoming a semantically empty placeholder. Finally, Peter
Ochs' essay points to ways in which my initial essay lends itself to multiple
and seemingly contradictory readings. He ventures, in turn, postmodern,
postliberal, and pragmatic readings of my essay, arguing that my account of the
odd deixis of prayer's 'you' can give rise to both radical apophasis and
radical cataphasis. This multiplicity, he suggests, may be intimately
connected with the very project of theoretical reflection on the act of prayer.
The structure of the issue as a whole is as follows: after
the lead essay, there is a series of six essays that were generated in response
to my own. Next, we have a pair of independent essays that also address the
issue's principal questions and motifs. Finally, as an afterword, I present
some synthesizing reflections on the ways in which the various contributions
have deepened and broadened the concept of "Prayer and Otherness." Taken
together, the diversity of the pieces present a rich and challenging mosaic of
thought that highlights the conceptual complexity inherent in the apparently
simple act of prayerful address.
