There is a Hasidic story about
the tailor who comes to his rabbi and says, “I have a problem with my prayers. If someone comes to me and says, “Mendel, you’re
a wonderful tailor,’ that makes me feel good.
I feel appreciated. I can go on
feeling good for a whole week, even longer, on the strength of one compliment
like that. But if people came to me
every day, one after another, hour after hour, and kept saying to me, ‘Mendel,
you’re a wonderful tailor,’ over and over again, it would drive ne crazy. It would get me to the point where I wouldn’t
listen to them any more. I would tell
them to go away and ley me do my work in peace.
This is what bothers me about prayer.
It seems to me that if we told God how wonderful He was once a week,
even once every few weeks, and just one or two of us at a time, that’s all He
would need. Is God so insecure that He
needs us praising Him every day? Three
times a day, morning, noon and night?
Hundreds of people praising Him?
It seems to me it would drive Him crazy.” The rabbi smiled and said, “Mendel, you’re
absolutely right. You have no idea how hard
it is for God to listen to all our praises, hour after hour, day after
day. But God knows how important it is
for us to utter that praise, so in His great love for us, He tolerates all of
our prayers.”
God does not need our flattery
but we need to become the sort of people who are grateful.
Harold Kushner
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