Obama’s Pilfered Prayer Note

The flap over the publication by the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv of a photograph of a pilfered prayer note inserted, as per Jewish custom, by Senator Obama in a niche of Jerusalem’s Western Wall on his visit to Israel last week has its comical aspects. Not least of these was the claim made in its defense by Ma’ariv, a secular newspaper accused by the Western Wall’s rabbi of violating the privacy of Mr. Obama’s relationship with God, that it did not really matter because Mr. Obama isn’t Jewish. It would be fascinating to hear the rabbi and Ma’ariv’s lawyers argue this question in court.By now, in any case, the whole world knows what Mr. Obama’s prayer was. “Lord,” he wrote on the stationery of the King David Hotel, “protect my family and me. Forgive me my sins, and help me guard against pride and despair. Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just. And make me an instrument of Your will.”Frankly, I’d feel a bit better about Mr. Obama if his prayer had simply said, “Lord, help me to be president.” It’s perhaps churlish of me, but the suspicion lurks that that’s what he would have written had he felt sure it would not have ended up in the newspapers.I say this based on personal experience. Indeed, compared to my own iniquity, that of Mr. Obama’s prayer poacher is small-time. Here’s an embarrassing story.It happened 30 or so years ago, long enough, I hope, for the statute of limitations on such crimes to have run out. My eldest daughter was five or six at the time, and one winter day — we were then living in Jerusalem — I decided to drive with her to Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem. The biblical Rachel is the nearest thing Judaism has to a patron saint for women, and I thought it would be an interesting experience for her to see all the ladies praying there.But the weather that winter day was cold and rainy, and when we got to the tomb, no women were praying there at all. It was deserted. The only people there, we looked around us. As I remember, the empty room had a prayer lectern and some shelves with prayer books and women’s devotions. Little folded squares of paper were stuck into the shelves and between the books. They were, I explained to my daughter, written prayers like the one she had once seen at the Western Wall.“What do people pray for?” she asked.“All kinds of things,” I answered.“What kinds?”“All kinds. The only way to know would be to read what they’ve written.”“But if we took their prayers and read them,” my daughter said, “how would they get to God?”“God’s read them already,” I told her. “He’s a quick reader.”We looked at each other. We were all alone. We’d never have a chance like this again. We stuffed our pockets with as many prayers as we could and drove home with them to find out what people prayed for.And what was it? If you think, dear reader, that this is going to be a story of guilt and repentance, you’re wrong. It’s one of expectation and disappointment. Of guilt, I felt nothing. I no more minded knowing what two dozen women had said to God at Rachel’s Tomb than I mind knowing what the woman sitting next to me on the train is saying on her cell phone to her husband, child, or lover. She’s just always so banal, that woman — and so were all those prayers:“Dear God, may my daughter-in-law get pregnant.”“Lord, help me to lose 40 pounds.”“Master of the Universe, cure my husband of his illness.”“May the Holy One Blessed He make my sister pass her driving test.”We read a dozen prayers like that and my daughter said, “Abba, could you read me the next chapter of ‘Little House On The Prairie’?”Ordinary, simple wishes. Not that there was anything wrong with them, but I had hoped for something more: Some dramatic confession, or some secret desire, or something spiritually more refined than weight loss or a driving license. Not one of those women had asked to be an instrument of God’s will.Today, I see it differently. If I could pray to God, I’d concentrate on the things I most wanted, too. Anything else would seem to me hypocritical. What indeed does it mean for a candidate for the presidency of America to ask to be an instrument of God’s will? That he hopes God is a Democrat? That he believes God has discernible positions on offshore drilling, corporate bailouts, and the war in Iraq? Or is it simply a way of wishing that God would make Himself an instrument of Mr. Obama’s will, just as did the woman in Bethlehem who wanted Him to see to the success of her diet?“Help me guard against pride,” wrote Mr. Obama in his prayer. Is there anywhere a pride more dangerous than that concealed in the aspiration to be an instrument of God? Had Mr. Obama written instead, “O Lord, I’m just a poor, foolish human being, but I’d sure love to be president and I’d appreciate any assistance You can give me,” I’d feel closer to him. Poor, foolish human beings is what we all are.Mr. Halkin is a contributing editor of The New York Sun.

Obama’s Pilfered Prayer Note

Obama’s Pilfered Prayer Note

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