Could a Jew Pray the “Our Father”?

Comments

12 responses to “Could a Jew Pray the “Our Father”?”

1. 

   Ed Farrell

   January 3, 2025

   Here’s a post that gives a little additional perspective. Peluso-Verdend here agrees that a Jew COULD pray the prayer, but adds some historical insight as to why, under most circumstances, he would not. https://www.bostonavenue.org/ask-a-theologian-can-jews-pray-the-lords-prayer/

   Reply
2. 

   BV

   January 3, 2025

   Thanks, Ed, and all the best to you for the New Year.
   >> And if we call the prayer “the Our Father,” that is going to echo Catholic usage.<< That hadn't occurred to me. I suppose what he means is that "Our Father" suggests the Trinity. Or am I missing something?

   Reply
3. 

   BV

   January 3, 2025

   Ed,
   I read your marriage post from April of last year. You are a good essayist and I will read more of your pieces tomorrow. I am now coming to the end of John Cheever’s Journal. Have you read it? Plenty of fodder for rumination re: sex and marriage. Cheever the cock-obsessed Catholic. One strange dude.

   Reply
4. 

   BV

   January 3, 2025

   A First Things article of note: https://www.firstthings.com/article/2025/01/against-christian-civilization

   Reply
5. 

   Ed Farrell

   January 4, 2025

   Thanks Bill, and a very happy new year to you! I’m really glad you liked the marriage piece. I haven’t read Cheever’s journals but you’ve made me curious so I’ll check them out. Cheever is one I mean to revisit in general since my only exposure to him was when I was in my 20s and I want to see how he’s aged.
   I think Peluso-Verdend is simply referring to the “Our Father” designation to the Lord’s Prayer as being predominately a Roman Catholic practice. But there’s probably more by implication. Unfortunately I am not familiar with the practice of Jewish prayer in any depth but I think they do not refer to God as father, but rather as Lord, Lord of the Universe, the Lord of Creation, etc. God has a covenant with his chosen people and so the relationship is more corporate, with the sole exceptions of Moses and the prophets with whom God spoke personally. With Christians, the relationship is personal for every believer because having accepted Christ they acquire the indwelling Holy Spirit who is also God. In this resulting personal relationship God is seen and “felt” as a father who may be petitioned in private prayer. This is clearly trinitarian but more than this, there’s a specific Christian sense of having a family relationship with God the father that I believe is absent in Judaism, and this may be part of what Peluso-Verdend means.

   Reply
6. 

   Ed Farrell

   January 4, 2025

   This is beginning to be a tangent, but I may be quite wrong about the Jewish sense of God as “the father.” I began thinking of Jewish stories collected in the “Ma’aseh Book” and Martin Buber’s “Tales of the Hasidim” and in these stories God frequently has the familiar character of a father even though he may not be addressed as such. And more than this, he is often petitioned for aid and reproached for lack of aid in a familiar way that is very rare if not absent from Christian literature. So, there are depths to this I haven’t plumbed…

   Reply
7. 

   BV

   January 4, 2025

   Ed,
   John Cheever (1912-1982) is a fascinating character. The man interests me more than his novels. As a novelist yourself, you will be interested in both. I also recommend Blake Bailey’s superb biography of Cheever. I can’t imagine anyone better in English at the present time than Bailey when it comes to literary biography (literary pathography?) I’ve read three of Bailey’s stomping bios: on Richard Yates, Charles Jackson (of Lost Weekend fame), and Cheever. He’s also got one on Philip Roth.
   I see that our correspondence dates back to 2010 at least. Early on I believe you told me a tale of marital strife involving yourself. So i think you will be very interested in Cheever’s fraught relation with his wife Mary. Mary maldisposta, he calls her.
   >>With Christians, the relationship is personal for every believer because having accepted Christ they acquire the indwelling Holy Spirit who is also God. In this resulting personal relationship God is seen and “felt” as a father who may be petitioned in private prayer. This is clearly trinitarian but more than this, there’s a specific Christian sense of having a family relationship with God the father that I believe is absent in Judaism, and this may be part of what Peluso-Verdend means.<< That sounds right to me, but, like you, I don't know Judaism from the inside. I will add only that "Lord's Prayer" is ambiguous as between "Prayer to the Lord" which Jews could accept and "Prayer taught by the Lord" which they could not accept.

   Reply
8. 

   BV

   January 4, 2025

   Ed,
   In case you missed it, you may enjoy a recent entry of mine, “Family Life with the Cheever’s” which is pretty good and contains quotations from Cheever’s Journal.
   https://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2024/12/family-life.html

   Reply
9. 

   Ed Farrell

   January 5, 2025

   Thanks Bill, that was a good piece on Cheever and I had missed it. His journals are in the mail. Of course he’s far from alone in having really problematic relations with spouses, though in accordance with Tolstoy’s dictum “each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Robert Lowell, Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes, Anne Sexton, Howard Nemerov, Dylan Thomas, the list goes on and on and some of the stories are beyond pathetic. I’ve recently begun the just-translated letters of Paul Celan to his wife though so far the correspondence seems more remarkable for what is not said given the torment so evident even in translations of Celan’s verse.

   Reply
10. 

    Whitewall

    January 5, 2025

    A coincidence maybe. I am engaged in a campus Bible study of the Lord’s Prayer with three sessions so far. We are using a new book “The Lord’s Prayer”, the meaning and power of the prayer Jesus taught, by Adam Hamilton.
    The book is small, 148 pages but is pointing out just how jam packed this little prayer is with its requests for the coming of God’s Kingdom here on Earth and much more. Even different translations of some simple words like ‘daily’ and ‘bread’ can mean several things depending on the translation of ancient Greek or even ancient Hebrew. I never knew all these years I have recited. If anyone has the time this little book is quite interesting. And yes, I believe a Jew can recite this prayer as he understands scripture.

    Reply
11. 

    BV

    January 6, 2025

    Ed,
    >>though so far the correspondence seems more remarkable for what is not said given the torment so evident even in translations of Celan’s verse.<< By contrast, Cheever lets it all hang out, literally and figuratively. The most phallo-centric man I know in life or letters. What a study this guy is! Someone should writer a psycho-biography of the man. I will be very interested to read any comments of yours on Cheever's Journals. I've also been reading The Letters of John Cheever which are much more conventional and far less interesting.

    Reply
12. 

    BV

    January 6, 2025

    Whitewall,
    Thanks for the Hamilton reference. I just ordered it.
    As for daily bread, I read that not as panem quotidianum but as panem supersubstantialis.
    If I want the former I go to a supermarket. The latter is not to be had in supermarkets.

    Reply