Standing in Fear

Photo courtesy of Krembo1

The Amidah is a very powerful prayer. As I've written about before, it has become a way for me to check in with my fear every day.

The Amidah begins with three prayers of invocation or supplication where we call the souls of our ancestors. The first is a direct calling of our fore-fathers and fore-mothers (if you choose to do it that way, which I recommend). The next is the prayer for the reviving the dead, which calls in all of our ancestral souls, and the last is a the prayer of holiness to proclaim that we are now in a holy space.

The Amidah continues with what is traditionally called the Bakashot, or requests. I slightly alter my perspective on this section my fears. Each of these requests represents or stems from a fear within each Jew that we wish assuaged. For me, these become reminders of the fears within me that I need to visit everyday. As I read through the Amidah, I pause after each blessing and touch the fear before continuing on to the next.

Some days, certain fears will hold a lot of power and certain fears will feel neutral. I especially look for fears which feel numb to me - these are the ones I need to spend the most time with until I can feel what's going on underneath.

The last section of the Amidah is for thanking God. In this section, I surround myself with love and send it to any lingering fears. This section begins with the avodah, or service, which implores God to accept our prayers instead of a sacrifice. I suspect that this allows us to call some of the spiritual power of a the sacrifices into the power of our prayers, but this will require further meditation.

I suggest the everyone study the prayers themselves and come up with their own understanding of the fear reminders. Each of the prayers speak to every one of us in a different way, so it's important to find yours. What follows is my understanding of them at this point in time

• Binah - Fear of not being smart or clever enough.
• Tsuvah -Fear that I've succomb to my yetzer haRah, my urge to self-destruction.
  
• Slicha - Fear of having done something unforgivable
• Geulah - Fear that things will never get better both personally, nationally, and environmentally
• Refuah - Fear that I'll be sick
• Birkat Hashanim - Fear that I'll be poor and unable to pay the bills or buy food.
• Kibbutz Galuyot - Fear that I won't have a home and I will wander and never feel at home.
• Din - Fear that there will be no justice in the world or in my life
• Birkat Haminim - Fear of betrayal
• Tzaddikim - Fear that the wise in my life will be removed. And that the wise among our nation will be taken from us.
• Binyan Jerusalem - The cossack fear that Jerusalem will again be taken from us as a result of our own actions.
• Malcut Beit David - This is unclear to me. Probably a fear that we will never be worthy of bringing the messiah.
  
• Kabbalat Tefillah -Fear that we can't connect to God. Fear is one of the main blocks that prevents a person from connecting to God, so this sums up the others fears.