“The Hebrew root for “pray” [ peh lamed lamed] has three meanings. One is to wait, to aspire, to foresee, to hope, or to presume. The second one is to plead, to request. The third one: to judge and to sentence. Three different landscapes of the same root. For the short time we have, I would like to stress the first meaning – of the expectation, the hope, the presumption. Do we ever think about how close prayer and prophecy are as the Hebrew common root reveals? Both of them project a future, and bring it by through the power of language, the power of performance. Both bring, or believe to bring a projected future into reality by the mere power of saying it, as a curse, as a wish, as a blessing, as an oath. Like magic. Yet the most intense expectation of the prayer is for the listener – an expectation and an outrageous confidence – of being listened to. Without the addressing there wouldn’t be a prayer. Even wordless, before the first word, the prayer is already addressing. The prayer itself has the power to establish the space of the address – to create, to open it. And in a way it does not only create an “I” who has the power to address, but also the addressee.”
Michal Govrin, In “Body of Prayer Text”, Body of Prayer, p. 35
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