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The Rabbi Sacks Legacy - Understanding Prayer: Praise (3/10)

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Author: The Rabbi Sacks Legacy
Categories: Religion Psychology
Tags: religion, psychology
Views: 2 · Last viewed: 2026-10-15 19:00 UTC

Short Summary

Main recommendation: Begin prayer with praise, because focusing on the beauty and gift of creation lifts you out of worry, anxiety, and depression and turns attention outward and upward. The speaker grounds this in Hebrew words for praise and in Psalms 148 and 150, which call all of creation to praise God. Praise is presented as the starting point of the journey toward happiness.

Key Points

  • Hebrew has many words for praise, including lehodot, lehallel, leshabeach, lefa'er, leromem, lehader, levarech, and le'aleh; to be a Jew is to live in the midst of praising God.
  • Jewish prayer always opens with praise, in different forms across services, because bad days can trap people in worry, fear, or self-focus.
  • The speaker's advice is "don't look in; look out. Don't look down; look up," drawing on the Jewish mystics' idea that the world is full of light for those who open their eyes.
  • The Psalms are presented as a symphony of praise, calling heavens, sun, moon, stars, angels, and all that breathes to praise God.
  • Praise is framed as the source of happiness: all the happiness one needs is already present and waiting to be uncovered in the soul.

Details Worth Noting

  • Concrete instructions: Pause and look at the beauty around you, such as the song of a bird or the leaves of a tree shimmering in the breeze. Breathe in slowly and remind yourself, gently: "I am here. The universe is here. I am alive. I am free. I am capable of love and I am loved." Then express praise to the force that made all this and allowed you to see it. Notice the restlessness subside, the striving cease, and the pulse slow.
  • The Psalms cited are Psalm 148 ("Praise the Lord from the heavens...") and Psalm 150 ("Praise Him with the harp and lyre... Let all that breathes, praise the Lord. Halleluyah!").
  • The speaker acknowledges depression is serious and refers to Simon and Garfunkel's "Hello darkness, my old friend" to illustrate the darkness praise is meant to counter.
  • The closing quotation is attributed by the speaker to W.H. Auden, reads: "In the desert of the heart, let the healing fountain start. In the prison of His days, teach the free man how to praise."
  • The speaker describes this as the third of ten talks on understanding prayer, in the Rabbi Sacks legacy series.

Bottom Line

Praise is presented as a practical opening to prayer and a path out of inward-focused distress: by noticing and thanking for the gift of existence, one can move from anxiety toward a sense of blessedness.