Rabbi Jonathan Sacks – The Koren Siddur

“Prayer requires practice. This is implicit in defining prayer as avoda shebalev, ‘service of the heart.’ The word avoda, service, also means hard work, labor, strenuous activity. We have to work at prayer. But there are also times when the most inarticulate prayer, said from the heart, pierces the heavens.”

Rabbi Samuel Dresner – Prayer, Humility and Compassion

"Prayer removes us from the market place and the counting-chamber to heal us, to wash us clean, to purify us, to strengthen us, to remind us of what we have forgotten, to let our souls touch the Source of all souls, and then to send us back to the crossroads of life so that we may live out the dreams of prayer."

Rabbi Dr. Nathan Lopes Cardozo – Siddur Nehalal beChol

"How does man dare to speak to God, the Master of the Universe? The presumption that man can just open his mouth and believe that God will listen to him is unrivaled impertinence."

"Most of the time, then, praying is a preparation for prayer." Only occasionally with there be a glorious moment when the praying man will actually pray."

Rabbi Ben-Zion Bosker, The Prayer Book (a.k.a "The Bosker")

"The function of prayer in all of its manifestations is to bring us closer to God, that we may more faithfully perform His will."

Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, God was in this Place & I, i did not know

"The 'burning bush' was not a miracle. It was a test. God wanted to find out whether or not Moses could pay attention to something for more than a few minutes. When Moses did, God spoke."

Menachem Mendel of Kotzk (the Kotzker) – From S. Raz, The Sayings of Menachem Mendel of Kotzk*

“The one who does not see The Place [God as Place] in every place, will not see him in any place.”

*As quoted in The Inner Palace: Mirrors of Psychospirituality in Divine and Sacred Wisdom Traditions, Mitchell D. Ginsberg; translated from the original Hebrew, Kokhav haShachar, Amorot Rabi Menachem Medle of Kotzk

Martin Buber, For the Sake of Heaven

“One time,” said Bunham, “I was going to Danzig, a timber merchant asked me to take his son along, who was to transact business for him there, and requested me to keep an eye on the young man. One evening I could not find him in our inn. So I strolled the street until I came to a house from which I heard piano-playing and singing. I went in. When I entered, a song had just been finished and I saw the son of the timber merchant enter an inner door. 'Sing the most beautiful song you know,' I said to the woman who had been singing and I gave her a coin. Thereupon she sand a song so enchanting that none who heard it would want to miss a single tone, No sooner had she begun than the inner door opened again and the young man came back. I approached him. 'You are wanted at the inn,' I said to him. 'Come with me at once.' He came with me without asking who wanted him; nor did he ask when we reached the inn. We played cards for awhile, and then went to bed. Next day he would not budge from my side. That evening I took him to a theater. After coming back I recited a psalm. He asked me to recite another and still another, and in the midst of reciting he burst into tears. Later on he became a disciple of the Maggid of Kosnitz. On that occasion, in that whoring house, I learned that the Shechinah can occupy all places, and that it is for us to serve wherever it is found.”

Juliet I. Spitzer, MSEd., Dignity in Life, Dignity in Death: One Perspective on the Chevra Kaddisha

“There have been many occasions when we who are performing a tahara have a collective, shared awareness of some tangible shift of energy in the room. We discover afterwards, when we are returning to our cars and winding down, that others in the room had noticed this at the exact same time that we felt it. This has been described by various members as ‘feeling as if the neshama, the soul left the body’ or ‘the neshama was hovering and finally was released.’ To experience this together binds us in ways that defy description. Together, the women of the chevra kaddisha indeed form not only a ‘Holy Society’ but a ‘Society of Shared Secrets.’ And I realize the blessing of seeing God in the faces of those with whom I share this task.” (http://ritualwell.org/ritual/dignity-life-dignity-death-one-perspective-chevra-kaddisha)

R' Joseph Albo, Sefer Halkkarim Ch. 18
"Influence comes down from above when the recipient is in a certain degree and state of preparation to receive them. And if a person does not prepare himself he withholds the good himself."

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Exaltation, G-d and Redeeming the Aesthetic

“It is impossible to imagine prayer without, at the same time, feeling the nearness and greatness of the Creator. His absolute justice, His Fatherly concern with human affairs, His anger and his wrath caused by unjust deeds. When we bow in prayer we must feel His soothing hand, and the infinite love and mercy for His creatures. We cling to Him as a living G-d, not as an idea, as abstract being. We are in His company and we are certain of His sympathy. There is in prayer an experience of emotions which can only be produced by direct contact with G-d.”

A.J. Heschel – Man’s Quest for G-d

“To pray is to become a ladder in which thoughts mount to G-d, to join the movement to Him which surges throughout the entire universe.”

“Great is the power of prayer. For to worship is to expand the presence of G-d in the world. G-d is transcendent, but our worship makes Him immanent.”

Rabbi Samuel Dresner – Prayer, Humility and Compassion

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks – The Koren Siddur

“G-d’s blessings flow continuously, but unless we make ourselves into a vessel for them, they will flow elsewhere. Prayer is the act of turning ourselves into a vehicle for the Divine.”

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks – The Koren Machzor

“In prayer we speak to a presence vaster than the unfathomable universe yet closer to us than we are to ourselves: the G-d who listens and cares, loves and forgives.”

Rabbi Dr. Nathan Lopes Cardozo – Siddur Nehalal beChol

"Modern man lacks the vocabulary to say what is in his heart. The prayerbook saved man's life just in time, before he suffered spiritual death."

Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi – Jewish with Feeling

“We are asking the mind to understand that there are some things the mind cannot do. We cannot think our way to G-d. We cannot reach G-d by a safe step-by-step process.”