When the Alter Rebbe decided in his youth to go to a place of Torah, he debated whether to travel to the Gaon of Vilna or to the Maggid of Mezritch. He explained his decision to go to Mezritch by saying, "In Vilna, they learn how to study, while in Mezritch, they learn how to pray – I already know a little about how to study, but I hardly know how to pray." Prayer is one of the "things that stand at the pinnacle of the world, yet people belittle them," and Chassidut, sensitive to what transpires "at the pinnacle of the world," restored prayer from its belittled status to its high honor as the center of the service of God.
But really, why is prayer so important? Seemingly, the Torah is "eternal life," the revelation of God's eternal wisdom, while prayer deals with "temporal life," the request for a person's fleeting needs. From its inception, Chassidut emphasized two main foundations in prayer — which is "a ladder set on the ground with its top reaching the heavens":
In its simple and fundamental sense, prayer is the primary expression of complete faith in God. It most powerfully demonstrates His full presence in our lives, His omnipotence, as the sole address for every request, and also His love for us. Turning to God in every matter, small or great, with a sense of absolute dependence on Him and full trust in His good will toward us, builds our intimate relationship with God — a relationship in which the inhabitants of the earth, the simple person, can turn to the Almighty Himself with all their small needs. The Ba’al Shem Tov, who cherished simple Jews and revealed their connection to the Divine Essence, placed prayer at the foundation of service of God, in which the smallest of the small can achieve absolute attachment to God just like the greatest of the great (who in their prayer must also be simple and pray "with the understanding of this child").
However, the Ba’al Shem Tov and his disciples also emphasized a heavenly aspect of prayer: recognizing that the root of all deficiencies and distress lies in the Holy Shechinah, which is enmeshed in the lower reality with all its difficulties. A person should rise above his personal material distress and dedicate his prayer to the general spiritual root of the problem — instead of praying only for oneself or even for a friend in need of salvation, one should pray for the Holy Shechinah itself. Revealing the Shechinah enmeshed in suffering elevates it from the dust and reveals God's glory within reality. Turning to God in prayer is essentially a reconnection of the Shechinah with her supreme Beloved. Such prayer is not merely a request for the future — it is an immediate unification of the Holy One, blessed be He, and His Shechinah, which, once accomplished, has already certainly effected its purpose.
At first glance, it seems there is a contradiction: simple prayer is for personal, small, material needs, while praying for the Shechinah seemingly requires expanded consciousness and transcendence of the material. Indeed, sensitivity to the deficiencies of reality is not a part of material reality itself — it is an expression of the inner vitality, which is the revelation of the Shechinah. The simple Jew does not view prayer as an 'ATM' to fulfill his needs; he does not demand his sustenance with brazen-faced arrogance like a dog — he is sensitive to reality, turns to God in a plea for mercy, and cherishes the connection with Him. In this very act, he elevates the Shechinah and connects her with her Beloved.
