What is the most important prayer to your faith group?

What is the best move in chess? There is no universal best move, but there is a "best move" in each particular circumstance. And there is a best, or most appropriate prayer, in each specific situation.

So, for example, when a person falls ill, the appropriate prayer is the one that entreats God for the full recovery of the person. If a person is suffering financially, praying that such person finds a job is the appropriate prayer. And this is a fitting prayer whether it is someone else praying for the sick or the jobless, or whether it is the sick or jobless praying for themselves.

Prayer is many things, including exalting God and meditating on God, but also including prayer as request. Each request has its proper time and place.

But prayer is not always personal request. Prayer can involve communal request, or global request. That too has its time and place, namely always.

In that regard, it is safe to say that the most important prayer within Judaism is the amidah. Amidah refers to being in a standing position, since the prayer to which it refers is said in a standing posture.

The amidah is a series of 18-plus blessings, ranging the full gamut from personal to communal to global request, preceded by the acknowledgment of God's power and majesty. The amidah is recited three times daily, and is the anchor of public and private prescribed prayer. Its final punctuation mark is the request for peace. But there are also requests for wisdom, pardon, good health and adequate sustenance.

So important is this prayer that in the morning and afternoon prayer service, the amidah is repeated out loud for the benefit of those who are not conversant in Hebrew.

If this most important prayer is full of requests, what does this reveal? That requesting from God is the ultimate compliment we can pay to God, that God is the source of all our blessing.

Originally published in the Ottawa Citizen on July 24, 2010