“Prayer is not a list of requests. It is an introspective process, a clarifying, refining process of discovering what one is, what he should be, and how to achieve the transformation. Indeed, the commandment to pray is expressed by the Torah as a service of the heart, not of the mouth (Talmud, Tractate Taanis 2a)….  Prayer is uniquely a human function, because it blends man’s intelligence and imagination with his ability to put concepts into words. The faculty of intelligent speech, more than any other, sets man apart from animals.”

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Excerpted from Rabbi Nasson Scherman, “Prayer: A Timeless Need,” The Complete Artscroll Siddur (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Mesorah Publications, 1990; orig. 1984).