Scriptural Prayer

Because I was raised in a Jewish home and had 11 years of Jewish education, closing my eyes when praying is foreign to me. I either read from a siddur (prayerbook) or look up, as my usual way of praying.

Yesterday, as I was working on this draft, I asked my husband to pray for me, and my mighty man of G-d prayed a great prayer with his beautiful eyes wide open. 

Closing eyes may seem holy, but in scripture, the most detailed pictures of prayer show open eyes, lifted toward heaven.

Yeshua prayed with his eyes up, not shut. Before the long prayer in John 17, “he lifted his eyes to heaven” and spoke to his father.  At Lazarus’s tomb, he “lifted his eyes” and thanked his father before calling Lazarus out.  When he blessed the loaves and fish, he “looked up to heaven” and blessed them (Mark 6:41; Luke 9:16).  The pattern is consistent: eyes open, directed upward. Gee, Yeshua looked up. Cool!

In Luke 18:13, Yeshua describes the tax collector as someone who “wouldn’t even raise his eyes toward heaven.” That little word “even” is a built-in confirmation of the usual prayer posture, eyes lifted upward toward heaven. His refusal to lift his eyes is not presented as the ideal way to pray. The verse only makes sense if Yeshua’s listeners already assumed that raising one’s eyes toward heaven was the ordinary way to stand before G-d in prayer. Otherwise, there would be nothing to point out.

The Tanakh uses the same language for prayer. “I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from Adonai…” (Psalm 121:1–2). “To you I lift up my eyes, you who are enthroned in heaven” (Psalm 123:1).  These are prayer texts, and they talk about lifting eyes, not closing them.

Closing one's eyes is not a biblical command. It’s a later, shall we say, “replacement” habit.

I do recite the Shema covering my eyes with my right hand.

So where did constant closed-eye praying come from? Not from the Torah, not from the rest of the Tanakh, not from Yeshua, not from his followers, not from any scripture. 

“Scriptural prayer” means being honest. Scriptural images of prayer show eyes lifted and faces turned upward. When a newer habit of closed eyes is treated as the reverent way to pray, it quietly "replaces" scripture lead halacha.