Prayers From the Heart

Once a group of disciples were walking with the Ba’al Shem Tov [the Jewish mystic and rabbi regarded as the founder of Hasidic Judaism] when they overheard an uneducated villager badly mispronounce the Hebrew words of a prayer he was reciting to himself. They all laughed at how he mangled the words of the prayer.

Later, the Ba’al Shem said to them, “Prayer must come from the heart. That is why the prayers of simple people are often said with great devotion – because they are spoken from their heart. God highly values such prayers. Uneducated people may badly mispronounce the words, but God judges all prayers only according to the faith with which they are offered.”

When a small child who cannot properly speak babbles something to his father, the father is touched and gets pleasure from the child’s unintelligible babbling. He feels joy in giving the child whatever he wants. In the same way, when a simple person prays with a sincere heart, though mispronouncing a prayer’s words, the Heavenly Father will not care if the words are mispronounced. He is listening only to the emanations of love coming from the person’s heart.
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