Jesus, in criticizing the Jewish practice of prayer, very specifically has in mind the way some of his fellow Jews prayed the Amida, for we read, “for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners” (Matt. 6:5). Amida means “standing,” that is, it is the prayer that is said standing. The point of Jesus’ criticism is that the truly devout should not make a show of their praying; aside from that, Jesus probably had in mind that the prayers which were said would not differ so very much from the traditional Amida. For the Amida itself, as a form of prayer, there is no
...more
