Prayer is a form of madness. Tell me that it is rational to talk to the Force of Being as though this were your closest confidant. Tell me that it is not absurd to plead with this force to adjust reality more to your liking—as though you know better how to run the universe.

A philosopher cannot pray—unless he loses his mind. A pragmatist does not pray until he loses control. Prayer, like love, is more about losing yourself than it is about finding any great truth.

Prayer, like love, is mostly about losing yourself

If so, should we not strive to be reasonable people? Why have we institutionalized madness?

This is something vital to know: There is madness and there is madness. There is blind, stupid madness; madness not worth listening to because it has nothing to say. And there is madness that has very much to say, so much the mind cannot listen unless it sits quiet and still.

There is madness that transforms human beings into monsters, imprisoning them within the worst of their own fantasies—and there is madness that lies at the nucleus of being human, a divine spark that makes us free, living beings and not mechanical humanoids. To pray is to find that madness within your heart and set it free.

At that nub of madness that lies beyond reason and intellect, there at our very core and essence, there we touch the core and essence of reality, that which we call G‑d. And from there we speak with G‑d, for there the two of us are one.