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WITH RABBI IRWIN KATSOF
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SUZANNE CHESSLER
Special to The Jewish News

D

oes Alan Dershowitz pray
before trying a case? Does
Goldie Hawn pray before
acting in a film? p o presi- -
dents pray in the Oval Office?
It's a general consensus nowadays
that people are praying more often.
Recent Time, Newsweek and Gallup
polls confirm it. But how do they
pray?
That's what popular CNN talk-
show host Larry King tried to find out
with the help of Rabbi Irwin Katsof,
international director of development
of the Jerusalem Fund of Aish
HaTorah, an organization dedicated to
awakening the Jewish people to the
beauty of their heritage.
The result is their about-to-be
released book, Powerful Prayers: Con-
versations on Faith, Hope and the
Human Spirit With Today's Most
Provocative People (Renaissance Books;
$22.95).
Powerful Prayers reveals the impor-
tance of private worship in the lives of
celebrities — from movie stars and
business moguls to scientists and
sports heroes.
It also chronicles religious skeptic
Larry King's own spiritual journey

10/16
1998

84 Detroit Jewish News

In a new book,
CNN talk-show host
Larry King and
Aish Ha Torah's
Rabbi Irwin Katsof
explore the importance
of prayer in the lives
of celebrities.

with Rabbi Katsof, who has encour-
aged, among others, actors Kirk Dou-
glas, Elliott Gould, Jason Alexander,
Rod Steiger, William Shatner and
business leaders Mery Adelson and
Mort Zuckerman to explore their Jew-
ish roots and get involved in Jerusalem
Fund programs.
"There's so much insight into what
it means to have a relationship with
God and what it means to build that
relationship," explains Katsof, 42, who
was asked to work on the book after
King's daughter Chaia suggested the
subject.
"What was so fascinating about
doing Powerful Prayers was that there
were so many people whose stories are
really special. Each one is searching to
have a relationship with God, and
they come to that relationship in so
many different ways.
"Doing the book made my own
relationship with God so much more
real. It's one thing to use formal
prayers as an important set of guide-
lines, but if people get stuck in that, I
say just start talking, which is some-
thing that I learned from all the inter-
views."
Actor Elliot Gould, for example,
tells how he prays to get back in touch
with his inner self when he feels swept
away by materialism and stress.

Actress-director Goldie Hawn prays
to be an instrument of God's light, to
give back to family and the people she
comes in contact with "on higher
level." Attorney Alan Dershowitz dis-
closes a promise he made to do legal
work for Jews in trouble for free if his
prayers for his ill son's recovery were
answered.
Former President Jimmy Carter
explains how he prayed in a little
room off the Oval Office : "When I
was in a quandary, I would go there
and pray I would make the right deci-
sion,". Carter told the two authors. "It
was a place to pray, but I never prayed
for favors."
"The subtitle of the book is 'Con-
versations on faith, hope and the
human spirit with today's most
provocative people,"' says Katsof, "and
we were looking for people
who excelled in every aspect
of living in some general cat-
egories.
"Personally, I was interest-
ed in talking to all the lead-
ers of New Age spirituality,
whether it was Marianne
Williamson or John Gray,
who had been a monk for
seven years.
"Some people felt it was
too personal a subject [to

reveal], and I can understand that.
Probably the most intimate and per- •
sonal relationship one can have is with
the Creator of the world.
"We tried to include a lot more
Israelis, and I was not as sensitive as I
should have been in realizing that
prayer in Israel is a very politically
charged issue."
Just as the celebrities in the book
represent different outlooks, so do the 41
authors. King, though raised in a Jew-
ish household, has described himself
as an agnostic. Katsof is Orthodox.
The two met when King agreed to
serve as host of an international
broadcast, "Help Our People Know,"
organized by the rabbi to dramatize
problems of Jews in the former Soviet
Union. The two stayed in touch after
that and developed a friendship.
Conference calls, e-mail and faxes
expedited their book collaboration
when travel to work together was not
possible.
"I enjoy the relationship that Larry
and I have, the bantering and the
give-and-take between us," Katsof
says. "It reminds me of the beauty of
friendship and the beauty of trying to
share your ideas with people."
King and Katsof are going on a
book tour and will be in the Detroit
area sometime in November. They
already are thinking about their next
project — a how-to manual on getting
prayers answered.
"I hope that this book will help
everyone become more real with
God," the rabbi says. "The fact that
we have needs is our reminder to con-
nect with the Almighty. Everyone
knows that there are strings between
God and people. People think that it's
God pulling the strings, but it's really
us pulling the strings. Based on how
we pull the strings, God responds to
us.
"In the Jewish tradition, we have an
obligation to pray three times a day
with a minyan, but prayer is not
reserved to the three times a day or
the once a year that a person goes to
shut. It should be
something that peo-
ple do all the time.
He's available." ❑

Talk-show host Larry
King, i
ri ht, wrote
"Power l Prayers"
with t e help of
Rabbi Irwin Katsof