In his Mishneh Torah and Guide of the Perplexed, Maimonides details the origin, the end, and the correct form of prayer. He notes the nature and purpose of the fixed liturgy, and of the fixed schedule, and without undermining them, he stresses what he has discovered to be the optimal mode of worship.
If the first chapter of the Laws of Prayer and of the Priestly Duties, from the Book of Adoration of his Mishneh Torah, Maimonides gives a concise description of the origin and history of prayer. The Torah prescribes, "And ye shall serve the Lord, your God" (Exodus 23:25). Maimonides shows that this service is prayer, and that it is a necessity for all Jews, who should pray according to their ability. He notes the correct form of prayer: praise, supplication, and thanksgiving, and that Torah puts no other constraints on the performing of this obligation. Thus, the fixed liturgy, which had as its root the Eighteen Benedictions, is not a necessary mode of worship, but one ordained by Ezra that even those whose ability in language was hampered by the addition of foreign tongues would be able to say the prayers with eventual ease. Facility in articulation is important, as we shall note later.
Maimonides notes the origin of the schedule of prayer. As man can not easily cope with sudden change, it was necessary that God institute forms of worship that were only incrementally different from their pagan ways. Thus, worship in temples was maintained, with God's Name substituted for those of the various pagan gods. So too were the sacrifices maintained, and indeed, the prayers noted above were ordained to be performed as the sacrifices were, "two services of prayer daily, corresponding to the two daily offerings. And for the day on which an additional offering was ordained, they instituted a third prayer, corresponding to the additional offering" (Adoration 98b).
Maimonides considers correct worship to be "the end of man," and therefore affords it much attention. In Chapter 51 of part three of The Guide, he aspires to provide a guide "toward achieving this worship..." and to make "known to him how providence watches over him in this habitation until he is brought over the bundle of life." But first, Maimonides introduces the intentions of God, showing in what way prayer relates to them.
"The first intention consists only in your apprehending Me and not worshipping someone other than Me" (Guide III:32) The second intentions that Maimonides describes are various 'ruses' whose only aim is to draw Israel closer to the first intention. For instance, the transferring of temple worship to God's Name was not for its own sake, but because through the gradual conversion, the people might come closer to apprehension of God, without the risk of turning away from a sudden, unfamiliar new Law. "The sacrifices pertain to a second intention, whereas invocation, prayer, and similar practices and modes of worship come closer to the first intention and are necessary for its achievement." Sacrifices were ordained with many restrictions, as they were only a necessary ruse. However, "invocation and prayers are made in every place and by anyone whoever he may be" (32).
In the first chapter of his Mishneh Torah, Maimonides repudiates two commonly held opinions about God, upon which he bases his description of correct prayer. "That the Holy One, blessed be He, is not a physical body, is explicitly set forth in the Pentateuch and in the Prophets," (Mishneh 34b), and "Since it has been demonstrated that He is not a body, it is clear that none of the accidents of matter can be attributed to Him...Nor does He change, for there is nought in Him that would affect a change in Him" (35a). This denial of the doctrine of the corporeality of God serves as the main weapon against idolatry as a form of worship. God is one, and is not a body, thus the worship of some statue is necessarily worship of one that is other than God. Maimonides notes that correct belief would eliminate such abhorrent practices.
This denouncement of idolatry, and its link to temple sacrifice, anticipates Maimonides' propensity for personal, silent prayer. Surely, describing a thing makes it more understood, yet no positive attributes can be predicated of God. Thus, in this case, each demonstrated negative brings both the demonstrator, and all those who witness it, closer to apprehension of Him. As negation does not give knowledge of the true reality of a thing, God "cannot be apprehended by the intellects." Due to the deficiency inherent in any verbal praise of Him, "silence and limiting oneself to the apprehensions of the intellects are more appropriate--just as the perfect ones have enjoined when they said: Commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah" (Guide I:59 73b).
Again, excess of words is spurned as Maimonides notes the insult entailed in using human perfections in our praise of God. He presents a famous baraitha from Berakhoth 33b, that of Rabbi Haninah's objection to a reader's use of superlatives in prayer. There are three attributes which are to be used in prayer, because, 1) they occur in the Torah, and 2) they were used in prayers written by the prophets. Any others constitute insulting language regarding God, for which Maimonides would consider the speaker to belong to "the category of people of whom it is said, And the children of Israel did impute things that were not right unto the Lord their God" (Guide I:59 75a). Berakhoth condemns any unprescribed term of praise as not simply quantitatively deficient, but qualitatively inappropriate, "as it belongs to a species to which the things that are with us belong." Maimonides agrees with Solomon, who said: "For God is in heaven and thou upon the earth; therefore let thy words be few" (75b).
Finally, prayer is put into its place as one aspect of the correct worship which Maimonides hopes to guide us toward. Through a parable, he enumerates the many levels which man can attain with regard to a relationship with, or nearness to, God. He has reached the ideal state, who "has achieved demonstration, to the extent that that is possible, of everything that may be demonstrated; and who has come close to certainty in those matters in which one can only come close to it" (Guide III:51 124a). Maimonides commends "those who have plunged into speculation concerning the fundamental principles of religion" (124a). He describes the rank of the prophets: after attaining perfection in the divine science, "they turn wholly to God...renounce what is other than He, and direct all the acts of their intellect toward an examination of the beings with a view to drawing from them proof with regard to Him, so as to know His governance of them in whatever way it is possible." Thus, beyond prayer, vigilance in focus of intellect is necessary, although only plausible after many years of deliberate prayer, and only effectual after a solid apprehension of God is achieved.
Perfect worship of God consists of thinking about Him, being in His presence at all times. Maimonides instructs us that while eating, drinking, bathing, or engaging in small talk, we should be internally thinking of all the necessary, mundane things, such that while performing actions imposed by the Law, we can think only about that performance. While alone and awake, he says, "pursue only intellectual worship, consisting in nearness to God and being in His presence in that true reality that I have made known to you and not by way of affections of the imagination." Further, one may be able to make it so that at all times he is thinking of God, so that he is always in His presence. This is the rank of Moses, and the Patriarchs. They achieved a "union with God -- I mean apprehension of Him and love of Him."
Maimonides instructs us, as a conclusion to his treatise, to "direct your efforts to the multiplying of those times in which you are with God or endeavoring to approach Him and to decreasing those times in which you are with other than He and in which you make no efforts to approach Him." In this, he has showed us exactly how we should aspire to pray, and has taught us why these methods are not only sufficient, but indeed necessary if we are to reach a union with God.