Tefillah - Prayer (תפילה) How often do we use prayer as nothing more than an emergency call to God? Too often we only pray when we need or want something from God. This is understandable considering the English word "pray" means to "ask or beg". But in the Hebrew the word for Prayer "Tefillah" means to "self evaluate". So to the Jewish people of the Bible, prayer was not a time when they asked God for things, it was a time when they examined themselves. They would use prayer as a way to compare their actions, behavior and attitude against God's holiness. The verb for prayer is ‘hitpallel’ התפלל and this comes from the basic root of ‘palal’ פלל which means “to judge”. So I see in this that the ultimate purpose of prayer is to transform us into His likeness.