Famous People's Prayers

I came across to diversely different celebrity davening stories.

One is actually the creation of a new prayer for B'reishit by the actor of How I Met Your Mother, Josh Randor, who published it on reformjudaism.org.

The other finding was about celebrities actually davening.  Apparently Natalie Portman was star struck in shul and had a hard time concentrating.  Good to know we aren't the only ones.

Best Pre-Rosh Hashana Read

Tis' the season to think about your prayers.  Some are writing about dangerous prayers. I reread “I, and Not an Angel” is an article originally published by Shlomo (Miles) Brody in 2012 on the subject of Intercessionary Prayers in Judaism which he opens with the following disclaimer:

"Warning: The Following Prayer May Be Dangerous to Your Spiritual Health.  Recite with Caution, and Only with the Proper Intention."

It gave me good thoughts and kavanna for my High Holy days.  As did Brody's other article titled Theological Truths vs. Spiritual Vibes: Nigunim, Heresy, and Machnisei Rachamim.

What are you reading this week?  Wishing each of you a heartfull Rosh Hashanah and may all your prayers be answered for the good.

Who Knows Prayer?

I wanted to share with the readers a solid website called Mi Yodeya - a question and answer site for those that base their "lives on Jewish values and tradition".  Seems to me to be an honest space to ask and share interesting information.

For example a question was asked, "How can we have better kavannah in tefilla? Specifically Tachnuneem?"

The replies were as follows:

How does one have better Kavanah in his Tachnuneem in tefilla? Does he punch his chest harder? Maybe start bawling?

• I would suggest focusing on the meaning of the words, as opposed to inflicting physical pain. 
• Chest punching and/or bawling may or may not be effects of better Kavanah, but they aren't causes of it. 

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 What advice do the sages give for improving one's concentration in prayer?

Following up on Isaac's question seeking experience-based advice to improve his prayer:, I am seeking something a bit different. I remember reading some advice on the subject given (I think) by Rav Schach, zt'l, that one should from time to time use a different siddur in order to force himself to go through the siddur word for word and concentrate on what he is reading. Can someone point me to published suggestions by other gedolim?
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Rabbi Weinberger of Aish Kodesh, speaks at length quite often on the topic of prayer. Most recently, I have been re-listening to his shiurim on Bilvavi Mishkan Evenah. It has reminded me that kavanah does not simply start with the actual act of prayer, it is a life-long quest to continually remind ourselves that Yesh Bo're Olam, there is a Creator of the world, yitbarakh shemo. 

Over the past few days, since I started reviewing Rav Weinberger's shiurim, I have found it quite helpful to remind myself during prayer that every single moment is an act of creation and Hashem Yitbarakh is continually involved with every single moment of existence. Literally, that very moment at which I said the Shema, Hashem Yitbarakh was creating my lungs, lips and brain such that I could utter the words in this physical world. As the Ba'al HaTanya reminds us, "Hashem is very near to you." 

In addition, I once heard by the Gerrer Hasidim a common meditation in prayer was to picture oneself standing before the throne of Hashem Yitbarakh while praying. You literally try to picture yourself standing at the the feet of a massive, universe encompassing throne. You continually remind yourself that you are in fact always standing before Hashem Yitbarakh.
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Rebbe Nachman of Breslov has an enormous amount to say about this topic. Many of the paragraphs in the chapter on prayer in Likutei Eitzos relate to concentration in prayer:

Some further selections, from Sichos HaRan and other sources, are collected here (The Essential Rabbi Nachman, edited by R' AvrahamGreenbaum):

To summarize briefly, here are some of his pieces of advice:
1) focus on the simple meaning of the words
2) make sure to say the words with sincerity and truth
3) simply push irrelevant thoughts aside, or ignore them
4) try concentrating on a particular part of the service, and eventually exapand the portions of the service which you're able to daven with kavanah (Sichos Haran #75)
5) exercise great determination and firmness in pushing away irrelevant thoughts
6) make sure to pray audibly and to listen carefully to the sound of your voice
7) give charity for causes in the land of Israel
8) study the legal codes daily (see paragraph 55 in Lukutei Eitzos)
9) be prepared to sacrifice yourself for the sanctification of G-d's name
10) search for good points within yourself so you will be happy
11) force yourself to concentrate (paragraph 88, 90)
12) offer hospitality to a Torah scholar (paragraph 67)
13) say the words simply as if you were a little child (paragraph 92)
14) get yourself in a happy mood before you pray (Sichos HaRan #75)
15) pray with a happy tune (Id.)
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Rambam, in Mishneh Torah, says the following:
"One should clear his mind from all thoughts and envision himself as standing before the Divine Presence. Therefore, one must sit a short while before praying in order to focus his attention and then pray in a pleasant and supplicatory fashion. 

One should not pray as one carrying a burden who throws it off and walks away. Therefore, one must sit a short while after praying, and then withdraw. 

The pious ones of the previous generations would wait an hour before praying and an hour after praying. They would [also] extend their prayers for an hour."

By "sitting," Rambam presumably means meditating, because the purpose of the sitting is to "clear his mind from all thoughts and envision himself as standing before the Divine Presence." So Rambam seems to be saying that one should meditate on G-d for a while, by visualizing the Shechinah and clearing one's mind of other thoughts, before beginning davening to ensure one davens with kavanah. 

As for other gedolim, I believe the approach of Chabad, as described by the Alter Rebbe in the Tanya, towards achieving kavanah is to meditate on the greatness of G-d before davening. This leads to a great love and awe for G-d, and motivates the meditator to serve Him with enthusiasm and holy intentions.

A Picture of Prayer - Worth a Thousand Words

There is a wonderful new sidur out called Nehalel, published Nevarech and Urim Publishers, devised by Michael Haruni.  Many readers have probably used the Nevarech bentcher, which I think was really a groundbreaking change to the conceptualized forms of bentching. This new sidur brings that approach to Shabbat davening.

The introduction by Zvi Grumet is an outstanding essay on the conceptual journey of Jewish prayer and desire for visual images.  Grumet dubs this siddur a "visual midrash on the liturgy" to provide a "new avenue for helping us access our inner selves".  While I don't imagine using this siddur every week, it is a great trigger for teachers and parents on how to use the liturgy for everyday prayers and increase kavannah.

The siddur is a perhaps the most under appreciated books on the Jewish bookshelf and I believe Michael Haruni's siddur is a bold step to refresh our relationship to the text inside.  His "cautionary" introduction addressing his motivation for creating this siddur offering educators a fascinating and honest confrontation with the limits of photographs and images to conceptualize prayer.  It is a must read and a great springboard for students to begin to see their own prayer as less fixed and rote.

Watching you Daven

I have been travelling for the past two weeks which has led to a decline in posts/tweets and increase in variety of davening experiences.

One thing that struck me along my travels was how affected I was by my self-awareness that people were staring at me while I was davening.  I am hesitant to lead tefillot partially because of this discomfort, and partially because I have a terrible voice (I inherited that!).  Knowing that someone is watching you I think highlights the performance aspect of the ritual to the detriment of the spiritual pursuit, and thus I think it is an under-taught skill is how to focus to the extent that you lose an awareness of your environment and audience. Sometimes the spotlight forces you to do it right, to have proper kavanah; I presume different people react differently.  In many schools, educators are often watching kids daven instead of davening themselves which leads to a more fundamental questions, do kids like being observed as they pray?  

A further refection that I had while away was regarding the "Siddur Party" - a seminal event in all Jewish educational institutions hold to mark a coming of age moment in which a child gets their very own prayer book.  I still have mine!  I was there when my son got his in first grade (the head rabbi of the school and a internationally well known scholar encouraged the parents to be personal examples and take out their siddurim). What happens between the siddur party and the departure from school system?  The central goal of this blog is to pursue a greater awareness of how to the evaluate the teaching of tefilla.  The educational message that is delivered with the siddur - it is a guidebook to the Jewish library, it opens one up to spiritual pursuit of Torah learning, it posses the fundamental search of human beings and their relationship to God - but what is sticking with students as they get older?

Guest Post: The Almost Missed Chance to Daven

The following is a true story; experienced and told below by Eli Bialik.  It is so good and pure that I feel the need to share it. I also feel need to share it because for those that pray everyday and feel a personal sense of obligation to daven, the threat of missing the daily ritual of tefilla can be a traumatic and almost paralyzing feeling.  It isn't something you just skip and make up another time - it is a mitzvah.  To understand that a mtizvah is more than an action, but rather has an emotional and spiritual component to it, you will see in Eli's investment in the experience of davening with his talit and tefillin in an airport.

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This week I was on my way back from Vancouver, I had a stopover in Toronto for an hour and a half before heading out to Newark for my flight home. By accident, I had packed my tefilin in my checked bag, and low and behold, it was time to daven shacharit. I was stuck. I didn't see a Jew in sight and had no idea how I was going to daven without my tallit and tefilin.

I walked pass all of the departure gates at Toronto Airport looking for a religious looking Yid to ask if I could borrow talit and tefilin. Nothing, not a kippa in sight.I opened my laptop and started to answer some emails and said “gosh darnit, its time to daven!” and closed my laptop for one more scan of the departure gates for a pair of tefilin.

Maybe 5 or 6 gates away from me was a chasid who was talking with an airline rep and I waited patiently on the side until he finished his business. Once he finished talking, I walked up to him and asked him: “Excuse me, are you in a rush?”

The chasid replied “Why do you ask?”

I told the chasid that I packed my talit & tefilin in my checked bag and would be very grateful if I could borrow his to daven with.

He looked me over, up and down and said “I’m not in a rush anymore, I just missed my flight, and it must be for you.”

He looked me over again from head to toe (as if in wonder that this conversation was actually transpiring) . “It’s my zchut to be mishtatef in this mitzvah! My next flight is 4:30 pm, so I have plenty of time.”

Of course, I was very moved by the words of the chassid and how he saw the Yad Hashem in the fact that he just missed his flight – apparently for me.

I went to the side of a phonebooth and davened with great kavanah. I had a great davening. I was so happy that I was able to daven with talit and tefilin and that I absolutely made the day of this kind stranger.

Now hold on to your hats, men and women…

As soon as I finished davening and had wrapped up the tefilin and folded the talit, the airline rep came running over to the chassid and told him that there had been a cancellation on another flight and that if he hurried he could be on a plane to his destination (Cleveland) in 10-15 minutes.

This guy’s jaw dropped. He couldn't stop looking at me.

The less said the better, because this was a truly one in a lifetime experience where 2 people who had never met, and probably never would think they have much in common, came together, “by chance”, for half an hour to do a mitzvah. I was smiling all the way home to Israel. Pretty awesome.

Shaking Up Your School's Tefilla Options

The following is a school letter -shared by a loyal Davenspot reader - that was sent to parents at SAR Academy in Riverdale, NY.  I have heard some buzz from some parents who were pleasantly surprised by the school's attempt to shake up the davening status-quo and others who were angry at the disruption to the traditional framework of tefilla.  This is quite a bold step, especially for an Orthodox day school, and think this educational approach should be further studied and discussed; I will let you be the judge. 

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Dear Parents,

I would like to inform you of an important initiative we are about to embark upon regarding tefillah. As you know, this year our school wide theme is dveykut, God awareness. Through curricular programming in beit midrash groups and co-curricular programming such as color war we have been exploring ways of deepening our connection to God. Our daily tefillah presents an important opportunity to work on and strengthen this relationship.

Daily tefillah can be a challenging experience in Modern Orthodox schools. Meaningful tefillah takes great effort and concentration, and students come to tefillah with various levels of readiness to engage. We believe it is essential to immerse our students in a routine of tefillah. Each day, we set aside time to daven as Jews have for centuries. On our best days, our tefillah is inspired and meaningful; on other days, it is more rote. And at times there is a need to break from the routine in order to enrich, reflect upon and more fully appreciate the power of prayer. In that spirit and as part of our year-long theme, davening at SAR High School will look different during the week of January 7th.

During that week, we will be offering over twenty different tefillah options to our students. The options range from discussions of why we pray, to musical tefillah, to artistic expression to meditation. The goal of the experimental tefillah week is to provide students with different avenues to connect to tefillah and to encourage us to be inspirational in our relationship with God. After the experimental tefillah week students will have the opportunity to reflect upon their experience. We envision continuing some of the tefillah groups a few days a week throughout the year, and bringing aspects of others to enrich our regular minyanim.

Some practical information: Yesterday, students were presented with the list of tefillah options and asked to choose a few in which they are interested. Students will attend the same tefillah all week in order to ensure the richness of the experience. Some tefillah groups will daven the full tefillah and add elements, such as music or explanation. Some tefillah groups will daven an abridged פסוקי דזמרה in order to allow time for other experiences. On Monday and Thursday all students will hear קריאת התורה. As part of the women’s tefillah option, girls will have the opportunity to read from the Torah.

I would like to thank our remarkable faculty for the time and effort they have invested in creating these opportunities for our community. We could not embark upon this initiative without their tremendous dedication, actively engaging in opening up meaningful religious opportunities for our students.

We are excited about the opportunities for spiritual growth that this week will offer us on both a personal and communal level. We look forward to sharing our reflections with you.

Sincerely,

Rabbi Tully Harcsztark

Principal, SAR High School

DESCRIPTIONS OF TEFILAH GROUPS FOR THE DVEYKUT B’TFILAH WEEK

1. Explanatory Tefilah

Is Tefilah a struggle for you? Do you find yourself daydreaming during a long Pesukei D’Zimra? Do you feel alienated from most prayers? We hope to explore, think about, and begin to understand what it is we are really doing during tefilah and how each prayer leads into the next, creating a beautiful tapestry. We will focus on a shorter, but more meaningful tefilah experience, culminating in a unique Hitbodidut (solitary) engagement with Tefilah and God.

2. מעט בכוונה

Today's fast-paced world makes it difficult to pray with concentration and serenity. For many, the weekday Shacharit has unfortunately become about getting through all the words as quickly as possible. Theמעט בכוונה tefilah will provide the opportunity to say fewer tefillot at a slower pace. This will allow for greater concentration on each tefilah that we say. We will be not be discussing tefilah. Instead, this minyan will spend almost all of its timedavening, with a particular focus on the Amida.

3. Children's Literature Tefilah

We will aim to attain some emotional resonance in the feelings of care, love, longing, and hope that are latent in powerful works of children’s literature. We will read 2-3 children's books before, during, and after the tefilah. Ultimately, we will direct those feelings to God (and hope for those feelings from God) and to those around us through tefilah. 

4. Help, Thanks, Wow - Children's Literature Tefilah

We will aim to attain some emotional resonance in the feelings of care, love, longing, and hope that are latent in powerful works of children’s literature. We will read 2-3 children's books before, during, and after the tefilah. Ultimately, we will direct those feelings to God (and hope for those feelings from God) and to those around us through tefilah. The novelist Ann Lamott just published a book called Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers. The title pretty much gives it all away--she argues that there are three most basic and most important prayers: we ask God for help, we thank God for the help that God has already bestowed, and we marvel at the wonders of God’s creation. The "Help, Thanks, Wow" tefilla will begin the week by reading an excerpt from Lamott's book to explore why these are the essential prayers. On subsequent days, everyone in the "Help, Thanks, Wow" tefilla will be asked to formulate a Help, a Thanks, and a Wow of his/her own, and those who feel comfortable doing so can share theirs with the group. In doing so, we will burrow beneath the ritual of a shul davening to get back to the essential nature of prayer.

5. Meditation Tefilah

This tefilah incorporates guided meditations through a minimal, halakhic tefila. The meditations are based on both Jewish and universal practices, including meditations from Sefer Yetzira and chasidic texts, as well as the practice of zazen, the breathing and body practices of Zen Buddhism. This tefilah also incorporates contemplative nigunim either between tefillot or to the words of a select tefilah.

6. Musical Tefilah

Inspired by the davening of Karlin (where there is a lot of screaming and crying out in the midst of prayer) and that of Rabbi Ebn Leader, we will cultivate a davening which is rooted in song. Sometimes repetitive, sometimes quiet and slow, sometimes loud and overpowering, music has the power to both express and stir up an emotional davening. This davening is for the sincere and not the cynical. Please bring your hearts, souls, voices, and musical instruments!

7. Women’s Tefilah

Women’s tefilah provides an all-girls space in which girls run and lead the davening. On Monday and Thursday girls will layn and get aliyot. We will also have an opportunity to learn and discuss tefillot written by and for women. 

8. Reflection Tefilah

In this tefilah, we will explore themes that emerge from various passages in the siddur. Each day, we will choose a particular tefilah to study, reflect on its theme, and write personal responses. We will pay specific attention to the themes of gratitude, wonder, forgiveness, peoplehood, and aspiration as they present themselves throughout the Shacharit service. Please bring a pen and paper/journal to this tefilah. 

9. Solitary Tefilah

This tefilah option is about connecting to God and yourself at your own pace in a quiet atmosphere. Everyone will have his/her own makom kavua with no 2 chairs next to one another. You will daven quietly, pace yourself, focus on the tefillot that are meaningful to you, and you can daven in whatever language you choose. You will be in an environment of prayer, but you will be davening alone, without interruption, and with only your own mind, heart and siddur, to guide you. For the last 5 minutes of each day we will come together as a group and reflect on the solitary tefilla experience. 

10. Tefilat Eit Tzara
The Ramban claims that the Biblical obligation to daven is only in times of crisis. In this minyan we will daven a quick psukei dezimra, followed by a 10 minute multimedia presentation and discussion preceding Barchu. Through the presentation and discussion we will learn about a particular crisis with the goal being to focus our tefillot on addressing a different issue each day. Issues will cover national, international and personal itei tzara.

11. Yoga Tefilah

Being in the right mood for tefilah is about mental focus and physical composure. In this tefilah group we will practice Yoga as a means towards achieving better focus and kavannah during tefilah. Bring a yoga mat if you have one, and make sure to dress appropriately for תפילה 

12. Tisch Tefilah
Stories and song are a powerful way of connecting to God. At this tefilah we will daven an abridged tefilah, followed by a vibrant tisch filled with inspiring song and stories.

13. Without Intelligence, Whence Prayer?
This service will attempt to clear the space in which meaningful tefilah can happen by focusing on intellectual reflection as a means of overcoming alienation from authentic prayer. Each day, prior to a slightly abbreviated tefilah, we will recite the birkhot ha-torah together and then study and discuss a different text essential to a satisfactory, and satisfying, practice of prayer. The explicit goal is to evoke the nature of tefilah in a manner that will initiate and enhance its heartfelt performance. 

14. Exploring Nusach Tefilah

This tefilah will explore nuschaot of tefilla from around the world by davening in a different nusach each day. We will highlight some of the major differences between Ashkenaz, Sefard, Eidot mizrach, and Nusach Ha-Ari.

15. Philosophy and Poetry of Prayer

Why should we pray? Does God really listen? Should I expect God to say "yes"? Is it really all about that, anyway? We will explore different philosophies of prayer, also using some of the tefillot themselves as our guide. פסוקי דזמרה will be shortened.

16. Shout it Out, Slow and Loud

This tefilah will employ the technique found in many sefaradi shuls in the world that all the words of the hazan are said out loud and together with all members of the kahal. We will say selected parts of the pesukei dezimra and tachanun on Mondays and Thursdays, skipping parts of those sections in the standard siddur, while saying the parts that we do say slowly, out loud and with a tune or two.

17. Piano Tefilah

After an abridged davening we will join together around the piano in the cafeteria for lively songs and stories to add joy to our day.

18. Artistic Expression Tefilah

Art is often likened to meditation- and by creating art we become closer to ourselves, nature and God. Students participating in Art/Tefilah option will daven an abbreviated tefilah and have time to create art with particular mindfulness toward spirituality.

19 Finding God in our Prayers

Are our prayers directed to God, to ourselves, or to our community? In this tefilah, a science teacher reflects on the meaning of particular prayers, especially those connected to health and wellness. We will daven an abridged davening, followed by stories and discussion.

20. Meditating on the Amidah

Using basic meditative breathing we will work through a minimal amount of davening and then focus on the thirteen central berachot of the Amida. We will learn to be present with our breath, our bodies and with the words of the siddur. In addition, time will be spent inserting ourselves into the prayers so that we are reciting our own words and not only the words of our tradition.

21. Israel Awareness Tefilah

Every morning we mention the land of Israel numerous times in our prayers, but how much attention do we really pay to it? This tefilah will highlight the portions of davening that focus on Israel. We will use those sections of tefilah as entryways into discussion of current political, religious and social issues facing the State of Israel. Through increased awareness of Israel’s current state of affairs we will be better equipped to direct our tefillot for her welfare.

22. Prayer and Justice- L’taken Olam B’malchut Shakkai

We will explore how tefilah can make change in the world. Join us for meditation, learning, and davening that connects Judaism's most heavenly ideas to our world's most real problems.

Guest Post: Chief Rabbi Sacks - Encountering God

Encountering God - Yayetze
24 November 2012 - 10 Kislev 5773

It is one of the great visions of the Torah. Jacob, alone at night, fleeing from the wrath of Esau, lies down to rest, and sees not a nightmare of fear but an epiphany:

He came to a certain place [vayifga bamakom] and stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. He had a dream. He saw a ladder resting on the earth, with its top reaching heaven. G-d’s angels were going up and down on it. There above it stood G-d . . .
Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “G-d is truly in this place, but I did not know it.” He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of G-d; this is the gate of heaven.” (28:11-17)

On the basis of this passage the sages said that “Jacob instituted the evening prayer.” The inference is based on the word vayifga which can mean not only, “he came to, encountered, happened upon” but also “he prayed, entreated, pleaded” as in Jeremiah 7: 16, “Neither lift up cry nor prayer for them nor make intercession to Me [ve-al tifga bi].”

The sages also understood the word bamakom, “the place” to mean “G-d” (the “place” of the universe). Thus Jacob completed the cycle of daily prayers. Abraham instituted shacharit, the morning prayer, Isaac minchah, the afternoon prayer, and Jacob arvit, the prayer of nighttimes.

This is a striking idea. Though each of the weekday prayers is identical in wording, each bears the character of one of the patriarchs. Abraham represents morning. He is the initiator, the one who introduced a new religious consciousness to the world. With him a day begins. Isaac represents afternoon. There is nothing new about Isaac – no major transition from darkness to light or light to darkness. Many of the incidents in Isaac’s life recapitulate those of his father. Famine forces him, as it did Abraham, to go to the land of the Philistines. He re-digs his father’s wells. Isaac’s is the quiet heroism of continuity. He is a link in the chain of the covenant. He joins one generation to the next. He introduces nothing new into the life of faith, but his life has its own nobility. Isaac is steadfastness, loyalty, the determination to continue. Jacob represents night. He is the man of fear and flight, the man who wrestles with G-d, with others and with himself. Jacob is one who knows the darkness of this world.

There is, however, a difficulty with the idea that Jacob introduced the evening prayer. In a famous episode in the Talmud, Rabbi Joshua takes the view that, unlike shacharit or minchah, the evening prayer is not obligatory (though, as the commentators note, it has become obligatory through the acceptance of generations of Jews). Why, if it was instituted by Jacob, was it not held to carry the same obligation as the prayers of Abraham and Isaac? Tradition offers three answers.

The first is that the view that arvit is non-obligatory according to those who hold that our daily prayers are based, not on the patriarchs but on the sacrifices that were offered in the Temple. There was a morning and afternoon offering but no evening sacrifice. The two views differ precisely on this, that for those who trace prayer to sacrifice, the evening prayer is voluntary, whereas for those who base it on the patriarchs, it is obligatory.

The second is that there is a law that those on a journey (and for three days thereafter) are exempt from prayer. In the days when journeys were hazardous – when travellers were in constant fear of attack by raiders – it was impossible to concentrate. Prayer requires concentration (kavanah). Therefore Jacob was exempt from prayer, and offered up his entreaty not as an obligation but as a voluntary act – and so it remained.

The third is that there is a tradition that, as Jacob was travelling, “the sun set suddenly” – not at its normal time. Jacob had intended to say the afternoon prayer, but found, to his surprise, that night had fallen. Arvit did not become an obligation, since Jacob had not meant to say an evening prayer at all.

There is, however, a more profound explanation. A different linguistic construction is used for each of the three occasions that the sages saw as the basis of prayer. Abraham “rose early in the morning to the place where he had stood before G-d” (19:27). Isaac “went out to meditate [lasuach] in the field towards evening” (24:63). Jacob “met, encountered, came across” G-d [vayifga bamakom]. These are different kinds of religious experience.

Abraham initiated the quest for G-d. He was a creative religious personality – the father of all those who set out on a journey of the spirit to an unknown destination, armed only with the trust that those who seek, find. Abraham sought G-d before G-d sought him.

Isaac’s prayer is described as a sichah, literally, a conversation or dialogue. There are two parties to a dialogue – one who speaks and one who listens, and having listened, responds. Isaac represents the religious experience as conversation between the word of G-d and the word of mankind.

Jacob’s prayer is very different. He does not initiate it. His thoughts are elsewhere – on Esau from whom he is escaping, and on Laban to whom he is travelling. Into this troubled mind comes a vision of G-d and the angels and a stairway connecting earth and heaven. He has done nothing to prepare for it. It is unexpected. Jacob literally “encounters” G-d as we can sometimes encounter a familiar face among a crowd of strangers. This is a meeting brought about by G-d, not man. That is why Jacob’s prayer could not be made the basis of a regular obligation. None of us knows when the presence of G-d will suddenly intrude into our lives.

There is an element of the religious life that is beyond conscious control. It comes out of nowhere, when we are least expecting it. If Abraham represents our journey towards G-d, and Isaac our dialogue with G-d, Jacob signifies G-d’s encounter with us – unplanned, unscheduled, unexpected; the vision, the voice, the call we can never know in advance but which leaves us transformed. As for Jacob so for us, it feels as if we are waking from a sleep and realising as if for the first time that “G-d was in this place and I did not know it.” The place has not changed, but we have. Such an experience can never be made the subject of an obligation. It is not something we do. It is something that happens to us. Vayfiga bamakom means that, thinking of other things, we find that we have walked into the presence of G-d.

Such experiences take place, literally or metaphorically, at night. They happen when we are alone, afraid, vulnerable, close to despair. It is then that, when we least expect it, we can find our lives flooded by the radiance of the divine. Suddenly, with a certainty that is unmistakable, we know that we are not alone, that G-d is there and has been all along but that we were too preoccupied by our own concerns to notice Him. That is how Jacob found G-d – not by his own efforts, like Abraham; not through continuous dialogue, like Isaac; but in the midst of fear and isolation. Jacob, in flight, trips and falls – and finds he has fallen into the waiting arms of G-d. No one who has had this experience, ever forgets it. “Now I know that You were with me all the time but I was looking elsewhere.”

That was Jacob’s prayer. There are times when we speak and times when we are spoken to. Prayer is not always predictable, a matter of fixed times and daily obligation. It is also an openness, a vulnerability. G-d can take us by surprise, waking us from our sleep, catching us as we fall.

Shabbat Shalom,

 _________________________________________

This article was published with permission of the Office of the Chief Rabbi.

Prayer and Psalms

I, like many of you, have been a bit preoccupied with headlines and news updates.  With the rise in tension and rocket attacks, I can also say that my kavanah in my tefilot has also improved (a fortunate byproduct of an unfortunate time).  What psalms or prayer are you adding?  One shul suggested 83, 130 and 142.

How are your prayers managing in this time of turmoil?

What Not to Do on Your Way To Pray

My grandmother used to suffer from high blood pressure - it runs in the family.  There is a old family legend that one time, she went to see her doctor for a routine check up and the doctor was shocked by the normal, regular read on he BP and was rather puzzled as to what caused the significant drop in tension.  After asking a list of questions about her diet and exercise, the doctor isolated that the only significant change in her routine was that her copy of the New York Times did not arrive at her house that morning.

One of the hardest parts of teaching davening is helping to guide students on how to focus their mind when the room is quiet. When there is a song, it is easy to make noise or hum the tune to feel the moment or the meaning. But when the atmosphere is still, and you have only the thoughts in your head, it can be awfully difficult to quiet the mind. 

One suggestion that I just read about was to be reorient oneself as you prepare to go daven and gain more kavanah.  It is easy to see that before physical exercise you need to stretch and warm up, then is this not also the case for a spiritual workout?  The Rambam in his Laws of Prayer (4:16) asks, "How does one concentrate, and what constitutes proper intentions?  One should empty his heart of all (foreign) thoughts and view himself as if standing in front on of the Shechinah (divine presence).  Therefore, one must settle in a little before the tefilla in order to enable his heart to concentrate, and thereafter pray in peace and supplication."

This follows on the previous post of pausing - the need to really be ready to connect to something on a different level than you normally operate.  There is a minyan at my office for mincha and sometimes I have a hard time joining because I cannot immediately breakaway from the work activity I was doing just previously.  Perhaps this is like having high blood pressure, but you need to remember that there is always a natural way to control one's tension - you just need isolate the primary cause.

Shared Post: Engaging (young) Souls

The following is a post published last summer on the Lookstein website. I reviewed Saul Wachs' approach in January but I think Golombek does a phenomenal job of drawing out his key ideas.  This essay is targeted for elementary school teachers and expresses a sincere desire to hedge off a potential davening crisis or drought for older students.  If there is scholarly or otherwise eloquent article that explains best practices for engaging high school students and tefilla, please share. Golombeks and Wachs' approach might help our tefilla situation in a few years, but I fear that the "autopilot tefilla" continues to quietly spoil the davening atmosphere.  

Engaging Souls: Bringing Elementary Tefillah to Life by Eric Golombek

Ask a teacher to teach the same short story to children every day for eight or more years, and they will likely look at you like you are crazy! Yet, in a sense, that is the challenge of teaching tefillah. We have the same tefillot, more or less, that we use with our children day after day for their entire school career. Unless there is a conscious effort to create a rich tefillah experience, group prayer is at risk of becoming a mindless task, with children (and adults!) on autopilot.

In truth, “autopilot tefillah” can appear good in elementary services because of the natural love of young children to sing. Tefillah expert, Saul Wachs, calls this “the Trap” of elementary tefillah (Wachs, 2009). This is because autopilot elementary tefillah leaves nothing in place when children get older and singing does not have any appeal. It is critical that elementary children form a relationship to tefillah so that by the time they get to middle school, they understand it and value it.

In my opinion, a successful elementary tefillah program depends on how well it addresses the three questions of the davener:

How do I pray?
What do the words mean?
What do the words mean to me?

The first question we address when we teach children to pronounce the words of the tefillah properly, to utilize nusach appropriately, and to be knowledgeable of the choreography of the service (eg. when to stand). The other two questions are often neglected in the elementary tefillah service. When we address the second question, we are teaching children to identify key lines and important vocabulary in the tefillot. We are also teaching them to identify the big idea of each prayer.

The third question is even more complex because it asks us to foster a relationship with the tefillah. We need to have children create personal meaning of the various prayers that they read. The arts are a key avenue for developing this relationship because personal meaning emerges from personal engagement with a text. The arts invite that engagement. Through soul stirring music, through story telling, through movement and through the visual arts, doors into the prayers are opened and children are invited in.

Let us examine these four doors in depth. In the following sections I will share successes I have had using the arts in teaching tefillah to elementary students at Associated Hebrew Schools in Toronto.

Mix up the music: Elementary children love to sing, so it is a mistake not to make the most out of this avenue into the elementary child’s spirit. Take a look at the tunes being used for tefillah—are they the same as last year’s and the year before that? A great way to breathe new life into any elementary tefillah service is to change up the tunes. Search through YouTube, talk to the musical leaders from synagogue and camp, and talk with children. Do not be afraid to adopt an inspiring tune to new words. But, choose tunes that your kids will like as well as you. Look for jazzy beats and music that speaks to kids. If you can bring musical accompaniment to tefillah, it will add an incredible dimension.

One cautionary note: more is not necessarily better when it comes to introducing new tunes. I find that I can introduce two or three new tunes each year. I teach the tunes slowly, with children mastering one part at a time. I make sure that I connect the teaching of the song to overall learning about the tefillah. By moving slowly, children develop a relationship to the specific prayerthey are learning.

One underutilized musical tradition is niggunim.  Niggunim are wordless tunes that are chanted communally. They are from the Chassidic tradition and can be an incredibly powerful tool. Because niggunim are wordless, anyone can participate—even teachers who are nervous around Hebrew or who may even be non-Jewish. The chanting of a niggun can build the energy in a room and transform individuals into a community.  

A relative to the niggun, and an excellent accompaniment to the niggun, is communal drumming. Teach children to drum along on their laps, at tables, or on the floor. You can build unity by having children all drum the same patterns, or you can encourage individualism within the community by having them improvise their own patterns while maintaining a common beat.   After a drumming tefillah, I can often observe children drumming all day long.

Tell a story: Good story telling opens the minds of children to discussing difficult issues without it getting personal. It is much easier, for example, for a child to talk about a character in a story that should do teshuva, repentance, than for that child to share a time when he or she did a wrong that required teshuva. Of course, you need to choose stories with some meat to them—ones that require children to struggle with an issue and that connect to your learning objective for the prayer. Your sources for stories span the history of the Jewish people. I have used stories that range from the Tanach to rabbinic writings in the Talmud and Midrash to folktales to modern writing.

There are two keys to increasing engagement during story telling, especially with a large group. The first is to tell the story in a dramatic way. Regulate your volume to capture the mood of the story. Use voices for the characters that speak. Pause at dramatic moments. All of these techniques develop over time but practicing the story before telling it is an important way to prepare for good story telling. Also, inviting a “guest” to be the story teller can be a great way to engage teachers who are required to be at tefillah but often feel like their sole role is to police.

The second key to increasing engagement during story telling is to give children a task prior to beginning. For example, ask children a question that directs their focus to your objective for the lesson. This is the question that you will start your post-story discussion with. If tefillah occurs in a classroom with children at desks, you can have children actually write their answers as you are telling the story, or they can fill in a graphic organizer. If tefillah occurs in a large group such as in a synagogue, consider having children do something once they have an answer. I often tell children to put their hands together once they have discovered the answer to my question. Setting a task for children during story telling helps prevent most kids from zoning out during tefillah.

Movin’ Movin’: When you get kids moving, you are guaranteeing engagement. Dance and dramatic movement can be powerful ways of connecting children to tefillah. In this section, I would like to focus on one particular technique that I have found extremely powerful for engaging daveners of all ages. I call the technique the “human opinion graph”.   The idea is to pose a question and have children physically move to give an answer. One could argue that human opinion graphs are not really art. However, because human opinion graphs are a visual expression of the beliefs of the participants, I feel their inclusion here is appropriate.

Here are four versions of human opinion graphs that I use frequently:
            - Sit/Stand: This is a good technique for doing a quick survey. You ask a yes/no question like: do you believe God has a role in our day to day lives. If yes, please stand. If not, stay seated.
            - Corners: Set up four chairs in each corner of the makom tefillah. Put a sign (or have a child hold a sign) on each chair that is a possible response to a question. Daveners must then choose the response that most matches their answer. For example, if you had just been made king and God said he would give you any wish, what would you wish for: a long life, victory over your enemies, riches or wisdom? (I use this and the story of Solomon to introduce the blessing “Ata Chonen" in the amidah)
           - Human Bar Graph: Similar to Corners, in the Human Bar Graph, you set the chairs up in a row at the front each with a response. You ask a question and the children have to sit in a straight row behind the chair that matches their response.
           - Values Continuum:  The idea here is for the leader to make a statement that children can strongly agree with, strongly disagree with or be somewhere in the middle. An example of a statement might be: God is the source of all bad things in the world (I use this to introduce the blessing yotzer or). Children who strongly agree move to one end of the room, and those who strongly disagree move to the other end. Most children place themselves somewhere in the middle.

Visual Arts: There are ideas which are simply not captured through words. For this reason, artists throughout the years have attempted to express the meaning of tefillot through drawings, paintings, photography and other forms. At our tefillah, we can invite children to express their ideas about key lines in various prayers through the visual arts.

For example, when we studied the kedushah, I told the children the story from Isaiah 6 where the angels are calling to each other. But, what did this scene look like? What do angels look like? I challenged children to create pastel drawings of the line “kadosh, kadosh, kadosh”. In this case, my first step was to show children a wide variety of artistic depictions of this scene. I did this to open their minds to the idea that angels are not necessarily chubby, little boys with wings. The creations of the children were creative and imaginative. We hung the angel pictures in our makom tefillah and one angel image became the centre of the parochet our fifth graders were making as their “moving on” project.

Eager to try some of these ideas in your next tefillah gathering? Great! But, before you do, examine your school’s culture of tefillah.  Using any of these may require a shift in the adult understanding of children’s prayer at school. It is important not to underestimate the attachment teachers, administrators, parents and even children have to the way tefillah is done. In particular, many people have strong feelings about how much praying should be “sacrificed” for learning about tefillah.

A good way of thinking about this issue is as a tension between kevah and kavanah. Kevah are those parts of the prayer experience which are defined and unchanging. Kevah focused tefillah is filled largely with the recitation of prayers from the siddur. Kavanah is the part of the prayer experience where daveners are engaged in understanding and relating to prayer.

There is no way to introduce arts-based learning to your tefillah without sacrificing kevah for kavanah. If this is an issue at your school, I strongly suggest having this discussion with your stakeholders before you shift the kevah—kavanah balance. You can introduce this idea of kevah and kavanah and you can even do a “values continuum” activity with them—although adults tend to prefer to do this on paper rather than with movement.

In the end, you should come away with an idea of how much time should be spent on kevah and how much time on kavanah. At my school, I spend a third to half of tefillah on building an understanding of and a relationship with the text. While this may seem like a lot, in a thirty minute time slot which includes getting settled at the beginning, I am left with ten to fifteen minutes.  However, with good planning, and by breaking activities into smaller chunks, it is possible to do great things in this time.

Through engaging our children in their tefillah, we inspire your children to be great daveners because they have a personal relationship with their prayers. And, we set the groundwork for the successful continuation of tefillah in middle school, and for the rest of our children’s lives. Truly holy work.

Reference: Wachs, Saul P.  (2009). Towards a theory of practice. New York (NY): The Solomon Schechter Day School Association.

Intentions and Performance

In reaction to recent post about davening and travelling, a reader shared the following source and insight and I wanted to pass it on for your intellectual digestion:

The Shulchan Aruch w/Mishnah Brurah 183:11 states: If one was traveling, and ate while walking/moving, one need not sit for Birchas Hamazon if the delay caused by sitting for Birchas Hamazon will disturb the concentration on the beracha, and one may bentch while walking/moving.

The emphasis being concentration. IMHO in the area of davening chazal (our sages) were always more concerned with kavannah (intention) then the technical execution. It is, l’tzaareynu (to our sadness) a more recent phenomena where the external appearance has taken precedence over the internal connectedness.

Intention is one of the most difficult aspects to teach a child; considering the numerous outside social pressures and outlets that influence children to act, pretend, or deceive, how are educators to go about teaching not only the knowledge of ritual, but the heart of the matter behind such crucial performances? 

US National Day of Prayer

Today, to my surprise, I learned that it is the American National Day of Prayer. I found this out by a Google alert  USA Today article discussing how it prompts devotion and protest.  There is obvious debate about having a day of prayer in a country where there is a strong and clear rhetorical separation between church and state.

President Obama writes:

Prayer has always been a part of the American story, and today countless Americans rely on prayer for comfort, direction, and strength, praying not only for themselves, but for their communities, their country, and the world.

Prayer has also been a part of the Jewish story - perhaps that is the understatement of the century. Wishing everyone in the US a great day of davening and kavanah (intention/direction) and together we say, "Amen!"

Mailing It In?

Does your minyan daven to fulfill it's obligation to pray or does it strive to serve the Creator?

I can feel the difference in the tone of the tefilla and atmosphere in the room when the vibe is the latter (by the way, such an approach also fulfills the first option of 'obligation').  Do the people who are just 'mailing it in' because they are used to doing it all the time - and that's what they always done and don't think about it anymore - really notice that the tefilla's lost that loving feeling?

Recently, I switched up my routine and went to a different minyan and the leader there really tried to express his service and special devotion and it was very much palpable - it also went 10 minutes longer than the usual place I go to daven.  However the ROI (return on investment) of the experience for me was the feeling that my tefilla was more connected to Hashem and those in the room.

Perhaps the routine of davening in schools has produced people who feel need to check off the box (I said shema) and we are lacking the pride and passion to make the tefilla experience transcendent and purposeful.  Let's get the feeling back for the rabbis say, "A prayer without kavana (intention) is like a body without a soul"

How Do You Know if Prayer is Working?

Isn't that the question?

When learning something new - a hobby or sport, isn't it normal to ask the instructor, "Is this the right way to do it?"  A coach's job is to be there for instructional purposes, to talk strategy and dole out advice to improve performance.  Most of the time there is a measurable result that lets you know if the act is accomplished or if it failed.  For example, shooting a basketball, if the ball goes in you have clearly succeeded - unless you don't get another basket in the rest of the practice.

Shouldn't the same approach work for tefilla?  Do your students ask you this question?  When was the last time someone asked you for advice on improving your kavanah (intention or direction in prayer?

Most of the advice I have gleaned on this topic comes from books and I only have had rare opportunities to speak to master davener about their tips and secrets.  Who can answer this question? I fear not me - but I feel it is worthwhile to ask.

Go Daven at the Super Bowl?

Have you ever searched for a place to daven when travelling?  Or googled the name of a city and synagogue to find a minyan starting time, perhaps to say kaddish?  The website GoDaven with its slogan "minyanim everywhere", and revamped from when I last surfed it many years ago, offers a database of  davening information for the Orthodox travelling.  Not sure what parameters qualify for orthodox, but I will let the controversy brew there for itself.

There was also advertising for a "temporary minyan" (now past) at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana, i.e. at the Super Bowl. If you are planning to be there, "be prompt" the site warns, it will be 10 minutes after the half ends.  Can anyone report on the attendance there?  How was the kavana?  Mazal tov to the Giants.

To Prepare to Pray

The Tzanzer Rebbe was once asked by a Hasid: “What does the Rebbe do before praying?”

“I pray,” he said, “that I may be able to pray properly”.

Aside from the equipment one might need, what do you need to teach someone to do before they begin to daven?  

A Kavanah for Waking Up by Andrew Shaw

In these still, quiet moments,
I am not asleep
and not yet awake.

In the threshold of day and night,
with the mixture of darkness and light,
my body is once again coming to life.

I am reborn, each day,
from the womb of your compassion.
May all of my actions
be worthy of the faith You’ve placed in me.

With words of thanks I’ll greet the dawn.

This was posted by The Open Siddur Project on twitter that also featured a picture with this poem by Andrew Shaw. 

I also recommend you see his translation of Modeh Ani as well.

______________________________________
Correction 22 Dec 2011
Thanks for a diligent reader who follow the links to see that the credit for the picture goes to Ha-Wee titled "Good Morning Sunrise" 

Keva & Kavanah: Understanding Jewish prayer

The journal Jewish Educational Leadership just published the Summer 2011 edition on the topic of the Arts in Jewish Education.

I highly recommend checking out the article by Gail Baker, Judith Leitner, and Pam Medjuck Stein on "Tefillah Studies and Visual Arts in Grade 5". Below is in an excerpt that I believe has some practical suggestions for educators for any grade level:

In this program we express our understanding of Keva and Kavvanah, and we foster symbolic thinking through an art form. We renew and enrich the culture of derekh eretz in the art room. We perceive that prayer develops our self-awareness as vital individuals and as members of a learning community; that Jews pray alone in community.

In Tefillah Studies we ask, "How can we understand the nature of prayer? How can we understand Rabbi A. J. Heschel’s thoughts on Keva and Kavvanah in Jewish prayer? Where can we find these notions elsewhere in the human experience to help us clarify the act of prayer?

We begin with Rabbi Heschel’s words, quoted in Abraham Joshua Heschel: Interpreter of Jewish Prayer by Arnold Jacob Wolf:

There is a specific difficulty of Jewish prayer. There are laws – Keva: how to pray, when to pray, what to pray. There are fixed times, fixed ways, fixed texts. On the other hand, prayer is worship of the heart, the outpouring of the soul, a matter of inner devotion – Kavvanah. In this way, Jewish prayer is guided by two opposite principles: order and outburst, regularity and spontaneity, uniformity and individuality, law and freedom, a duty and a prerogative, empathy and self-expression, insight and sensitivity, creed and faith. These principles are two poles about which Jewish prayer revolves.

While students explore the ideas Keva and Kavvanah in Tefillah Studies, in Art Class they investigate color and the elements of design. They study the artist Mark Rothko, who said, “I’m not interested in the relationship of color or form or anything else. I’m interested only in expressing basic human emotions: tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on” (www.theartstory.org). The class explores Rothko’s approach, learning how complementary colors energize, while altering tones and shades can differentiate strength and mood. Once the learning goals of the component disciplines are met, the study of prayer meets Abstract Expressionism in the art room, where students create a large color field painting. Following Rothko they experiment with how abstract composition and color express ideas. The practice correlates with the themes of duality and conflict in Keva and Kavvanah and students explore through their paintings and written artist statements.

We assess student ability to engage in meaningful discussions, to bridge information from diverse areas of learning, and to connect personal artwork to models from art history. Students must express their understanding of symbolic thinking and Rav Heschel’s thoughts on Keva and Kavvanah in Jewish prayer through their painting and artist statement; they must show comprehension of Abstract Expressionism and produce an extended color wheel; they must elaborate on ideas, and employ diverse art materials; they must persist during a directed lesson, work independently and remain engaged in personal artwork; they must also apply the principles of derekh eretz to the collective learning experience. Through abstract art they evince the solitude and collegiality of Jewish prayer.

__________________________________________________________

Gail Baker is a co-founder of The Toronto Heschel School. She is Head of School and Director of the Lola Stein Institute.

Judith Leitner is a Cofounder of The Toronto Heschel School and its Director of Arts. Her book, The Judaic Arts Compendium: 150 Integrated Visual Arts Programmes, will be published shortly.

Pam Medjuck Stein is the editor of think: The Lola Stein Institute Journal and a founding parent of The Toronto Heschel School.

Fasting, Praying, or Protesting

One of my personal critiques of my Jewish experience was that I felt I had inherited (or was educated towards) an immature impression of Judaism. This covered my conceptualization of Gd (long beard sitting on a throne) through to the purpose and need for substantive ritual in modern life. I finally was able to realize during college - after many conversations and scores of books read - that my conceptualization of Judaism was extremely adolescent and perhaps, before I judge Judaism and my people and perhaps check out, I should learn more to see if I really had experienced the whole gamut of information and perspectives.

Here is just a small anecdote about the extent of my immaturity. My family were regulars at a traditional Conservative Synagogue almost every Shabbat morning. After years of going to Junior Congregation and to the main minyan I really thought the purpose of public Torah reading was to catch the mistakes of the reader. Really! Who understood what was being read aloud and thus deduced that the point of everyone being quiet was to insure that the audience could catch a mistake (or in better terms, to make sure the mesoret was kept accurate week in and week out). Only years later, with a grasp of Hebrew and the fundamentals of community practices, did I learn the greater nuances and appreciation. [More on this theme later but not miss my message: the goal of an educator is to give students the ability and skills to mature into their own Jewish identities and to function and Menschlikim Adults.]

So too with fasting - I remember many a Yom Kippur listening to friends frustrated with the fasting ritual and choosing to opt out under the logic of, "I only think about food, and never about repenting!" Today is the minor fast of the 17th of Tammuz and rather then argue about whether young people should be taught how to focus on the meaningfulness of giving up food for a day (not even 24 hours), I overheard a few conversation speaking about the effect the fast is supposed to have not just on the individual, but on the communal level. Some argued for protesting government policies or injustices happening in other parts of the world and even raising awareness to issues within individual Jewish communities. Communal introspection is important and is sometimes lost in the greater talk about what is happening during the prayers of the day. As daveners, there is a lot of opportunity for personal hesbon nefesh (personal introspection) - but one of the special aspects of the 3 Weeks is that this is a time of soul-searching of the collective and I fear we have lost an element of this self-community-critique. If students are only thinking of their belly on Tisha B'Av then the teachers have not prepared them or challenged them for a communal sense of mourning and suffering and no wonder they are bored during kinot or mincha.

As for the goal of this blog, communities need to take step back and evaluate in which course their tefilot are heading and what could arouse more kavanah (concentration), rachamim (mercy), or kedusha (kedusha/holiness). The Chagim of Rosh Hashanah thru Yom Kippur are likened as the 'playoffs of praying' and need a lot of preparation so that participants are in the atmosphere and have all the tools to play. This metaphor is appropriate because the fundamentals of a championship caliber team are set in training camp, the pre-season, and the everyday playing of the game. How can a minyan recalibrate and make the need adjustments to reach their goals?