Starting Your Day

Today I was reading a Fast Company article titled How Successful People Do with the First Hour of Their Work Day and it made me appreciate again how davening is one of the most parts of my personal routine.

The author Kevin Purdy shares several observations but I think this to be the most relevant:

One smart, simple question on curated Q & A site Quora asked “How do the most successful people start their day?”. The most popular response came from a devotee of Tony Robbins, the self-help guru who pitched the power of mindful first-hour rituals long before we all had little computers next to our beds.  

Robbins suggests setting up an “Hour of Power,” “30 Minutes to Thrive,” or at least “Fifteen Minutes to Fulfillment.” Part of it involves light exercise, part of it involves motivational incantations, but the most accessible piece involves 10 minutes of thinking of everything you’re grateful for: in yourself, among your family and friends, in your career, and the like. After that, visualize “everything you want in your life as if you had it today.”

Isn't that what tefilla is all about? Recognizing what you have to be grateful for, reciting motivation incantations, and even wrapping oneself in a prayer shawl!

I have previously written about the struggles of getting out of bed in the morning to rise in prayer, but I think this article illustrates that this is a habit worth struggling for and it leads to a significant ROI for the practitioner.

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"