Why is it so Hard to Daven?

I don't mean to actually daven - connecting and transcending to Hashem.  Rather I am referring to the difficulty to find the time and space to really have a good davening.  Life gets in the way and by that mean, tasks, errands, people, pop-ups, pressures, and laziness.

The following article, by Josh Kulp, appeared in the Times of Israel titled "Why is it so easy to keep kosher but so hard to diet?"  I wanted to share it because I believe the author compares a personal struggle with a conventional Jewish tradition within a cultural context of choice and desire. I am personally motivated by the obligation to daven daily and think that Kulp's thesis pushes one past the temptation for spirituality and mindfulness and into a structure of positive struggle to achieve these goals. Without the obligation to pray, I think my tefilla would be like a diet.
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I once heard of someone who wanted to lose weight but was having trouble laying off late night sweets. So what she would do is eat a little piece of meat at night and then she wouldn’t find it difficult to refrain from eating dairy desserts. This made me wonder why it would be easier to keep kosher then to diet. After all, the rewards for keeping kosher, if there really are any, are far less tangible and immediate than the rewards for losing weight. For most people, losing weight is almost certainly healthy and our society generally thinks that skinny people are more attractive than heavier ones. Compliments, such as “did you lose weight? You look great!” are common. “I heard you’ve successfully been avoiding eat milk after meat. Wow! Very impressive.” Not so much. Why would this woman, and probably many like her, find it impossible to break keeping kosher but exceedingly easy to ignore a diet?

I don’t think the answer is simply that fear of God is greater than fear of being overweight. While this might be true for some people, it’s not true for a lot of people I know who keep kosher more out of habit than out of any belief that God will punish them for breaking it. I suspect this woman’s diet “trick” would work equally well for a person whose “fear of heaven” is not an overwhelming force in their lives. They would be far more likely to cheat on a diet that they are convinced will improve their health and looks than eat something non-kosher.

So what can dietitians and those wishing to lose weight (for the sake of clarity and so that my mother won’t worry – I do not want to lose weight) or just in general eat more healthy learn from kashrut? I am going to suggest a few but I’d be happy if readers would pipe in with their thoughts as well. Here are my three possible answers for why kashrut is easier than dieting:

1: It’s set in stone

Kashrut has a defined list of what you can eat and what you can’t. It’s relatively simple (even if the nitty gritty laws get a bit complicated). What I would suggest this translates into is that a more effective diet doesn’t count calories, but gets rid of certain bad ones – basically simple sugars. I’ve often told people cut out the following four “horsemen of the apocalypse”: bread (not just white bread, all bread), pasta, refined sugar and potatoes. Another piece of advice I give is don’t drink any calories (except beer  ) This makes it a little more like the certainty of kashrut. The person who won’t eat dairy after a meat meal doesn’t really need to think, should I eat it this time, should I not? She just does it.

2: It’s forever

Keeping kosher is for life, dieting is seen as temporary. This is an important distinction. When one decides to diet, usually the idea is that you’ll diet now, lose weight and eat more again later. Or at least “go back to normal”. But no one I know decides to keep kosher for a short time–i.e. I’ll keep kosher now until Yom Kippur, then I’ll stop. Keeping kosher means you plan on doing so for life. If you want a diet to work, you can’t think that you’re going to make a temporary change. Of course this means that a diet cannot be so intolerable that it won’t be sustainable. A resolution to diet might mean to decide that for the next six months I’ll suffer a bit, be a bit hungry, so that I can really lose weight. And after that, I’ll find a sustainable balance of diet and exercise. But that “after that” period must be a commitment in one’s mind to do so forever. I know this is not easy, but the minute one says, “I’ll diet today so I can go back to my usual habits tomorrow” nothing will really be accomplished, just like keeping kosher today so that I can have a cheeseburger tomorrow doesn’t seem to make much sense.

3: It has taboos

Keeping kosher is highly habitual. I know people who really don’t practice much Judaism, who don’t believe in it all that much, and yet still keep kosher because that’s how they grew up. I grew up in a kosher and fairly observant home, but when I went to college I abandoned most aspects of Jewish practice (I returned to them after college). But I never even contemplated eating non-kosher food. The idea of eating pork or milk and meat or even non-kosher meat was simply revolting to me. Diets don’t work that way. People don’t develop an aversion to Cheetos. Coke doesn’t become a taboo. So somehow for a successful diet to work, one would have to turn unhealthy food into taboo foods. I’ve seen this happen with gluten, although I don’t recommend going gluten free unless you’re truly allergic to the stuff. It also happens with people who become vegetarian or vegan, although this won’t necessary cause weight loss. But maybe just thinking of certain foods (the four horsemen and drinks with calories) as taboo or as causing an allergic reaction might help. About ten years ago I decided we would never buy soft drinks (diet or otherwise) in our house again. I made them taboo and basically we don’t drink them at home (occasionally I will have one outside the house, a little like the phenomenon of keeping kosher in but not out of the house).

So, now it’s your turn: Why is it easy to keep kosher and hard to diet? And why, in general, are certain habits or resolutions easier for us to keep than others? Why does our resolve stand up strong against certain temptations but melt away like butter on a warm piece of toast against others?

Davening when Stressed Out

Usually when people are too busy or stressed, it is hard to find the free time for hobbies, be it the gym, reading, or knitting.  The same could be said for davening, in that a person may skip shul, daven quicker at home, or auto-pilot through the words because of the distraction or blood pressure.

The following article from The Atlantic discusses how relaxation techniques can change how you think, how you feel, and apparently your genes.  I don't advise telling someone who is over-stressed to "calm down" or "chill out" (trust me from my own non scientific study) - however if we realize that the habit of properly davening can refocus a person to purpose and mindfulness, one can reduce stress levels.  One final point, I might protest when the author says that "it's not hard to learn" - as I find teaching prayer is a pretty difficult mission.
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Study: How Yoga Alters Genes

Alternative therapies meant to help us "break the train of everyday thinking" have effects on a cellular level.

LINDSAY ABRAMS MAY 2 2013, 10:27 AM ET

PROBLEM: The flight or fight response -- the natural response to stress -- essentially puts the nervous system in overdrive. So it's no surprise that it's opposite state, known as the relaxation response to stress, is associated with feeling good, in a general sense. People are able to evoke the relaxation response by repeating a yoga pose, prayer, or mantra while disregarding other thoughts, and it's been shown to protect against psychological disorders like anxiety and depression as well as physical conditions like hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and types of cancer that are exacerbated by stress.

METHODOLOGY: Researchers at the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind/Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Subjects trained 26 adults with no prior experience in this type of meditation for eight weeks. They practiced deep breathing, repeated mantras, and learned to ignore intrusive thoughts. Initially, they were given blood tests immediately before and 15 minutes after listening to a 20-minute health education CD. This was repeated after their training, only with a CD that guided them in their meditation. Twenty-five other participants, who had long-term experience in evoking the relaxation response, were tested as well.

RESULTS: All of the subjects' blood samples revealed changes in gene expression following meditation. The changes were the exact opposite of what occurs during flight or fight: genes associated with energy metabolism, mitochondrial function, insulin secretion, and telomere maintenance were turned on, while those involved in inflammation were turned off. These effects were more pronounced and consistent for long-term practitioners.

IMPLICATIONS: People who practice simple meditation aren't "just relaxing," explained the study's senior author, Dr. Herbert Benson (he of the aforementioned institute). Instead, they're experiencing "a specific genomic response that counteracts the harmful genomic effects of stress." While this study only looked at one way of reaching this state, people have been figuring this out for themselves for thousands of years, through yoga, prayer, and other forms of meditation. Yet this is the first time researchers have been able to use basic science to show that these practices actually have an observable, biological effect.

It's only gene expression that is altered, not the genes themselves. But these results also showed that the effects of the relaxation response become stronger with practice, typically twice a day for 10 to 20 minutes. Fortunately it's not hard to learn -- in what was perhaps the most pleasant turn an interview has ever taken, Benson guided me through a meditation session. "Do it for years," said Benson, "and then these effects are quite powerful in how they change your gene activity."

Mindfulness - a Goal of Tefilla?

The follow is article on mindfulness that I came across when searching for resources on tefilla.  I think it raises excellent points on raising one's personal awareness and offers some great techniques for developing a greater sense of gratitude, inquiry and life options.  Too often we are stuck in our own cognitive fixedness and I think mindfulness and davening are two fabulous tools to maintain a healthy approach to living.
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Mindfulness Practices for Healing Depression

Amita Schmidt LCSW

Healing from depression is a journey that involves using physical, psychological, and spiritual methods.  The physical may involve medications and exercise, the psychological mindfulness and therapy, and the spiritual faith and meditation.  This article offers some tools on healing the psychological and spiritual aspects depression.

In healing my own depression, and in helping others heal from depression as a therapist and spiritual teacher, I have found three particular areas that can help you address the psychological and spiritual components of depression.  These three areas include Awareness, Choices, and True Nature (ACT).  Awareness of your triggers sets the groundwork for disengaging from depression; making new choices furthers this process; and reorienting to true nature begins a new way of life.

AWARENESS
Awareness is the first step to unhooking from depression.  You can’t let go of something unless you have an awareness of it to begin with.  Focused awareness is also mindfulness or knowing/paying attention in a non-judgmental way.  Mindfulness can be applied to several aspects of depression.

Awareness of the depressed mind itself.
The first, and most essential practice, is to be aware of the depressed mind itself. Depression is like wearing dark glasses.  During these times, mental noting of the depressed view is invaluable.  Without mindfulness, you will get sucked into the depressed viewpoint, and begin to think it’s who you are or the way the world is. Remind yourself frequently, “this is the depressed mind” or “this is the lens of depression,” and put a moratorium on believing or acting upon any negative thoughts.

Research shows that labeling thoughts can activate the brain’s hippocampus and allow you to be more resilient under stress.  Also, for the moments that you are labeling the depression you are not caught in it. The awareness that witnesses the depression is not part of it, and this reprieve can be the first foothold in disengaging from depression.

Awareness of thoughts that fuel depression.
It’s also useful to bring mindfulness to specific thought patterns that fuel the depressed mind.  A period of depression can begin with a thought as simple as “I made a mistake,” which then turns into” I always make mistakes,” which then turns into “I’m a failure,” which then turns into “I might as well not be alive.”  People without depression can stop with the “I made a mistake” thought and say, “Okay no big deal, start over again, you’re human.”  But for someone with depression, a simple thought like “I made a mistake,” can lead down a rabbit hole of despair.  One error is just one error.  It is not a reason to question your whole existence.  This is generalizing and universalizing. For this reason, it’s important to notice some patterns of thought which fuel depression such as, all-or-nothing thinking, generalizing, universalizing, black and white thinking, doom and gloom scenarios, creating a catastrophe, and obsessive doubt.  When you are caught in depressed thoughts, ask yourself;  “Am I taking one instance and generalizing it into a pattern for the future?  Am I thinking in black-and-white or all-or-nothing terms? Am I using the words “all “or “never?” Am I catastrophizing?  Am I creating a doom and-gloom picture?”  If the answer is “Yes,” then use mindfulness and gently say, “Oh, this is creating a catastrophe,” or “This is generalizing.”  For instance, when one young woman was applying for graduate schools she found herself thinking, “If I can’t get into Harvard or a top notch school, then no one will ever grant me the credibility I deserve, and my life will be a ruined.”  When she labeled this as “all or nothing thinking,” it kept her from being seduced into a depressed mindstate.

Self-hatred is the main fuel for depression, so it’s important to label “self hatred thoughts” when they arise.  Even if you have a running commentary of self-hatred thoughts throughout the day, they don’t have to be believed, and can be left alone. Try bringing a neutral, curious, or even bemused mindfulness to this endless commentary.  In reality there is nothing true about self-hatred.  The mind that criticizes you is the same mind as the one it is criticizing.

Perfectionism is also a fuel for depression.  When you inevitably can’t do things perfectly, then the opposite extreme takes over of hopelessness, shame, and not good enough. Try labeling the habit of “perfectionism” throughout the day.  See if you can let go of this desire to be perfect (or it’s opposite of being a hopeless failure), and just be a garden-variety human being with both mistakes and successes.

Leaving thoughts alone.
Mindfulness practice is not about trying to stop negative thinking.  True mindfulness is about learning to leave your thoughts alone.  Depression will decrease on its own if you don’t cling to your  thoughts. What if you couldn’t believe any of your depressed thoughts?  Healing happens when you stop either pushing away or indulging in your thoughts and you simply let them be.  Sometimes when I am barraged by negative thoughts, especially ones that pick on me, I try and counter them with, “So what? So what if I didn't do things perfectly.  It’s not 9-1-1.”  Notice when you are velcroed to a thought, such as self-hatred or doom and gloom, and practice leaving it alone.

Knowing your depression triggers.
Another area where awareness is important is with your triggers for depression. Are there certain life situations where depression often occurs, such as when you feel tired, overwhelmed, or lonely?  Knowing your depression triggers can help you work with them. For example, if you realize that evenings or being alone aggravates your depression, you can proactively schedule phone calls to friends at that time.  In this regard, it’s good to put a moratorium on any beliefs that occur in the middle of the night (especially those fears that wake you at 3am). My strategy is “hands off” of all depressed or fearful thoughts from midnight until 6am. If those same thoughts are still around in the middle of the next day, then I take a look at them then.

What need is the depression serving?
The final aspect of awareness of depression is to see what need your depression is meeting.  We all have basic needs for safety, security, autonomy, connection, love, belonging, and self-esteem.  Is your depression meeting one of these needs?   Or you might ask, “What is the benefit of my depression?”  If you look below the depression, to what’s deeper, you might find the original reason the depression began.  For instance, my depression started as a way to stay safe.  It was my foxhole to retreat to away from my father’s violence and my mother’s illness.   And paradoxically, below my self-hatred, was a voice of love and concern (fostered by the misguided belief that being hard on myself would help me).  If you trace the origin of your depression back, you might find some kindness or protection at its core. Can you offer appreciation to this protection, and then be willing to meet this need with some other choices besides depression?

CHOICES
Making new choices is the second part of disengaging from depression.  New choices are not positive affirmations.  They are the willingness to move the focus off of depression and onto what else is true.

Choose what is really true.
One of the best choices to make for healing depression is to question negative thoughts. Depression is a form of civil war where the mind turns against itself.  The mind unabashedly lies, deceives and exaggerates in this civil war; therefore, it’s important to have a tool to uncover its deception.   When you have a negative thought, ask yourself, “Is this really true? Is it true 100% of the time?”  If it isn't really true, than why believe it?  For example, is the thought “I’m a failure,” really true?  Has it been true, every moment of your life? Were you a failure when you were sleeping?  Were you a failure when you were drinking a glass of water?  And, if “I’m a failure” is not really true, then why bother with this thought? Inquiry keeps your thinking honest.  Remember negative thoughts have a black and white, always or never quality, and if you question them with loving awareness, they will fall apart.

Choose the present moment.
Negativity, worry, fear, and anxiety can be significantly reduced if you steadfastly focus on the present moment.  Depression gets a lot of mileage from the past or the future. When you feel depressed, notice if you are dwelling in the past, or worried about the future.  One wise friend said to me, “fear needs a future.”  If you are lost in the future (or past) ask yourself, “Am I okay now?” I've never yet found a moment where the answer wasn't “Yes.”  If I have to, I ask myself this question, “Am I okay now?” repeatedly. Do this one moment at a time, or even one-half moment at a time, as needed.

Choose kindness.
Loving-kindness is a form of mindfulness where you chose to talk to yourself like a good friend would talk to you.  Even though your first response in a situation might be your old standby of, “I’m such an idiot,” or “Why did I do that, again!” you can notice this, and make your second response, “Well, that wasn't perfect, but it’s okay,” or “I’m doing the best I can.”  It’s strengthening a friendly way of speaking to yourself with compassion.

Even if you can only offset your drill sergeant voice with compassion once in a while, this will begin to condition a habit of kindness to yourself.

Loving-kindness can also be done as a formal practice.  I do it daily on my commute to work.  I turn off the radio and cell phone and do loving-kindness prayers for others and myself the whole trip.  Some examples of the loving-kindness prayer for yourself:  1) “May I be happy, May I be peaceful, May I  be safe, May I be free of suffering.” and/or 2) “May I love myself completely, just as I am.” A brain research scientist also told me that putting loving-kindness phrases to a melody makes them more effective, so I do this too.

Choose neutral and pleasant moments.
Because depression is often a fairly chronic condition, it can seem like there is nothing else but depression.  The Buddha taught that in each moment there are three feeling states possible; pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. With depression, there is a tendency to be hyper-focused on the unpleasant.  Making new choices is noticing that in a day there are also many moments which are neutral or pleasant.  Neutral moments might be when you put on your shoes, or when you turn the key in your car.  Pleasant moments might be
when you feel the warmth of your shower, when you eat something tasty, or when you lie down at night.  The depressed mind misses these times.  See if you can notice a neutral or pleasant moment today.

If you have a meditation practice, it is important that you learn how not to get engulfed in depressed thoughts during your meditation.  For this reason, it’s important to find a neutral or safe place in your body, and focus on this periodically, or exclusively.  During your meditation session, scan your body.  Is there a place that feels neutral or safe?  Use this as your neutral anchor.  This might be your breath, or the bottoms of your feet, the palms of your hands, the hair on your head, or the center of your body.  Pick one place, and during your sitting, if the feelings of depression begin to increase, switch to this neutral anchor as the object of your awareness. Stay with the anchor as long as you need to. If this doesn't work, it’s okay to stop meditating.  You don’t want to continue meditating if you are conditioning your mind to be more depressed.  This wouldn't be skillful means.

Choose gratitude and service
Daily gratitudes are also a way to work with the depressed mind because you can’t feel both gratitude and depression in the same mind moment.  Try writing down three gratitudes a day. For instance, just for today I noticed gratitude for: the mailman, dental floss, clean air to breathe, and a phone call from a friend.  Your gratitude list can be as endless as there are things happening in a day. I even formed an email gratitude group with a couple of friends and every few days we write our gratitudes to each other.  It’s
very connecting to see what my friends come up with and reminds me of new things to be grateful for every day.

A small act of daily service is also a good antidote for depression. This service can be as simple as telling a friend what you appreciate about them, letting someone get in front of you in line, picking up a piece of trash, or watering a dying plant.  Then, when depression arises in the day, you can reflect on this small act of service and it will bring some buoyancy to your mind.

TRUE NATURE
The last part of disengaging from depression is orienting to your true nature. True nature is also sometimes referred to as original nature, the unborn, the unconditioned, presence, awakeness, higher self, or God-consciousness.  Orienting to true nature can happen through meditation, prayer, silence and other spiritual practices.  Being aware of true nature, on a daily basis through a spiritual practice, is a way to stay spiritually fit.  When you are spiritually fit it becomes harder for depression to take hold.

Although practices that engage true nature aren't a substitute for the actual experience itself, a practice can help you to recognize, remember, and reorient to who you truly are. True nature is something that is already here and is uncovered. The idea is not to try to create a particular experience, but instead to remember what has always been here in you,all along.

Willingness to turn back towards
You might remember that there was a time in your life when you consciously decided to turn away from away from life. Something happened, a trauma, a hurt (perhaps one thing or a series of things) and you stopped trusting in life.  Reorienting to true nature is a willingness to turn back towards who you were, and what you have always been, before you disconnected from life.

As someone with depression, unknowingly you may have developed a habit of orienting to and believing in the depression above everything else.  Are you willing to have faith in something else?  Are you willing to imagine that true nature can help you?  Be willing to ask for help from your true nature or the dharma every day.  This could be in the form of a mantra or a prayer for a few minutes at the beginning of the day or throughout the day. If you are open to discovering whether there is something greater than the depression,
this willingness can show you what is true.

Meditations
Any basic meditation practice that allows you to sit quietly and listen can lead you to your true nature.  Additionally, I have found the following practices can help access true
nature:

Center of the wheel
The center of the wheel is an image that can be useful when there are a lot of thoughts or busyness.  Picture a wheel that is turning quickly. The outside of the wheel (your thoughts and actions) might be spinning very fast, but what is happening at the very center of the wheel?  The axis on which a wheel turns is completely still and stopped. This stillness is always here.  Where is your “center of the wheel” in your body right now?  Can you feel it?  Oftentimes people notice it in their belly or solar plexus area.  It’s a quiet feeling, at the center of your body.  It is a stopped feeling.  There is something in you that is stopped and still no matter what you are doing.  Can you have a sense of this?

Inquiry into true nature
Inquiry is also a useful practice for uncovering true nature. With the questions below, you are not trying to find a specific answer with your mind.  Instead, the questions are meant to create a sort of free fall into “I don’t know.”  From there you can then listen and feel the answer from your body, neck-down. You can pick a question and use it on a daily or weekly basis, reflecting and feeling what is true at deeper levels.

     1) “What can I trust?” What can you trust no matter what?  If everything were to fall apart in the world and your life, what could you ultimately trust?  Feel this answer in your body.
     2) What is it that doesn’t come and go?   Thoughts, feelings, experiences all come and go, arise and pass away.  What is it that doesn’t come and go?  From what do all feelings and thoughts arise out of and pass away into? Can you sense what this is?
    3) What is looking out of my eyes right now? What is the looking itself, that is independent of your personal story?  Everyone has this same thing looking out of his or her eyes right now. Feel what this is.
    4) Who am I, really?  What is deeper than who you think you are?  Who are you that isn’t about your gender, your roles in life, your age, your emotions, or your views and opinions? Who are you without any of this? What is beyond all the stories of “you?”

Where is it now?
Once you have a sense of how true nature can feel and where to find it in your body, it can be helpful to check in with it everyday to strengthen your experience of it.  Even if your experience is indistinct, it can still be helpful to practice noticing true nature. Sometimes I say to myself throughout the day “Where is it now?”  Zen master Bankei said, “Unborn Buddha nature is always happening.”  Look and see for yourself.  True nature is always here, while you are driving, standing, talking, or moving about.  Yes,
depressed thoughts and bodily sensations might be here, but what else is happening?   It doesn’t take 45 minutes of sitting daily to contact your true nature. You can feel it right here, right now. As another way of strengthening a connection to true nature, I try to bookend my day (the very first thing in the morning and the last thing at night) by meditating with the feeling of the center of the wheel or “what doesn’t come or go.” I rest in this stillness for a few minutes in the morning and the evening. I find having this daily bookend is better than starting or ending the day with depression thoughts. Eventually this focus on true nature leaves less and less room for depression to arise.

If you don’t understand true nature yet, don’t worry.  Try to use the practices of awareness, mindfulness and new choices.  Pay attention to your physical, psychological and spiritual well-being.  Eventually your sincere efforts will lead to a new relationship with depression, and a new way of life.

The Pope Tweets Davening Advice!

If you hadn't heard, Pope Benedict XVI joined the twitter-verse two weeks ago and sent out his first personal tweet recently:

Now I am not sure if it is kosher to follow the Pope, but I do find it fascinating to ponder that this is not only the leader of the Catholic Church and official head of state of Vatican City, but he is impermeable to error (according to the doctrine of Papal Infallibility). It is truly awesome (for a Christian believer) to think that the closest that God could be in the flesh of a human and is live tweeting advice!

But on a serious note regarding tefilla, that the Pope took time to tweet to a busy Mom about finding time to pray I think reflects that this is a top trending issue!

As a teaser, I will lead you to the Holy See's twitter handle to see his own answer to his own tweet. I will humbly write more in the coming days about mindfulness as better strategy to find time to daven.

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.

Guest Post: James Jacobson-Maisels

The following was originally published in the Pardes June Newsletter as a Dvar Torah by James Jacobson-Maisels. In the coming months, the blog will share some more concrete insights along this thematic angle. 

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R. Pinchas of Koretz, an early Hasidic master, taught, "The world thinks that one prays before/to the Holy One, blessed be He, but it is not thus. For prayer itself is truly (mamash) the essence of divinity. As it is written: He is your prayer and He is your God (Deuteronomy 10:21)." (Midrash Pinchas, Sec. 1:52, p. 37-38) 

I clearly recall my first time reading this text and the excitement and wonder its radical call to rethink my entire approach to prayer engendered in me. Here R. Pinchas asks us to focus on the process of prayer itself. He challenges us to consider what it would it mean to not think of prayer as a secondary process, as an act of communication which reaches beyond itself, but to experience the process itself. He calls on us to experience the very words, movements and consciousness of prayer as divinity.

Such an approach opens our eyes to see that the divine is not out there somewhere but right here. Although it is also true that the divine is right here in the sense of being within each one of us, this is to say that the divine is right here in the sense of the full gestalt of the moment. When we take our three steps forward into the amidah we normally imagine ourselves as entering the presence of God, approaching the King.

Here, however, when we step into prayer we enter the very body of God. We merge into God's presence. Indeed, the very stepping itself is the flow and movement of the divine in and through us. 

What if, before we prayed, we paused and recognized our body, words and movements as the body of God? What if we paused and saw the full totality of our experience as the presence of divinity in all its majesty and subtleness? What would it mean if we entered prayer with the intense mindfulness of this process being God, of walking through an ether of God, of our breath being God's breath, of our words being divinity itself and with the fundamental insight of non- separation and non-duality? How much care and mindfulness does such a conception draw forth when every letter, every sound, every phoneme, every shudder, every shuckle, every thought, every bow, every step and every moment is God's very being? Can we enter tefilah (prayer) with that consciousness and in doing so be radically brought up short, shocked out of our complacency and the sometimes rote nature of prayer?

We can all do this. It doesn't require us to believe anything in particular or to commit ourselves to some mystical perspective. It requires only the fundamental commitment to be fully present with the experience of tefilah, to recognize its permeated sanctity and to be unwilling to neglect any aspect or detail. It challenges us to cherish every instant as immersed in a sea of divinity.

That is the opportunity and challenge that R. Pinchas gives us - to see the very matter of our practice, its physicality and its process along with the thoughts, emotions, movements and sensations which make it up as the very presence of God's self.

Rabbi James Jacobson-Maisels holds a B.A. in Philosophy and Judaic Studies from Brown University and an M.St. in Modern Jewish Studies from Balliol College the University of Oxford. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in Jewish Studies specializing in Jewish mysticism.

Prayer Without the Body

I spend a lot of time thinking about tefilla - and not just when I am trying to daven.  In the past few months, I have written about what I feel is need to teach students how to meditate and practice what it means to focus mindfulness in prayer.  Some of you have written to me about incorporating yoga into tefillot or the tefilla curriculum and I have heard your advice.

Recently I went to a session by Andrew Hahn, who is apparently known as the Kirtan Rabbi (this is his bio from the LimmudLA website where I met him: one of a new breed of artist-rabbis whose joyful music and teachings address the deepest longings of the 21st century. He holds a PhD from JTS and ordination from HUC-JIR. A long time martial arts instructor, he also teaches a Jewish form of Tai Chi. Hahn tours the country offering concerts, workshops, and Shabbatonim.).  I had a wonderful experience working and speaking with Andrew and hope to interview him for this blog.

What really stood out from our conversation - and his session on "Fear and the Amygdala" - was how disembodied our tefilla is today.  Think about how you use your bodies when you pray.   You might bow a few times, or kiss your tzizit, and some of you may shuckle (sway), but think about it in a more broad perspective, most of us are not so aware of our bodies when we daven.  One result of this approach is that the emphasis on the prayer experience is about the intellect and the mind, and not the body.  Such an approach would explain perhaps why so many people are bored (for they my seek a more emotionally charged outlet) and why others (who do connect intellectually) bring books to read while in synagogue.

Hebrew and Day Schools are producing disembodied daveners (Read more about embodied cognition here, as it pertains to literary theory). I hope to develop over the coming weeks my thesis how the current approaches and traditions for teaching davening are failing in schools and how and educators and reapproach this difficult and sacred topic by embracing a mind/body pedagogy.

The Desire for Jewish Authenticity

The following article titled "The Spiral of Jewish Authenticity" was published last week in Sh'ma, A Journal of Jewish Ideas by Stuart Z. Charme.  I think this is good educational food for the mind and soul, especially considering the last paragraph and the 'breaking news' out on Matisyahu.  It is just hard to be an educator!
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Around the time my daughter turned 16 years old, she cut off most of her thick, long hair for an edgier and hipper look. She began to perform slam poetry, and she announced that she no longer saw herself as Jewish. Being Jewish, she said, just didn’t figure very much in her sense of identity, and she found greater authenticity in performing poetry or doing community service than in reciting Jewish prayers to a deity that neither she nor I believe in.

I was not all that shocked by my daughter’s announcement. Having interviewed dozens of teenagers about their Jewish identities as part of a research project, I knew that teens — much like adults — respond to the fact of being Jewish with feelings ranging from intense pride to utter indifference. I also knew, from following these teens years later, when they were in college, that the meaning of being Jewish had already changed for many of them and would most likely continue to do so throughout their lives. Indeed, as socio-psychologist Bethamie Horowitz and others have pointed out, Jewishness is not a static condition but rather a journey with various twists, turns, and detours along the way. In a similar way, I have described the experience of Jewishness over the course of one’s life as a loose spiral. We circle back to revisit a variety of issues related to Judaism and Jewishness; each time, we approach the experience of Jewishness from new perspectives and with new investments and understandings that emerge in response to other changes in our lives.

For many Jews, the feeling of Jewish authenticity involves a sense of connection to a romanticized or idealized image of the past. Living in or just visiting the land of Israel, enjoying Klezmer music, assuming the lifestyle of an observant Jew, or checking one’s DNA for a “Jewish” marker may provide a sense of unbroken tradition and peoplehood. This idea of authenticity, however, has often been critiqued and deconstructed as an essentialist myth that merely serves to legitimate favored forms of identity while delegitimating others.

Much has also been written (see the March 2011 issue of Sh’ma for several essays on Jewish identity) about the postmodern freedom to “construct” or “invent” Jewish identity in a myriad of ways ranging from contemporary ultra-Orthodoxy to Torah Yoga and Jewish “mindfulness.” And even the notion of “the Jewish people” is less a fixed body with natural boundaries than a continually reimagined community with contested rules and conditions for recognition and membership. It is obvious that claims about authenticity can never really offer a scientific test of purity, a “Good Housekeeping” seal of approval, or a warranty against change. Some of what is now accepted as authentically Jewish will eventually be abandoned and some of what is now rejected will later be reclaimed. In this sense, each individual’s search for Jewish authenticity is a microcosm of the collective process of redefining Judaism at different moments of history.

The desire for Jewish authenticity, therefore, has both retrospective and prospective dimensions. On the one hand, it situates one in relationship to one’s personal and group history; it provides a sense of existential orientation and protection; and it, thereby, offers a provisional home in the world. But the goal of authenticity is simultaneously a warning to be careful of claiming too much certainty at the present moment — recognizing the permanently destabilizing power of the future to shatter and rebuild the foundations of our world in ever-new ways.

For both of these reasons, the issue of Jewish authenticity remains compelling and inescapable. In some ways, authenticity resembles other ultimate human goals like “salvation,” “enlightenment,” or “utopia.” All of these concepts are most useful as ever-receding targets that beckon people to construct identity and community, but also to resist complacent acceptance of the status quo, mechanical repetition of the past, or unquestioned conformity to the consensus of one community at a particular moment in time. There is probably some Zen-like truth to the idea that those who claim most adamantly to have found or achieved Jewish authenticity are also those who lack it in a deeper sense.

Ultimately, what I wish for my daughter is a Jewish journey that is intellectually and psychologically honest, vibrant, and creative; one that values questions more than answers, while avoiding the pitfalls of premature closure and rigidity. I trust that she will discover authentic forms of Jewish expression for herself as she redefines her past and plans for the future. I can’t predict whether slam poetry will be part of that process, but if the singer Matisyahu could use reggae to find a sense of Jewish authenticity for himself, then why not?