Some of you may have noticed a rise in the public discourse regarding the Woman of the Wall's monthly push to change the status-quo of prayer sections at the Kotel plaza. Some people are calling it "a prayer for equality" and the NY Times recently featured the topic and how the Israeli Supreme Court might review the issue. This is an apolitical blog and seeks to stretch and inspire new thoughts on the topic of tefilla. To that end, I wanted to share this issue with the readers and note the following parallel.
The argument made by many of the advocates for change regarding the prayer policies at the Kotel is that it is religious discrimination at singular place of religious significance to the Jewish people, not just orthodox Jews. The Woman of the Wall's homepage features "liberators" with a juxtaposed picture of the 1967 IDF paratroopers with three woman with there tallitot and siddurim. The headlines have noted that woman have been arrested for wearing a tallis - attempting to point to the absurd nature of the current policies.
It is interesting to note that the same population of Jews are not applying the same logic and argument to those who feel that the Israeli police do not let them pray or wear at tallis at holy Jewish spot. Those who want to pray ON the Kotel, to go up to Har HaBayit (the Temple Mount) are dully checked for any prayer paraphenalia before ascending and watched closely by a police escort to prevent and outward davening (I myself have been up on a field visit and had my benchter taken from my wallet by the police).
Even though a Jerusalem Court ruled this past October that Jews should be permitted to pray on the Temple Mount, the Israeli police enforce a Muslim ban on Jewish prayer, "citing security concerns". Interestingly that this is a similar concern that the Israeli police have regarding changing the status-quo at the Kotel plaza. Indeed Jerusalem religious institutions do not deal well with change (one only has to read about the "Immovable Ladder" outside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher) - and I admire these women's determination to push their agenda through civil disobedience, but hope to see some similar expression of legal practicality to equal expressions of tefilla in the same arena.
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Who is to Blame?
Please read this Jewcy.com article by Devora Meyers Shuls Out for Rosh Hashana.
There is much to this piece, in its honest expression of a common experience for many shul goers, regardless of the style of synagogue they attend. But while I like Meyers' question, "So what’s the difference between the intellectual discussion that excites me and the prayers that bore me to distraction?" I think her answer is meek.
Let me be clear that I think her answer is correct for her, argued well, and again I add the adjective honest; However, I am starkly reminded of Harold Kushner approach, "What's lacking in you?"
Are we now so self absorbed that we have to always have it our way and that we cannot strive for a communal forum? (do not mistake this as quest for an objective or uniform religious forum). I get the frustration for prayer in general but for the 3-timers (those that come only three times a year: 2 for Rosh Hashana and once for Yom Kippur) can we justify the opt out? Great, your bored, the service is long and its not your style - what else can the institutions, teachers, leaders and rabbis do to engage those that don't want what's being served in most tefillot...... It is a good question to ask for every classroom teacher - how do we help nurture not only individuals, but help those individuals share and join into a community of learners and shearers?
I want to end with a quote from Rav Kook from Ein Eyah:
There is much to this piece, in its honest expression of a common experience for many shul goers, regardless of the style of synagogue they attend. But while I like Meyers' question, "So what’s the difference between the intellectual discussion that excites me and the prayers that bore me to distraction?" I think her answer is meek.
Let me be clear that I think her answer is correct for her, argued well, and again I add the adjective honest; However, I am starkly reminded of Harold Kushner approach, "What's lacking in you?"
Are we now so self absorbed that we have to always have it our way and that we cannot strive for a communal forum? (do not mistake this as quest for an objective or uniform religious forum). I get the frustration for prayer in general but for the 3-timers (those that come only three times a year: 2 for Rosh Hashana and once for Yom Kippur) can we justify the opt out? Great, your bored, the service is long and its not your style - what else can the institutions, teachers, leaders and rabbis do to engage those that don't want what's being served in most tefillot...... It is a good question to ask for every classroom teacher - how do we help nurture not only individuals, but help those individuals share and join into a community of learners and shearers?
I want to end with a quote from Rav Kook from Ein Eyah:
In order to lead human beings on the path of continual improvement, G-d implanted within the human soul the incessant drive to always seek more..."Here's hoping you have a positive shul experience this week.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Pray Yourself to a Healthier Life
You may have heard this already, but statistics are trending that the more religious you are (often defined as attending a religious service) the happier and healthier you will be.
Check out this report ripped from the Huffington Post "Very Religious People Score Higher in Health Self-Evaluations, According to Study" by Jaweed Kaleem.
Note the video at the bottom on "The Role of Prayer in a Patient's Healing". Perhaps this is why we are pressuring kids to pray even if we aren't sure that they will connect spiritually; at least they'll be healthier for their efforts!
Check out this report ripped from the Huffington Post "Very Religious People Score Higher in Health Self-Evaluations, According to Study" by Jaweed Kaleem.
The survey, conducted between January 2, 2010 and December 30, 2011, also broke down responses by religion, and found that Jewish interviewees scored higher in health scores compared to other religious groups when comparisons were made between people in the same categories of religiosity.
Note the video at the bottom on "The Role of Prayer in a Patient's Healing". Perhaps this is why we are pressuring kids to pray even if we aren't sure that they will connect spiritually; at least they'll be healthier for their efforts!
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Ripped from the Headlines..... The Problem with Dynamic Rabbis
This article appeared in the NY Jewish Week and its reprinting here is not an endorsement, but rather I wanted to share it because it relates directly to our ongoing conversation about teaching tefilla. How much to change, how much to preserve, and how to excite students to engage in this ancient and sacred practice. Please share your thoughts on this piece:
Rav Kingfish
The problem with ‘dynamic’ rabbis.
Jonathan Mark
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
I’m a traditional Jew. I like my religion straight up, neither shaken
nor stirred. I’ve been saying Yizkor, and seriously, for years, but
when rabbis don’t trust the power of Yizkor and feel the need to add
an English call-and-response, they lose me. At the Passover seder, I’m
thinking about the leaving of Egypt; I don’t need dynamic rabbis
comparing the seder to the Civil Rights movement, the Arab Spring, or
global warming.
Is there a synagogue website that doesn’t describe their rabbi as
“dynamic”? Rabbis looking for jobs swear they’re dynamic. And yet the
more that we have “dynamic” rabbis, the more Jews tell pollsters that
they find Judaism lethargic.
Perhaps the problem is exacerbated by Newsweek’s “Best Rabbi” surveys,
in which rabbis are seemingly judged by “dynamic” criteria that have
little or nothing to do with the job that so many rabbis actually do,
and do well: teaching, counseling, and being a community’s gentle
shepherd. Though even rabbis on the Newsweek list have disparaged it
in private, Newsweek’s list has become used by those same rabbis for
fundraising and prestige, leaving unlisted rabbis somehow diminished.
What’s attractive to Newsweek, and other media, even Jewish media,
gives a new generation of rabbis incentive—even pressure—to do
something, anything, to make their synagogue and Judaism more
exciting, more Newsweek-worthy, when all along the most beautiful
moments of Judaism are the quiet moments that are hardly dynamic: the
Blessing of the Moon; or a subtle chasidic insight, exchanged in
passing; or an intimate exchange with a rabbi in a hospital corridor.
The best rabbis do what is timeless, rather than dynamic activity that
is innovative and flashy but untested and often fleeting.
Like baseball or chess, Judaism is slow and boring—until it isn’t, or
until the observer learns to see the beauty and understand the
mysteries inherent in the cerebral stillness and anticipation. Why is
the experience of a game at Wrigley Field—where there is no rock
music, the scoreboard is dull without animation, where it rains and
gets cold—nevertheless so treasured while the weather-controlled
Astrodome, once called “the eighth wonder of the world,” designed to
keep fans forever dazzled, is now empty, put to pasture? When dynamic
innovations fail or grow stale, and they often do, what then?
As at the Astrodome, there is some evidence that the more rabbis are
dynamic and attempt to dazzle, the more the people stay home. For all
of the modern innovations in recent years, the pews are emptier than
before.
Rabbi Charles Simon, executive director of the Conservative movement's
Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs, recently wrote a paper in which he
noticed that “smaller percentages of men are currently active in our
synagogues,” despite decades of dynamic change that was supposed to
fill the pews, not empty them.
Similarly, among the Orthodox, the more dynamic the shul, the easier
it is to find a seat. In the famously dynamic Hebrew Institute of
Riverdale, home of the first Orthodox woman “rabba,” membership has
plummeted, from an announced high of 850, according to New York
magazine in 2010, to just over 600, according to a letter to The
Jewish Week from that synagogue’s president.
There are many theories going around about how to be a more successful
rabbinic leader, and here are two. The first is the Stewardess
Theory—be less of a pilot and more of a flight attendant. You walk up
and down the aisles, “Do you need a blanket? Are you OK? Are you hot?
Cold? Do you need help with your life preserver?” Do that well and you
can “fly” your shul anywhere.
The second theory of rabbinic dynamics is the Seven-Percent Solution.
If a rabbi is seven percent ahead of the congregation, that rabbi is
brilliant, terrific.
At 17 percent, you’ve probably lost the congregation.
The Seven-Percent Solution accepts that there is room for being mildly
dynamic, but rabbis who are mildly dynamic rarely stay that way. The
problem is that dynamism inevitably becomes predictable, much as Ed
Sullivan’s audiences grew tired of seeing the once-exciting vaudeville
trick of balancing spinning dishes on a pole.
Instead of trusting the congregation to appreciate basic, no-frills
Judaism, the dynamic rabbi’s inevitable mistake is to be more “look at
me,” always more dynamic, not less. The dynamic rabbi starts
resembling nothing so much as the Cat In The Hat, with the fish and
the dress and the cake and the rake, fearing that the congregation
will grow bored if ever the sun wasn’t shining.
Perhaps it would be easier to show how this leadership dilemma works
out in politics, how a dynamic politician can hit a brick wall that he
never sees coming.
Let's go back to 1937. No one was more beloved than Franklin
Roosevelt. Though a child of the upper class, FDR was a populists'
dream, humbled in his wheelchair, as crippled as the country. And then
it went to his head.
After wining a second landslide, in 1936, controlling 77 out of 96
seats in the Senate, he figured he should be even more dynamic in his
bid to end the Depression, which was still raging after four years of
dynamic legislation.
In the book "Supreme Power," Jeff Shesol writes that according to
Roosevelt, “If it was necessary, it was right; if it was right, it was
legal." (A logic that most dynamic rabbis apply to Judaism.) And so it
was that when the Supreme Court ruled that several of Roosevelt’s
dynamic innovations were unconstitutional, FDR tried to get the
Senate—where he had that massive majority—to let him "pack" the court,
in which he would add as many as six new justices (who’d support him,
of course) for every elderly judge who happened to stand in his way.
Was Roosevelt wrong? After all, the idea that there must only be nine
judges was not from Sinai or Philadelphia. The Constitution left it to
the Senate to decide how many judges there should be, and in the 1800s
(not that long before Roosevelt, if you think about it) the number of
justices was fluid, ranging from five to six, to ten and back to nine.
If Madison or Jefferson had thought of it first, no one would have
thought Roosevelt's plan inherently unethical or immoral.
The same with dynamic halachic change. If the Talmud’s founding
fathers decided that it was OK to have women rabbis, or patrilineal
descent, or any one of a dozen other modern innovations, no one would
object today. There is nothing inherently wrong, unethical or immoral
about these innovations.
So why do these changes, meant to excite and respond to the people,
result in fewer people in the pews? Why did Roosevelt's idea for the
court, meant to benefit the New Deal, get so battered?
The answer is simply that tradition has more of powerful hold on our
hearts than the innovators understand. Whatever baseball’s problems,
declaring two strikes to be an out, the better to attract the
“unaffiliated” fan, would more likely lose the committed fans rather
than turn the uncommitted fans into committed ones. As much as fans
love the home run, or might think it clever to light eight candles on
the first night of Chanukah (who could object to more light?), putting
baseball or religion on steroids has only left baseball or religion
the sorrier.
Roosevelt stopped thinking that he was bound by the rules of
consultation, compromise and the political process, which is the way
that tradition validates change. He didn’t see the virtue of going
slow, the wisdom of the Seven-Percent Solution. People still loved
Roosevelt but flinched at the idea of such an Imperial Presidency.
Modern Jews may love an individual rabbi but don’t love an Imperial
Rabbinate.
In the 1930s, down in Louisiana, Huey Long was as dynamic as a
politician could get. Was he a dictator, as some said? Hardly. He was
elected time and again by secret ballot, and all his laws were passed
by freely elected representatives of the people. He did everything
from leading the marching band on football Saturdays to initiating a
series of terrific and populist bills, and the legislature permitted
him everything that a shul's board of directors and committees permits
a strong rabbi.
At first, Huey Long was all that was good about a dynamic leader. He
lifted spirits. He cheered people up, had them singing "Every Man A
King," with lyrics about "every neighbor a friend." His admirers
happily called him "Kingfish," after the character on the Amos & Andy
radio comedy.
And then comedy turned tragic. He started calling himself Kingfish
just a little too often—acted like a kingfish, too. He felt he had to
forever top himself, only to become synonymous with arrogance and
authoritarianism, which is how a dynamic leader can be misunderstood.
Today, what should a Rav Kingfish do? He should start by trusting
tradition, the magic inherent in the old and slow ways of doing
things. He should trust a congregation’s need for quiet and
meditation. Most people have a whole lot to think about, and talk to
God about, without needing a rabbi’s dynamic impositions or
distractions. What people crave even more than innovation is a rabbi’s
ability to simply teach the subtle mysteries of faith, to facilitate
introspection in visits to the sick or to the forgotten—and aren’t so
many of us forgotten, more than anyone knows? There is something holy
about the Flight Attendant or Stewardess Theory, simply walking the
aisles, noticing if someone is missing from their seat, if someone
might need a blanket, or need help with a life preserver, or how to
find the emergency exit.
Anyone who has loved a baby, or loved a dying friend or an elderly
parent ravaged by age and incapable of speech, knows that the most
dynamic love can exist in silence, in stillness, in a soulful place
beyond language, where love and relationships are about nothing so
much as modesty and compromise.
That kind of leadership, through selflessness and a sense of grace, is
not only for the hospital or crisis but every bit as needed for a
healthy congregation, one that comes together to be with a beloved
God, who Himself knows when to hide His face.
Jonathan Mark is associate editor of The Jewish Week.
The problem with ‘dynamic’ rabbis.
Jonathan Mark
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
I’m a traditional Jew. I like my religion straight up, neither shaken
nor stirred. I’ve been saying Yizkor, and seriously, for years, but
when rabbis don’t trust the power of Yizkor and feel the need to add
an English call-and-response, they lose me. At the Passover seder, I’m
thinking about the leaving of Egypt; I don’t need dynamic rabbis
comparing the seder to the Civil Rights movement, the Arab Spring, or
global warming.
Is there a synagogue website that doesn’t describe their rabbi as
“dynamic”? Rabbis looking for jobs swear they’re dynamic. And yet the
more that we have “dynamic” rabbis, the more Jews tell pollsters that
they find Judaism lethargic.
Perhaps the problem is exacerbated by Newsweek’s “Best Rabbi” surveys,
in which rabbis are seemingly judged by “dynamic” criteria that have
little or nothing to do with the job that so many rabbis actually do,
and do well: teaching, counseling, and being a community’s gentle
shepherd. Though even rabbis on the Newsweek list have disparaged it
in private, Newsweek’s list has become used by those same rabbis for
fundraising and prestige, leaving unlisted rabbis somehow diminished.
What’s attractive to Newsweek, and other media, even Jewish media,
gives a new generation of rabbis incentive—even pressure—to do
something, anything, to make their synagogue and Judaism more
exciting, more Newsweek-worthy, when all along the most beautiful
moments of Judaism are the quiet moments that are hardly dynamic: the
Blessing of the Moon; or a subtle chasidic insight, exchanged in
passing; or an intimate exchange with a rabbi in a hospital corridor.
The best rabbis do what is timeless, rather than dynamic activity that
is innovative and flashy but untested and often fleeting.
Like baseball or chess, Judaism is slow and boring—until it isn’t, or
until the observer learns to see the beauty and understand the
mysteries inherent in the cerebral stillness and anticipation. Why is
the experience of a game at Wrigley Field—where there is no rock
music, the scoreboard is dull without animation, where it rains and
gets cold—nevertheless so treasured while the weather-controlled
Astrodome, once called “the eighth wonder of the world,” designed to
keep fans forever dazzled, is now empty, put to pasture? When dynamic
innovations fail or grow stale, and they often do, what then?
As at the Astrodome, there is some evidence that the more rabbis are
dynamic and attempt to dazzle, the more the people stay home. For all
of the modern innovations in recent years, the pews are emptier than
before.
Rabbi Charles Simon, executive director of the Conservative movement's
Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs, recently wrote a paper in which he
noticed that “smaller percentages of men are currently active in our
synagogues,” despite decades of dynamic change that was supposed to
fill the pews, not empty them.
Similarly, among the Orthodox, the more dynamic the shul, the easier
it is to find a seat. In the famously dynamic Hebrew Institute of
Riverdale, home of the first Orthodox woman “rabba,” membership has
plummeted, from an announced high of 850, according to New York
magazine in 2010, to just over 600, according to a letter to The
Jewish Week from that synagogue’s president.
There are many theories going around about how to be a more successful
rabbinic leader, and here are two. The first is the Stewardess
Theory—be less of a pilot and more of a flight attendant. You walk up
and down the aisles, “Do you need a blanket? Are you OK? Are you hot?
Cold? Do you need help with your life preserver?” Do that well and you
can “fly” your shul anywhere.
The second theory of rabbinic dynamics is the Seven-Percent Solution.
If a rabbi is seven percent ahead of the congregation, that rabbi is
brilliant, terrific.
At 17 percent, you’ve probably lost the congregation.
The Seven-Percent Solution accepts that there is room for being mildly
dynamic, but rabbis who are mildly dynamic rarely stay that way. The
problem is that dynamism inevitably becomes predictable, much as Ed
Sullivan’s audiences grew tired of seeing the once-exciting vaudeville
trick of balancing spinning dishes on a pole.
Instead of trusting the congregation to appreciate basic, no-frills
Judaism, the dynamic rabbi’s inevitable mistake is to be more “look at
me,” always more dynamic, not less. The dynamic rabbi starts
resembling nothing so much as the Cat In The Hat, with the fish and
the dress and the cake and the rake, fearing that the congregation
will grow bored if ever the sun wasn’t shining.
Perhaps it would be easier to show how this leadership dilemma works
out in politics, how a dynamic politician can hit a brick wall that he
never sees coming.
Let's go back to 1937. No one was more beloved than Franklin
Roosevelt. Though a child of the upper class, FDR was a populists'
dream, humbled in his wheelchair, as crippled as the country. And then
it went to his head.
After wining a second landslide, in 1936, controlling 77 out of 96
seats in the Senate, he figured he should be even more dynamic in his
bid to end the Depression, which was still raging after four years of
dynamic legislation.
In the book "Supreme Power," Jeff Shesol writes that according to
Roosevelt, “If it was necessary, it was right; if it was right, it was
legal." (A logic that most dynamic rabbis apply to Judaism.) And so it
was that when the Supreme Court ruled that several of Roosevelt’s
dynamic innovations were unconstitutional, FDR tried to get the
Senate—where he had that massive majority—to let him "pack" the court,
in which he would add as many as six new justices (who’d support him,
of course) for every elderly judge who happened to stand in his way.
Was Roosevelt wrong? After all, the idea that there must only be nine
judges was not from Sinai or Philadelphia. The Constitution left it to
the Senate to decide how many judges there should be, and in the 1800s
(not that long before Roosevelt, if you think about it) the number of
justices was fluid, ranging from five to six, to ten and back to nine.
If Madison or Jefferson had thought of it first, no one would have
thought Roosevelt's plan inherently unethical or immoral.
The same with dynamic halachic change. If the Talmud’s founding
fathers decided that it was OK to have women rabbis, or patrilineal
descent, or any one of a dozen other modern innovations, no one would
object today. There is nothing inherently wrong, unethical or immoral
about these innovations.
So why do these changes, meant to excite and respond to the people,
result in fewer people in the pews? Why did Roosevelt's idea for the
court, meant to benefit the New Deal, get so battered?
The answer is simply that tradition has more of powerful hold on our
hearts than the innovators understand. Whatever baseball’s problems,
declaring two strikes to be an out, the better to attract the
“unaffiliated” fan, would more likely lose the committed fans rather
than turn the uncommitted fans into committed ones. As much as fans
love the home run, or might think it clever to light eight candles on
the first night of Chanukah (who could object to more light?), putting
baseball or religion on steroids has only left baseball or religion
the sorrier.
Roosevelt stopped thinking that he was bound by the rules of
consultation, compromise and the political process, which is the way
that tradition validates change. He didn’t see the virtue of going
slow, the wisdom of the Seven-Percent Solution. People still loved
Roosevelt but flinched at the idea of such an Imperial Presidency.
Modern Jews may love an individual rabbi but don’t love an Imperial
Rabbinate.
In the 1930s, down in Louisiana, Huey Long was as dynamic as a
politician could get. Was he a dictator, as some said? Hardly. He was
elected time and again by secret ballot, and all his laws were passed
by freely elected representatives of the people. He did everything
from leading the marching band on football Saturdays to initiating a
series of terrific and populist bills, and the legislature permitted
him everything that a shul's board of directors and committees permits
a strong rabbi.
At first, Huey Long was all that was good about a dynamic leader. He
lifted spirits. He cheered people up, had them singing "Every Man A
King," with lyrics about "every neighbor a friend." His admirers
happily called him "Kingfish," after the character on the Amos & Andy
radio comedy.
And then comedy turned tragic. He started calling himself Kingfish
just a little too often—acted like a kingfish, too. He felt he had to
forever top himself, only to become synonymous with arrogance and
authoritarianism, which is how a dynamic leader can be misunderstood.
Today, what should a Rav Kingfish do? He should start by trusting
tradition, the magic inherent in the old and slow ways of doing
things. He should trust a congregation’s need for quiet and
meditation. Most people have a whole lot to think about, and talk to
God about, without needing a rabbi’s dynamic impositions or
distractions. What people crave even more than innovation is a rabbi’s
ability to simply teach the subtle mysteries of faith, to facilitate
introspection in visits to the sick or to the forgotten—and aren’t so
many of us forgotten, more than anyone knows? There is something holy
about the Flight Attendant or Stewardess Theory, simply walking the
aisles, noticing if someone is missing from their seat, if someone
might need a blanket, or need help with a life preserver, or how to
find the emergency exit.
Anyone who has loved a baby, or loved a dying friend or an elderly
parent ravaged by age and incapable of speech, knows that the most
dynamic love can exist in silence, in stillness, in a soulful place
beyond language, where love and relationships are about nothing so
much as modesty and compromise.
That kind of leadership, through selflessness and a sense of grace, is
not only for the hospital or crisis but every bit as needed for a
healthy congregation, one that comes together to be with a beloved
God, who Himself knows when to hide His face.
Jonathan Mark is associate editor of The Jewish Week.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
In Shul to Talk or to Pray?
I am travelling and spent this past Shabbat at a synagogue that shall remain anonymous (to protect the names of the guilty/innocent). The room was mostly full during what is called the 'main minyan' Shabbat morning. I had the following curious thought:
Rather than focus on the issue of praytalk, I'd like to focus on the challenge of matching up one's expectations for a spiritual connection with the subjectivity of place and time. How can we get the most the most out of our time in a tefilla? Let's explore some options this week, but first, a reader of the blog submitted this piece from Yedidya Meir, originally published in Haaretz 15 November 2007.
If you gathered 300 people together for the sole purpose of socializing over a two hour time period - do you think that people would spontaneously breakout into prayer? The reverse of this happened in a not so surprising fashion this Shabbat.
Rather than focus on the issue of praytalk, I'd like to focus on the challenge of matching up one's expectations for a spiritual connection with the subjectivity of place and time. How can we get the most the most out of our time in a tefilla? Let's explore some options this week, but first, a reader of the blog submitted this piece from Yedidya Meir, originally published in Haaretz 15 November 2007.
Run for your life
By Yedidya Meir
One of the remarks a religiously observant person hears most in his life is "Let me tell you what bugs me most about religion ..." Usually the speaker begins by praising Judaism and its ways: "Listen, Judaism has really beautiful things to offer. The shiva [week-long mourning period], for example, is utterly enthralling." Then comes the bit that irritates them. For example, this unnecessary prohibition on traveling on Shabbat. Why? Who needs it? Or all this gobbledygook about "fruits of the sea." A complete nonstarter.
I have a great many responses, believe me, but sometimes I too get the urge to say what bugs me most about religion. It happens almost every day. You are standing and reciting a prayer that is important to you, that speaks to you and which you had planned to recite with total intentionality - and suddenly it's over. You felt nothing. That is, you were definitely concentrating, but on completely different things: the kids, the bank account, why there is still no replacement for the Channel 2 news anchor.
A brief explanation is in order for those readers who by chance do not pray. In contrast to the Sukkot lulav (palm branch), the Shabbat candles or the tefillin (phylacteries), prayer itself is a non-physical commandment. It is difficult and challenging spiritual work. For the greatest rabbis and for righteous people, those for whom prayer is a way of life, it may be easy, but for a rank-and-file Jew, it is very hard to recharge the prayer with new meaning each time. But that is exactly what the person is required to do. Someone once wrote that good prayer should be like a train journey: the landscape doesn't change, yet at every moment you see it from a different vantage point. So it is in prayer: The text is the same text, but a person journeys all his life, he does not stand in one place, and on each occasion he is meant to experience the prayer from the inner point he has reached.
That's the theory; now for the reality. I come to the synagogue on Shabbat morning, recite "Nishmat kol hai" ("The breath of every living being") - one of the most meaningful prayers - but feel nothing. And then, on Monday evening, while on the treadmill at home, clad in shorts and an undershirt, at the third kilometer, I hear via the iPod the song "Nishmat kol hai" - the same words - sung by Shlomo Carlebach, and am suddenly seized by tremendous excitement and potent intentionality: "The breath of every living being shall bless thy name, O Lord our God, and the spirit of all flesh shall ever glorify and extol thee, O our King. From everlasting to everlasting thou art God. But for thee we have no King, Deliverer and Savior to rescue, redeem and give sustenance and to show mercy in all times of trouble and distress; yea, we have no Sovereign but thee".
And the Jew goes nuts. Why? Because on Shabbat, when this prayer is part of the service, I wanted it so much, I absolutely craved it, but it just didn't happen. And now, of all times, on a treadmill in shorts - suddenly it comes? That, people, is the most annoying thing about religion.
According to a sample poll I conducted, I am not alone. Other observant Jews also find it easier to connect with God while cooking, driving, shopping, even while doing the dishes, with Jewish music in the background. For just that reason I recently decided to change my approach: When the Shabbat morning prayer arrives as you're running on the treadmill Monday evening, just to flow with it. If not on Shabbat, let it at least be on Monday. Athletic prayer is fine, too.
And then, after the song ends, after the thrill of the words "Therefore, the limbs which thou has fashioned for us, and the soul which thou hast breathed into us, and the tongue which thou hast set in our mouth, lo, they shall thank, bless, exalt and revere thee. They shall proclaim thy sovereignty, O our King" - I wipe off the sweat with a towel, tuck the undershirt into the shorts - for dignity's sake - and say in my heart:
"May it be thy will that this treadmill be as important to thee as though it were my seat in the synagogue, and this iPod as though it were a prayer book, and this towel that is wrapped around my neck as though it were a tallit, and may the thrill I felt in this song be as important to thee as though it were a prayer at its time and its place."
And then I go on running.
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Let me know your most surprising locale for positive tefilla experience!
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