Were Your Services Dull?

How often did you look at your watch during shul or count the pages to the end?  Here is a nice article from Tablet Mag on "High Holiday Services Are Boring. Here’s How We Can Fix Them" by Abigail Pogrebin.

Nusach and a Philosophy of Prayer

I'd like to share a fascinating blog titled Nusach Freak - which shares perspectives and experiences on davening.

The following post is from December 2008 and shares what I think is a profound statement about the underlying motivation to public prayer.  My personal notions regarding nusach have evolved and I think that all educators must consider what they are teaching towards when it comes to tefilla.
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Venice, Italy and Nusach Carelbach --

So two weeks ago I ended up in Venice, Italy for Shabbat (long story and largely irrelevant to the Nusach blog). Naturally, I avoided davening with the Chabadnikim given the chance to daven with the Italians. The Italian minyan actually followed a hybrid nusach of 90% Spanish & Portuguese and 10% Minhag Roma...and it was gorgeous.

Now here's what I don't get. Go into any random Ashkenazi modern Orthodox shul where there is no chazzan and you will get baal habatim doing the davening/leining. Invariably, one of the following things happens:

1. The chazzan will not only be unable to carry a tune but will have no idea of what he's reading evidenced by the rediculously bad phrasing and dikduk.

2. The nusach will be butchered or at a minimum, the chazzan will lose the nusach for a few worlds here or there (for instance, when switching to shabbat nusach at the end of kedusha of mincha)

3. The baal koreh will get most of the pasha right but a few taamim will be missed and the occasional mistake will be made resulting in the entire shul screaming out the correct pronunciation  It's one reason why many people go to shul...(Hey Yanki, want to go to shul with Tatty to play heckle and correct the baal koreh?)

In contrast, between Kabbalat Shabbat, Arvit, Zemirot (Pesukei d'Zimra), Shacharit, Kriat Hatorah, Musaf and Mincha not a single mistake was made. There is no formal chazzan in the shul ---Friday night an Israeli (temani) transplant to Venice was the Shat"z and there was literally not a note different than what is done on a Friday night at Shearith Israel in New York. More surprisingly, Shacharit was led by a kid who looked no older than 22 or 23, did not exactly look yeshivesh (more Italian, fresh out of an espresso bar in Milano look), a typical Venetian local yokal, and his chazzaning was perfect --- everything was said out loud and his dikduk, nusach and transitions between the nusachy and singy bits were 100% perfect.

This is not the first time I have been overwhelmed by how important attention to detail is in sephardi batei knesset. Why is it that Ashkenazi tephilot don't come out the same way? Is it somethig in how the kids are educated?

This past shabbat, back in Israel, the shatz in my local shul used Carlebach. Being tired after a long (boring) work week and an even longer Friday getting ready for Shabbat, I had little patience for awkward Kabbalat Shabbat dancing (c'mon, you know what I'm talkign about) and 25 minutes of ny ny ny ny ny....Luckily, my 2-year old, who had spent all of Kabbalat Shabbat next to me happily munching on a candy had had enough and after Lechad Dodi insisted we go home. I was happy to oblige. On the way home it dawned on me why Sephardi (and paticularly Western Sephardi) and Yekke batei knesset have such a different character than the run of the mill Ashkenazi batei knesset and especially those that allow nusach Carlebach now and again:

It's all about philosophy of prayer --- and how we view our tephillot (avodah shebalev) as a replacement for the avodah in the mikdash.

If we are focused on creating a tekes or formal ceremony to take the place of a very formalized (and I imagine a largely unemotional avoda that was conducted in the mikdash) we will try to develop a tephilla that is focused on perfection --- nothing can be off. Everything like the ancient avoda istelf must be done in a formalized manner with pomp and circumstance (l'chavod u'litipharet?) . Of course, as part of this formalized process, we need to speak out to God.

The idea of ny ny nying and dancing in shul seems very out of place according to this philosophy.

On the other hand if we are to focus on reaching out to God via a spiritual experience (focusing on the shebalev part of avodah shebalev) than we don't have to worry about little mistakes in our nusach or for that matter, our didkduk --- the important thing is too get the vibe going....Clearly, chassidut has a strong influence on the latter school of thought.

There is no right or wrong here...just different approaches. Personally, I grew up in that more formal environment and therefore, I find the ny ny nying and dancing in shul thing very foreign and even more so because it is often accompanied by poor nusach/dikduk. However, I do love beautiful singing (both Ashkenazi and Sephardi) ...and I am quick to get a spiritual high from nicely sung davening (with multi part harmony of course) and this helps me to focus my tephillot to the Almighty.

Enough shtuyot...back to work.
Shabbat Shalom

Nusach Man

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.

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.