Innovation

I'm taking a class at my synagogue called, "Prayer: A journey of the heart or a burden? Thinking, struggling and learning about Tfilah". One of the things that turned me off of organized and synagogue-basedJudaism for many years was my lack of connection to the sequences of words that populate the siddur (prayer book). In many synagogues, these prayers are recited in much the same manner, time after time, often with uninspiring melodies and with little explanation as to why the service was constructed in a certain way. Without passion or meaning, and devoid of transformative power, of course prayer - reciting certain Hebrew words in a particular order at prescribed times - can feel like a chore or, worse, a burden. Oy!

As I learned from my classmates during the first evening, many of us feel connected to God when we are doing anything but reciting traditional prayers. Singing, chanting, doing yoga, playing music and dancing are ways that a lot of my Jewish community experience a relationship with God, or a force that is greater than ourselves. Yet we still come to synagogue, wanting to feel a divine connection in a Jewish context and environment created for that very purpose. The medium is the siddur and our kavanah (intention/direction) to create such a connection.

So, how do we go about doing it?

Apparently this struggle with prayer is not unique to 21st century North American Judaism; what constitutes meaningful prayer has been debated and discussed in the Babylonian Talmud, which reached its final form in the year 700 A.C.E. One sage, Rabbi Eleazar, said that a person needs to take stock of themselves, to determine if they can focus their attention. If yes, they should pray, but otherwise not. Most of us agreed that prayer is more meaningful if we can become fully present and focus on it, but we also agreed that making prayer conditional on being fully in the present moment would mean that little in the way of traditional prayer would happen (what if the rabbis were distracted and decided, based on this advice, to cancel services?)

However, is there a way to approach prayer that would help us to become more present while doing it, to prevent our mouths and brains from running on autopilot? Here is where innovation comes in. Innovation, or improvisation, turns what could have been a rote prayer into an experience of the moment and, therefore, of the heart. At my synagogue, the rabbis frequently change tunes and melodies - sometimes even mid-prayer - keeping us on our toes and the service fresh and vibrant. At Elat Chayyim, the retreat center I frequent, we often davven (pray) by focusing on a single line from a longer text, chanting it again and again so that the words, sounds and meaning have a chance to penetrate into our bodies, past our brains. This innovative prayer style helps me personalize my own prayers. Sometimes I will just sing a line or two as a way to shift into a more present and connected state of being.