A good friend and colleague of mine participated as a rabbinical student in a summer internship in pastoral care at Dartmouth University. He was one of only two Jewish seminary students in his group, with the vast majority of his compatriots coming from different streams of the Christian faith.
At the end of one of their introductory sessions together, the reverend, who was the supervisor of the program, asked my friend if he would please lead the group in a closing prayer. They all rose to their feet, clasped hands, and stood in a tight circle.
Beads of sweat began to form as my colleague searched for the appropriate prayer for such an occasion. He performed a mental search of the siddur, the Jewish prayer book, mining our tradition for a suitably “spontaneous” prayer. Ultimately, his lips parted with the familiar words: “Ashrei yosh’vei veitecha, od y’ha’l’lucha sela”, “Blessed are they who dwell in Your house; they shall praise you forever”, the famous line from Psalm 84 and the opening words to the eponymous prayer known as Ashrei.
This anecdote illustrates an interesting, and perhaps unique dilemma when it comes to Jewish prayer. You see, we are indeed The People of the Book - not just of the Torah, but of the siddur as well. In fact, a quick glance inside the prayer book will reveal a bracha (a blessing) for just about every experience under the sun; the prayer recited over the fragrant smell of an edible fruit; the blessing to be said when encountering an outstanding Torah scholar; or even the prayer to be spoken upon witnessing an unusual looking plant or animal. All of these prayers can be found inside the binding of the siddur, but many more are not.
For example, what prayers should we recite for life’s many complex moments? The prayer that parents should say when their 16-year-old first gets her driver’s license; the prayer that we might say upon gazing at the golden walls of the Old City of Jerusalem at dusk; or the prayer that we whisper with a loved one in a hospital room waiting, hoping, praying for good news. Where are these prayers in our fixed siddur?
Perhaps this is why Rabbi Shimon warned us in Pirkei Avot: “Al ta’as t’fillat’cha keva,” “Do not make your prayers fixed – but rather submit appeals for mercy and supplication before God.” Rabbi Shimon was cognizant of the dangers of overly mechanized prayer. A static siddur can become rote and exceedingly familiar to us. We therefore must struggle to inject the necessary kavvanah, the spiritual direction, which can transform our prayer from a mere memorized monologue into a meaningful dialogue with the Divine.
Perhaps after ages with a seemingly fixed prayer book, we have collectively forgotten Rabbi Shimon’s spiritual admonition.
The truth is that proper Jewish prayer reflects, and indeed incorporates, both keva (the fixed prayers) and kavvanah (the spiritual import behind the prayers). After all, today’s canonized prayers were yesterday’s personal poetry. The once-spontaneous writings of the Payytanim, the medieval poets, now constitute the liturgical bulk of our modern Mahzorim (High Holy Day prayer books). The intensely intimate t’khinot, or personal prayers of Jewish women, can now be easily found in collections on the shelves of your Jewish book store, or even online at Jewish resources such as jewishmom.com or ritualwell.org.
In all our important efforts toward the revitalization of modern Jewish prayer, let us never lose sight of the power of keva: for the danger in waiting for the mercurial muse of meaning to happen along our way is that she may not ever come.
And so I pray. I drape my tallit over my head, I lay my t’fillin upon my arm and my head, I open up the pliable cover of my well-worn siddur, and I wait. I wait for the nexus of word and thought, of poetry and prayer, of keva and kavvanah. And when those seconds of synergy do occur, I pause and reflect how grateful I am to God, The Eternal Listener, who brings moments of meaning to my life.
Joel Seltzer is a rabbi at Temple Emanu-El in Providence, Rhode Island.
