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Session One
The Sample Plate: The Siddur
WAYS OF PRAYING Here are a few suggestions, from Hasidic teachings, for making
praying with a prayerbook more vivid and meaningful.
Imagine and visualize what the prayers are speaking about. For
example, during some of the psalms, picture the sun and moon and
stars, forests and rivers, praising God.
Every word of the prayers is a name of God.
The Baal Shem Tov taught meditation on the letters of the prayers,
with awareness that when the letters come together to form words,
then souls, angels and spiritual worlds are united.
Better less with kavvanah (heartful intention) than more without.
One traditional Ashkenazi way of davening is to read through all
the prayers in the service, moving the lips constantly and making
mumbling noises, occasionally actually articulating a word, all
at great speed so as to finish the whole service in a brief time.
A study on this type of davening found that it actually leads
to a meditative state, as long as one does not pay attention to
the words.
One Sephardi style of prayer is similar in terms of completeness
and speed, but all the words are chanted aloud.
On the other hand:
"Pause to take a breath after every two or three words (or even
one). You should not say more than three words in one breath...
even if it seems to you that four words naturally go together."
(Yesod v'Shoresh haAvodah by Rabbi Alexander Ziskind, quoted in
Jewish Spiritual Practices, 140.)
In some Chasidic and yeshivah communities, many of the prayers
are SHOUTED.
Some praying styles of masters of prayer:
Reb Zalman SchachterShalomi as a prayer leader:
"Sometimes Zalman leads a song using traditional Hebrew words
and a popular melody (e.g. "Shenandoah" or "Michael, Row Your
Boat Ashore")... or familiar Hebrew and familiar classical music
(e.g. the Pachibel Canon)... Sometimes he invites us to chant
in English rather than Hebrew... He may invite us to talk through
a psalm (doing Midrash, commentary, on its words in English) with
a partner... He may speak in his own words the underlying meaning
of a prayer in English, rather than its formulaic words in Hebrew..."
(Phyllis O. Berman, Worlds of Jewish Prayer 3334)
Chasidic Rebbes: Yehudah Pesach of Lipsk:
"His praying was with great d'vekut (clinging to Gd) and athunderous
voice, like the roar of a lion, with great fervour and singing
and dancing, with shaking and trembling, with bowing and prostrating..."
The Kozhnitzer Maggid:
"The Maggid entered the synagogue for morning prayers with holy
emotion and joy, with a sefer Torah in his arms, and he danced
one dance before the holy Ark; then he placed the sefer Torah
in it. Then he danced another dance before the stand for the prayer
leader, and his attendants placed candles in candelabra on it.
That was where he sat and stood and prayed. But during the Amidah
he jumped up on the table next to the prayerstand and walked
back and forth on it. Then after the Amidah he danced from the
table down to the ground..."
(Jewish Spiritual Practices, 151)
Sephardi Kabbalists in the BeitEl synagogue, Jerusalem:
"BeitEl introduced something new to Jewish liturgy: melodies
to mark the period of meditation. The meditation is sung aloud
by the Rav haChasid [the prayerleader] to stimulate and inspire
the silent meditation of the Mekhavvenim [meditators]. At first
it had been the custom to carry on the meditation in deep silence,
with the meditation on a single word sometimes lasting for fifteen
minutes. But with the introduction of the musical interludes the
Kavvanot began to be performed during the intoning of a melody
suggestive of the form which the meditation was to take. So true
are these tunes, in searching out and expressing the emotions
of souls dwelling on the mystic meaning of the prayer, that even
uninitiated listeners find themselves transported... Mekhavvenim
and listeners, animate and inanimate objects, become one in the
true pantheistic sense."
(Jewish Mystical Testimonies, 161)
