Kavana
What is Kavana?
Service of the heart is what the Talmud calls kavana.
The word kavana means direction and intent. There is a literally physical direction we pray in, towards Jerusalem, as we’ve just discussed.
Within the context of tefila, kavana basically means intent. Believing with your mind, and feeling in your heart, the words that you say with your lips.
But on a deeper level kavana means the direction of your own spirit. Where are you, as a human being, going? Of course I mean this on a metaphoric level, but my point now is on a purely physical one. The actual direction of your body, your actions, how you literally will walk, hold your body, your head, etc and etc reflects how you relate your mind to your body. Directing your thoughts means directing your mind, and your mind relies on a flow of energy which encompasses the body as well. So there is a physical stance we take in Tefila, which I call a “standing vav.” ו
Imagine your spine as the long part of the vav, and your head as the head of the vav. You stand stright andtall, with youy mind aware of your entire body as you keep yourself upright using only your core muscles. In this position you can feel your breat emenaste from your core, your solar plexes, up through th lungs and out your mouth in the breath of tefia, of song for that matter. This is something that takes practise, and is obviously a bit esoteric, yet it does not need to be mysterious. Simply put, stamning straight and being keenly aware of your physical posture has a direct and immediate effect on your ability to concentrate, full stop.
But if you are esoterically inlined, recognise that in this position you are a vav hachibur the vav which connects, in this case your head to your body. In this contemplative stance we do tefila.
It is difficult to keep our attention when dovening, especially as Jewish prayer seems wordy. This may sound funny, but when we know the meaning of the prayers they are really quite terse and pithy. But, while we are learning their translation, or using a translation, we can pick and choose the areas of special importance upon which to focus for the mitzva. For example, Shema Yisroel and at least the first blessing of Shemonah Essray. We will examine both in coming sections of this book, but let’s keep our focus now on keeping our focus now.
Here is a simple tool I often use when my mind is wandering. I don’t try to translate the words in my mind, but rather just focus my mind on my mouth physically forming the words. By concentrating on the shape of the words I often find my way back to their meaning. Some might find it easier to simply concentrate on the sound of the words as they hear them, listening carefully to their own pronunciation. And lastly a similar trick is to imagine your breath forming the words in space as if you are a scribe, using your mouth as a quill and the air as parchment.
And as a scribe would be - you become especially sensitive to God’s Name, which if written without kavana, nullifies mezzuzos Tefillin an sifrei Torah from being kosher.
Because the truth is that even if we don’t know (or aren’t paying attention to ) the rest of the words, we fulfil an aspect of tefila. The two exceptions to this rule are the first line of Shema and the first blessing of Shemonah Essray. We will pay attention to both later on in the book, but first let’s explore what saying the words without meaning them can possibly do for us.
Rav Chaim Brisker on the Rambam suggests that there are two aspects to kavana, that of intending the words, and that of intending to stand before God. He learns in the Rambam that while the kavana of intending the words is only essential to the first blessing of Shemonah Essray and the first verse of Shema, the intention to be standing before God is the essential act of prayer itself, regardless of the content of the prayer. If one lacks this intention they aren’t dovening, they are just shukkeling.
That a person could theoretically stand before God without knowing what they are saying, and still have an amazing experience of tefila is brought out by a beautiful chassidic story:
A young Shepard boy, who had gotten only as far as the Alef-Bais with his Jewish education, disdained going to the synagogue, preferring the company of his sheep. But as Rosh HaShanah passed, and the boy did not go to shul, and he saw all of the preparations for the High Holy day come and go and he had no part in them, he felt remiss, and resolved that when Yom Kippur arrived he would join the community in the shule. That shule was fortunate to have a Rabbi who was a saintly man. The young boy took a seat far to the back, where he could see without being seen. He sat silently through Kol Nidre on the eve of this holiest day and continued sitting there through the evening service, the morning service with it’s Torah readings, the musaf (additional) service, the afternoon service, and then came time for Neilah (the closing service). And as the sun began to set at the end of the holy day, the congregation was stirred up by the great Rabbi, who urged them to remember that “this was it!” the gates were closing, the next few minutes would determine everything for the year to come! And the boy, who could at last understand the simple Yiddish of the Rabbi, began to think and think, and the words of the Rabbi echoed and echoed in his head until they cracked the shell that had surrounded the poor boy’s heart. He broke into a sobbing chant, “alef bais gimmel dalet hey vav zion ches…” all the way through the Hebrew alphabet, over and over and louder and louder until his voice interrupted the congregation who began to shout him down. “What is the meaning of this?!” shouted the president of the shule, “Are you mocking at this holiest of times?” The Rabbi shouted “Stop!” and the congregation turned to him. “Tell me, my son,” he said quietly to the boy, who answered: “I wanted to pray so badly but I don’t know how to read the siddur. So I thought to God – You surely know the words, I will say the letters to You, and You form them into the prayers.” And the Rabbi said to the congregation, “This boy’s prayers have pierced the gates of Heaven and brought all of ours with it.”
More ideas to help build our attention span for tefila
There is a principle that will help us build our kavana. “The external awakens the internal.” Meaning that what we are if we behave as if we are truly speaking to God, we’ll awaken the feeling within.
In the Shemonah Essray, we adopt the attitude that we are addressing God directly. This is why we stand at attention and bow at the proscribed times. This is also why it is forbidden to interrupt Shemonah Essray for anything short of putting one’s self in danger. So if we’re looking at other people or thinking about them looking at us, it’s going to be very difficult to have kavana.
Ok - let’s say we’re doing what we can externally - what can we think about to help us build our kavana?
There is one verse in the middle of the pezukei d’zimra which must be said with intent and understanding of it’s meaning, or else one is supposed to repeat until we get it. This is not the stringency of Shema or the Avos blessing, but still one wants to do things right. The verse is:
Poseach es Yadecha u’masbia l’chol chai ratzon.
You open Your Hand and satisfy the will of every living being.
This verse seems difficult to understand if we take to mean that God gives everyone what they want, simply because that seems far from the reality.
But we must understand there is a difference between will and desire.
In Hebrew, the word for desire is chafetz. A person can desire more than one thing. For example, I can desire to be thin and still desire my wife’s oatmeal raisin chocolate chip cookies. This may lead to a struggle between my desires, and I will have to make a choice. Now my will comes into play. What I will choose will prove what my real will is. That is what God satisfies. God leads you in the way you choose to go. If you desire good, if you push your will towards the way of good, God will help you and lead you that way. If you choose the way of curse, God will allow you to have it. This is what it means to have free-will. God is always really running the show “behind the scenes,” but is generally just allowing our own choices to follow their natural course, so to speak. So the Sages teach:
Mitzva causes mitzva, and sin causes sin. Meaning if a person does one mitzva it will lead to another and vice versa. This is just another way of saying the above verse: “You open Your Hand and satisfy the will of every living being.”
I want to go a step further though and suggest a different kavana. I think we should translate the verse this way: You open Your Hand and satisfy everyone’s living will, the emphasis on living. In other words, there is a part of our will which is alive, which is choosing life, and that is the part of us that God is satisfying. So we may pray to win the lottery, but that desire might not be sourced in the part of us that desires what is real in life, and so if we’re lucky our lottery ticket will not win. Be happy you lost and stop wasting your money on tickets. Get real - if you have your health and food on the table, you have already won the lottery. Now go enjoy your life.
Ramban1 teaches that at the redemption, we will reach a stage when the Almighty will “circumcise our hearts,” meaning that we will return to the wholeness of consciousness that humans had before eating from the Tree of Knowledge, when a person did not desire a thing and it’s opposite. As we’ve said, as it is today we can have conflicting desires, such as saving money or spending it! When Moshiach comes, what is truly valuable will be so apparent to everyone, that these kinds of “conflicts” will no longer distract and confuse us. But even now - you can be your own Messiah.
There are things in life that you want, and if you’ve thought about them at any length then you know these things don’t happen easily. It might be happiness in a relationship, a job, just feeling better about yourself and your situation in general, or changing the world. Whatever your plan is, you know it will take hard work and willpower if you really want to succeed.
If your plan has one two or three goals that you can keep in mind as you pray day in and day out, not as a pleading whiny person but as a person who reviews what is important to their will, their plan, you will begin to direct yourself in a more successful way. This is not rocket science. And this is not “The Secret.” But as I understand the mitzva of tefila, in order for a blessing to have a place to “land” in this world, needs to have a kli kibul, a vessel to contain the blessing. We make ourselves a vessel by our efforts and our intentions. If we pray about something without working towards it, we are fooling ourselves and wasting time. On the other hand, we know that our efforts alone can do nothing except be that which receives God’s blessing. If God doesn’t want it to happen, then we accept it and say “no worries.”
When we pray about something it’s not to make it happen “outside,” but rather to make it happen “inside.” If we can turn ourselves on to the divinity of our own path, then we can bring blessings into the people and situations that orbit our life.
Imagine if you kept a daily diary of your plan, touching upon it quickly every morning and evening, to set the goals of the day in the morning, and then review the day at it’s end. Imagine how focused and productive you could be! Now recognise that this is what you’re prayers can be about. You don’t need to write down your goals, they can be incorporated into the blessings of Shemonah Essray. And you don’t need to keep a diary because you have a Friend who likes to listen to you, wow, what a great Friend! Because when you talk it over, even for just the few minutes of Shemonah Essray, you plug yourself back into what you care about, either deeply or in passing, depending on the day.
The idea of calling God as your Friend comes from Rashi’s comment on a well known Gemara. You’ve heard of the (potential) convert who demanded that Hillel teach him the entire Torah while he stood on one foot? Hillel said:
What is hateful to you, do not do to your friend. This is the whole Torah, the rest is commentary, go learn it.
Mostly we assume that Hillel means other people when he says “your friend.”
This is certainly also true - but Rashi’s comment there adds a layer to Hillel’s meaning:
What is hateful to you, do not do to your friend: “Your friend and your father’s friend do not abandon…2” this refers to the Holy One blessed be He. Do not transgress His words, for you would hate it if your friend transgressed your words. Another explanation; it literally means human friend, as in (the commandments not to) rob; steal; adulterate; and most of the mitzvos.
The alternative explanation, that Hillel literally meant human friend, satisfies what the convert was asking for in terms of “most of the mitzvos,” and that would have to be good enough, Mr. Babylonian. But only the first explanation has the breadth to include the entire Torah within the principle of “what is hateful to you…” Because the entire Torah is God’s word, and we did agree to keep the Torah at Mt. Sinai with an unbreakable covenant. And because…well you wouldn’t like it if your friend reneged on a pact, would you? A partnership you’ve both stuck to for eons, especially as He’s saved our hides because of it so many times!
But when we do God’s will as a good friend might, we’re doing Him a “kindness” in a sense. We act as a loyal friend would. We can thus appreciate the words of Shemonah Essray that God remembers the kindness of the Patriarchs.
A friend taught me a very valuable life lesson. He said – know what you are worth. As part of motivating ourselves to have kavana, it is important that we recognise how valuable and beloved we are to God. This is not so that we should be arrogant, God forbid. This is so that we can trust, let go a little, open up and realise that more than a mother loves her children, God loves us. So what is it that you want bubbalah? If you could have anything in the world… what do you ask for? A raise? A spouse? The rebuilding of Jewish Jerusalem and with it World Peace? Shoot for the moon but stand in your own backyard. Keep your goals lofty but your feet on the ground. If you take the time to learn the meaning of the Shemonah Essray blessings, you will find a place for everything you desire, from the universal to your own personal needs.
Does God answer us according to how well we pray?
I believe the question is ridiculous, for it supposes we can answer anything about how God works. But, I believe that God responds to us as partners in creation, when we make ourselves so, and both our prayers and our actions are consistent with one another. God is not a slot machine, and prayer is not dropping in a coin and pulling the lever. Also He is not a vending machine, where you press the right button and a blessing drops. He is your Father in heaven, King of the universe, and prayer is a way of remembering that fact.
To sum up: Having Kavana means connecting yourself back to your Source for blessing, which requires clarity of thought and purpose. God will satisfy your will - the question is - what do you really want?
1 Devarim 30:6
2 Proverbs 27:10
Service of the heart is what the Talmud calls kavana.
The word kavana means direction and intent. There is a literally physical direction we pray in, towards Jerusalem, as we’ve just discussed.
Within the context of tefila, kavana basically means intent. Believing with your mind, and feeling in your heart, the words that you say with your lips.
But on a deeper level kavana means the direction of your own spirit. Where are you, as a human being, going? Of course I mean this on a metaphoric level, but my point now is on a purely physical one. The actual direction of your body, your actions, how you literally will walk, hold your body, your head, etc and etc reflects how you relate your mind to your body. Directing your thoughts means directing your mind, and your mind relies on a flow of energy which encompasses the body as well. So there is a physical stance we take in Tefila, which I call a “standing vav.” ו
Imagine your spine as the long part of the vav, and your head as the head of the vav. You stand stright andtall, with youy mind aware of your entire body as you keep yourself upright using only your core muscles. In this position you can feel your breat emenaste from your core, your solar plexes, up through th lungs and out your mouth in the breath of tefia, of song for that matter. This is something that takes practise, and is obviously a bit esoteric, yet it does not need to be mysterious. Simply put, stamning straight and being keenly aware of your physical posture has a direct and immediate effect on your ability to concentrate, full stop.
But if you are esoterically inlined, recognise that in this position you are a vav hachibur the vav which connects, in this case your head to your body. In this contemplative stance we do tefila.
It is difficult to keep our attention when dovening, especially as Jewish prayer seems wordy. This may sound funny, but when we know the meaning of the prayers they are really quite terse and pithy. But, while we are learning their translation, or using a translation, we can pick and choose the areas of special importance upon which to focus for the mitzva. For example, Shema Yisroel and at least the first blessing of Shemonah Essray. We will examine both in coming sections of this book, but let’s keep our focus now on keeping our focus now.
Here is a simple tool I often use when my mind is wandering. I don’t try to translate the words in my mind, but rather just focus my mind on my mouth physically forming the words. By concentrating on the shape of the words I often find my way back to their meaning. Some might find it easier to simply concentrate on the sound of the words as they hear them, listening carefully to their own pronunciation. And lastly a similar trick is to imagine your breath forming the words in space as if you are a scribe, using your mouth as a quill and the air as parchment.
And as a scribe would be - you become especially sensitive to God’s Name, which if written without kavana, nullifies mezzuzos Tefillin an sifrei Torah from being kosher.
Because the truth is that even if we don’t know (or aren’t paying attention to ) the rest of the words, we fulfil an aspect of tefila. The two exceptions to this rule are the first line of Shema and the first blessing of Shemonah Essray. We will pay attention to both later on in the book, but first let’s explore what saying the words without meaning them can possibly do for us.
Rav Chaim Brisker on the Rambam suggests that there are two aspects to kavana, that of intending the words, and that of intending to stand before God. He learns in the Rambam that while the kavana of intending the words is only essential to the first blessing of Shemonah Essray and the first verse of Shema, the intention to be standing before God is the essential act of prayer itself, regardless of the content of the prayer. If one lacks this intention they aren’t dovening, they are just shukkeling.
That a person could theoretically stand before God without knowing what they are saying, and still have an amazing experience of tefila is brought out by a beautiful chassidic story:
A young Shepard boy, who had gotten only as far as the Alef-Bais with his Jewish education, disdained going to the synagogue, preferring the company of his sheep. But as Rosh HaShanah passed, and the boy did not go to shul, and he saw all of the preparations for the High Holy day come and go and he had no part in them, he felt remiss, and resolved that when Yom Kippur arrived he would join the community in the shule. That shule was fortunate to have a Rabbi who was a saintly man. The young boy took a seat far to the back, where he could see without being seen. He sat silently through Kol Nidre on the eve of this holiest day and continued sitting there through the evening service, the morning service with it’s Torah readings, the musaf (additional) service, the afternoon service, and then came time for Neilah (the closing service). And as the sun began to set at the end of the holy day, the congregation was stirred up by the great Rabbi, who urged them to remember that “this was it!” the gates were closing, the next few minutes would determine everything for the year to come! And the boy, who could at last understand the simple Yiddish of the Rabbi, began to think and think, and the words of the Rabbi echoed and echoed in his head until they cracked the shell that had surrounded the poor boy’s heart. He broke into a sobbing chant, “alef bais gimmel dalet hey vav zion ches…” all the way through the Hebrew alphabet, over and over and louder and louder until his voice interrupted the congregation who began to shout him down. “What is the meaning of this?!” shouted the president of the shule, “Are you mocking at this holiest of times?” The Rabbi shouted “Stop!” and the congregation turned to him. “Tell me, my son,” he said quietly to the boy, who answered: “I wanted to pray so badly but I don’t know how to read the siddur. So I thought to God – You surely know the words, I will say the letters to You, and You form them into the prayers.” And the Rabbi said to the congregation, “This boy’s prayers have pierced the gates of Heaven and brought all of ours with it.”
More ideas to help build our attention span for tefila
There is a principle that will help us build our kavana. “The external awakens the internal.” Meaning that what we are if we behave as if we are truly speaking to God, we’ll awaken the feeling within.
In the Shemonah Essray, we adopt the attitude that we are addressing God directly. This is why we stand at attention and bow at the proscribed times. This is also why it is forbidden to interrupt Shemonah Essray for anything short of putting one’s self in danger. So if we’re looking at other people or thinking about them looking at us, it’s going to be very difficult to have kavana.
Ok - let’s say we’re doing what we can externally - what can we think about to help us build our kavana?
There is one verse in the middle of the pezukei d’zimra which must be said with intent and understanding of it’s meaning, or else one is supposed to repeat until we get it. This is not the stringency of Shema or the Avos blessing, but still one wants to do things right. The verse is:
Poseach es Yadecha u’masbia l’chol chai ratzon.
You open Your Hand and satisfy the will of every living being.
This verse seems difficult to understand if we take to mean that God gives everyone what they want, simply because that seems far from the reality.
But we must understand there is a difference between will and desire.
In Hebrew, the word for desire is chafetz. A person can desire more than one thing. For example, I can desire to be thin and still desire my wife’s oatmeal raisin chocolate chip cookies. This may lead to a struggle between my desires, and I will have to make a choice. Now my will comes into play. What I will choose will prove what my real will is. That is what God satisfies. God leads you in the way you choose to go. If you desire good, if you push your will towards the way of good, God will help you and lead you that way. If you choose the way of curse, God will allow you to have it. This is what it means to have free-will. God is always really running the show “behind the scenes,” but is generally just allowing our own choices to follow their natural course, so to speak. So the Sages teach:
Mitzva causes mitzva, and sin causes sin. Meaning if a person does one mitzva it will lead to another and vice versa. This is just another way of saying the above verse: “You open Your Hand and satisfy the will of every living being.”
I want to go a step further though and suggest a different kavana. I think we should translate the verse this way: You open Your Hand and satisfy everyone’s living will, the emphasis on living. In other words, there is a part of our will which is alive, which is choosing life, and that is the part of us that God is satisfying. So we may pray to win the lottery, but that desire might not be sourced in the part of us that desires what is real in life, and so if we’re lucky our lottery ticket will not win. Be happy you lost and stop wasting your money on tickets. Get real - if you have your health and food on the table, you have already won the lottery. Now go enjoy your life.
Ramban1 teaches that at the redemption, we will reach a stage when the Almighty will “circumcise our hearts,” meaning that we will return to the wholeness of consciousness that humans had before eating from the Tree of Knowledge, when a person did not desire a thing and it’s opposite. As we’ve said, as it is today we can have conflicting desires, such as saving money or spending it! When Moshiach comes, what is truly valuable will be so apparent to everyone, that these kinds of “conflicts” will no longer distract and confuse us. But even now - you can be your own Messiah.
There are things in life that you want, and if you’ve thought about them at any length then you know these things don’t happen easily. It might be happiness in a relationship, a job, just feeling better about yourself and your situation in general, or changing the world. Whatever your plan is, you know it will take hard work and willpower if you really want to succeed.
If your plan has one two or three goals that you can keep in mind as you pray day in and day out, not as a pleading whiny person but as a person who reviews what is important to their will, their plan, you will begin to direct yourself in a more successful way. This is not rocket science. And this is not “The Secret.” But as I understand the mitzva of tefila, in order for a blessing to have a place to “land” in this world, needs to have a kli kibul, a vessel to contain the blessing. We make ourselves a vessel by our efforts and our intentions. If we pray about something without working towards it, we are fooling ourselves and wasting time. On the other hand, we know that our efforts alone can do nothing except be that which receives God’s blessing. If God doesn’t want it to happen, then we accept it and say “no worries.”
When we pray about something it’s not to make it happen “outside,” but rather to make it happen “inside.” If we can turn ourselves on to the divinity of our own path, then we can bring blessings into the people and situations that orbit our life.
Imagine if you kept a daily diary of your plan, touching upon it quickly every morning and evening, to set the goals of the day in the morning, and then review the day at it’s end. Imagine how focused and productive you could be! Now recognise that this is what you’re prayers can be about. You don’t need to write down your goals, they can be incorporated into the blessings of Shemonah Essray. And you don’t need to keep a diary because you have a Friend who likes to listen to you, wow, what a great Friend! Because when you talk it over, even for just the few minutes of Shemonah Essray, you plug yourself back into what you care about, either deeply or in passing, depending on the day.
The idea of calling God as your Friend comes from Rashi’s comment on a well known Gemara. You’ve heard of the (potential) convert who demanded that Hillel teach him the entire Torah while he stood on one foot? Hillel said:
What is hateful to you, do not do to your friend. This is the whole Torah, the rest is commentary, go learn it.
Mostly we assume that Hillel means other people when he says “your friend.”
This is certainly also true - but Rashi’s comment there adds a layer to Hillel’s meaning:
What is hateful to you, do not do to your friend: “Your friend and your father’s friend do not abandon…2” this refers to the Holy One blessed be He. Do not transgress His words, for you would hate it if your friend transgressed your words. Another explanation; it literally means human friend, as in (the commandments not to) rob; steal; adulterate; and most of the mitzvos.
The alternative explanation, that Hillel literally meant human friend, satisfies what the convert was asking for in terms of “most of the mitzvos,” and that would have to be good enough, Mr. Babylonian. But only the first explanation has the breadth to include the entire Torah within the principle of “what is hateful to you…” Because the entire Torah is God’s word, and we did agree to keep the Torah at Mt. Sinai with an unbreakable covenant. And because…well you wouldn’t like it if your friend reneged on a pact, would you? A partnership you’ve both stuck to for eons, especially as He’s saved our hides because of it so many times!
But when we do God’s will as a good friend might, we’re doing Him a “kindness” in a sense. We act as a loyal friend would. We can thus appreciate the words of Shemonah Essray that God remembers the kindness of the Patriarchs.
A friend taught me a very valuable life lesson. He said – know what you are worth. As part of motivating ourselves to have kavana, it is important that we recognise how valuable and beloved we are to God. This is not so that we should be arrogant, God forbid. This is so that we can trust, let go a little, open up and realise that more than a mother loves her children, God loves us. So what is it that you want bubbalah? If you could have anything in the world… what do you ask for? A raise? A spouse? The rebuilding of Jewish Jerusalem and with it World Peace? Shoot for the moon but stand in your own backyard. Keep your goals lofty but your feet on the ground. If you take the time to learn the meaning of the Shemonah Essray blessings, you will find a place for everything you desire, from the universal to your own personal needs.
Does God answer us according to how well we pray?
I believe the question is ridiculous, for it supposes we can answer anything about how God works. But, I believe that God responds to us as partners in creation, when we make ourselves so, and both our prayers and our actions are consistent with one another. God is not a slot machine, and prayer is not dropping in a coin and pulling the lever. Also He is not a vending machine, where you press the right button and a blessing drops. He is your Father in heaven, King of the universe, and prayer is a way of remembering that fact.
To sum up: Having Kavana means connecting yourself back to your Source for blessing, which requires clarity of thought and purpose. God will satisfy your will - the question is - what do you really want?
1 Devarim 30:6
2 Proverbs 27:10