Kavannah without Attitude
January 16, 2010
This is the third in a series of Jewish religious topics from a lay perspective.
Kavannah refers to mindfulness, intentionality, full engagement. Used to describe religious participation, praying with kavannah means immersing one’s self in the practice and devoting one’s heart, soul and mind fully.
It sounds like a good idea. If we are going to make the effort to pray at all—in the Temple, at home, or elsewhere—it shouldn’t be an empty gesture. Why just mouth the words or go through the motions in a half-baked fashion? Put ourselves into it and we’ll get more out of it: it makes perfect sense. But it turns out to be not that simple.
As a Reform Jew, I don’t feel the need or obligation to immerse myself in prayer on a daily schedule as more observant Jews do. Since becoming involved with Temple Emanu-El’s board a few years ago, I started to enjoy attending Shabbat services once or twice a month. But ritual prayers remained more ritual and less prayer. I found the often-repeated language of our written prayers a challenge to take literally (though the new weekly prayer book, Mishkan Tefilah, is a big improvement). The language of traditional prayer also leads many Jews to prefer to pray in Hebrew: because we don’t have to negotiate the meaning of all the specific words.
I tried it to pray with kavannah, at least when I remembered to. I would focus on saying a prayer with full concentration to boost my level of spiritual engagement, at least for a few moments. It didn’t work very well. The problem was that in sharpening my focus, I ended up putting all the attention on focusing instead of on praying. In other words, the harder I tried to pray, the more I was caught up in the trying, leaving less energy for whatever praying was supposed to be about. It gave me a bad attitude about kavannah.
What caused it to change, I really don’t know. But at some point the whole idea of intentional prayer flipped completely on its head. My understanding of kavannah turned itself upside down.
Kavannah works not as focus and effort but as surrender: giving yourself over rather than pushing harder. It may be counterintuitive but it has worked to abandon the effort entirely.
Now, when I enter into prayer I no longer try to do it right. Instead, I open myself to the process. By surrendering myself spiritually in this way—which means temporarily giving up thought, judgment about content, and uncertainty about the whole idea of prayer—prayer feels much better. It brings me closer to the ineffable spirit that is at the heart of religion. It draws me in, in a fashion impossible to fully describe.
The words provide the structure, but the spirit of prayer is what yields the meaning. Whether praying the Shema, reciting Kaddish for my parents, or in silent meditation, the act of turning my consciousness over to that which is beyond my understanding and control makes all the difference.
It still doesn’t happen all the time. My mind is as busy as anyone else’s. Perhaps I lack the experience, or discipline, or desire to lose myself in prayer all that often. When it does occur, prayer becomes more meaningful and rewarding than I had ever thought it would be.
The key is giving up thought and judgment that are so highly prized in other areas of life. Prayer through willful immersion, even occasionally, provides a spiritual richness that is as rewarding as it was, for me, unexpected.
