Category Archives: Judaism – Prayer

Freedom Spoken with a Hebrew Accent: Universalism and Particularism in the Haggadah

Some thoughts on the universalist and particularist philosophies of the Haggadah, from a paper I wrote last year. You can read the entire paper here, with its comparative study of three different Haggadot (Orthodox, Reform and Israeli).

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While Jewish communities and individual Jews have long understood themselves in context of their place in the wider societies in which they have lived (the Talmud recounts, for example, a number of rules regarding how Jews should conduct themselves while under Roman rule), for most of its history Judaism has been a largely particularistic tradition, chiefly concerned with its own ongoing narrative and how Jews should behave qua Jews. As much as the Talmud understands Judaism to exist within a larger universe, it also establishes a hierarchy of values vis à vis internal Jewish responsibility:

A member of one’s household takes precedence over everyone else. The poor of one’s household take precedence over the poor of one’s city. And the poor of one’s own city take precedence over the poor of other cities. [1]

Rabbi David Ellenson comments that this Talmudic passage “bespeaks the primacy our tradition assigns the Jewish covenantal community in the Jewish hierarchy of values.” [2]

It was not until modernity that consciousnesses emerged within Judaism seeking to understand how Jews should behave and understand their heritage with a more universalistic outlook. Of particular note is how these new traditions played themselves out literarily, as Jewish philosophers and religious leaders attempted to articulate a new Jewish religious identity that wasn’t primarily inward-looking. Leopold Zunz – founder of the Wissenschaft des Judentums – argued that this philosophical character of Jewish literature can only be described paradoxically: simultaneously concerned with Jewish identity and Jewish otherness; of “particularism and universalism.” [3]

There is no text that straddles the boundary between particularism and universalism more acutely than the Pesach Haggadah’s retelling of the Israelite Exodus from Egypt. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks posits that “the story of Pesach is intensely particularistic… yet no story has had greater impact on the political development of the West… [it] has been the West’s most influential source-book of liberty.” [4]

Andreas Gotzman and Christian Wiese point to the inevitability of this tension in arguing that it is necessary for a style of literature that simultaneously reflects on its own particularities, as well as its historical and cultural relationship with surrounding peoples.” [5]

Rabbi Jonathan Omer-Man, in his commentary on the Haggadah, notes that it is sometimes viewed as telling the story of the birth of a specific nation and people, while at other times, viewed as a “universalistic political statement, an affirmation that tyranny will be overcome in all places and at all times.” [6] In this textual interplay, the Haggadah makes use of biblical themes highly amenable to universalistic interpretations: freedom, liberty, justice, equality, and responsibility.

That said, while individual Haggadot are free to interpret and express these themes in their own universalistic ways, the Haggadah’s traditional paradigm remains largely particularistic to a specifically Jewish narrative.

The Haggadah’s role in the textual debate between Jewish universalism and particularism should not be understated. Thanks to the ease of modern publishing, one can find a plethora of Haggadot that emphasize and de-emphasize these ideological poles. To be sure, in 2014, Israeli journalist Mira Sucharov penned an article in Ha’aretz prior to Pesach asking Israelis the pointed question: “Are you a particularist Jew or a universalist one?” [7]

Each Haggadah – in dialogue with its own sitz im leben – puts forth a different paradigm of the Exodus narrative, applying varying degrees of particularism and universalism.

Go ahead and read the rest of the paper here…

[1] BT Baba Metzia 71a

[2] Ellenson, David. Universalism and Particularism: Jewish Teachings on Jewish Obligation. Jewish Philanthropy, April, 2014.

[3] Gotzman, Andreas & Wiese, Christian. Modern Judaism and Historical Consciousness: Identities, Encounters, Perspectives. Brill, 2007. Pg. 301

[4] Sacks, Jonathan. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’s Haggadah. Continuum International, 2006. Pg. 59

[5] Gotzman & Wiese, 301

[6] Omer-Man, Jonathan. Commentary on the Haggadah. in Conservative Judaism. Vol. XLII, no. 2

[7] Sucharov, Mira. What does your Passover seder say about you? Haaretz: April 7, 2014.

There is a Wall in Your Way

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At the Wall, all anyone can do is look at the Wall.
From all her angles.
At the Wall all you can do is close your eyes because there’s nothing to see there.
There is a Wall in your way…

– From “Along the Wall” by Rabbi Joshua Bolton

I had the joy of joining with Women of the Wall this evening to help kick off the group’s 25th anniversary. A few of us from school were asked to songlead during the opening ceremony, and I welcomed the opportunity. Tomorrow, I will join their Rosh Chodesh service at the Kotel (from the men’s side of the mechitzah), in support of my peers, colleagues, and friends.

My visit to the Kotel tomorrow will only be my second since arriving in Israel over four months ago (the other being on Tisha b’Av). I have a tenuous relationship with the Kotel, and as of late, I do not find it spiritually conducive to my Jewish practice. As an aside – is it absurd to speak in terms of having a “relationship” with a pile of old stones?

In commemoration of the Women of the Wall’s celebrations, a group of girls from NFTY came to Israel to represent the Movement. Speaking about the history and significance of the Kotel, one particularly wise teen said to me – “but it’s just a retaining wall!” That’s a pretty concise yet accurate statement of where I’m at these days. This statement is indeed true, but there is much more to this truth. Certainly, I recognize the immense historical significance and symbolic relevance of the Kotel, and this is something that I do connect strongly with. But as a symbol of Orthodox hegemony and oppression of the rights of women and Jews, I find it to be an incredibly challenging and emotionally draining place. Which is why I don’t go much these days, even though I live and study steps from its ancient stones.

While discussing the challenges at the Kotel, a friend of mine remarked that she really values the unique roles Judaism ascribes to each gender, and finds deep meaning in what she is empowered to do as a Jewish woman. And that it is precisely for that reason that she, too, finds the Kotel to be a challenging place, since the imbroglio takes away from her ability to pray there as a woman, in a Jewish environment surrounded by women who aren’t trying to silence her.

For me, alongside my deep commitment to a fully egalitarian Judaism, I also identify strongly with the various ways that Judaism welcomes men and women to access their Judaism in different ways, at times using different language. I have no problem referring to the shekhinah any more than I do speaking of Avinu Malkeinu. To be sure – not withstanding the historical bias towards a male-oriented language that Jewish history has had – I relish the different metaphors and allegories we use to talk about God and our relationship with Her/Him.

It is for that reason that the Kotel’s hijacking by the Orthodox disturbs me the most – precisely because it is being done by my fellow Jewish men, in the name of a Judaism to which I – and the majority of both Israelis and Jews around the world – don’t ascribe. When I go to the Kotel and bask in the vastness of the men’s section, I can walk freely up to the ancient and holy stones without having to push my way through a crowd, as the women do. I don’t have raw eggs thrown at me for wearing tallit and tefillin, and I can pray the words of the Shema without fear of being arrested. For me to do these things, while other Jews cannot, requires immense cognitive dissonance; that these offenses are committed by fellow Jewish men towards women because they are not men causes me great distress.

Yet tomorrow, I will join thousands of other people in recognition of the ongoing struggle to make Israel a better place. Surely, I can’t just sit on the sidelines whenever the fight gets dirty. Often, it’s important to get a little closer to the things that make us uncomfortable, to get a better perspective, and to push ourselves to right the wrongs we see in the world. As we sang tonight, overlooking the gates of the Old City: “Open for me the gates of righteousness, I will enter and give thanks to Adonai.”

This is a serious prayer. Time to get serious.

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I have a difficult relationship with the prayer, Kaddish Yatom.

When I was younger and learning how to pray Jewishly, I assumed that what I learned about praying Kaddish Yatom was the same for all Jews – that everyone in the congregation stood and recited the words together. As I prayed in communities beyond my own, I learned that this was not the case – that this was a mostly Reform Jewish minhag (custom), and that in most other Ashkenazi communities, only the mourners themselves rose to recite the text. As it happens, the Reform minhag mirrors that of the Sephardi rite, although I imagine this is purely coincidental and that the two practices evolved separately.

Since learning of the difference in methods of praying Kaddish Yatom, my own practice has evolved. Especially since my own Bubby Jeanne passed away, I have come to appreciate the value and personal meaning found in having a specific moment to myself (along with other mourners in the congregation) to honor her memory and pray to God. This was particularly apparent when I was praying at a Conservative shul during shloshim. For three times every morning, for thirty days, during shacharit, I rose to say the words of Kaddish Yatom and praise God in memory of my Bubby. As one of the only people standing in the congregation, I felt as though my words carried a unique gravitas. This wasn’t just something that everyone did because it was the proscribed time in the service, this was a particular responsibility and honor that I had.

The Reform innovation of having the entire congregation rise to say Kaddish along with the mourners evolved out of a desire to have the community unite in support of the bereaved during their difficult time. There is also a minhag that this is an opportunity to say Kaddish for those that have nobody to remember them – particularly those who perished in the shoah. While I appreciate and understand these motivations – and even find myself compelled at certain times to utter the words of Kaddish for these reasons – I find that they ultimately detract from the deeper meaning of this part of our worship.

If one says the Kaddish Yatom every time they pray – even if they are not mourning or observing a yahrtzeit – how is the kavannah of that prayer distinguished from when it is being said specifically in memory of someone who has died? Does this not detract from the gravitas, uniqueness, and separateness (a critical component of the Jewish notion of holiness) of it being used only during times of mourning and memory?

This conception is not foreign to Reform Judaism – elsewhere in our liturgy, there are countless examples of prayers that are used only at specific times to ascribe additional holiness and significance. Yet for some reason, within Reform worship practices, the Kaddish Yatom seems to already hold this level of added import. In virtually every Reform congregation and community I have prayed in, the same scenario plays out upon arriving at the Kaddish Yatom: Faces become somber. The tone of voices change; you can hear the added reverence. This is not a prayer you just say. Elsewhere in the service, distractions may abound, but when it comes to Kaddish, the transformation in attitude among worshipers is palpable. This is a serious prayer. Time to get serious.

Even in so-called creative services in summer camps or youth groups, where there may be a near-complete departure from the more traditional keva of the liturgy, the elevation of the Kaddish Yatom can be observed. Amidst a service abounding with joyous Beatles, Phish, Bob Marley, and Mumford & Sons songs, you can be sure that at some point, the attitude of the prayer leaders will change. A serious look will come over their faces. And the community will be instructed to rise for the Kaddish. You can’t mess with THE Kaddish.

So as I prayed mincha earlier this week at school, I was pleasantly surprised when Ally, our shlicha tzibbur (prayer leader) for the day, instructed the community to remain sitting before Kaddish Yatom. She shared with us that many people in the community had been saying Kaddish particularly for loved ones who had recently died, and that she wanted to give these individuals an opportunity to share their stories and honor their memories aloud before the entire community. One by one, these people rose on their own, told us for whom they were praying Kaddish, shared a person story of their connection, then rejoined the community.

While this was clearly a creative addition to the structure of the mincha service, it was actually very much in keeping with the meaning of Kaddish Yatom. As I saw it, this was an opportunity for individuals to stand and recognize this period of mourning or memory as separate from their ordinary/daily lives, for them to ascribe additional significance and holiness to the prayer at this time of mourning or memory, and afterwards for them to sit down among the community and receive their support.

Sitting, listening to these stories as part of the framing of Kaddish Yatom was incredibly refreshing. For me, it is often challenging to remain sitting during this prayer. Usually I am the only one, or one of a very small minority. I feel different and separate – ironically, the very feelings I look for when I am saying Kaddish for someone in particular.

Ultimately, the kavannah of other worshippers is their own domain, and I’m not making a blanket suggestion that the dominant Reform minhag is wrong. However, I think some significantly meaningful aspects of the prayer for individual worshippers may be lost through the current practice. And while Reform worship styles are generally quite flexible and open to innovation, there is a remarkable level of orthodoxy when it comes to Kaddish Yatom. As a result, most Reform Jews have never been exposed to a different approach to this prayer.

For such a significant part of our life-cycle commemorations, this troubles me. It being a prayer that is held to such serious standards, shouldn’t it merit an equally serious approach in our search for understanding and meaning within our worship?

Postscript: Ironically, as I was searching for some sources for this post, I stumbled across an article with a very similar thesis that was written earlier this year for Reform Judaism Magazine.

Praying on the very tip of a rabbit’s hair

At school, we’re required to lead a number of services for the community throughout the year. The following is from an iyyun tefilah (contemplation/meditation on prayers) that I delivered as part of shacharit services I led at HUC-JIR in Jerusalem this shabbat:

In Sophie’s World, Norwegian author Jostein Gaarder compares the world in which we live to – of all things – a rabbit:

“All mortals are born at the very tip of the rabbit’s fine hairs, where they are in a position to wonder at the impossibility of the trick. But as they grow older they work themselves ever deeper into the fur. And there they stay. They become so comfortable they never risk crawling back up the fragile hairs again. Only philosophers embark on this perilous expedition to the outermost reaches of language and existence. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ they yell, ‘we are floating in space!’ But none of the people down there care. ‘What a bunch of troublemakers!’ they say, ‘Would you pass the butter, please? How much have our stocks risen today?'”

There’s a moment when I walk to the bus stop to go home from school, when the buildings part and I have a clear view straight down Rechov Keren HaYesod and Derech Hevron, over the Judaean Hills, and beyond the limits of Jerusalem. From this vantage point, I can see the concrete walls of the Separation Fence rising out of the dusty earth. Here in Israel – particularly in Jerusalem – we exist in a world where there are boundaries all around us. Physical and symbolic. Hard and soft. Between the “us” and the “them”. Between rich and poor. Between Israelis and Palestinians. Between religious and secular. Some boundaries are necessary and exist to help us make sense of our world; others are often obstacles and barriers for us.

This Shabbat, I invite us to think about these boundaries, and our relationship to them. Later, as we read from parashat Noach, we’ll hear about how humanity crossed the ultimate line; overstepping its collective boundaries, and resulting in the ultimate punishment – the end of existence for almost all of humanity.

As we pray together this morning, let us consider what we can learn from Noach about honoring appropriate boundaries. But let us also consider how are we like the mortals in Sophie’s world, held captive by our own boundaries. How should we be like the philosophers? As we pray, how can we arrive at the outermost reaches of language and existence – that place where we find God?

We start the Amidah with the words: Eternal God, open for me my lips (s’fatai) that my mouth may declare Your praise. S’fatai, as we know, means (my) lips. But s’fatai may also be translated as “the banks of a river,” in other words, the limit or defining line of a body of water. A boundary.

But not just any boundary – the banks of a river are a soft boundary – the river can expand beyond its limits, and become more than what it once was.

Perhaps… our opening petition is better read: “Eternal God, expand my own boundaries, so that my mouth may declare Your praise!”

A thought and question to help us focus during the Amidah: How do we limit ourselves from praising God? What do we want to ask for, so that we can arrive at those outermost reaches of language and existence that we rise on our toes three times to reach – that place where we find God!

The Beatle and the Havdallah Candle

Bonnaroo. Standing in a field surrounded by 90,000 people in the sweltering Tennessee heat, I counted down the minutes. Only 120 left until I was certain that my life was going to change.

Rewind a year to that same field in Tennessee – no doubt surrounded by many of the same people – and I’ve just seen Radiohead perform a set that quite literally knocked the words out of my mouth and left me silent. Trying to describe the experience as we walked back to our campsites, almost everyone was left searching for words that would do justice to the transcendent musical experience we had all shared. I don’t use the word transcendent lightly. It was – quite literally – an experience that elevated me to new heights. After hours, it seemed that most people had settled on beautiful as the only word that accurately reflected the concert. Turning to a friend, I proclaimed “Well now I’m screwed. No concert will ever be better than that.”

I was wrong.

With 120 minutes left until Paul McCartney was set to take the stage, my body tingled in anticipation. I was going to see and hear a Beatle sing to me.

I grew up with The Beatles constantly in my ears. My parents fed my sister and me a regular dose of classic rock, folk, and classical music, but it was The Beatles who were the staple soundtrack of my childhood, enjoying a weekly set every Sunday out of our old-school, wooden stereo speakers.

So when Macca took the stage and played over three hours worth of thirty-eight songs, I knew nothing would ever be the same. Radiohead’s mind-penetrating experimental music be damned, this was the original stuff. You can search elsewhere if you’d like a musical review of the show; this one’s more spiritual.

Towards the end of Paul’s sonically blistering (he can still wail on “Helter Skelter”) and emotionally moving (I dare any grown man not to shed tears when he sings “Here Today”) set, as fireworks exploded in the sky above me and 90,000 people sang “Naaaah, na na na na na naaaaah, na na na naaaaah…,” I was completely caught off guard. Like a punch to the soul, my body and brain united in a reaction to the experience. While Radiohead left me speechless looking for adjectives to describe the concert, Paul McCartney completely took over my body, soul, and brain.

Before that day, I can’t recall a moment in my life when I physically felt this way. Some people call these sensations hokey, hippy, or crunchy-granola. Fine. Let it be. All I can vouch for is that something for me changed, as my body reacted to the experience:

  • I felt a complete sense of oneness with the 90,000 people around me. Simultaneously and without contradiction, I also felt as though I wasn’t standing in a crowd of strangers, but was the only one who the music was being played for.
  • I felt pure thankfulness for being in that singular moment. For me, that was directed towards God. For others, it may have been to someone or something else. But the moment for me was one of sincere spirituality that was directly tied to my own personal theology.
  • Feeling the experience coursing through my veins and sending shivers up and down my spine, I questioned why anyone would need the help of drugs, when you can experience a full-body-high naturally. As it happens, it turns out there’s some science behind this. But for me, it went far beyond biology.

At the end of the set – recalling our Radiohead experience a year earlier – I turned to my friend with a bittersweet look on my face and said, “Well, shit. Nothing in life will ever be the same. It’s all downhill from here.”

I was wrong.

Last night, exactly a month after seeing McCartney, my body was hit with the same sensations of oneness and thankfulness.

With sweet music ringing in my ears and a leaping flame in front of my eyes, my body was thrown back to that field in Tennessee. Yet I couldn’t have been further from there. Here, in the center of Jerusalem, as my classmates and I marked the end of Shabbat and the beginning of our formal schooling on our paths to becoming Rabbis, Cantors, and Educators, my body and soul reacted again to an experience in a shocking way. I felt at one with the 40 souls surrounding me, united in the journey ahead of us. I felt a supreme sense of thanks to God for bringing me to this moment in time. Blessed to experience that soul-punching sensation again, the two central foci of my life – music and Judaism – were united in a way that I couldn’t have expected.

That this moment occurred during a Havdallah service is particularly serendipitous, as the ceremony is a multi-sensory experience that – much like Radiohead and McCartney – has the power to cut straight to the human soul. The sight of the flame, the smell of the spices, the sweetness of the wine, and the beauty of the melodies give our body a lingering sensation of the neshama  – the soul – of shabbat.

It seems to me that it’s no surprise that music and Jewish spirituality have the power to biologically affect our bodies in similar ways. Reb Nachman of Bratslav said that the most direct way humans can attach ourselves to God is through music and song. Chassidut teaches that every neshama has its own melody before making the descent into the human world.

Lucky that I get to spend an entire year of spiritual and musical growth with this group of people, I only wish I could say the same for my relationship with Paul McCartney…

Low Davening Fruit


I was just leaving a comment on a new post by David Wilensky. He’s received an advance copy of part of the new Reform machzor – Mishkan T’shuvah – and he’s brainstorming the criteria he’s going to use to evaluate it on his blog. Go check out what he has to say. This prompted me to wonder:

Given that most of the people who go to shul on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are of the “twice-a-year” variety, shouldn’t a machzor be designed with this in mind?

If so, wouldn’t you – as an editor of this machzor – do everything you could to make it accessible and inspiring with the goal of encouraging these twice-a-year Jews to become thrice-a-year or whatever comes after thrice?

Wouldn’t you fill it with meaningful and explanatory commentary and inspiring readings that aren’t clumped together like they’ve been pulled from Bartlett’s Quotations? Wouldn’t you present it in an open and unintimidating way? Wouldn’t you make it beautiful and enjoyable to use?

Have you seen what most machzors look like today? (Hint: most don’t look like that, and those that do are cost-prohibitive).

Congregations work so hard to bring in members, and as any Jewish demographer will tell you, most are struggling right now. So on the very days during the year when the crowd is in the house with books in hand, shouldn’t congregations be equipped to fight the good fight?

If you were in marketing, you would bend over backwards for the opportunity to reach people in the way congregations can at the High Holidays.

Suppose you’re a marketing firm representing some company. Imagine a crowd of people have voluntarily sat down in front of a billboard you created advertising this company, having already purchased whatever it is the company sells. Now imagine that this crowd of people have also told you that they’re only going to sit there for five days, and then they’re leaving and not coming back for a year. To make matters worse, they won’t again be purchasing whatever it is the company sells until then. Sound familiar?

If you were that marketing firm, wouldn’t you do everything you could to entice the people to come back sooner? Wouldn’t you design a billboard that wasn’t just targeted towards the brand-loyal, but also to the fence-sitters and window-shoppers?

If you were that company, wouldn’t you demand that the marketing firm earn its pay by creating such a worthy campaign?

I’m not suggesting that a machzor is just a billboard or a piece of advertising collateral, and I’m not suggesting that a shul is just selling a product or service. There is unique spirituality and holiness among both. But there is also some resonance in these comparisons.

The twice-a-year crowd is often viewed with contempt and relegated to the back of the shul, since most assume that they only come out of a sense of familial obligation or Jewish guilt. Not being of this variety myself, I can’t speak for them, however I would assume that very few feel compelled to return to shul following the High Holidays. Indeed, the proof is in the pews. And to some extent, congregations allow this to be so by focusing their energy and attention instead on the regulars, since those regulars demand the attention.

But the twice-a-year crowd are low hanging fruit! They’re in the house with books in hand!

Most certainly there is a responsibility on the part of congregations to reach out in a welcome manner, create worship services that are engaging and meaningful, and do their job to reach these low hanging fruits daveners.

But in the major Jewish Movements today, most congregations use the standard machzor of that Movement. So isn’t there some responsibility on the Movement’s part, too? Isn’t there a responsibility to create a machzor that does everything that my imaginary marketing firm would do?

I say yes.

So as David evaluates the new draft of Mishkan T’shuvhah, I’m left wondering if it will be a product that is created cognizant and reflective of the majority of people who will be holding it, or if it will be a product that serves instead the vocal minority. I’m not going to judge the book by it’s non-existent cover by making any assumptions at this point. I just hope that Mishkan T’shuvah will be both an inspiring product for the brand-loyal Jews, and also an enticing billboard for the low hanging daveners.

Please rise for the Bar’chu

David, over at Life on the Far Side, has eloquently put into words what has been milling about in my head for quite some time. Kol Hakavod to him.

While you should read his article to see what I’m talking about, the thrust of it goes something like this…

And when these youth are praying, in the most frequent iteration of liberal American prayer, they are provided with a single vision of what to see: a person, in front of them, guitar in hand, singing at them. Strum, strum strum. Baruch Ata Adonai. Strum strum strum.

This is prayer? It’s not very democratic. It’s not very educational either. It does not challenge the individual to learn or connect or experiment. It allows for passive witnessing of a prayer-experience unfolding.

Let me be clear and not mince words. The songleader, as a person and individual, is an invaluable talent within our midst. Song-leading is important. We need people with musical talent. We need people with presences who can stand before an audience and teach. We need performers. We need all of this, but not in prayer.

For that we need prayer-leaders. We have them. They’re called shlichei tsibur.

That being said, I don’t believe the issue is so much the guitar itself, as the way it is being used. Certainly, the use of physical instruments is not foreign to Jewish davening. (“Hal’luhu b’teika shofar… b’neivel v’chinor… b’tof umachol… b’minim v’ugav… b’tziltz’lei shama… b’tziltz’lei t’ruah“)

Instruments become a problem when they become a tool to hide behind or a tool for performance, rather than an extension of the group’s kavannah. Or to extend David’s metaphor, when they become an autocratic tool rather than a democratic device.

There is no Reform ideology which says “we pray with songleaders.” To be truly democratic, the phrase should read: “musicians pray with us.”

David mentions that “You don’t need a special person in front of a group to lead ‘services.'”

Nu?

Isn’t that what a Shaliach Tzibbur is? Isn’t a certain level of knowledge required to serve as a prayer leader? Doesn’t the very fact that we have a phrase to describe one who leads the community in prayer imply that that we do have a special person to lead prayer?

He also states: “You don’t need planning meetings… Get a group of ten together. Start praying, then you’ll learn how to lead it.” I agree. I’m with him on this one. But he’s preaching to the choir (which apparantly is an outdated institution…) We have to be careful about making assertions like this – it’s easy when we are intimately familiar with the mechanics of prayer. But for those that aren’t… those planning meetings are part and parcel of the learning process.

I find that one of the things that makes Jewish prayer so unique and rewarding is that it has never been something that is entirely spontaneous. Jewish prayer requires an ongoing learning process. Once that dissapears, it becomes stagnant. I don’t think we can just toss people into the pool of prayer and hope (pray?) that they learn how to swim.