Several seforim mention that the pituyim that grace selichos each day, are secondary to the long paragraph of introductory psukim, and to the reciting of the 13 midos harachamim. In reality all of selichos is an absolute treasure, if we had any inkling of what we are saying. Same goes for the most used book in every shul, the siddur. Our routine and robotic recitation of the regular tefilos is a “swing and a miss” (baseball lingo). We have precious opportunities to speak directly to Hashem. Clearly, diverting that time and energy to social chatter is a horrible waste. But babbling the words without emotional involvement, which would be facilitated much by better understanding of what we say, is a similar waste.
Shulchan Aruch obligates us to review tefilos prior to Rosh Chodesh – inasmuch as printing presses were not common then, and there were limited handwritten copies of the siddur. The Mishna Berurah comments that since we have siddurim and machzorim, this halacha pertains to piyutim. I ask, which yeshivos reserve time to review tefilos, whether year round or before Yomim Tovim? Do we review the piyutim of Selichos or of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur? How about the Hoshanos recited during Sukkos? As per the MB, this is a halacha. I believe we would do ourselves a huge favor by gaining more understanding of what we utter in tefiloh so that we do not squander the precious opportunity to speak directly to HKB”H (upon his express invitation).