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I have been meaning to begin a thread for some time. I am ashamed of myself but I do find it hard to Daven. B”H I can read but there is always something else to do….
When I do Daven I find it hard to concentrate.
I have been thinking about it and realise that it does not help that I don’t understand all the Tefillas. I speak to Hashem throughout the day in my own words.
I speak to Hashem throughout the day in my own words.
The richest kind of Tefilah, especially for ladies
mod – that’s true. but it’s still very frustrating not to FEEL during set tefilla. very – does anyone have any ideas?
When I get up in the morning, right after getting dressed, I daven.
It takes about 15 minutes. I don’t do anything else, including
phone calls. I say, talk to Hashem first, before to a person.
To understand tefillos, take an Artscroll siddur,and study one
tefilla every day.
I feel your pain! It has taken me a lot of work to try to feel something, some connection, during davening. I recommend the Pathway to Prayer books by Rabbi Birnbaum. They have translations of Shemonah Esrei and it really helps me focus on what I’m saying, which leads to a real feeling.
I also find it hard to daven. I always have some or another excuse, but not a day passes that I don’t talk to Hashem
But when I do Daven from a Siddur, I feel so good.
You should definitely learn ALL Tefillos and what they mean because its the only way that tefillah will have some meaning to you. It really is beautiful.
Be Happy, Emoticon613:
Artscroll sells an interlinear translated siddur. I use it for davening daily and its incredible. I cant always look at the translation of every word because that take s a long time and the minayan I daven with davens too fast for that but over time you learn the meaning and start to remember but most importantly if you are at home without having to keep up pace with a minyan you can use such a siddur and it will add a lot to your davening.
To really get a feeling for davening think and imagine that you are standing before Hashem. Imagine that He is right in front of you and telling you speak to me my beloved child.
WIY, I use the same siddur and I agree with you that’s it’s incredible.
I cannot have kavonah at all if I don’t know the teitch.
Actually davening with feeling and emotion is a challenge for me. But since I’m a woman and therefore not mochiav to daven, I don’t push it and instead, I talk to Hashem constantly. I try to work on having kavonah when I say Shema and brochos.
Sometimes I get inspiration to daven and it’s amazing to daven like that, full of emotion and passion, but I don’t get this feeling often.
I know Hashem understands me, but what is bothering me is that I feel that I’m not giving over for my kids the importance of tefillah. They after all don’t see me when I’m speaking to Hashem throughout the day.
philosopher,
The Shulchan Aruch and the Mishneh Berurah, among others, pasken that women are required to recite the Shemoneh Esrei every day. I’ve seen one Acharon — the Magen Avraham — who disagrees.
That said, I (a guy) can relate to the difficulty of prayer — and I absolutely LOVE the Jewish prayers. Getting to minyan helps, particularly in the morning, when praying in a sanctified space helps me to focus; on the rare days when I can’t make it to minyan such as when I am traveling I very often find it very difficult to concentrate and often find myself procrastinating with my prayers almost to sof zman. Personally I prefer the Metsudah siddur because the line breaks are in meaningful spots and it is easy to see how the Hebrew translates into English.
All the best to all for increased connection to our Creator!
wellinformedyid – first of all, for a second i thought you were telling me to be happy. lol!
anyway, i have had an interlinear siddur since my bas mitzva pretty much, that’s AT LEAST 😉 seven years, besides having a very good Hebrew, so i actually know what i’m saying.
and i’m still having a problem. not concrete – i’m very makpid with zmanim, daven shacharis and mincha every day, etc, but most of the time, it’s rather automatic, like i don’t have the patience (what an awfaul thing to say) to stand and concentrate on every word.
(this is just interesting: for a while, a couple months back, i had terrific shemona esreis. i coulnd’t figure it out. a couple weeks ago i realized that that had been exactly when i was the companion of the mother of a specific chassidish rebbe in e”Y. cool, no?)
emoticon613: Interesting story. Definitely cool. I have another recommendation. Rabbi Zev Leff has a sefer about tefillah. He goes really in depth explaining what each tefillah is about. Maybe thats what you are missing. Sometimes the simple translation is not enough. Another suggestion is to get Praying with Fire. Its amazing. It has a daily piece of inspiration (a story about a Gadol or something from the Gemara…) about a different aspect of Tefillah. What I found for me was that when I spend x amount of time daily working on Tefillah my Tefillah is much better than when I am not actively working on it. Maybe thats part of the secret that will help you. Meaning, get a sefer on Tefillah and learn from it daily. That focus will give you extra awareness and an extra chashivus for tefillah and maybe reawaken your inner tefillah spark.
Another suggestion is to get Praying with Fire. Its amazing.
That book is amazing but it didn’t help me in the long run.
Actualy your idea of working on tefilla is a good one. I think if I would concentrate on the meaning of tefilla which is absolutely awesome, before davening, it would help me have the proper kavonos and connection during the tefillah itself.
what does this thread have to do with ladies?
Most men don’t have much feeling during davening either.
I’m going to get flak for this:
If chazal had only been concerned with us having kavvanah while davening everyday, repeating a set formula would not have been the best way to accomplish this. (probably the worst)
I do try to concentrate while davening but it’s the work of a lifetime.
Perhaps the purpose is for us to be accustomed to asking G-d for our needs so that we should do so when we have more poignant needs.
I would like to note that unlike most of my posts, I did NOT hear these ideas from my rebbeim.
“Most men don’t…”
Did Gallup conduct this survey concluding the feelings of “most men”? Or was your critique of Klal Yisroel your own conjecture?
popa_bar_abba, if Chazal, or Hashem when He gave the Torah, was only thinking about how to make things more exciting and appealing to us then the entire tenets, the Torah and Chazal would look different.
They were not interested in making it attractive. Their only concern was Emes and what they wrote is only Emes. What is attractive doesn’t stand the test of time. Emes does.
We can try our our best to daven the right way and hopefully with Hashem’s help the wellspring of emotion will open one day.
philosopher, that sounds like a great idea, thanks!
Several years ago I attended a presentation by Rabbi Maimon Elbaz in which he went through the entire shemone esrai, discussing each bracha. It was so eye-opening! I still have little post-its in my siddur with reminders about certain things. Check out his Torah Shows website.
Rabbi Reisman has also given excellent shiurim about both specific parts of davening and davening in general.
philosopher:
I agree. I don’t think that contradicts anything I said.
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