Prayer and the massacre in Har Nof

The recent murders at a synagogue in Har Nof are still very much on my mind. Catching up with my reading, I just read Jane Eisener’s editorial in the Forward about why this terrorist attack was different; why it crossed the line. She says so beautifully,

….I can easily imagine the scene before the attack. The gentle hum of the opening psalms, coated in a morning sleepiness, rhythmic and awakening. The voices rise to chant out loud, then falling to whispers for the silent prayer, said standing, facing east. For those who truly know how to pray--and I confess, this ability often eludes me--that is when we are at our most vulnerable. We are shortening the distance between ourselves and God, or the Divine, or whatever being or aspiration we wish to address. I suspect that the men who were murdered recited this prayer service with such frequency that it became a familiar, meditative chant, leaving them open and defenseless.

I agree with Jane’s insights, that the thing that made this attack feel different was the fact that it happened during prayer. Is no place sacred? I dedicate my words of Torah today in the merit of those who perished. 

Prayer, as Jane mentioned, is often said in a familiar, meditative, chant. The power of prayer can come through the soothing nature of having something that is constant, stable, and unchanging over time. But the traditional matbeah tefillah (order of the prayer service) also allows for personal prayer to be added into fixed prayers. I am always the last person still standing up in the sanctuary when everyone else has been seated after they finish their amidah, and I don’t like to draw attention to myself, but I do take my time when I daven. I don’t like to be shlichat tzibur (prayer leader) for this reason; if I take my time to have kavanah, then I burden the rest of those present with the length of the service.

As a rabbi who has led many services for a variety of audiences, from children through teens to adults, from traditional davening to Jewish meditation, I have always struggled with finding the balance between maintaining the keva (fixed prayers) and finding a place for kavanah (intention). I know that from a young age, the Jewish education I received has stressed the importance of both kavanah and spontaneous prayer.  

I have a very vivid memory of being in Sunday school at the Reform temple I attended in elementary school, learning about prayer. We were learning from a textbook called “when a Jew Prays.” A man set to prove that he could teach his donkey to pray, and placed a bet with his friend to prove it. He accomplished this by placing oats between the pages of a prayers book and over time, the donkey learned to turn the pages to reach the oats. This story was in the book to teach us the meaning of the word kavanah and to show how true prayer is more than just “turning the pages.” I remember being very struck at the time by the story and the picture in the book, and feeling strongly that true prayer was something to aim for. I was not able to find the photo from the inside of that book, but I found a similar photo from another story book.


What comes to mind most readily though, about the importance of kavanah, is the Baal Shem Tov’s Yom Kippur tale of the boy who was unable to read the prayers in the siddur. His heartfelt humble melody on his flute was accepted more readily than the other worshippers’ prayers from a prayerbook. Hassidut has always placed an emphasis on the importance of true feeling and passion in prayer, something that I identify with strongly. There are even unusual practices to encourage spontaneous prayer, such as one taught by Rebbe Nachman of Bratzlav. He suggested opening the book of Psalms at random and being inspired by and meditating on the psalm that one is brought to.

The ways of Gd are a mystery to me. It is hard to imagine something more horrendous than to be killed while praying to Gd. It can bring one’s faith into question entirely. But rather than focus on the troubling questions the Har Nof massacre raises about the nature of prayer, I would rather focus on how I can make my prayer more meaningful. Focusing on kavanah helps me to both finding meaning in prayer, and ultimately, hopefully, meaning in what seems to be meaningless and chaos around us.