How To Or How To Become
Prayer
The parents, with whom I spoke, all mentioned the teachers insisting that they teach the children how to pray, and they cannot understand why the children do not understand what they must do.
My response is a simple question: Are you teaching them how to pray, what they must do, or are you teaching them how to become prayors; people who develop their relationship with God through prayer?
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I was very blessed to be *raised* by my father and mother to be a “prayor”. Here are some of the things they did that made me so.
We have pictures of me sitting with a siddur as a child less than five years old next to my father wearing his tallit and tefillin davening Shacharit. I have no doubt it was before I could even read Hebrew. The keys here are: my father set an example and was a role model. I adulated my father as a child and wanted to be as close to him as I could be: I wanted glasses because he had glasses! If he davened, I davened. He gave me a small Tallit gadol (not just tzitzit), so that when we went to Shul I could put on a holy garment just as he did.
My father and grandfather would go to minyan weekday mornings and would take me with them. (It is important to mention that my mother encouraged them to take me and explained the importance of it to them. Behind every good man there *is* a holy Mommaleh.) The Rabbi of the Shul was gifted in always acknowledging my being there: he would make a point of coming over and complimenting me. He made me feel like a million dollars!
My father would give *me* the quarter to put into the Tzedakah box, a practice that I often follow with children I see at minyan. After services, my father would take me to the corner grocery store owned by my friend Larry’s father, Sam Abromowitz and treat me to a roll and butter. It made the experience *physically* delicious.
Friday night or Shabbat days when it was raining or snowing, my father would say, “I think they’re going to need us for a minyan tonight/today.” We were *needed*. We had an important purpose to fulfill.
On the way to shul we would walk through a field which is now occupied by houses. My father would play games with us, carry us on his shoulders, tell us stories in parts – that continued week to week – so that we looked forward to the next installment. During the long Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services, my dad would take me for walks in the extensive woods located behind our shul building. This alone time with my Dad was and is precious. During the blessing of the Kohaneem he would take us under his Tallit. On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur he taught me his father’s custom to have his son stay by his side and to help him up after the bows to the floor at key points of the service.
Shul wasn’t just for davening. My father taught me that it is called a “Beit Knesset, A House of Assembly” – not a “Beit Tefillah, A House of Prayer” – specifically to point out the function of a Shul as connecting us to each other in our communities. He required me to say the requisite, core tefillot and then would allow us kids to join our friends and to play outside. There would be enough time later for us to be adults. He didn’t force us to be old before our time. We often had friends over after shul or went to friends’ houses. Shul was the meeting place, where we met in order to go.
The Shul I grew up in was magnificent in having delicious kiddushes with chips, crackers+egg salad (my favorite!) and other treats after services. There was a kids table at Shalosh Seudot and all the kids could be as wild and crazy as they wished until the Rabbi spoke and we benched. There was a junior congregation where the kids went during Torah reading to learn and to recite the order of Shabbat prayers and to hear a story. There was a Purim carnival and community seudah, replete with hamentashen, a costume review and prizes.
In other words: our shul and our parents made going to shul fun and attractive. There were times to pray and times to play.
On Shabbat when it coincided with Rosh Chodesh or on Holidays, my father would explain, “Today is a special day, so today we say a special prayer called Hallel.” He would show me the place and communicated to me the connection between saying Hallel and the intrinsic additional Kedushah of these special days. He taught me to recognize these days were *Holy*. He taught me that saying Hallel was a way of recognizing that Kedushah and bringing it into my life.
When I was first learning to daven, I read Hebrew extremely slowly. One day my father caught me skipping, when I finished the standing Amidah before him (He was born in Israel and as a fluent Hebrew speaker has always been able to read Hebrew very fast.) He did not punish me. Instead, he sat me down and asked me, “Why?” I explained that the other kids in the class made fun of me for davening slowly and that I couldn’t keep up. He then taught me one of the most precious lessons in Tefillah that I’ve ever received. “Moshe,” he explained, “There are three core prayers to the Tefillah: Ashrei, Shema and Shemoneh Esrei (the Amidah). All you have to say for now are those three prayers. In fact,” he continued, “you will find that many prayers contain the same concepts and even the same words that are in these prayers. HaShem made it so that if you lost concentration in one place, you could say the words with kavannah in another place. So if you say these three prayers with kavannah (which to me meant sincerely and with understanding) you have fulfilled your obligation.”
When my Dad took my sister and I on a business trip to Florida where he was doing outdoor photography it rained and rained. On the second to last day of the trip he asked me to please daven to HaShem for good weather before leaving to work. I spent the next five hours saying each word of Ashrei, Shema and Shemoneh Esrei meticulously – and it was a glorious, Florida sunshine day. Years later the Gerrer Rebbe told me, “HaShem is not isolated. HaShem has ears.” I learned that G-d listens and that we can pray to HaShem for what we need from my Dad asking me to daven for something. Many, many times growing up my Dad and/or Mom would ask me to daven for a big business deal to go through. HaShem listened. HaShem has ears. HaShem answered our prayers time and time again. It is startling, incredible and nothing short of amazing to encounter HaShem so directly.
The last lesson of note that my father taught me in connection to concepts and words repeating themselves throughout the daily morning prayers was this: G-d gave us the davening as a time for self-reflection too. During davening when one is given the gift to contemplate and set in order what is going on in our lives. If one’s mind wanders, there is always a second or a third chance to say the same idea in another location during the prayer service.
This is a highly unorthodox lesson that might be slammed by highly religious authorities. Nevertheless, it is true.
Davening is a gift to us as is going to Shul. We can give our children this gift by making going to shul and davening
together with them.