circumstances of life tend to focus our gaze downward to our needs rather than upward to our source. The Hebrew word for universe, olam, is connected to the verb meaning “to hide” (see Leviticus 4:13; Deuteronomy 22:1). The physical world is a place in which the presence of GOD is real, yet hidden. Our horizon of consciousness is foreshortened. We focus on our own devices and desires. We walk in GOD’S light, but often our mind is on other things.
How then do we come close to GOD? By an act of renunciation; by giving something away; specifically, by giving something back. The sacrifices of the biblical age were ways in which the individual, or the nation as a whole, in effect said: what we have, GOD, is really Yours. The world exists because of You. We exist because of You. Nothing we have is ultimately ours. The fundamental gesture of sacrifice is, on the face of it, absurd. What we give to GOD is something that already belongs to Him. As King David said: “Who am I and who are my people that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from You, and we have given You only what comes from Your hand” (I Chronicles 29:14). Yet to give back to GOD is one of the most profound instincts of the soul. Doing so, we acknowledge our dependency. We cast off the carapace of self-absorption. That is why, in one of its most striking phrases, the Torah speaks of sacrifice as being re’ach nichoach, “sweet savour” to GOD.
One of the sweetest savours of parenthood is when a child, by now grown to maturity, brings a parent a gift to express his or her thanks. This too seems absurd. What can a child give a parent that remotely approximates what a parent gives a child, namely life itself? Yet it is so, and the reverse is also true. The cruellest thing a child can do is not to acknowledge his or her parents. The Talmud attributes to Rabbi Akiva the phrase Avinu Malkeinu, “Our Father, our King” Those two words encapsulate the essence of Jewish worship. GOD is King – Maker and Sovereign of the vast universe. Yet even before GOD is our King, He is our Father, our Parent, the One who brought us into being in love, who nurtured and sustained us, who taught us His ways, and who tenderly watches over our destiny. Sacrifice – the gift we bring to GOD -is the gift of the made to its Maker, the owned to its Owner, the child to its Parent. If creation is an act of love, sacrifice is an acknowledgement of that love.
The late Rav Joseph Soloveitchik emphasised the difference between ma’aseh mitzvah, the external act specified by a commandment, and kiyyum mitzvah, the actual fulfilment of a commandment. When the Temple stood, for example, a penitent would bring a guilt or sin-offering to atone for his sin: that was the external act. The fulfilment of the commandment, though, lay in confession and contrition, acts of the mind and will. In biblical times, the sacrificial order was the external act, but the internal act – acknowledgement, dependency, recognition, thanks, praise – was essential to its fulfilment. That is why Judaism was able to survive the destruction of the Temple and the cessation of the sacrificial order. The external act could no longer be performed, but the internal act remained. That is the link between sacrifice and prayer.
The difference between prayer-as-request and prayer-as-sacrifice is that request seeks, sacrifice gives. The prophets asked, usually on behalf of the people as a whole, for forgiveness, deliverance and blessing. The priests who offered sacrifices in the Temple asked for nothing. Sacrificial prayer is the giving back to GOD what GOD already owns: our lives, our days, our world. Prayer is creation’s gift to its Creator.
The prophets were critical of the sacrificial system. They reserved for it some of their most lacerating prose. Yet none proposed its abolition, because what they opposed was not the sacrificial act, but the ma’aseh without the kiyyum, the outer act without the inner acknowledgement that gives the act its meaning and significance. The idea that GOD can be worshipped through externalities alone is pagan, and there is nothing worse than the intrusion of paganism into the domain of holiness itself. Then as now, the sign of paganism is the co-existence of religious worship with injustice and a lack of compassion in the dealings between the worshipper and the world.
Sacrifice, like prayer, is a transformative act. We should leave the synagogue, as our ancestors once left the Temple, seeing ourselves and the universe differently, freshly conscious that the world is GOD’S work, the Torah GOD’S word, our fellow believers GOD’S children, and our fellow human beings GOD’S image. We emerge re-focused and re-energised, for we have made the journey back to our source, to the One who gives life to all. Distant, we have come close. That is prayer as sacrifice, korban, giving back to GOD a token of what He has given us, thereby coming to see existence itself as a gift, to be celebrated and sanctified.
10. KAVANNAH: DIRECTING THE MIND
PRAYER IS MORE THAN SAYING CERTAIN words in the right order. It needs concentration, attention, engagement of mind and heart, the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Without devotion, said Rabbi Bachya ibn Pakuda, prayer is like a body without a soul. The key Hebrew word here is kavannah meaning mindfulness, intention, focus, direction of the mind. In the context of prayer, it means several different things.
The most basic level is kavannah le-shem mitzvah, which means, having the intention to fulfil a mitzvah. This means that we do what we do, not for social or aesthetic reasons. We pray because we are commanded to pray. In general in Judaism there is a long-standing debate about whether the commandments require kavannah, but certainly prayer does, because it is supremely an act of the mind.
At a second level, kavannah means understanding the words (perush ha-milim). At least the most important sections of prayer require kavannah in this sense. Without it, the words we say would be mere sounds. Understanding the words is, of course, made much easier by the existence of translations and commentaries.
A third level relates to context. How do I understand my situation when I pray? Maimonides states this principle as follows: “The mind should be freed from all extraneous thoughts and the one who prays should realise that he is standing before the Divine presence” These are essential elements of at least the Amidah, the prayer par excellence in which we are conscious of standing before GOD. That is why we take three steps forward at the beginning, and three back at the end – as if we were entering, then leaving, sacred space.
The fourth level of kavannah is not merely saying the words but meaning them, affirming them. Thus, for example, while saying the first paragraph of the Shema, we “accept of the yoke of the kingdom of heaven” – declaring our allegiance to GOD as the supreme authority in our lives. In the second paragraph, we “accept of the yoke of the commandments”. The word Amen means roughly, “I affirm what has been said.” In prayer we put ourselves into the words. We make a commitment. We declare our faith, our trust, our dependency. We mean what we say.
There are, of course, higher reaches of kavannah. Mystics and philosophers throughout the ages developed elaborate meditative practices before and during prayer. But at its simplest, kavannah is the practised harmony of word and thought, body and mind. This is how Judah Halevi described it:
“The tongue agrees with the thought, and does not overstep its bounds, does not speak in prayer in a mere mechanical way as the starling and the parrot, but every word is uttered thoughtfully and attentively. This moment forms the heart and thought of his time, while the other hours represent the way which leads to it. He looks forward to its approach, because while it lasts he resembles the spiritual beings, and is removed from mere animal existence. Those three times of daily prayer are the fruits of his day and night, and the Sabbath is the fruit of the week, because it has been appointed to establish the connection with the Divine spirit and to serve GOD in joy, not in sadness.”
Of course it does not always happen. It is told that on one occasion Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev went up to one of his followers after the prayers, held out his hand and said “Welcome home.” “But I haven’t been anywhere”, said the disciple. “Your
