Comments on: Tefilla: What’s In It For You? http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/editorial/91634/tefilla-whats-in-it-for-you.html Fri, 24 Jul 2015 22:49:07 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.7.9 By: Dan Daoust http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/editorial/91634/tefilla-whats-in-it-for-you.html#comment-217182 Fri, 06 May 2011 17:10:22 +0000 http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/?p=91634#comment-217182 Once we’re exploring this issue, let me raise a couple of questions. First of all, even if davening is necessary for us to give proper Hakaras HaTov, is it really necessary on that basis to daven three times a day, every single day? Yes, Hashem gives us life and sustenance. But what if I saved someone’s life? What if one day I pulled a trapped passenger out of a stalled car seconds before an oncoming train destroyed the car? Would I expect that person to thank me three times a day, every day, for as long as that person lives? No, that would be overkill, and if I did expect that, then it would indeed say something about me. So why can’t we thank Hashem, I don’t know, once a week? Moreover, wouldn’t that keep the davening a little more fresh?

Second – and really pause to ask yourself this – do you really buy the idea that forcing people to daven instills in them a general attitude of respect? I know we’ve all been taught to believe that it does, so we’re basically not allowed to believe that it doesn’t, but really: do you see that around you? Do you see any evidence for this? Are people who don’t daven three times a day by and large less respectful than people who do? Think of your coworkers, think of your fellow students, think of anyone you know who isn’t Jewish or isn’t frum. Are they all disrespectful and ungrateful? And then think of every frum person you know…

I know the answer: if your davening doesn’t improve you as a person, then you’re doing it wrong. Please. It’s the davening that’s supposed to improve the person; if there’s something else that’s even more primary than davening that puts you in the appropriate state of receptiveness for the benefits of davening, then that’s the thing we should be focusing on.

Face it: verbalizing our thanks to Hashem for healing the sick and reviving the dead has negligible impact on our relations toward others. There’s no mechanism by which a person associates that praise of Hashem with how we should act toward others. If it really worked that way, we wouldn’t have to have this conversation. And if it doesn’t work that way, then it was never going to work that way. You can’t keep telling people for thousands of years that they have to do a better job of internalizing their prayers. People are people. If they’re not internalizing their prayers, yet, then the prayers aren’t going to be internalized.

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