I am wondering what curricula exist for teaching middle school and high school students about tefilla. I am looking specifically for something that addresses the core issues of tefilla in addition to helping students understand the words they are saying. Daniel Rothner Founder & Director Areyvut, Inc. www.areyvut.org http://lookstein.org/lookjed/read.php?1,19689,19689#msg-19689 Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:19:46 -0600 Phorum 5.2.19 http://lookstein.org/lookjed/read.php?1,19689,19793#msg-19793 http://lookstein.org/lookjed/read.php?1,19689,19793#msg-19793
In much the same way, injecting spirituality into a Beurei Hatefila course without teaching the plain meaning of the words the students are reciting (the definition of Kavanah provided by the Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim Siman 98), may cause the spiritual aspect of Tefila to separate itself from the words of Tefila. That may explain why prayer groups that do not rely on the fixed text of the Siddur are gaining popularity today.

Abe Katz
Founding Director
The Beurei Hatefila Institute
www.beureihatefila.com]]> Abe Katz Lookjed List Archive Fri, 08 Jul 2011 14:56:21 -0600 http://lookstein.org/lookjed/read.php?1,19689,19775#msg-19775 http://lookstein.org/lookjed/read.php?1,19689,19775#msg-19775
As a teacher, I think a lot about students' detachment from tefilah, and often find myself reflecting upon my tefilah experience in high school. Without having any studies in hand, tefilah in the Jerusalem high school I attended was worlds ahead of what I've seen in various schools I have worked in. I chalk it up to the fact that the atmosphere was by and large a much more spiritual one, and therefore tefilah was merely a part of that continuum. It wasn't divorced from the rest of their existence. The fact of being in Israel probably played a major role in that, but in general it was a more reflective, spiritual atmosphere, one that in its entirety is not dependent on place.

When it comes to tefilah, I often feel like we are turning to the kids and telling them, "be spiritual and connect to God for the next 45 minutes", when those 45 minutes are almost completely divorced from the rest of their reality. To put it bluntly, tefilah is not meaningful to most of them, because God is not a major part of their lives. Imagine being asked to have a conversation, or better yet connect to someone, for 45 minutes every day, when that person is almost entirely not in your thoughts the rest of the day. It might be somewhat of an extreme accusation, but I believe that's the case with most kids and God. In no way am I blaming schools for this, but as with anything else, we as educators can only do the best we can under the circumstances.

Therefore our focus should not be on tefilah per se, but rather on bringing God back as a focus in kids' lives. It's to create that continuum where tefilah will then naturally follow. The focus should be on creating opportunities for reflection and more spiritually oriented discussion in our classrooms. This should play itself out in terms of curricular choices, as well as lesson planning. What better place to talk about spiritual values, growth and challenges than in Gemara and Chumash classes, or in English and history classes. Not to mention art or music classes. I often feel, though, that this is not the focus. If we let God into our classrooms, then He will naturally find His way back into the Beit Knesset.

Recognizing the challenges involved in such a notion, perhaps one helpful tool would be someone on staff in school whose job is also to look over curriculum and consult teachers on how to incorporate more spiritually oriented curricular choices and lesson planning- a Mashgiach Ruchani of sort. The goal as stated is that God and spirituality get a bit more time on kids' radars, and to create that continuum where meaningful tefilah will hopefully follow.

Thank you,
Oran Zweiter]]> Oran Zweiter Lookjed List Archive Thu, 30 Jun 2011 19:45:57 -0600 http://lookstein.org/lookjed/read.php?1,19689,19744#msg-19744 http://lookstein.org/lookjed/read.php?1,19689,19744#msg-19744 It is not for naught that the Talmud teaches us that Tefilah is one of the things that needs regular chizuk. I apologize for the soapbox I am about to stand on.

Among my many pet peeves is the difficulty educators seem to have with the reality that tefilah does not matter to kids. As any educator should know, a student (adult or adolescent) is motivated at the very core by the question "What's in it for me?"

And we can pontificate and teach kids that tefilah is for the individual or for God or for both and it does not really matter. Because the student needs to feel that tefilah speaks to the mitpalel. If tefilah does not speak to the child then it does not matter what we do, because it will not matter to the child. And be very careful about continuing the naive approach that motivate many along the lines of no atheists in foxhole's because if you have one student who actually is a critical thinker and has experienced tragedy then that student, if you are lucky, will simply and quietly dismiss you as a fool, rather than challenge you to an unanswerable duel where by definition you will lose in the eyes of his peers, your students.

In the younger years, children are moldable and desire to please their role models. Regular tefilah attendance by children alongside their parents with specific skills to make tefilah functional is what is needed. Then as the students progress through elementary school and into middle school, the students need to continue to go to shul regularly to continue the training/obedience and then also begin to explore tefilah as literature. Why do students return from the year in Israel dedicated to daven, because they have been in a community where tefilah bizmana and be'tzibur is the expected norm. But why do some students after a year back on college stay dedicated to tefilah and some not is the question to answer. I had a three year stint as the Orthodox rabbi at a university with a significant Day School population. Yet we struggled with a daily minyan in those days. Almost all of the students who did not go to minyan had not grownup with tefilah as a value in their otherwise shomer mitzvot house. Many of those who did attend minyan regularly came from families where this was a value. But those who did attend regularly and did not grown up with the value identified a key component. Teflah for them was an accomplishment and had meaning for them. We need to help students construct meaning in the tefilot.

Why do kids read or not read? because the literature appeals to them. And as any English teacher can tell you, the best books are those that the students connect with, not those that had no meaning despite all the lectures and lessons because those books get kids to read more. And even when the teacher lectures about the meaning, it does not last because the student has not connected with the theme or the deep ideas. The best learning is constructivist. Why not apply that to tefilah?

Most be'ur tefilah classes or programs consist of the old format of teacher lecturing about the meaning. But that will fail as that method fails for any subject. And for those 2 -5 minute insights into tefilah- what subject of equal gravitas that we want the kids to carry with them into adulthood is taught like that?!

What is needed is the creation of a curriculum which will cause the student to learn the prayers fluently, develop the skills as we do in literature to understand and appreciate the context and deeper meaning of the texts and then find one tefilah that the students can connect with. Then as the universal themes that are addressed in tefilah become apparent to the students, they will develop an appreciation for tefilah. But this works only if they have had the obedeince to regular tefilah and the ease of reading them even without understanding them imbued at an earlier age. And now as they mature they can appreciate tefilah. Then the feeling of accomplishment achieved by attending minyan even when it is difficult to do so continues because it is transferring from pleasing the authority figure to pleasing God and themselves.

So I see two aspects to tefilah education:
Obedience and pleasing the authority figure at a young age which eventually should transfer to pleasing God at an later stage (that is the model of transference from kibud Horim to yirat Hashem);
Skill acquisition so that tefilah is not a foreign language to them both in mechanical decoding and the techniques to understand a piece of literature in its original.

Then with some siyata dishmaya, the appreciation that tefilah can have meaning will come later in life but can only come if tefilah is fluent and comprehensible and make one a mitpalel.

Tzvi]]> Tzvi Klugerman Lookjed List Archive Wed, 22 Jun 2011 08:04:50 -0600 http://lookstein.org/lookjed/read.php?1,19689,19731#msg-19731 http://lookstein.org/lookjed/read.php?1,19689,19731#msg-19731
From pre-school though 9th grade I was in the Hillel Academy of Pittsburgh. Despite being a native Hebrew speaker I did not master siddur and faked, as my older friend Larry showed me how - bow, count to 11, bow, count to 43, bow, 11, bow, wait a minute, and shimmy back and bow all around. I visited the Kotel in the beginning of 6th grade and said every word of mincha for the very first time. However, that tefilla itself was important, and that we were talking to God, the kavod of tefilla, was set in school. When the school visited Telshe Yeshiva in Cleveland and I heard hundreds of people saying Shma together out loud, it registered on the background of school prayers.

The rabbis treated tefilla seriously. Mincha was before dismissal to the buses, we focused on prayers after all classes were done, and then we dispersed. When we were older this was the mark that we had indeed advanced, as we were staying after mincha. It was quiet during prayers, morning and afternoon. The rabbis and teachers were all there, moving around the room, encouraging participation, and enforcing quiet when necessary. Rabbi Benjamin Nadoff's quiet serenity and seriousness, and love, stands out in my mind.

As much as possible were given the opportunity to participate in little ways and big. Some years we even had our own school minyan in the school, shared the leining, and again were joined by the teachers, most notably Rabbi Harry Rottenberg of blessed memory.

Related- As small children we lined up in the morning and each brought a coin to put in tzedaka. When I earned $10, this enabled me to give $1. I remember the challenge in 7th or 8th grade when I earned $100 to give $10, but the pennies made it possible.

On a similar note, since school had a few days of Chanukah together, and of Sukkot with lunch in the school sukka, I learned about these mitzvot. I understand some schools in Israel and in the Diaspora are considering phasing these out and having total vacation then. What a tragedy. It forged bonds with each other as a society, the holidays, and our identity that cannot be replaced.

I would just add that modern children who may not need anything financially could still learn they have their own relationship with God who loves them and wants to hear from them and share their lives.]]> Barnea Levi Selavan Lookjed List Archive Mon, 20 Jun 2011 00:25:54 -0600 http://lookstein.org/lookjed/read.php?1,19689,19729#msg-19729 http://lookstein.org/lookjed/read.php?1,19689,19729#msg-19729
Yoel Finkelman]]> Yoel Finkelman Lookjed List Archive Mon, 20 Jun 2011 00:21:28 -0600 http://lookstein.org/lookjed/read.php?1,19689,19728#msg-19728 http://lookstein.org/lookjed/read.php?1,19689,19728#msg-19728 *(I) There are ten types of prayer: In some we help ourselves; in some we **do** help God
* (II) However interesting the concept of the Omnipotence of God, the way it is traditionally presented is not Jewish (it comes from the Islamic philosophers) and hurts Judaism.
* (III) The simplest most powerful solution to teaching prayer-relevance is to have students compose their own prayers.


(I)-The ten types of prayer.
A fundamental, terse yet comprehensive philosophic statement about the nature of prayer is found in a beautiful Midrash Rabbah, cited by Rashi at the beginning of Vaethchanan. Simply, the Midrash Rabbah explains ”There are 10 biblical words connoting prayer.” I would suggest each of these words presents a distinct form of prayer. Perhaps two examples will illustrate.

Pay-Lamed-Lamed, as is well known, means both judging and prayer. A typical type of judgmental prayer might be a person with a wife and a dozen children praying for livelihood. At first, he may pray for unlimited wealth. Then, realizing what happens to the children of friends, he knows who have too much wealth he may pray for sufficient wealth. Then, reflecting on practices of his own family he may pray for more than sufficient wealth. In short, this person is praying, which in this context means judging oneself before God. Such a form of prayer is indeed primarily for ourselves, not for God.

But considered beth-resh-caph, blessing. We are indebted to Rav Hirsch (in his commentary on Noach where this root occurs) for crystallizing the essence of the meaning of blessing. Rav Hirsch, elegantly argues that just as “to eye” means to do the eye function, to investigate, just as “To ear” is to do the ear function, to listen, just as “to hand” is to do the hand function, , transferring or throwing, so too “to kneel (berech)” is to do the knee function, to facilitate movement. For feet are the organs of motion: To footstep is to walk. One can walk without knees but the movement is stilted. The function of the knees is to smoothen and facilitate motion. When we bless a friend say at a wedding, we are not maintaining their marriage, for their marriage would continue anyway. Rather, we are facilitating and helping them in their marriage. So too when we “bless” or “knee” God, we are helping God in his path through history. God would get to his goal anyway, but the blessing facilitates and accelerates God’s path through history. Such a form of prayer is indeed, primarily for God, not for ourselves.

To return to the Midrash Rabbah, each of the ten words for prayer (as well as related words) connotes some type of prayer with distinct attributes. Some are for man, some are for God, some are intellectual, and some are emotional.

This midrash can shed light on the issues brought by Simon Goulden, Rabbi Hayman, and Moshe Sokolow. Prayer can be judgment or request, it can help primarily ourselves or help God.

II Islamic Omnipotence

I believe we should teach that God has unlimited power especially the form this idea is developed in the Bible where God overthrew many hostile powers. However, I don’t believe we should teach that God has no needs; nor do I believe that we should teach that we can’t help God. God does have needs and we can help him. If we choose not to, God’s presence in the lower worlds is “hurt” and cannot fully manifest itself.
Several modern authors following Rav Hirsch, have echoed man’s capacity to help God, for example, Sherwin’s “God in Partnership with Man” or Heschel’s “God in search of Man.” Since these authors are not orthodox, we tend to look at these titles as emotional and not fully accurate. Surprisingly, Heschel’s book was named from an almost literal translation of a biblical verse, 2 Chron 16:9, “for the eyes of God scan the entire world to bond with those whose heart is complete with him”

I believe these thoughts address the concerns or defense about the “rationalist” approach brought up by Kaddish and Rabbi Hayman.

III The solution – Student Prayer

Quite simply, I advocate having students compose prayers in class. Such an approach creates a feeling of relevance, makes us active not passive, and gives us insights.
The Rambam explicitly states that biblical prayer is not institutionalized but personal and spontaneous. True the Great Assembly formulated prayer, but these are “prayer headings” to assist people. However, the intent is still to be able to develop and add to these chapter headings (Rambam Prayer 1).

A serious halachic impediment to this approach is the advice given by some acharonim that it is better not to add personal prayers in the Shmoneh Esray since we are not experts in this. I would counter with the well-known stories of Chasidic masters focusing on a child’s whistle being accepted by God over the verbal prayers of scholars. I personally have used this method in some of my adult classes and have found the response extremely rewarding. I believe this would answer many of Dr. Tannenbaum’s correct critical comments about the current state of prayer.

Russell Jay Hendel; PhD. ASA
Dept of Math, Towson University
[www.Rashiyomi.com]]]> Russell Jay Hendel Lookjed List Archive Mon, 20 Jun 2011 00:19:22 -0600 http://lookstein.org/lookjed/read.php?1,19689,19723#msg-19723 http://lookstein.org/lookjed/read.php?1,19689,19723#msg-19723 religious landscape study determined that prayer is a common religious
practice in America. Six in ten adults in the US say they pray at
least once a day. Rabbi Brovender calls prayer “a natural event
deriving from the humane psyche”. He feels that it is a universal
truth that people pray and that man has a need to enter into a dialogue with God.

In a study I conducted recently only 16.4% of students who graduated
from a yeshiva high school agreed with the statement "tefillah in my
school was a spiritually uplifting event".

It seems to me that in the buir tefillah curricula we are losing
sight of the forest and teaching about trees.

We are somehow destroying what comes naturally and transforming it
into some form of tedium.

The siddur was meant to be an educational tool to as Rav Hirsch says
"hence our prescribed prayers are not facts, truths which they assume
we are already fully conscious of but are such that they wish to
awaken, reanimate and keep ever afresh in us." Perhaps using the
prayer book as a springboard for discussion of the fundamentals of
Judaism, students will find the prayers more interesting and relevant.
Just a few examples: original sin, chosenness, revelation, redemption,
creation , free will. These are topics preteens and teens love to
discuss.

Dr. Chana Tannenbaum]]> Chana Tannenbaum Lookjed List Archive Thu, 16 Jun 2011 09:41:16 -0600 http://lookstein.org/lookjed/read.php?1,19689,19717#msg-19717 http://lookstein.org/lookjed/read.php?1,19689,19717#msg-19717
Simon Goulden
Education Consultant
sgoulden@theus.org.uk]]> Simon Goulden Lookjed List Archive Wed, 15 Jun 2011 10:17:19 -0600 http://lookstein.org/lookjed/read.php?1,19689,19715#msg-19715 http://lookstein.org/lookjed/read.php?1,19689,19715#msg-19715
As a faculty member at the Azrieli Graduate School charged with the responsibility for directing teachers in teaching tefillah, and as the composer over the last decade of numerous piyyutim, I am particularly sensitive to and concerned over the problems encountered in teaching or practicing Tefillah.
I find it demoralizing, to say the least, that a discussion about prayer on a list serve for Orthodox educators would focus on its elimination.
That is the only definition of BI'UR Tefillah (ביעור) allowed by the dictionary; explanation of Tefillah requires BEI'UR (ביאור).

I am not being supercilious; I am super-serious.
Every definition of Kavvanah I am aware of comprises two dimensions: an “affective” one (awareness of God’s presence) and a “cognitive” one (comprehension of what one is reciting).
I have no proven recipe for inducing spirituality (although I have published my ideas on the subject), but reading comprehension is rudimentary.

At the very least, we may pretend the siddur is a Tanakh and either teach the traditional “commentaries” or encourage original interpretation—although the latter requires instructing students carefully in grammar, syntax and literary analysis.
If we cannot be precise in our own use of Hebrew, it would be hypocritical to advocate it--let alone require it--of our students.

So… Let’s start by calling things by their proper names, which, in this case, also means acknowledging that Tefillah and Prayer are not identical.
Tefillah, as we know, derives from the verbal root PL”L, signifying judgment, and in the reflexive tense (hitpallel), indicates self-judgment or introspection. Prayer, on the other hand, means request (Hebrew: bakkashah), which is a constituent of Tefillah but hardly synonymous with the whole enterprise.

This simple lexical distinction readily lends itself to some of the pedagogies proposed during this discussion. For instance, if tefillah is defined as introspection rather than pleading, it is easier to cast it as a means of self-improvement than as a form of supplication designed to provoke or to alter God’s will.

Not that I am in complete agreement with that proposition.
As the Rav pointed out, petition still lies at the focal point of our liturgy, the Amidah, and in addition to the 12 or 13 medial berakhot, all of which are petitions, even two of the three so-called blessings of thanksgiving [avodah and shalom] are essentially supplications.

Personally, I am more concerned with the tension between rote and spontaneity, and—as my students can attest—emphasize the latitude Halakhah provides for individuality and creativity within the Amidah (refuah, birkhat ha-shanim, shema koleinu) and particularly within the framework of tahanun, recited after one’s “rote” obligations have been met.
If, through the history of Jewish liturgy, students are taught to recognize and appreciate the “matbe’a shetav`u hakhamim,” they can be enabled to parallel it (even if they cannot duplicate it) utilizing appropriate words and images of their own to address their particular concerns. This may not solve all of their problems with davening, but it is a start.]]> Moshe Sokolow Lookjed List Archive Wed, 15 Jun 2011 08:57:31 -0600 http://lookstein.org/lookjed/read.php?1,19689,19713#msg-19713 http://lookstein.org/lookjed/read.php?1,19689,19713#msg-19713
In his response to that post, Rabbi Hayman writes that "this is not an age that knows how to pray" and suggests that dealing with prayer in metaphorical ways is the right approach. Rabbi Jablon's very personal way of teaching prayer to middle school students is of course far from that kind of approach.

I am quite skeptical about the claim that "our age" doesn't know how to pray (with meaning) as opposed to earlier generations that did. Furthermore, if common Jews did indeed know how to pray with meaning in previous generations, I would suggest that it is precisely because they were *not* taught the rationalistic approach which claims that prayer is for man, not for God, and the associated idea that God included a naturalistic mechanism within the universe, which allows for sincere prayer to be answered without "affecting" God himself. Rabbi Hayman is quite correct that these two ideas are essentially one.

I think that this approach advocated by Rabbi Hayman is a very important one for some people and for some students (though I tend to think it more appropriate to teach in high school and beyond than in middle school). But it is certainly not for everyone, nor necessarily for most people, and it seems odd to describe it as the approach which *must* be taught. For that matter, while prophecy, aggadah, and prayer are surely replete with poetry, symbolism, and metaphor as Rabbi Hayman states, is it really true that they mean nothing literal in any way at all?

For expanded thoughts on if and why our generation is unique in that it doesn't know how to pray, and on the place of the rationalistic approach among many other valid Jewish approaches, please see the following review essay (which appeared a couple of years ago under the auspices of LookJed):
[listserv.os.biu.ac.il]

For an academic study of the rationalistic approach described by Rabbi Hayman, as it developed historically among late Spanish rishonim (who gave it its clearest expression), there is a chapter on this in my dissertation which will be published online God willing in the coming months.

Seth Kadish
--
Seth (Avi) Kadish • אבי קדיש
Karmiel, Israel • כרמיאל
Webpage - [sites.google.com]]]> Seth Kadish Lookjed List Archive Tue, 14 Jun 2011 04:25:45 -0600 http://lookstein.org/lookjed/read.php?1,19689,19703#msg-19703 http://lookstein.org/lookjed/read.php?1,19689,19703#msg-19703
Rav Kuk zatza'l stressed in many places, as did virtually every Rishon or Acharon that wrote on the topic, that because HaShem is unchanging and eternal beyond the all that exists, tefillah is not - and cannot be - an attempt on our part to change Him or His will. Only pagans believed that God may be changed by man. Therefore, prayer is not designed to change HaShem's mind about anything, because HaShem, by definition, does not change. In that case, why do we pray at all?

Two answers are given to this dilemma by those who teach Rav Kuk. The first, that we davven to change ourselves - that is, by raising ourselves toward HaShem, we change, and the change in us makes change in the world possible. The second answer often given is that HaShem built into the creation of the world a system of hanhagah ruchanit that responds to human prayer in the same way that nature responds to human intervention in natural process. In the end, these two answers are really one and the same, as the world as we see it is simply a reflection of our inner reality, as Rav Kuk and all great modern thinkers have explained.

What is the relevance of this for tefillah curriculum? Two main axioms must be taught and must guide all teaching about tefillah, and are sadly missing from all the tefillah curricula that I have ever seen, including the present laudable effort by Rabbi Jablon (who is, in my humble opinion, one of the more creative educational leaders in North America today):

1. Tefillah is fundamentally for us, not for HaShem, and we davven in order to grow and change on a ruchani level. The operative question in biur tefillah is not merely what does this or that tefillah mean, but what does it mean specifically for our growth as individual spiritual beings and as an am segulah?

2. The language of tefillah is therefore poetic, symbolic and metaphoric, and not literal, just as the language of n'vuah and aggadah are not literal.

These concepts are harder to teach than the usual information about tefillah that comprises modern curricula - but, as usual, lectio difficilior, melior est.

Pinchas Hayman
phayman@bonayich.com]]> Pinchas Hayman Lookjed List Archive Mon, 13 Jun 2011 07:53:34 -0600 http://lookstein.org/lookjed/read.php?1,19689,19701#msg-19701 http://lookstein.org/lookjed/read.php?1,19689,19701#msg-19701
www.rabbijablon.com/BiurTefilla.pdf
or
www.torahacademyonline.org/pdf/BiurTefilla.pdf

Kol tuv!

(Rabbi) Shmuel Jablon
(Menahel, Torah Academy of Greater Philadelphia)]]> Shmuel Jablon Lookjed List Archive Mon, 06 Jun 2011 02:16:08 -0600 http://lookstein.org/lookjed/read.php?1,19689,19689#msg-19689 http://lookstein.org/lookjed/read.php?1,19689,19689#msg-19689
Daniel Rothner
Founder & Director
Areyvut, Inc.
www.areyvut.org]]> Daniel Rothner Lookjed List Archive Tue, 31 May 2011 08:28:57 -0600