Woman's World - 013 Praying With Feeling

Tefillah Is Built On Feelings, Not Intellect

The world stands on three things: Torah, Avodah (prayer), and Gemillas Chassadim (kindness). These three pillars represent action, speech, and thought. Actions – gemillas chassadim -- are the lowest rung in the ladder of our service to Hashem; after that comes speech – tefillah, and after that comes thought (Torah learning).

Tefillah is service of the heart. What does this mean? Tefillah has to do with our feelings. We are not talking about how the body feels – we are talking about how the soul feels.

What is the root of the body’s feelings and what is the root of the soul’s feelings? The brain is the root of the body’s feelings, and the heart is the root of the soul’s feelings.

If a person wants to improve his davening, the first thing we must work on is not our intellectual knowledge about Tefillah. Tefillah is about our feelings, which come from our heart. Knowing what the words mean is not the main part of davening; that is just a preparation for Tefillah. The essence of Tefillah itself is our heart’s feelings, not the facts which we know with our intellect.

This is why most people have a hard time with davening: it is because most people are more in touch with their intellect than with their feelings. When people aren’t in touch with their feelings in general, they come to davening without any idea how to use their feelings.

Tefillah is built upon our feelings. If our feelings aren’t in use throughout the day, our davening will look like a broken machine. Our heart needs to become used to feelings, and only then can it perform in Tefillah.

Two Kinds Of Feelings

Our heart experiences two kinds of feelings. One kind of feeling is an emotional reaction, such as sudden bursts of emotion – like sudden happiness, or sudden anger. Another kind of feeling is a feeling which is built and developed.

If a person only knows of emotional reactions but he hasn’t developed his world of feelings, his heart will not be able to use its feelings for Tefillah. What we need are feelings that have been developed – with these feelings we can use our heart to daven with.

If we are only davening from the basic emotions we know of, then our Tefillah doesn’t come from our essence; but if our Tefillah is coming from what we have worked on to build up our self, it comes from a deep place within us that is unchanging.

Is our Tefillah coming from our essence – or from our requests? There is a big difference.

Our requests change with time. If we are davening solely because there are things we want, then our Tefillah comes from factors which are here one day and gone the next day. Such Tefillos come from emotions that change with time – and our connection to Tefillah goes away when those factors are no longer present.

But if our Tefillah comes from our essence, this is a Tefillah which doesn’t change. It has to do with who we are, not with how we feel at the moment or what we want now in our life.

That is the difference between the first kind of feeling, which is are our emotional reactions we know of and recognize, to the second kind of feeling our heart is capable of – a kind of feeling which builds up our self.

The Natural Emotions We Are Born With Are Extreme

Every person is born with natural emotions, such as the ability to smile since being a baby. These emotions we are born with are not enough to build our heart with for Tefillah. We need to build upon those feelings and develop new kinds of feelings in order to come to Tefillah. Why?

The emotions we are born with are extreme. For example, if a person doesn’t work on building up and developing his emotions, he can know of happiness – but only when it’s extreme. Many people need extreme reasons in order to become happy, because they haven’t properly built up their emotional world. Tefillah, which is through our heart, does not come from extreme emotions. It can only come from emotions and feelings which we have worked on to build up our self.

What indeed are these deep feelings we are speaking of that we must develop? These are emotions which come from our intellect being integrated with our heart. The true, deep feelings we need to develop are feelings which come from a fusion of intellect and emotion together.

Most people experience their feelings only through their emotions and not through their intellect, and thus their emotions are only extreme. They only have emotions in extreme situations.

Feelings without any intellect involved are actually very painful to a person and cause a lot of inner anxiety.

The emotions which we all recognize and know of are really extreme. They lack a certain balance. Any sudden burst of emotion – negative or positive – is kind of unstable, and we cannot work with to build up our heart with. The true feelings we need to have are feelings which are more calm and not so extreme or sudden. They are not bursts of emotion, but just a kind of feeling that is calm and balanced.

If a person tries to balance his natural emotions more, he will be able to reach the deeper feelings.

A superficial attitude toward the feelings is that they are how we “feel”. The inner attitude to have toward feelings is that they can be used to build our self.

This is the source of why most people have a hard time with davening and can’t concentrate so well – it is because people are only using their natural emotions, which are based on extremities and thus fluctuate depending on the day, and they haven’t uncovered their deeper feelings.

Feeling Reality

In addition to these two kinds of feelings, there are also another two kinds of feelings in the heart: there are feelings which are mere feelings, and then there are feelings which feel reality.

When a person is able to feel reality, he knows what’s really going on. To illustrate what we mean, a person can be in hot weather but he doesn’t feel hot. Since he doesn’t feel reality – which is that it’s hot – he doesn’t feel what is really going on.

To feel reality is to feel what’s really going on. Most people only have the lower kinds of feelings, which are just “to feel”, but they don’t know how to feel a reality.

To feel reality is really making using of our intellect. The emotions themselves come from the heart, but they aren’t able to feel reality. Only our intellect is able to feel reality.

The only way to really have the deeper feelings of our heart is to be able to feel reality. Our bursts of emotion which we experience from time to time are not the kinds of emotions of feeling reality. If someone only knows of his feelings in terms of sudden bursts of emotion, his emotional world is based on extremities and he will not be able to build up the true feelings of the heart.

When a person feels reality, he doesn’t just become emotional – he feels the true reality of the situation.

Feeling Another’s Pain Can Only Come From Developing Higher Feelings

To illustrate what we mean, there are two ways how one can feel the pain of a widow. With the basic emotions that a person is born with, she can feel the widow’s pain – but she can only feel the emotion of pain that the widow is going through. But with the more highly developed emotions, a person is able to actually feel her friend’s state of widowhood – to really feel what it’s like to be a widow. This is to feel reality – it is above feeling another’s pain: it is to feel the actual reality of the situation.

In our heart, there are superficial feelings and inner feelings. The superficial feelings are emotional reactions, sudden bursts of emotion. But the inner feelings are the ability to feel realities.

This is why most people do not end up really feeling another person’s feelings. It is because most people don’t even experience their own emotions properly! They don’t feel the reality of their own situations, so how are they supposed to feel others’??

In fact, most people feel like others never really experience what they are going through, and it is for this reason: most people haven’t developed their own emotional world and thus are not emotionally capable of feeling what others go through.

The Real Way To Daven

When a person davens, the real way to daven is not just to become emotional as he davens. The real way to daven is to enter the davening – to be inside it. It is not just to “daven” – it is to be inside the davening.

We must develop from within us a place in our soul in which we enter into the davening, not just to know what to ask for and to become emotional about it. Bursts of emotion is not the basis of Tefillah; the point is not to ask our requests to Hashem, but to enter into the actual Tefillah.