[Avodah] Worshiping G-d Without Limud haTorah

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Aug 21, 2022 at 02:07:01PM +0000, Prof. L. Levine via Avodah wrote:
> The following is from Rav on Prayer, pages 358 - 359:
> 
> In attempting to worship G-d without limud ha Torah, he is no longer
> worshipping the Ribono shel Olam. Judaism without Torah is "another
> religion," similar to all others, which have prayers, rituals, observances
> and prohibitions, and, in former times, animal sacrifices. The attempt to
> worship G-d without limud ha Torah is called elohim acharim...

These words seem to speak more to the period of the immigrant generations
(those who fled pogroms, the Shoah, or cam to rebuild afterwards) through
the first part of my childhood.

I would say in the current generation, myself included, the opposite
problem is far more endemic. People who know how and enjoy learning who
just can't connect to davening.

I have a trick I use for some parts of davening, but by definition it
only works retail. And after you focus on a few lines of a tefillah for
some time, to extract every meaning and chiddush (even if most "chiddushim"
are reinventions of the wheel) that becomes a new rote and I have to
move on to different lines.

A problem for tefillos that objectively need more kavanah all the time --
Poseiach es Yadekha, Shema, Birkhas Avos...

And so we have far more people with a seifer open doing chazaras hasha"s
instead of listening to chazaras hasha"tz than we have people who regularly
go to minyan etc... and don't regularly learn.

We have made Yiddishkeit so intellectual, it's hard to know what to do
with an experiential obligation like davening. Qumzitz -- that works fine.
It's a rare experience that I choose to do when the mood is right. And
it's a bit stronger on experience building with the music, instruments,
possibly a bonfire, that we cannot invest in doing twice daily (assuming
minchah-sheqi'ah-maariv is one experience).

Something I asked each of my sons-in-law to get to know them in as an
umcomfortable of a way as possible is how they would imagine teaching
davening more effectively than we do. Start too early, and it becomes
teaching a habit of running through meaningless sylables. (Even for
Israeli kids who could understand more of the words.) Start too late,
and the adult has few habits to work with, and little to know nostalgia
to use for emotional connection. And how powerful would even Kol Nidre
or UNesaneh Toqef be if each didn't evoke childhood memories?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 If you won't be better tomorrow
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   than you were today,
Author: Widen Your Tent      then what need do you have for tomorrow?
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF            - Rebbe Nachman of Breslov