The Jewish High Holidays are the pinnacle of planned spiritual experience. Its prayerbook, the Machzor, opens to reveal an extended arch-anthology of Jewish theology, rendering multiple one-to-six-hour sacred libretti into which Jews pour their communal longings during the longest liturgies of the year — a veritable Bayreuth of blessings. The orchestra and staff collaborating to interpret this libretto and its vast score include rabbis, cantors, singers, choir directors, executive directors, and volunteers of all sorts, who have arranged for the whole community to be present before the Holy One, and ultimately before themselves.
Such a weighty day presents a challenge that resounds beyond the four walls of the synagogue — how do we find ourselves within a voluminous fixed text? If God is personal and meant to hear our innermost outpourings, how can human beings, stamped equally in His image yet made different (for His own glory, no less) pour their vast differences and uniqueness into one set of words?
This is a timeless question for any shared culture, canon, or community. Within its diversity, all members must ask: Where is the me in the premeditated “we”?
For Jews, this is the great matter of intention, known in Hebrew as kavanah.
Shana Tovah from Beyond the Music! If you enjoy reading this newsletter, please consider supporting me with a paid subscription.
I. Ethics of the Cantorial Fathers
The word kavanah itself takes it root from the verb l’khavein — to direct or point, like an arrow. It is the precision with which we direct our prayers: the stronger the kavanah, the more likely we are to hit the bullseye. And if there is any consistent trope across the last six-hundred years of cantorial law and ethics, it is the importance of having kavanah.
The nature of this requirement evolved over time. In the Talmudic era, before the prayerbook was fixed, cantorial qualifications related largely to family background, piety, and religious literacy. With the advent of the medieval siddur (and eventually the printed one), another qualification was added: פירוש המלות – knowing how to interpret the words. So as the forms of prayer became more fixed or specialized, cantors retained a specialized role of knowing deeply what the words were signaling and expressing what they were saying.1
The seventeenth-century cantor Yehuda Leib Zelichower described his own personal study practice in pursuit of this important responsibility:
“All of my life I have applied myself at the beginning [of each day] to that task which is the essence, foundation, purpose, and benefit to prayer. I studied some of those intentions (kavanot) which the praying person must intend, both from holy books and some teaching from my cantorial masters. And some of the science of grammar, to the best of my ability and with all that the Blessed One has enabled for me —[All] in order to fulfill the obligation of the listeners.”2
Another of my favorite cantorial moralists on cultivating kavanah is Rabbi Naftali Hertz Treves (1473-1540), whose moving story reminds you of a feel-good family movie. In the middle of his great treatise on prayer, Rabbi Treves told the story of how he once considered becoming a prayer leader, but — being very demure and very mindful — he refused, especially after being teased for having a bad voice:
“And all the people witnessed the voices–they twittered with laughter at a sweet singer—and the mountain was in smoke, and they disparaged my voice and stood from afar. Because of this, I washed my hands [of leading prayer] in my youth, which I regretted in adulthood.”3
But what did Rabbi Treves do after being bullied out of a spiritual vocation? The stunning conclusion reads like the end of a Hallmark Channel movie:
“My heart saw that would not be satisfied by an apology for this [deed], saying: I have not studied, I have not served, and I have not inherited. Therefore, I set my heart to bring forth a book for the remembrance of all which has arisen, from those compositions which are books of kabbalah —tattered scrolls, mysteries yet unresolved. Perhaps by their teaching I would be built up. For if one is attacked, two will stand firm. My hands were yet strengthened by my teachers, sources, and students most of all; they stand and pray on my behalf…”
…How glorious it is that they look with their eyes and set their hearts upon that which I toiled after and found, and which my hand reached to examine….For they always have eyes to see and ears to hear the words of the sheliach tzibbur, and to assist him, to be a pleasant spirit in the order [of his prayers].”4
Rabbi Treves, repenting the delayed embrace of his cantorial vocation, devoted his life to gathering edifying manuscripts and publishing them so that people can pray with intention. Ridiculed for the ungracefulness of his vocal exterior, he instead devoted his life to building up the spiritual interior of others. And he was touched most by his nurturing connection with teachers and students, delighting them with his spiritual findings and feeling their unity with him in prayer.
Rabbi Treves’ devotion to supporting the kavanah of others makes him one of the great heroes of cantorial ethics, and indeed he was accounted as the canonical founder of the traditions of Frankfurt-am-Main.5 Like Cantor Zelichower, he considered kavanah as part of the essence of the cantorate.
But not all of us have time to scour the four corners of the Earth for meaning-laden manuscripts. After all, Rosh Hashanah is on Wednesday. For some lower-hanging kavanic fruit, let’s explore some of the many ways in which kavanah is possible.
II. The Orchard of Intention
What are the ways of having kavanah? Judaism traditionally understands sacred text as being interpretable under a variety of analytical and spiritual frameworks. One of the most well-known is called the Pardes — “the Orchard,” and an acronym for its four levels of understanding - Peshat, Remez, D’rash, and Sod.
Just like the words of the Torah, the words of prayer can be understood in multiple layers of meaning. The traditional interpretive framework of the PaRDeS thus yields different ways we can understand the machzor:
Peshat: The plain, simple meaning of the words of prayer.
Remez: A hint or allusion in the text. Since the liturgy is heavily constructed of allusions to verses of sacred text, this is very helpful for illuminating the literary and narrative world of our prayerful poetic predecessors. This powerful approach, known as intertextuality, has been championed by Rabbi Reuven Kimmelman and recently by Rabbi Elie Kaunfer of the Hadar Institute.
D’rash: This is where the liturgy takes on a metaphorical or homiletic meaning.
Sod: Here, the liturgy takes on an independent meaning, reflecting an exterior or even mystical process.
There isn’t one way to access a shared text; each of these provide an interweaving fabric into finding our way into prayer. And indeed, for generations, Hebrew prayer was highly enriched by thick layers of prescribed ways to direct the mind when saying specific liturgical words. These layers were known as kavanot.
In a mystically-saturated world, such kavanot were meant to activate the sod level of the liturgical words— allowing the very universe to stay in balance because of the correct intention and declamation of the liturgy. As you can see above, many words are associated with specific sefirot (aspects of the Divine Person) and mystical concepts, which are meant to be intended before or during the word itself. Unsurprisingly, the Polish-born Cantor Zelichower mentioned these mystical intentions as one of the reasons for the musical expansion in the synagogue service:
“….with song and beautiful melody, like the kaddish on the Torah scroll or the rest of the kaddish titkabel [prayers] of shacharit and musaf, which have in them intentions and great and astonishing secrets, as we find in bundles and bundles in books of kabbalah. And Sefer HaMussar, Chapter 4, where it comes to teach this, I also prescribe. And for this, the earliest cantors found and set melodies and made beautiful, extending songs, in order that they could intend those mystical unifications (yihudim).6
The words of prayer can be simple or complex, operating on one or multiple levels. The prayer leader must be a vessel for one or more of these levels simultaneously — a weighty task requiring a deep love of God, the liturgy, and the act of prayer. Gaining such kavanah naturally comes through study. Iyun tefilah, the study of prayer, is among those tasks which the Talmud maintains that we benefit from both in this world and the next.
But understanding the liturgy is not simply an intellectual proposition. R. Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote on the ultimately personal, God-seeking nature of having kavanah:
“Yet, what is the nature of kavanah or inner participation? Is it paying attention to the context of the fixed texts? Thinking? Prayer is not thinking. To the thinker, God is an object; to the man who prays, He is the subject. Awaking in the presence of God, we strive not to acquire objective knowledge, but to deepen the allegiance of man and God. What we want is not to know Him, but to be known to Him; not to form judgments about Him, but to be judged by Him, not to make the world an object of our mind, but to let the world come to His attention, to augment His, rather than our knowledge. We endeavor to disclose ourselves to the Sustainer of all, rather than to enclose the world in ourselves.”
Having explored these levels and ways of achieving kavanah, it may seem more difficult to grasp than ever, short of a lifetime of daily practice and faith formation. Yet we who are in process on the journey of kavanah should perhaps allow ourselves the monkey bars approach — swinging from one level of intention to another, starting back at the beginning when we fall off and to the ground. Building our muscles through keva (having a fixed or regular liturgical practice), our kavanah will mature, if we nurture it, over our lives.
III. Beyond Kavanah
Can we still pray and help others, even without strong kavanah? This last question is partly answered in the eerie story by I.L. Peretz (1825-1915)— “Ne’ilah in Gehenna.” The story begins with a report from Gehenna (gehinom — the Jewish version of “hell”) that there have been no infernal residents there from the small, Polish town of Ladam. Why is that?
“Because Ladam has a Chazzan (cantor)! There lies the explanation. And what a Chazzan! Himself—he’s nothing. But his voice!... A voice for singing, so sweet, so poignant-sweet, this voice, that when it weeps it penetrates right into hearts of iron, through and through, it melts them to wax! He has but to ascend the prayer stand, this Chazzan, and lift his voice in prayer, and behold, the entire Congregation of Ladam is made one mass of repentance, wholehearted repentance, all its officers and members reduced, as if one person, to singlehearted contrition!7
The cantor’s character in this story is not what has the power — it is instead his voice, which wields an almost magical power of his singing to emotionally elicit moral reflection and religious commitment to self-improvement. The climax of the story has the cantor losing his voice and committing suicide, thereby confined to hell. Here too, he prays the Ne’ilah prayer, emptying Gehanna of all of its suffering souls and releasing them to heaven. Yet the cantor remained. As the story concludes: “True, here in Gehenna he had brought, as he had brought on earth, his congregation to repentance, but he himself had not known a true repentance.”
This poignant story strikes like a double-edged sword.
For those about to lead prayer this week feeling, as the Hineni prayer professes, that they are “impoverished in deeds and merit,” this story is an encouragement. Peretz’s cantor demonstrates that aspects of a leader’s art and its ability to affect others transcends even the character of the leader herself. The chazzan’s chazonus, like all music, exists as an independent power, which can perfectly redeem even if emerging from an imperfect vessel.
Yet the Cantor of Ladam also remains in Gehenna. Ultimately, Peretz’s cantorial anthropology reveals that externalizing effective and even deeply spiritual experiences for others does not redeem a person from their own hell.
This short exploration of kavanah may leave one heavy-hearted. For the truth is that there is no quick fix. Falling in love with the liturgy or the Holy One, as our sources demonstrate, is only nurtured by regular attention and practice.
Yet a source of redemption remains, which transcends the weighty texts that we have taken upon ourselves. And that is that the Creator of all ultimately transcends the weight of our forms. As the Hasidic story tells it, the Holy One accepts the prayers of the shepherd boy in the forest, as he shouts out Hebrew letters to the God he longs to know.
My blessings to all for a shana tovah — a good year. May this season of long liturgies and good intentions also reveal a more profound purpose — that the one person God most wants to know this new year is you.
For an example of the disruption of this specialized role in the age of print, see the passage from R. Yitzhak b. Eliyakum’s Yiddish book of ethics Sefer Lev Tov (1620), as referenced in my recent article, “Cantors in Wonderland.”
Yehudah Leib Zelichower, Sefer Shirei Yehuda (Amsterdam, 1697): 26b.
Naftali Hertz Treves, Mal’ah Ha’Aretz De’ah (Thüringen, 1560): Introduction. Also for the biblical reference alluded to in this excerpt, see Exod. 20:16.
Ibid. Note that kabbalah here is a general term, not necessarily a specific term referring to mysticism. It is from the generic term for “received teaching.” My advisor, Dr. Seroussi, recently related to me that emerging studies of “kabbalah” were that the term was far more general, including non-mystical, in the era before Hasidism.
R. Juspa Hahn Nördlingen (1570-1630) note on his cantorial ancestors: “We are not to depart from the customs of the early, holy hazzanim who were here, one of whom was the greatest of his generation, our teacher and rabbi, R. [Naftali Herz] Treves z’’l, the great kabbalist, and also my father, teacher, and elder R. Isaac z’’l.” See Juspa Hahn Nördlingen, Sefer Yosef Ometz (Jerusalem, 1965): 216, No. 572.
Yehuda Leib Zelichower, ibid: 27a. Sefer HaMussar (Krakow 1580), by the Spanish kabbalist R. Yehudah Klatz, contains both practical and mystical associations for each part of the entire liturgy, demonstrating the mystical interaction of the sephirot and the anatomy of the divine flow which is realized by the liturgy.
From I.L. Peretz, Ne’ilah in Gehenna, translated by A.M. Klein, published in Commentary Magazine (January 1954). I am indebted to Cantor Hinda Labovitz Eisen for introducing me to this story.