#tefillah

Morning Prayer on Subway, 1984.

No matter where we are in the world, Jews pray facing Jerusalem — but it’s not just about geography.

It’s about memory, longing, and connection.

Jerusalem was the site of the Temples, the center of Jewish life and Divine presence. The Talmud teaches us to direct our hearts toward it — because it’s more than a city. It’s a spiritual compass.

When we face Jerusalem in prayer, we’re uniting across time and space, anchoring ourselves in Jewish history, hope, and homeland.

In our modern world, we use our phones for just about everything. From work to entertainment to shopping to dating, and much more, our phones are capable of just about anything, and Judaism is no exception to this! There exist many amazing Jewish apps online, including apps for checking Kashrut, counting the Omer, and even Jewish radio stations! However, the focus of this article will be on one particular type of Jewish app: the electronic siddur.

Siddur apps are amazing! They contain every single part of davening and often much more, such as translations in multiple languages, prayer times, and real-time updates with what to include or not in your prayers (e.g. seasonal blessings). These are an amazing resource for new learners or for people who forgot their siddur at home and didn’t memorize shakharit (I can’t blame you!). In fact, there is really only one place where I would encourage people not to use a siddur app. Unfortunately, this seems to be the one place they are used the most!

Don’t use your phone as a siddur in shul, where you have a choice between a physical prayerbook and your phone. Phones are distracting and known to impair reading comprehension, whereas the stimulus of touching a physical book is shown to improve concentration and understanding, making your davening better!

According to a 2016 study by Lauren Trakhman and Patricia Alexander, although people read faster when reading electronically (which isn’t a positive while davening. It’s better to take your time), their reading comprehension is much shallower. In an area like davening where understanding the deeper meaning behind the plain text is crucial, shallow reading comprehension is a huge detriment! Additionally, regardless of the task at hand, the mere presence of phones has been proven to reduce concentration and performance! Therefore, if you can, putting your phone out of sight while davening can help you put everything aside from Hashem out of mind, just as you should be aiming to do!

` Sometimes, siddur apps are the only option. In these cases, they are a fantastic resource for those who rely on them. Any davening is good davening, especially when the alternative is “leaving Hashem on read”. However, when you do have the choice, try to reach for a paper siddur instead of your phone. You never know how much your kavanah might increase!

Tell me in the tags: Do you usually use an electronic siddur or a paper siddur and why?

The idea that a direct connection is available to the Ribono Shel Olam (Master of the World) is a fundamental belief of judaism. While there are many examples of the idea of “intermediaries” having its own place in our faith, such as one midrashic interpretation of the angels ascending and descending upon the ladder in Yaakov Avinu’s dream, we believe that a person need not rely on this natural procedure, but can simply reconnect their soul to its source and pass a signal directly. The ease of this is, of course, affected by a person’s intentions when coming to pray, as well as their location and the time of day or time of year. There are places and times when tefillos are more likely to be accepted, such as at the gravesites of the righteous, praying with a quorum of 10 jewish men (a minyan), or at the Temple in Jerusalem. Likewise, there are times, such as right after halachic midnight on every night of the year, as well as during the 10 days of repentance - and especially Yom Kippur (and on Yom Kippur, especially at the time of Neilah, by the end of the day, just before sunset), and praying at the same time that the local community is praying. At these times and in these places, it’s easier to cross the wires, so to speak, and connect your neshama directly to the high voltage current coming down from above, at least long enough to send a signal up the line. This isn’t only spoken about in chassidic discourses and kabbalah, but also in nigleh in dozens of locations (The revealed aspects of the Torah) For example, in Masecta Berachos 7b, the talmud describes a situation where one cannot make it to the shul. The gemara states that ideally the individual should gather a minyan to daven at their house, and if they are unable to do so, at least they should daven at the same time as the community does. The gemara then continues on 8a “מאי דכתיב ״ואני תפלתי לך ה׳ עת רצון״. אימתי עת רצון — בשעה שהצבור מתפללין” - “‘May my prayers to you be at an auspicious time.’ What is considered an auspicious time? The time that the community is praying.”

At all times, and especially those, one can pray in their own words, in a translation to whatever language they understand, or they can use a traditional text (nusach), and they will fulfill their scriptural obligation to connect with the Ribono Shel Olam. That said, there is a powerful advantage to praying using a real nusach- based on whatever your family custom or personal custom is (whether sefard, ashkenaz, mizrachi, chassidic, or the like). Even when praying at an auspicious time and place, one’s prayers can be compared to a trip through the forest at night. To follow the paved path - a traditional nusach - will guarantee your safe arrival home (i.e. connecting with your soul’s source), because even with no light (i.e. no understanding of the Hebrew you are reading), one’s feet can tell the difference between a paved road and untamed brush. By making up the words to your own prayers (trying to cut your own path through the forest in the dark), or using words someone else recently decided to come up with (following a slightly cut unpaved worn area), or using abridged versions (trying to follow a broken and fragmented paved road - all in the dark, should you not understand your words) of the nusach, one complicates the procedure, making it more difficult (although of course not impossible) to connect to the level you want to reach.

With all the challenges we face these days, and what we’ve experienced over the last year, we should all be careful with the mitzvah of tefillah, to each at their own level. And may our prayers be at an auspicious time! May they be received before the Ribono Shel Olam like the cries of children for their father, for revealed good in every part of our lives. In the merit of this, Hashem should fulfill for us the posuk (verse) “And I will bring them to my holy mountain, and rejoice with them in my House of Prayer, their offerings received with delight upon my altar, as my house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations.”

Gmar Chasima Tova.

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https://shaarzahav.org/our-siddur/

I also discovered that Artscroll is currently giving away siddurim, including non-Ashki ones!

https://hashemlovesyou.net/

I also have and love Mishkan T'filah, and am currently waiting for my travel version to be delivered 😊

Thanks! I'll have to pass on the Sha'ar Zahav for now, it's awfully expensive and I just did a payment plan on my credit card for the Lev Shalem and the Mahzor Lev Shalem together. But I'd be interested to check that one out someday!