I will never forget the high school student who asked, “Are there shuls where people really pray with kavana?” He had apparently never seen one. I was frankly a little taken aback, until I compared notes with colleagues across the country, from Miami to Chicago, from Ohio to Los Angeles. They had all heard the same question from their students. And so, one wonders, what does kavana look like, especially in the adults in these students’ lives?

There is no doubt that davening is difficult for many of us. The routine of it all, the language of the siddur, the length of the service—so many obstacles, so many reasons for the mind and the heart to wander. In my own work in tefillah education, I have come to focus primarily on the prayers themselves, believing that they can be a stumbling block for many, when in fact they are there to teach us, to be signposts to help direct our thoughts and our feelings. Many of us have just lost the knack of being able to experience them that way.

Rav Dov Singer, however, starts not with the prayer as much as with the pray-er, not so much with the mind as with the soul. This is a new English translation of a small volume that originally appeared in Hebrew a few years ago to rave reviews entitled, “Prepare My Prayer,” published by Maggid Press. (Full disclosure: Maggid is a division of Koren which has published my own commentaries on the Siddur.)

Rav Singer is convinced “that the best way to teach prayer is to become people who pray.” Just as Rav Kook explained that the soul is forever praying, and we need only get in touch with it, so, too, Rav Singer believes that as spiritual beings we have hidden within the capacity to turn prayer into a state of consciousness that is deliberate and meaningful. We can awaken that which is within us and get in touch with that part of our being that strives for a relationship with HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Secular research increasingly confirms that we are all born with a sense of spirituality broadly conceived but that we can lose touch with it as we grow older. Rav Singer seeks to help us, as adults, regain and intensify that connection. Indeed, so much a part of prayer, as in all religious life, is about relationship and yet so many people seem to have a hard time finding ways to nurture and develop that relationship with God. This book is a rich collection of recipes for how to awaken our souls in relationship.

Rav Singer himself is a student of the two or three major figures responsible for the revival of Hassidut or neo-Hassidut in the Religious-Zionist community in Israel. He is one of the founders of Mekor Chaim, an elite high school in Israel known for the spiritual work it does with its students and faculty. He began a unique masters degree program for teachers to train them to be more open, more reflective and more spiritual educators, in other words, to first work on their own inner lives before they can help students with theirs. And he also founded the Bet Midrash l’Hitchadshut, (The Study Center for Renewal) where adults can come together to study Torah and to work on their own inner lives especially regarding prayer. There are adult study groups throughout Israel who get together to learn and to help support one another’s growth in prayer. This book is in part a result of those efforts.

While the book may have a Hassidic flavor to it, one need not be so predisposed in order to reap the rewards. Each part has some introductory selections from Tanakh, or halakha, or Ḥassidut or Jewish thought or a contemporary poem to help set the stage for the substantive suggestions that follow. In truth, some of the readings are not as powerful in the English as they are in the original, but it matters little since there is enough to appeal to different tastes and sensitivities. The core of the book, however, and its enormous innovation and power lies in the short practical exercises or directions that are given in order to help one improve one’s kavana before and during tefillah. Rav Singer calls these “recipes,” or short practices that one can undertake in order to have a true conversation with God. What are the different ways one can prepare for such a conversation, how can one begin such a conversation, how can one relate to God in different ways, how can one’s physical posture impact the kind of conversation one has? In these and other areas, there are practical suggestions and exercises offered at every step along the way in order to help one make one’s tefillah more conversational, more relational, personal, intimate and meaningful.

This is a book intended for laypeople, not for mystics or kabbalists or those who are expert in meditation or mindfulness, though the book surely will resonate for them too. The recipes are ones that can be applied in anticipation of tefillah or even during tefillah if one is so inclined—the book is in a small format so that it can easily be taken to services and referred to if one wishes. It can also be a wonderful focus for learning or practicing with another person, a spouse or chavruta. Not all of the recipes will speak to everyone, but the nature of a cookbook is such that there are different recipes to feed different tastes; so too the recipes here will nourish different kinds of souls. We need only begin the work, so that we can tell our children that, yes, you know at least one person who actually prays with kavana.

Rabbi Dr. Jay Goldmintz is a veteran day school educator who has published widely on curriculum, tefillah education, adolescent religious development and religious parenting. He served for over 30 years as a teacher and administrator at the Ramaz School and currently teaches in Ma`ayanot Yeshiva High School and in the doctoral program at the Azrieli Graduate School.