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The aim of our worship is the purification, enlightenment and uplifting of our inner selves ... Its aim is not simply to stir up the emotions, or to produce fleeting moments of devotion, empty sentimentalism and idle tears, but the cleansing of heart and mind. Life robs us of the correct judgment concerning God, the world, humanity, and Israel, and concerning our own relationship to them all. Leaving the disturbing influences of life, and turning to God, you can find it again through the contemplation that is part of tefillah ... Contemplate afresh our prayers, our divine service as a whole, and see if you do not find it more dignified, meaningful and important than you had ever before imagined. Samson Raphael Hirsch Prayer is a brazen act. For it is impossible to stand before God, but brazenly. We all imagine, in one way or another, the greatness of the Creator: How then can we stand in prayer before God? For prayer is a wonder; (its task is) chiefly the assault upon, and the despoiling of, the heavenly order ... We come wishing to despoil the order and do marvels. Therefore we must be shameless in prayer. Nachman of Bratzlav Not all tears come before God. Sullen tears, and tears accompanying the petition for vengeance do not ascend on high. But tears of entreaty and penitence, and tears beseeching relief, cleave the very heavens, open the portals and ascend to the Sovereign above all earthly rulers. Zohar Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living. Abraham Joshua Hesche l We must bear in mind that all such religious acts as reading the Torah, praying, and the performance of other precepts, serve exclusively as the means of causing us to occupy and fill our mind with the precepts of God, and free it from worldly business; for we are thus, as it were, in comm– unication with God, and undisturbed by any other thing. If we, however, pray with the motion of our lips, and our face toward the wall, but at the same time think of our business; if we read with our tongue, whilst our heart is occupied with the building of our house, and we do not think of what we are reading; if we perform the commandments only with our limbs, we are like those who are engaged in digging in the ground, or hewing wood in the forest, without reflecting on the nature of these acts, or by whom they are commanded, or what is their object. We must not imagine that in this way we attain the highest perfection; on the contrary, we are then like those in reference to whom Scripture says ‘Thou art near in their mouth, and far from their inner life’ (Jeremiah 12: 2). Maimonides
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