Joy, Mindfulness and Kavanah

Finding joy and being in the moment at a difficult time with my prayerbook

This post is a bit more personal than usual. It’s in two parts, the theory and the practice, if you like. The first part I hope has some universal appeal, although the second part will probably appear to a narrower audience.

I didn’t have a great Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The background to this is that I’m autistic, late diagnosed (at age thirty-seven, a few years ago) and, like most late-diagnosed autistics, have struggled with a lot of mental health issues over the years from spending so many years thinking that there was something wrong with me for not being able to do the things other people do naturally, from reading body language to multitasking to coping with noise and sensory overload.

This all came to a head (again) over Yom Tov with a significant spike in my social anxiety that kept me from shul (synagogue) over both festivals. I sat at home a lot and thought a lot about shame and my repeated failure to meet the religious targets I set for myself. This was worsened by the fact that the doctor had told me that it was unsafe for me to fast on Yom Kippur, as I got quite ill last year. I was only drinking (in shiurim, for those who know what that is), but it still felt strange and further discouraged me from going to shul.

However, then I decided to turn it around and focus on what I am doing well, religiously, in particular, what brings me joy. I possibly am defining ‘joy’ differently to most people, which may be an autistic symptom in itself (like many autistic people, I have alexithymia, meaning, I struggle to recognise, label and understand emotions, including my own). If shame for me is being stuck in my head with my self-loathing, joy is about being mindful and in the moment, not in my head and not self-aware, just focused on something or someone else.

This last year has been incredibly hard, emotionally and practically, for Jews everywhere and, although I am not in Israel, to speak of joy may seem strange or even offensive. But joy is not happiness. Happiness can not exist alongside sadness, but joy can; it is a more complex emotion. This last year, we as Jews have learnt, or at least we have begun to relearn, who we are as a people, what we stand for, who are friends are and what we have to do. There is joy in this. Joy can be broken-hearted.

(In parallel, since my very belated autism diagnosis in 2021, I have finally begun to get a sense of who I am, what I stand for and what I have to do.)

Lately, I have come to see much of Jewish ritual (regular prayers, religious study, mitzvot/religious acts) as being at least partly about giving us frequent chances every day to be mindful and in the moment, hence the emphasis on kavanah in both prayer and mitzvah performance. Kavanah is usually translated as ‘concentration,’ but I see it as mindfulness: being focused on the words you are saying or the action you are doing, not on yourself. Being present in the moment.

Things that take me out of myself and bring me joy, at least some of the time are (in no particular order):

1.      Solitary prayer (prayer in shul is rarely joyous, for a whole bunch of reasons);

2.      Torah study, particularly Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) study where I trace ideas from the text, through Medieval and modern rabbinic literature and formulate my own responses;

3.      Sitting quietly and thinking about Torah;

4.      Spending time with my wife;

5.      Spending time with close family and very close friends (but not for too long);

6.      Playing with young children, especially my nearly two-year old nephew;

7.      Losing myself in fiction in various media (a much lower sense of joy, but a real one).

Most of these things I would consider religious activities. I believe that relationship, particularly with those close to us, is a way of reaching God as much as prayer and Torah study. Not just in moments of extreme emotion, but in how we conduct ourselves with our loved ones on an everyday basis.

I also think that reading fiction can be, if not a religious experience, then at least a hechsher mitzvah, a way of preparing for a mitzvah. Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, one of the pre-eminent Modern Orthodox/Religious Zionist rabbis of recent decades, argued that reading serious secular literature is necessary to understand the narrative parts of Tanakh, Talmud and Midrash as well as to appreciate the psychological depth of extremely righteous people (he had a PhD in English Literature from Harvard).

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I’m not sure I have many tips about how to enter a state of kavanah. I think it’s something I learnt by experience and I don’t know how to impart it. I have never been good at practising mindfulness, but a few things I learnt when trying help.

In terms of prayer (probably the easiest place to start), Rambam (Maimonides) says in The Guide for the Perplexed that start with just on one or two small prayers, like the first paragraph of the Shema or the first blessing of the Amidah.

It’s helpful to pause before starting to pray and before each paragraph or blessing to try to focus.

I try to focus on the writing and/or the sound of my voice and gently push away any intruding thoughts. I don’t beat myself up if I find my mind wandering, though, as that just provokes more thoughts. I don’t always read at the same speed. Sometimes it’s helpful to go slowly and focus on each word; other times that just allows thoughts to develop. Similarly, sometimes it’s helpful to go fast and finish before losing concentration, but sometimes that makes it meaningless.

It definitely helps to pray in a language you understand to avoid having to “translate” in your head. Unfortunately, while my biblical/rabbinic Hebrew is increasingly good these days, I have a translation of key prayers that now kicks in automatically when I say them from many years of mental translation, which is a nuisance. I often have better kavanah on less-frequently read prayers, like special Yom Tov ones.

There’s an aesthetic dimension that can be used to help here too. It’s nice to have a siddur (prayerbook) that is a comfortable size and weight and with a pleasing font. I find it helpful to change my siddur periodically as a different layout can revive attention in a familiar prayer (an idea I heard on the podcast Deep Meaningful Conversations).

I should probably say that I’m a work in progress with all these tips. There are some I do regularly, others that I aspire to do, but mostly forget. I think kavannah as a whole is best seen as a work in progress, not something to aspire to do “perfectly” and then beat yourself up for failing.