Entitled Tract on Prayer - or Kuntres HaTefillah in Hebrew ñ the discourse was first delivered by the Rebbe on Simchat Torah in 1899. In the address, the Rebbe explains that through prayer one is able to refine their character traits. He then instructs that prayer should be preceded by proper contemplation so that one can engage in Divine service with the utmost of devotion.
Fundamental Turn-of-Century Chasidic Treatise Released in English
BROOKLYN, NY — The publishing arm of the worldwide Chabad-Lubavitch movement, Kehot publications, released a revised translation last month of a fundamental treatise penned at the turn of the 20th century by the Fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Sholom DovBer Schneerson, of righteous memory.
Entitled Tract on Prayer – or Kuntres HaTefillah in Hebrew ñ the discourse was first delivered by the Rebbe on Simchat Torah in 1899. In the address, the Rebbe explains that through prayer one is able to refine their character traits. He then instructs that prayer should be preceded by proper contemplation so that one can engage in Divine service with the utmost of devotion.
The current volume presents an English translation completed 16 years ago by Rabbi Eliezer Danziger ñ first published in 1992 ñ alongside the discourse’s original Hebrew text. Vowel marks aid the readability of the Hebrew and comprehensive footnotes and annotations added by Rabbi Avraham D. Vaisfiche elucidate the text’s deeper points.
The book represents the 18th volume of the Kehot Publication Society’s “Chasidic Heritage Series,” which aims to present key Chasidic works in an easy-to-understand format.
In his introduction to the work’s first publication in 1921, the Sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, called Tract on Prayer “a definitive guide to finding a balm and remedy for the maladies of the soul, and to developing one’s faculties and abilities through genuine service.”
aliza
On my first night of Chanuakah in Hevron – lighting the Menorah on Abu Sneneh, attending at party at an army base, plus more – a few times I was asked how I felt about the things I was witnessing and experiencing. Other than muttering a few words I was unable to answer. I kept saying I was over-stimulated or over-something. I was yearning to sit and contemplate but I was forced to keep functioning – which was good – albeit on a strange level of consciousness.
If the things we learn in Chassidus can be applied to an average person, I would say I was in a mode of ‘ratzo.’ The ‘shov’ came when I was Davening at the Maara on the morning of the second candle. As I got to Al HaNissim, my experience became internalized into feelings and I burst into tears. The next evening it came down to intellect and was able to write about my experience – which I did on the long flight back to Crown Heights.
On Hei Teves I bought the latest in the Chassidic Heritage Series – Kuntres HaTefila. I do not usually consider myself a student of the Rebbe Rashab – he is too conceptual, I am a Sichos and Igross person, a student of the Seventh generation – but I decided this one I wanted to try to learn.
I was studying it on Shabbos, not with a teacher, by myself, so I may have misunderstood what I read. But I think I read about my experience that night. It talks about meditation to the point of the loss of self-awareness; an attachment to G-dly energy that transcends the external faculty of intellect. No excitement is experienced. A person becomes transfixed “like an inanimate stone” says the translation. I didn’t reach the level the Rashab is talking about, but I do feel I was on the lower level of that ladder of Avodah.
Recently I have questioned the Chabad mode of prayer. I get very inspired by the Davening at Maaras HaMachpela on Shabbos night. The singing is loud and full of feeling in contrast to the apparent stiffness of Chabad Davening. But now I think I understand it better. If a Chosid learns Chassidus before Davening, he will experience the attachment to G-dliness that is beyond excitement and a show of emotion.
I trust that Chabad has the right balance of seriousness and singing in their Davening patterns. I look forward to reading the rest of the Maamar
aliza
opps – i should have mentioned in my first comment that what sparked my intense experience was Davening Maariv on Abu Sneneh. saying Al Hanissim facing north, seeing the Maara below and the vast expanse of ‘occupied’ Hevron on the hills across from me. knowing that on these hills the Maccabees fought and that we again need Hashem to deliver the many into the hands of the few, the wicked into the hands of the righteous.