"To love YKVK your God, to go in all His ways and to cleave to Him” [Deuteronomy 11:22]:—We read regarding this [see Babylonian Talmud Sotah 14a] “Is it possible that one might bind oneself to Him? Is He not a consuming fire? Rather cleave to within His attributes. As He is compassionate, so, you be compassionate.” Indeed one ought always to be able to serve the blessed Name with the enthusiasm of the heart; and this is the true cleaving to Him Whose Name is blessed. However, it is impossible that this be one’s constant state. Rather, one moves toward it and then away, like [the movement of] a flame. And just as with fire, if one breathes oxygen into it, it first becomes nearly extinguished and then the fire becomes greater—and the fire itself is always rising and descending, being always in motion—so too, with one’s enthusiasm. For constant pleasure ceases to be pleasurable. This, then, is the question raised by the Talmud [BT Sotah 14a]: Is he not a consuming fire?”—i.e., Isn’t enthusiasm something that is not constant? Thus the answer given is “cleave to within His attributes”—referring to the letters of the Torah, for it is indeed possible to be always occupied with the letters [of the Torah]; and the Torah is the Divine Garment. Even when talking to people, bear in mind that the 22 letters that constitute the means of common speech are ultimately the substratum of the Torah.
Baal Shem Tov, Amud HaTefilah, #54; Tzava’at HaRivash fol. 5a 


In this teaching, the founder of Hasidism, Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, the Baal Shem Tov, recognizes that one’s passion for prayer and one’s closeness to God cannot be equal at all times. Such is the human condition. But one can always engage in Torah study out of reverence for God, which hopefully re-establishes a sense of the Divine and rekindles one’s enthusiasm for prayer. Rather than dwell in shame for the “failure” to maintain passion for God at all times, which can be paralyzing, one should direct his or her energies in a different, but still God-oriented, way.
Rabbi Mike Comins

Quoted from:

Pillar of Prayer
Guidance in Contemplative Prayer, Sacred Study, and the Spiritual Life, from the Baal Shem Tov and his Circle
Translated and annotated by Menachem Kallus
Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 2011
Page 30  


Available at Fons Vitae

​The English word “prayer” derives from the Latin for “beg, entreat or request.” One would expect something similar in Hebrew, but tefillah literally means “to judge oneself.” Rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsch, father of Modern Orthodoxy, offers a compelling, if troubling, explanation.

The word hith-palel (to pray) comes from the root palal, which in turn is related to the root balal…The root balal…denotes bringing a fresh element into a mass, incorporating this element into all parts of the mass, and thus forming a new material out of the mass.

This is the Jewish concept of the judge’s task, [and it is for this reason that the verb palal means "to judge"]. The judge must bring justice and fairness, which are elements of Divine Truth, into the case. This must penetrate all elements of the dispute. Therefore, by bringing true justice into what was angry dissension, the judge transforms it into harmonious unity.

When one does this to himself, he is said to hith-palel, that is, “to judge himself." Hith-palel means to take the element of God’s truth and make it penetrate all phases and conditions of our being and our lives. This allows our entire being to gain a degree of harmony in God.

Jewish tefillah (prayer; a noun from the same root as hith-palel) is hence very different from what is usually conceived of as prayer. It is not an expression from within, or an expression of that with which the heart is already filled. Rather, it is a renewal and penetration of truth which comes from the outside. 

If our prayers were not tefillah … working on our inner selves to bring them to the heights of recognition of the truth and to resolutions for serving God, then there would be no sense in having fixed times and prescribed forms for them. But our prescribed prayers are not facts and truths of which we are already conscious; they are concepts which we wish to awaken and renew in ourselves. The less one may feel inclined to recite a prayer, the more necessary it may be to say it.
Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch
Commentary on Genesis 20:7

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Rabbi Hirsch’s commentary is shocking, and no doubt troubling to many, in that it describes prayer as a movement from the outside in. It is not a pouring out of the heart, but an opening of the heart so that it may receive God’s presence.  
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But Rabbi Hirsch likely had other writings on prayer, and I doubt he meant this to the contradiction of prayer from humans to God. Rather, he highlights one of the central dynamics of fruitful prayer. We pray not only, and for me not primarily, to change God, but to change ourselves. And while that task benefits from pouring our hearts out to God, it also requires listening, and being vulnerable, to what the tradition (through the Siddur) and God (in drawing us close through prayer) call us to be.
Rabbi Mike Comins

Shimshon Raphael Hirsch (1808 – 1888) was a German rabbi best known as the father of the Torah im Derech Eretz school of contemporary Jewish thought and driving force behind modern, Orthodox Judaism. 
​
A Call to the Infinite 
by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan 
New York/Jerusalem: Moznaim Publishing Corporation, 1986, p. 12

R. Elazar said: Always let a man test himself: if he can direct his heart, let him pray; if he cannot, let him not pray.
          Talmud Bavli, Berachot 30b

If a man is riding on an ass [and the time for prayer comes], if there is anyone who can hold his ass, let him get off and pray; but if not, let him remain on the ass and pray.  Rabbi said: In either case let him remain on the ass and pray; the only important thing is that his heart should be directed.
          Tosefta Berachot III, 18


In the great debate over whether praying according to one's obligation (keva) trumps praying according to one's ability to concentrate, focus and emote (kavanah), here we see those who favor kavanah.  Note that neither Rabbi nor R. Elazar advocate disregarding one’s prescribed, halachic duty to pray the liturgy at certain times.  Rather, to keep that obligation, one cannot parrot the words.  The message seems clear to me.  God wants the heart.
          Rabbi Mike Comins

Quoted from:
A Rabbinic Anthology
C. G. Montefiore and H. Loewe
New York: Schocken Books, 1974
p. 347

Rav said: Whoever has it in his power to pray on behalf of his neighbor, and fails to do so, is called a sinner.
          Talmud Bavli, Berachot 12b 

If there is one thing that characterizes Jewish prayer, it is the emphasis on praying as a community, both across time and across space. Whether the constant use of second person, “we” language in our prayer book’s petitions, or the insistence on daily prayer in a minyan, the context of Jewish prayer is communal. So much so that even when davenning alone on top of a mountain, one does not pray in a vacuum. Even my personal, unscripted prayers emerge within the deep sea of my People’s yearning.

In this statement from the third century, Babylonian rabbi Rav, the communal context receives philosophical articulation and is taken to the next level. To pray only for oneself is worse than not praying at all.

Surrender and humility are essential moves in spiritual life. But the way to submit to God is not always to focus directly on God, something particularly difficult for those who do not share the traditional take on a personal God. One important way to serve God, Rav reminds us, is to serve others.
          Rabbi Mike Comins 

Quoted from: A Rabbinic Anthology
C. G. Montefiore and H. Loewe
New York: Schocken Books, 1974, p. 351