Sermon: Pinchas – The difference between Keva and Kavannah

Written by Rabbi Hannah Kingston — 30 July 2024

Yesterday we saw the opening ceremony for the Olympics. Hundreds of athletes are approaching the most pressure filled moments of their lives, standing on the start line, gearing themselves up to perform at the highest level of their careers.

To deal with the immense amount of stress placed upon them, many athletes talk of pre-competition routines that help them to ready their mind and body. Tennis superstar,  Rafa Nadal, is known to take an ice cold shower exactly 45 minutes before each match. High jumper Vashti Cunningham watches ‘kill bill’ the night before every competition, and Beach volleyball player Jake Gibb does a 10 second meditation before entering the court.

Sports Psychologist Dr Steve Graef said of these routines: “It allows energy to be where it needs to be, and connects with the confidence one has in their particular sport or event.” A set of specific habits also gives an athlete a sense of control, he says, which can make them feel more assured and poised.

As Noah said in his d’var Torah, routines are greatly important for our mental health, for giving us a sense of purpose and for bringing us together with community. True for us, and true for Olympic athletes as they begin their games. Routines enable us to take control over a set of events, to feel ready and equipped to face the world.

But are the set list of things done before a competition, the pre game quirks that empower people with a sense of control, routines, or rituals? And what distinguishes one from the other?

The difference between a routine and ritual is the mindset behind the action. Routines are actions that have to be done, brushing our teeth, making our beds, having a shower. Rituals are practices that have a deep sense of purpose. They do not have to be spiritual or religious, but they need you to be fully engaged on the experience on the task. Routines become rituals when you invest a high level of energy and consciousness to the task at hand.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, in his book ‘Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity’, reflects on the difficulty between the balance of routine and ritual when it comes to Jewish prayer. He recognises that there are laws and fixed texts that govern our prayer life, yet our prayer should be an outpouring of the heart and soul.

Therefore our prayer, like the distinction between routine and ritual, is driven by two distinct principles, regularity and spontaneity, uniformity and individuality, Keva and Kavannah.

Keva is the routine, the fixed structures of our prayer lives. It is essential to keep our sense of regularity and permanence. Through Keva we establish our fixed schedules, we know that we need to pray at certain times, come to shul at for shabbat, partake in festival practices.

Keva is the obligation of sacrifice placed on our biblical ancestors and read about in Torah today. It sets the framework of the year, the routines of our calendrical cycle.

Keva means that we as Jews fulfil our halakhic obligation. And in doing this that we establish the discipline and commitment to our faith, the structure and stability of Jewish life.

Kavannah is far less tangible. It is our intention, our focus, our own personal spiritual engagement. It takes into account our emotional state in a moment, and places emphasis on a personal and heartfelt connection. Kavannah adds spiritual depth to a moment of keva. It turns the mundane into something holy, a routine into a ritual, an everyday practice into a transformative experience.

As Abraham Joshua Heschel noted, both Keva and Kavannah are essential parts of our Jewish life, for our prayer to have true meaning we need both.

The rabbis of the Talmud grapple with this idea. There is a discussion in the Talmud around how many blessings each person should recite when saying the daily Amidah. Must a person say the required eighteen blessings, even when they are not fluent in prayer?

Rabbi Eliezar concludes: One whose prayer is fixed, their prayer is not an earnest plea.

According to Rabbi Eliezar, if we become too bogged down with the structure of our prayer, with saying the right things at the right times, our prayer loses its meaning. Rather, throughout our lives we should work to harmonise both keva and kavannah, with the structure of keva supporting the spiritual engagement of kavannah, and the intention of kavannah infusing the moments of keva with deep meaning and feeling.

The rabbis of the Talmud go on to say that we must always evaluate ourselves before we begin our prayer. Because even though reciting prayer at the correct time is of the utmost importance, if we are not able to focus our hearts, we should not turn to prayer.

Maimonides takes this a step further, ‘any prayer uttered without mental concentration is not prayer.’ And therefore ‘one should sit a while before beginning prayers, so as to concentrate their mind’.

We learn from our ancient sages that our routines are important, but our intention behind our routines is perhaps even more important. According to a saying, attributed to 11th century sage Bahya Ibn Pakudah, ‘Prayer without kavannah is like a body without a soul.’

If our heart is not in it, it doesn’t matter. Because each of us can partake in a routine without care. And whilst we might fulfil our halakhic obligations, we will be left unaffected. Instead of prayer being a transformative experience, we remain unchanged.

But when we focus our hearts, when we approach our routines with openness, with passion and with intention, we are able to create real meaningful change to our mindset, that matches the change we create in the world.

Every time we step through the doors of our sanctuary, we open the door to opportunity. Will this morning be a time of Keva, a fixed fulfilment of our obligations, or will it be a time also infused with kavannah, filled with intention, creating the opportunity for us to leave transformed.

Just as our Olympic athletes gear up for their games, gazing out at the finish line, we too are edging towards the conclusion of our service. Are we ready to race to the end, performing our prayer routine by rote, fulfilling our halakhic obligiation, but leaving otherwise unchanged? Or are we able to be fully present, bringing our whole consciousness, and setting our intentions as we go?

May we find true moments of prayer in the balance between the extremes. May our routines, our keva, bring us the structure we need, and our intentions, our kavannah, bring meaning to those moments. And through doing this, may we leave this prayer space transformed.