"Modern society knows that people "burn themselves out" if they never withdraw to relax and regain perspective and inner strength. We Jews need more than two weeks a year to regain our Torah perspectives because, in the words of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, the world in which we are immersed - like it or not - "tends to remove truth from you and to offer falsehood; it forces you to surrender where your task is to conquer." To fight the moral and spiritual war demanded by G-d, we must withdraw regularly from the trenches of the outside and regain our sense of the purpose of our struggle.

That withdrawal, that yearning for spiritual rejuvenation, that battle against spiritual burnout is tefilla.

Tefilla at its essence is not a list of requests. It is the introspective, clarifying, refining process of re-discovering what one is and what one wants to become, and how to achieve the transformation. Tefilla is the earnest attempt to express the innermost longing of the soul. It is a vital component of our lives as Jews.

Dare we consign the precious minutes of tefilla to our unconscious mumble - or even roar - of words that begin in the throat and never reach the mind and heart, or touch the soul?"