First Principles

Why?

Why a website on davening? And in particular, why this kind of website?

What?

Wait, first, what does "davening" mean?

To daven is to pray as a Jew. Sure, there are other words as well (check here for more details), but "daven" has a "d" and a "v" in it, which makes it a favorite of the DaveningLab team.

Here's Why

Let's get back to the original question. The answer is threefold:

1. Davening is super-important.
2. Some of us may have room to improve our davening.
3. Some of those "some of us" may benefit from an approach that supplements the many davening resources that are available.

Please be sure to check out our site's Rationale piece for the TL;DR on this topic.

Science

In various places on DaveningLab, we utilize concepts from science, but in a subversive sort of way. In some ways, "scientific" thinking in the modern age has been a scourge to Torah Judaism. It's about time we turned the tables on science and co-opted their concepts into the employ of Torah! Yeah!

Humor

As you visit our site and read our articles, you might think at intervals, "You know, this sentence right here sounds kind of humorous. Weird, huh?" If you did so, be forewarned that you might not be mistaken. It is possible that humor winds up injected into selected articles at the odd juncture or two (or more, in the case of Davening Guy). This is partly a self-preservation tactic. A website on davening which lacks the steady contribution of material by eloquent rabbis needs something else to hold the reader's attention and prevent them from hitting the back button after 4 seconds. In DaveningLab's case, that "something else" may possibly be humor.

The conclusion not to draw from any semblance of humor is that the website is a joke. Our motivation remains raising the quality of davening in the Jewish world. Humor is employed merely as a device, a way to seek to penetrate the defenses of the mind and plant a seed there. Again, that is if we decide to employ humor at all.

Unusual

Even where content cannot be regarded as humorous, it may be unusual. So it may not be helpful, davening-wise, to some people. Perhaps most people. But we remained convinced at this point that there are individuals out there who may react positively to what we have to offer. We always keep at the forefront of our minds the saying that "saving one person is like saving a whole world". So even if this website ends up helping just one person, it will have been worth it. And if we can find that one person and get him to help defray our operating costs, so much the better.

Creative

Whichever adjective ...

scientific humorous unusual none of the above

... is most apropos in any selection from our site, what's behind it all is the drive to be creative. We each need to find ways to be creative about davening. This site is merely one way to try. Ideally, everyone would have such a website, or at least a notebook, filled with their own ideas about how to be creative in davening. And they would keep referring to it and adding to it.

For Whom?

We've implied the concern about the age-old question of, "Is someone really going to spend any time on this site?" So let's try to characterize who that someone might be. See how many of these statements apply to you or people you know:

1. You know quite a bit about tefilla, its purpose and its content. Or maybe not, but somehow you landed here and something about it piqued your interest. (If the latter, be sure to go to our Books and other reference pages and start boning up.)
2. You've absorbed some of the mindset of the secular world, and are bothered by how the concepts of that world occasionally interfere with your davening ability. In particular, the scientific perspective, where physical cause-and-effect holds sway, sometimes undermines your confidence in the impact and value of prayer.
3. Or maybe you feel that your davening runs on auto-pilot some of the time, and the situation isn't getting any better.
4. Either or both of points #2 and #3 upset you, and you are trying to find ways to do something about it.
5. You are open to unusual and creative ways of doing so.

We make no claims to be able to effectively help the people described by the foregoing statements. That would be a tall order for a website. But it remains our aim to do so. With H-shem's help, and given enough time and money, we hope to slowly but continually make progress toward that aim.