Blessings with Kavana (Concentration)

by Chana Krasny

All of the bitachon and siyata dishmaya that you will need in the day, requires a foundation, a root that draws you closer to Hashem.
 
Our morning brachos and the tefilos we daven in shacharis, are potentially the greatest route we could have to begin our day with full bitachon and siyata dishmaya.
 
However, the yetzer hora has bound us up in ropes of activities because he wants to inactivate our tefilos and the result is that many people daven distracted, without kavana, and later seek to console themselves by saying if I actually said the brochos at all, I did my job. But truthfully a blessing without kavana is worth nothing. Or even less than nothing.
​
Transcript continues after audio player

---

We learn in Yeshayahu a possuk that explains how this is so: “In as much as this people has drawn close with its mouth, and its lips it has honoured Me, yet it has distanced its heart from Me. The fear of Me is at the command of the people who teach them.”
 
Hashem told Yeshaya, you see that My children’s actions are empty, they do them only as traditional customs. They wash hands and recite the bracha, al netilas yadayim when they break bread they recite hamotzi lechem min ho’oretz, when they drink, they make more brachos. However, it is all out of habit; they are simply saying the words, but they do not have in mind to thank Me. Unfortunately because we did not have kavana behind our brochos, the consequences were very drastic.

A blessing without kavana is worth nothing. Or less than nothing.

Hashem became angry at His nation, and He swore by His holy name that the Torah scholars who were performing this bracha service without kavana, instead of concentrating and focusing their attention on the brachos, would lose their wisdom. And it was this loss that ultimately led to the Beis Hamikdosh being destroyed.
 
So today, we can understand that conversely, if we imbue our brachos with true kavana, we will be able to reverse that terrible mistake that our great men of that time made. And im yirtzeh Hashem we will soon become more able to have a Beis Hamikdosh in our time.