A young man once approached Rav Gershon Edelstein zt”l with an earnest question. He recalled how, as a bachur, he used to daven on the Yamim Noraim with relatively undisturbed concentration and raw emotion. He would cry throughout the tefillah and experience the day as something transcendent.
But now, as a married man, he no longer felt that same emotional pull. He tried, really tried, to stir up the same intensity, to cry, to feel, to reconnect. But nothing. The tears didn’t come. The fire wasn’t there. He asked Rav Gershon: “What can I do to get it back?”
Rav Gershon looked at him and said, “That’s exactly your mistake.”
“You’re trying to force yourself to feel. But you can’t force emotions. It doesn’t work that way. Human nature is such that the more you push yourself to feel something, the more you recoil. The harder you try to manipulate your emotions, the more distant they become.”
Instead, Rav Gershon gave him a simple tidbit of advice. “Just focus on the simple meaning of the words. That’s all. Don’t push for emotion; just be present with the davening itself. The words will do the work.”
The yungerman took the advice to heart. That Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, he focused solely on understanding the words, with no drama, no pressure, no attempt to recreate his past. And something remarkable happened.
After Yom Tov, he returned to Rav Gershon. “Rebbe,” he said, “for the first time in years, I cried during davening. I felt that special connection again, just like I did when I was younger. But this time, it came naturally.” Rav Gershon nodded.
That is the secret.
When a person stops chasing emotion, and instead simply lives—focusing on the words, their meaning, and the sincerity of the tefillah—the feelings will come on their own.
Let your words speak, and your heart will follow.
