Imagine that a person tells you that he is thirsty and asks for some water. But rather than giving him water, you respond, “W-a-t-e-r.” Of course, you cannot quench someone’s thirst with a word. This is the same thing that can often happen with prayer. The words do not correlate to something concrete, and therefore are simply meaningless noise. Let me share with you a strategy that I have been using to make my prayer more meaningful especially in regards to this particular blessing. For each phrase, I have created what I call an “experiential dictionary”—triggers to help me connect with the feelings I want to access. By connecting the words of my prayers to concrete experiences these triggers enable me to enter higher states of awareness. This strategy has proved so powerful that it often moves me to tears of joyous gratitude. Triggers are actually affecting you quite regularly but sometimes it is without you even knowing it. Let’s say you are in a good mood, enjoying a leisurely drive. Suddenly, out of nowhere, you have a mood shift. One of the theories behind these common occurrences is that something in your proximity triggered the mood change. In this case, for example, a song on the radio could have propelled you ten years back to the time your fiancé was breaking up with you. You were in a café, and you did not consciously notice the background music at that time, because you were busy being devastated by your failing relationship. Ten years later, you could be happily married, driving your car and feeling great, when suddenly you hear the same song and get depressed for no reason. The culprit is the song. Your mind associated the song with the painful experience, and it became a trigger, causing you to relive the pain. Triggers are very powerful. In fact, background music has been used to train bears to dance. Some animal trainers play upbeat music while they put the bears on hot coals, which make them jump around in agony. Whenever the bears hear that music, they feel the pain of the hot coals and start “dancing.” So too, we can create triggers in our lives to relive an experience or elicit a feeling. For instance, before I got married I decided what melody I wanted to hear as I walked towards my wife under the chuppah (“marriage canopy”). I did not want to use the traditional melody most often used at weddings, so I chose Rav Shlomo Carlebach’s Lecha Dodi, a popular and moving Shabbat song. My hope was that it would trigger my wedding experience each Shabbat for the rest of my life. And that is exactly what has happened every week. Like data on a computer chip, our experiences are stored in our brains. It is a shame not to access the best files. To help my concentration during the thanksgiving blessing, I have linked the words of the prayer with vivid moments in my life. For instance, besides my wedding, my most powerful and joyous moments have been the births of our children. When I watched our babies being born, God’s existence was utterly clear to me. God becomes most believable to me when life becomes unbelievable. Therefore, when I pray I associate the key words and phrases with real experiences in my life that capture the meaning of what I am saying. The words “Rock of our lives” conjure a time when I truly felt that my life depended on God, and that every detail was perfectly put in place by the Master Artist. At the words, “Shield of our salvation,” I think of a situation when I literally felt that God was my shield and protected my sense of self. When I say, “our lives are in Your hands,” I think about a terrible car accident I was in. I could have been easily killed, yet I walked away with a few minor bruises. When I picture myself flying into the windshield and not getting hurt, the fact that my life is in God’s hands becomes a visceral truth. Take a minute now to do this exercise with the following phrases: o “Our lives are in Your hands”—Remember a time when your life was in danger and you truly felt that God saved you. o “And our souls are in Your charge”—Think back to when you were spiritually at risk. Then vividly imagine the moment you had a spiritual salvation in which you felt that your spiritual life was in God’s charge. o “And for all Your miracles”—Think of a miracle or a wondrous event that has happened in your life. Then try to feel the gratitude you felt during those powerful moments in your life. These memories will give you much inspiration and will continue to elicit the powerful feelings that you felt during those moments. Creating triggers not only gives your prayer real meaning, it is the best way to truly feel the thankfulness that this blessing is meant to express.