Standing in Two Worlds with Doctor Sam Juni-Episode 46-Concentrated Effort-The Struggle to Stay Focused over the Long Yom Kippur Service

Yeshiva of Newark Podcast

Rabbi Kivelevitz and Professor Juni analyze and critique a number of factors which lead many of us to become distracted during prayers. Dr. Juni explains that each person has physiologically optimal position on the dimension of input stimulation for perceptual and cognitive processing. This dimension ranges from some who need relative quiet to concentrate to those who can ONLY concentrate in the presence of significant additional sensory input (e.g. spinners, noise, swaying, swaying, music). Many with ADD fall into the latter half of this dimension. Every person has his own level of stimulation he or she needs to function. Shul, especially during the holidays, may not fir the bill. It may be too huge of a space, too crowded, too quiet, too loud, too eerie, too strange (especially when mouthing strange sentences in a not-so-familiar language). Small wonder that many become distracted. to some degree but not excessive for each person.

Psychodynamically, however, Juni points out that boredom is a cover-up word for defensive avoidal of thoughts and fears that we usually sweep under the rug. High Holiday prayers, in particular, arouse issues of our mortality, personal weakness, our role as helpless victims. More insidiously, it forces some to face their doubts in the area of faith in G-d and commitment to religion, and – in some – resentment toward G-d. Triggering the pseudo-mode of “boredom” give us the excuse to escape this crucible.

Kivelevitz points out that there is a paradoxical aspect to the confessional of the High Holidays which are often rendered in a song which sounds almost triumphant and happy. He references Rabbinic authorities who address the fact that some mis-guided folks are actually paradoxically proud as they confess in bursts of unjustified hubris regarding their apparent piety. These commentators urge congregations not to dwell on the past and essentially speed through the confessional at what they considered a healthy pace. The problem, as they see it, is that when we have a list of sins that we recite pro forma, we tend not to realize that there are major dimensions and divisions among these sins instead of seeing them as one menu of equal transgressions.

Doctor Samuel Juni is one of the foremost research psychologists in the world today. He has published groundbreaking original research in seventy different peer reviewed journals, and is cited continuously with respect by colleagues and experts in the field who have built on his theories and observations. Samuel Juni studied in Yeshivas Chaim Berlin under Rav Yitzchack Hutner, and in Yeshiva University as a Talmid of Rav Joseph Dov Soloveitchick. Professor Juni is a prominent member of the Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists, and has regularly presented addresses to captivated audiences. Associated with NYU since 1979, Juni has served as Director of MA and PhD programs, all the while heading teams engaged in important research. Professor Juni's scholarship on aberrant behavior across the cultural, ethnic, and religious spectrum is founded on psychometric methodology and based on a psycho-dynamic psychopathology perspective. He is arguably the preeminent expert in Differential Diagnostics, with each of his myriad studies entailing parallel efforts in theory construction and empirical data collection from normative and clinical populations. Professor Juni created and directed NYU's Graduate Program in Tel Aviv titled Cross-Cultural Group Dynamics in Stressful Environments. Based in Yerushalayim, he collaborates with Israeli academic and mental health specialists in the study of dissonant factors and tensions in the Arab-Israeli conflict and those within the Orthodox Jewish community, while exploring personality challenges of second-generation Holocaust survivors. Below is a partial list of the journals to which Professor Juni has contributed over 120 articles. Many are available on line Journal of Forensic Psychology Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment, and Trauma. International Review of Victimology The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease International Forum of Psychoanalysis Journal of Personality Assessment Journal of Abnormal Psychology Journal of Psychoanalytic Anthropology Psychophysiology Psychology and Human Development Journal of Sex Research Journal of Psychology and Judaism Contemporary Family Therapy American Journal on Addictions Journal of Criminal Psychology Mental Health, Religion & Culture As Rosh Beis Medrash, Rabbi Avraham Kivelevitz serves as Rav and Posek for the morning minyan at IDT. Hundreds of listeners around the globe look forward to his weekly Shiur in Tshuvos and Poskim. Rav Kivelevitz is a Maggid Shiur for Dirshu International in Talmud and Halacha as well as a Dayan with the Beth Din of America. Please leave us a review or email us at [e-mail]

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