Last year, the American Society for Horticultural Science published an interesting study.1 Many employers world-wide are interested in reducing the stress of their employees and creating healthier, more productive workers. This particular study tested the impact of having a small indoor plant on a worker’s desk. First, researchers measured the stress levels of 63 office workers when feeling worn out at work. Later, they gave employees a plant for their desk and told them to take three-minute “nature breaks” when feeling fatigued, and then measured their stress levels afterward. What they found was that workers had a significant decrease in stress levels after looking at their plant! In their conclusions, Dr. Masahiro Toyoda, lead author of the study and professor at the University of Hyogo, postulated that this result is based on Attention Restoration Theory — that people can concentrate better after spending time in, or looking at, nature — and a desk plant offers that opportunity. Toyoda said, "This state is similar to that of mindfulness, which pays attention to the present moment. To get good effects of stress reduction brought by a small plant, let's enjoy the time of three-minute gazing at the plant without thinking or words."2 

The holiday of Shavuot is filled with its own unique minhagim. We eat dairy food products, stay up all night learning Torah, and decorate the shul with plants, flowers and other foliage. While the Rama (OC 494:3) describes this last custom as “spreading grass on the floor,” others mention the spreading or giving out of roses,3 and the Magen Avraham, 494:5, introduces the custom of decorating the shul with trees.4 

What is the significance or purpose of this minhag? Some attribute it to increasing the simchat yom tov through the fragrant scent and beautiful flowers.5 Others point to Shavuot as a time when we are judged regarding our fruits,6 and decorations of trees remind us to daven on their behalf. Most well-known, though, is the reason you may have learned as a child: to recreate the Har Sinai experience when the mountain, or base of the mountain, was covered in greenery (Levush 494:1).7 But why do these all specifically require foliage or flowers? If we wanted a pleasant smell, we could spray Febreze. If we are davening about our fruit, we could have a basket of fruit at the front of shul. And we already recreate the Har Sinai experience through the reading of the Aseret HaDibrot.8 So why such stress on grass, plants and trees?

In Parshat Chayei Sara,9 Yitzchak goes out “lasuach basadeh.” The commentators differ in understanding exactly what it was that Yitzchak did in the field, ranging from praying,10 planting a tree,11 or going for an evening stroll amongst the bushes.12 The Malbim appears to follow the first explanation, that Yitzchak went to daven, but then clarifies that it was not just prayer, but “speech thoughts that shoot out from one’s imagination while thinking”; more of a meditation.13 Perhaps Yitzchak specifically went out to the field because seeing the greenery of nature, be it a desk plant or grass and trees in the fields, helps us be more mindful of Hashem through His creations. 

Rebbe Nachman MiBreslov stressed the importance of doing hitbodedut (solitary meditation), especially impactful in nature. His talmid, Rebbe Natan, recorded a prayer of Rebbe Nachman’s that expresses the effect of prayer amongst greenery outdoors.

“…Master of the Universe, grant me the ability to be alone; may it be my custom to go outdoors each day among the trees and grass — among all growing things and there may I be alone, and enter into hitbodedut prayer, to talk with the One to whom I belong. May I express there everything in my heart, and may all the foliage of the field — all grasses, trees, and plants — awake at my coming, to send the powers of their life into the words of my prayer so that my prayer and speech are made whole through the life and spirit of all growing things, which are made as one by their transcendent Source...”14

Perhaps this can also explain the minhag of decorating the shul on Shavuot. Not only does it bring simchat yom tov, recreate the Sinai experience, and remind us to daven for our fruits. Also inherent within the greenery is the ability to induce a state of mindfulness, allowing for subconscious recognition that all of our joys or supplication are owed to a Higher Being. Once a year, on Shavuot, we reexperience that sublime and supreme mindfulness of Hashem as Creator, responsible for the majesty of nature and all that is good in our lives, spurred on by surrounding ourselves with plants of nature.

However, the truth is that we have daily opportunities for mindfulness. The Gemara15 tells us how the chasidim rishonim, the pious Jews, prepared for an hour before davening to achieve proper kavanah. The Rambam,16 who seemingly foresaw our future smartphone generation with short attention spans, notes that even a brief amount of thoughtfulness time before prayer is enough. The whole point of this requirement is to clear our minds so we can be mindful and focus on Hashem, and not go through all the words of davening without even stopping to think — “what am I even saying?!”

The other way to achieve mindfulness during prayer is by having quiet around us, removing the distractions, limiting the talking in shul (or if you might find yourself in quarantine, in your home makom tefillah). I remember growing up in Cincinnati, it was so silent in shul during davening I could hear a pin drop, and that was when the shul was full of several hundred people Shabbat morning! Only years later did I retroactively appreciate that quiet as a conducive medium for kavanah, after spending time in numerous other shuls whose decorum was not yet at that level of silence. That is mindfulness, recognizing that in shul and during tefilah, we are not just rushing through another item on our itinerary, but rather recalibrating our minds for the day’s challenges through connecting to Hashem.

Let me end with a personal anecdote:

A few years ago, I installed a camera over our front door (Israel’s version of the Ring doorbell camera). All my kids knew it was connected to an app on my phone that sent me a message when it sensed motion; they would therefore look up at the camera, wave and say “Hi Abba!” when coming into the house. Very cute. Shortly after installing it, I was traveling to the U.S. for work and received a message from the camera. Once again, even from 6,000 miles away, the kids were looking up at the camera and sending me greetings — “Hi Abba!” — knowing I would get it. 

Fast forward half a year later, and my kids mostly forgot about the camera, sometimes saying “Hi” but mostly not. One day, I happened to be at a meeting in Yerushalayim, which is unusual because I mostly work from home. As I got back to the car after my meeting, I saw alerts from the camera. I watched the video and I saw each of the four older kids come up toward the front door, totally focused on getting into the house, or yelling that their sibling was bothering them. Nobody was saying hello to me anymore. I was about to shut it off, but then I saw, in the last few seconds, our then 2-year-old Simcha. He went toward the door and at the last second looked up, said “Hello Abba!” and went inside. 

Shiviti Hashem linegdi tamid — Hashem is constantly before me. The greenery on Shavuot helps us to proactively be mindful of Hashem. The chasidim rishonim, those pious men in the Gemara, were mindful every day, clearing their minds and connecting with Hashem before tefillah. Even the Japanese workers were mindful periodically throughout the day when looking at their plant. Shiviti Hashem linegdi tamid — we have the ability and the command (as noted in the very first halacha of the Rama) to constantly be mindful of Hashem in our lives, every single day, every single hour, every single moment. All the other kids were distracted, they weren’t focused on what was around them, weren’t living in that moment of entering the house. But my son Simcha reminded me to be mindful — Shiviti Hashem linegdi tamid — that our Father in Heaven is always there with us and watching over us.

As the vaccine allows (b'ezrat Hashem) more and more of us to return safely to our shuls, let us stop and smell (or in this case look at) the figurative roses. Let us be mindful of why we are there and who we are talking to (hopefully Hashem, and not our shul neighbor catching up on last night’s sports game — that’s what the kiddush is for!), and how invigorating the silence is in allowing us to focus on our tefillot. And this Shavuot, let the plant and flower decorations in our shuls not only enhance our simchat chag, recreate kabbalat haTorah and spur tefillot for our fruits, but also remind us to be mindful that Hashem is there with us, celebrating Shavuot, celebrating our tefillot and celebrating our return to His home.

Endnotes

1. “Potential of a Small Indoor Plant on the Desk for Reducing Office Workers’ Stress” HortTechnology, Volume 30: Issue 1, Feb. 2020, p. 55-63 https://journals.ashs.org/horttech/view/journals/horttech/30/1/article-p55.xml 

2. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/07/health/plants-reduce-stress-in-workplace-study-wellness/index.html 

3. The Maharil,  Hilchot Shavuot, introduces this custom as “spreading spices of grass and roses on the floor of the Beit Knesset” while others (for example, the minhag of Vermaisa) describe it as also decorating above and the sides of the Aron in addition to distributing a rose to every person in shul. See Rabbi Gedalia Oberlander’s article in Ohr Yisrael, volume 20 (5760) page 136-138.

4. In Ma’asei Rav, the Vilna Gaon is noted as nullifying this custom due to the prevalence of religious significance now associated with trees among non-Jews, and therefore potentially violating chukat akum. See Ohr Yisrael (ibid, p. 145-148) for further discussion of this.

5. Maharil, Hilchot Shavuot.

6. See Rosh Hashana 16a.

7. Rabbi Oberlander (ibid.) provides a collection of a number of additional novel explanations for this minhag.

8. See Harrerei Kedem (vol. 2, siman 117) where Rav Soloveitchik expands on this idea, highlighted by the need for reading the Aseret Hadibrot while standing, done with ta’am elyon and broken up by commandment as opposed to by pasuk, all as a recreation of the Sinai experience.

9. Bereshit 24:63.

10. See Rashi (ibid) and Brachot 26b, which learns from this pasuk that Yitzchak created the tefillah of Mincha.

11. Rashbam (Bereshis 24:63).

12. Radak (ibid.)

13. Malbim (ibid.) as translated by Professor Aaron Demsky. See Professor Demsky’s post https://www.thetorah.com/article/what-is-isaac-doing-in-the-field-when-he-encounters-rebecca , where he notes the Malbim “unknowingly echoed the Classical Arabic saha ‘to take a spiritual journey’ that included meditation.”

14. Likutei Tefillot 2:11. English translation is from www.opensiddur.org. 

15 Brachot 30b.

16 Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Tefilah 4:16.