Singing My Prayers

Originally posted June 3, 2009

This morning I sang all of my prayers, as I always do. That's one of the loveliest aspects of Judaism, I think - that we sing our prayers. Most Jews don't sing all their prayers, but I do. Every single one of them. I use both modern and traditional tunes. Before I wrap myself in my tallit (prayer shawl), I sing both a meditation and the blessing. I go slowly and I begin to feel enshrouded in the Presence of God the moment I begin.

Some Jews rush through these prayers and it's said to have the same effect as a chant or mantra or meditation, but I want to savor each word. Once, I expressed my worries to one of my teachers, Reb Zalman, that I didn't make it through all the spiritual realms symbolized in the progression of prayers in our siddur (prayer book). "My dear," he said to me, "stay in the Presence." So I do. It doesn't matter that I only make it through some of the prayers. It matters that the prayers I do offer emerge from my heart.

As I stand on my back deck, birds swoop down all around me, pecking at bird seed, and a sparrow puts the finishing touches on a nest it's building in one of Joe's sculptures just behind me. Facing East, I look out on an expanse of green - huge trees, a lush lawn, bushes that line the creek running behind my house.

When my longing for God feels tangible, I'm able to progressively move more deeply into an altered state of mind. In the first of the four realms, the physical, in which I pray, I sing the modah ani, a song of gratitude that I've "arrived" safely to greet another morning.

The second realm is one of emotion and praise, and I can't doubt that it's true because it's here where my heart breaks open and I begin to cry. Here are the first few lines of my favorite prayer, which I sing both in Hebrew and English:

"Melodies I weave, songs I sweetly sing:
longing for Your Presence, to You I yearn to cling.

In Your shelter would my soul delight to dwell,
to grasp Your mystery, captured by Your spell.

Whenever I speak of Your glory so resplendent,
my heart yearns deeply for Your love transcendent.

Two worlds remain - one in which I begin to feel at one with God, and the final in which my soul melts into that of the Divine. At the end, I take three steps back, re-entering the world of everyday life, and as I do, I sing a song of peace, bowing to the left (towards my Christian neighbors), to the right (towards my Muslim neighbors) and forward (towards my atheist neighbors).

As I finished these prayers this morning, I came inside and sat down to write about one of the many posts that's been buzzing through my head all week, but instead, I wrote this one, still fresh in my heart. It allowed me to bring into my home and into my everyday life what I just experienced in my prayers.

Mary

Erin at Pizza Hut

Many years ago on my way to Illinois to visit my family, I stopped at Pizza Hut in a tiny town to eat supper. Immediately a family caught my eye, as always happens when I'm in a restaurant. (They're my favorite places to eavesdrop and people-watch).

Two women sat across from each other, sisters maybe, or high school friends who still kept in touch. Next to one of them, a little boy sat picking at his pizza. Beside the other woman a little girl of about six squirmed with incessant happiness. Erin, as I soon learned her name from her mom's reprimands, was utterly uninterested in her pizza. She was instead utterly absorbed by her napkin.

This was no ordinary napkin. 

As I watched, Erin carefully unfolded the thin paper napkin in its entirety. After punching a hole in it and slipping it over her head, she said to the boy across from her, "Terry! Look at me! I'm wearing a bib!"

With Terry unimpressed, Erin pulled the napkin from around her neck and stuck a corner of it in her mouth. "Terry, look at me! Santa Claus!" The napkin hung long and white down her pink overalls.

While I waited for my pizza, Erin turned her napkin into a floppy hat, a shawl, a flag, and a thing to balance on your nose. Eventually, of course, the napkin became history, torn to shreds by having become so many interesting objects and costumes.

Although Erin wasn't at all loud or obtrusive, and probably had the attention of no one, including Terry, except for me, occasionally Erin's mom stopped talking long enough to glance at her.

"Erin," she said, "stop being ridiculous."

Each time Erin would momentarily stop, then, when her mom returned to her conversation, Erin found the next magic thing: a spoon. "Terry, look at me!" she said as she stuck out her tongue and carefully balanced the spoon there. Her tattered napkin soon mummified the spoon and it walked across the table to get Terry, making scary sounds. It became a tightrope walker on Erin's thin arm, then a soft musical instrument, then a new way to try and eat pizza.

I didn't leave the restaurant until Erin did, then I drove the rest of the way to Illinois, grateful that my mom always had a sense of wonder as she watched children play, seldom reprimanding us unless we became obnoxious or unruly. All my life, I felt, and still feel, the freedom to let my mind wander and romp and be creative.

Erin, I suppose you're married now, maybe with children. I hope you've forgotten what your mom said to you. I hope you're a painter or writer or sculptor, an artist of some sort.

I hope you let your children be creative and silly because that's a really holy place to be.

I'll never forget you.

Mary

100 Blessings

Originally posted November 29, 2009

Yesterday during prayer service, my rabbi, Adam Raskin, reminded us of the Jewish tradition of saying 100 blessings a day. Numbers in Judaism are symbolic, not literal, and Rabbi Raskin's point was that if we pause to feel a sense of gratefulness for each aspect of life, we can also recapture our sense of wonder. Gratefulness and wonder go hand in hand.

On the way home, I decided to notice all the things in a single day for which I feel grateful. Not to make anything up, just to notice. To pause for a second when I encounter something good in my life, closing my eyes and feeling a rush of gratitude.

The sheer number of opportunities I had even before sundown amazed me. That morning, for instance, I had awoke feeling happy. How many people just wake up? I woke up happy! That is something to be grateful for! Rather than just making a mental list of blessings, I paused to feel the rush of joy that accompanies them: the many deeply spiritual moments of our prayer service that morning, the deep love I feel for the people I pray and sing and eat with every week, the quietness of our drive home and the physical beauty of the city I live just outside of, the nature I'm surrounded by in our suburb, the sentence in my book that grabbed me and changed my life in some little way, the physical and emotional closeness of my husband. And that was just the start of my day.

I didn't have to struggle to find any of that. I simply had to pause to soak up the joy and gratitude and wonder.

Jewish blessings begin with baruch ata Adonai... Blessed are you, Lord our God, Sovereign of the Universe, who sustains or restores or strengthens or guides or enables or... (fill in the blank). That form (with a poetic "translation" for Sovereign) resonates with me, and although I obviously can't use it all the time, I use it often. Why? Because while I'm grateful for so many things in my life, that rush of joy or sense of shalom (wholeness) I feel is, for me, synonymous with the Breath of God. In other words, I don't merely feel gratitude for an aspect of my life, I feel the Divine Presence in each blessing.

Do I believe God gave me, personally, some particular blessing and withheld it from someone else? Not in any way. Do I believe in a God that breathes life into and permeates all that exists? Oh Yes!

It only takes a few seconds to close my eyes and feel that sense of gratitude and wonder and if I did that only 30 times, I've taken only a few minutes out of my day. Yet those are minutes that can change the entire demeanor of that day. For this I have to say, Baruch ata Adonai Eloheynu, Melech haOlam.

Have a blessing-filled week!
Mary