“You Want To Start Us Off?”
Tuesday, 26. January 2010
I returned to California last Friday, nearly six months after the funeral and sitting shivah. It’s rained a lot over the past week, which, if you want to read biblical meaning into the weather, you can interpret that as a good sign. Water often equals life, and as I visit with my dad I see a man whose come to terms with his loss. He brings thick, whole-grain Artisan bread, which he calls “the fountain of youth,” to friends and his doctor’s nurses as gifts of appreciation. He laughs. He enjoys talking on the phone. He even went to a dinner party last Saturday night, leaving me home alone. In short, he’s engaged in life again, including new projects.
One is renovating an old house in front of a rental housing development he built in 1962. He also purchased the office building his property management company offices are in, offices he rented for many years, and he’s excited about owning the building and senses that he’s invested in a good opportunity.
Also, as mentioned in the last post, my daughter, Rachel, has moved to San Francisco, where she plans to live and open a Rolfing practice. Until she moves into her apartment in the Mission neighborhood in mid-February, she is living in the East Bay with my dad/her grandfather, or Zaida, as his grandchildren call him. Needless to say, he loves having her stay with him. They are getting to know and appreciate each other like never before. All good.
To say Kaddish, I returned to Beth Jacob Congregation in Oakland for Shabbat last Friday night and Saturday, and I’ve gone back each morning so far this week. When I arrived Sunday morning, about five men were sitting around schmoozing, waiting for the service to begin. Jeff Shachat, the gabbi, or person at Beth Jacob who assists in running the service, saw me. Knowing I was a mourner, or an ahvel in Hebrew, he wanted to give me the opportunity to lead part of the service, a custom and honor in the Jewish tradition.
“You want to start us off?” he asked.
As I’ve said before, I’m comfortable at my shul, Beth El Temple, in West Hartford, a Conservative one. But leading services at an Orthodox shul triggers feelings of insecurity about my prayer skills. After all, for many of those in attendance, they can chant the service with a fluency that sounds like they’re natives to Hebrew and the prayers. We at Beth El, skip many of the early prayers of praise or Psalms that most Orthodox daveners chant. And though I’ve been attending services more frequently at Beth David Synagogue, an Orthodox shul in my neighborhood back East,I’ve never led services there. Instead I’ve sat in the comfort of my seat, joining in, which is easy and safe.
So when Jeff asked me if I wanted to start the minyan off — no big deal to him — my gut instinct was to demur. ”Maybe tomorrow,” I said, though a part of me wanted to rise to the challenge. I put my tallit or prayer shawl on and wrapped my teffilin around my arm and head, when Jeff had approached me again, a prayer book in hand.
“Why don’t you just do up to Baruch She’amar?” he offered, which meant leading the first few prayers, the preliminary part of the service. He turned the pages. ”You do this,” he said, pointing to a prayer I knew. “Yeh,” I said. I can do that. “And this,” he said. turning the page. I nodded, feeling more comfortable. “And this,” Again, I nodded OK.
I walked up to the bima, and started chanting the initial morning blessings of gratitude, facing the ark, my back to the congregants as they filed in. I reached the point where I was to pass the baton to someone else.
“You’re doing great,” Jeff said, standing next to me at the bima, announcing page numbers during the service. “Why don’t you continue.” I did. I reached the next section of the service, the heart of the service, where I again expected to be relieved, and Jeff told me to keep going. I kept going.
I reached the last section of the service. As is custom to let mourners, or avvayleem, lead, he asked another mourner to finish up. “Take your victory lap,” Jeff said to me, as I walked down from the bima.
I felt proud. If this all sounds like too much inside baseball talk, like a geek into prayer, let me pull the camera out for a long shot. What I’m talking about is the intersection between a dream, a desire, a want and that obstacle — whatever it is — that tends to trip us up. When there’s something you want to do, something your heart delights in imagining and that point when the rubber hits the road. We looked early on at one of the concepts of Kaddish, the idea that as you learn more, as you commit to something, suddenly you see an enlarged world. In theological terms, the rabbis were saying the result of that exercise is to experience a greater concept of God.
And so, I would suggest, when I said yes to the simple question, “Do you want to start us off?” I was expanding my world, my life experience. I was stretching myself to open up to even greater experiences. And I’m wondering, maybe this is one aspect of what saying Kaddish is all about.
