Reaching out to G-d should not be like a bus schedule

Occasionally I take the bus to my morning minyan in Jerusalem. I know that at precisely 5:49 a.m. the #26 stops at my corner, and at 5:58 it lets me off in front of the shul. Day in and day out, through the gloom of winter darkness or the gleaming sun of early morning spring, the schedule is like clockwork, precise and exact. If I get to the corner just 90 seconds after 5:49, I am left to my own devices.

I enter the shul at 6:02 and don my tefillin, and precisely at 6:10, the shaliach tzibbur begins with the morning brachos. If I am even 90 seconds late, I am left hopelessly behind. At 6:22, we will arrive at Barechu; at 6:26, the Shema; at 6:33, we all begin the Shemoneh Esreh together. After Kedushah and Tachanun and post-Shemoneh Esreh tefillos, we arrive at Aleinu and the Psalm for the Day precisely at 6:56. The schedule is like clockwork, precise and exact. Good morning, have a nice day, see you tomorrow, b’ezras Hashem.

I leave the shul, satisfied that I davened with a minyan, answered Amen to Kaddish, said Barechu, recited Modim with the minyan, and — in Israel — heard Bircas Kohanim. I have done my morning duty as a Jew.

But have I really?

The bus schedule and the davening schedule are analogous in their precision: dependable, reliable, predictable. And it is precisely this strict punctiliousness that gives me some unease.

Because reaching out to G-d should not be like a bus schedule. Spontaneity, freshness, kavanah, awareness of G-d’s Presence, and subservience to a Higher Power — these are the indispensable keys to prayer, over and above the required regularity.

Consider: If the bus driver were to pause now and then to admire the scenery, he would soon lose his job. And if the davener at the minyan pauses to admire the magnificent words of Shacharis, he will soon fall hopelessly behind and will miss Kedushah and Bircas Kohanim and Kaddish and all the good things that only a minyan can provide.

What can be done? Of course, in places where there is a choice, one can attend a minyan where there is a slower pace. But even a slow minyan has its own clock that controls it. Rather, I dream of a setup where a davener can pause anywhere he wants and just think about the words — even if only for one moment or two here and there.

Granted, one could meditate on any passage later in the day, but later in the day the mind is occupied with mundane matters. Shul is the proper place for this.

Other schemes cross the mind, such as designating certain days — such as Friday or Sunday mornings — as “Pause Days,” in which the Shacharis is recited in a very slow and unhurried way. But these remain abstract schemes: impractical and undoable in the realities of contemporary life.

And so as I dream the impossible and unsolvable dream, and as I try valiantly to keep pace with the davening, I turn to my Maker, for Whom nothing is impossible, and ask Him to help me find a way to savor the holy words.

Please, O L-rd, help us transform the express into a local, and at the very least, do give us a brake.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1056)