Davening when you’re middle-aged is very different to the naïve, generalized pleadings for a good life that I uttered in my youth
For 24 years, I hardly ever crossed the threshold of our local shtibel. Baby after baby, exhaustion and juggling, left me little energy to contemplate undertaking such a herculean effort. Instead I’d snatch a little extra sleep.
I’m spoiled, blessed with a husband who can blow shofar, lein megillah, and isn’t makpid on women hearing parshas Zachor. Besides for brief forays on Simchas Torah, I rarely entered the simple brick building that’s my husband’s second home. Although my husband is a pillar of our shul, I’ve barely been a nail in the wall.
But last year, things changed. I went to shul on Succos, and actually liked it. The chassidishe davening used a similar nusach to the one used in the shtibel of my youth. The niggunim were as comforting as a lullaby you’ve forgotten but still recognize when you hear it. I swayed to the tune of the gentle humming, embraced by the sounds of my childhood.
And so, surprising myself more than anyone else, I’ve been going back.
Week after week, I get up early on Shabbos morning, get dressed, put on my sheitel. I take my two youngest daughters with me, aged twelve and three. And they like it too.
Most of the women in the shul are quite a bit older than me. But they are kind. They forgive my 24 year-long boycott and tell me how adorable my youngest is, how well-behaved, how sweet. She’s usually the only little girl there and they graciously proffer a box of lollipops for her careful scrutiny when she comes over to them five minutes before the end of davening.
Davening when you’re middle-aged is very different to the naïve, generalized pleadings for a good life that I uttered in my youth. When I entreat Hashem for shidduchim for my children, it’s through the lens of someone whose best friend got divorced after ten years of marriage. When I plead for health, it’s through the eyes of someone who saw her sister become an almanah at the age of 23. When I ask for parnassah, it is with the ache of someone who has heard a close friend cry about how hard it is to take clothing for her children from a gemach.
I’ve rediscovered something I haven’t thought about since I was a single girl davening fervently on Yamim Noraim: tefillah b’tzibbur can inspire you with kavanah that can be difficult to achieve in your living room. The sight of other women pleading about their many private needs and wishes and troubles can cause you to slow down your own pace and contemplate.
I’ve learned that the haftarah can move you to tears as you hear the description of the transcendence of geulah. Because you’re old enough to know how baffling the world is, for ourselves, our children, our friends and neighbors. Because we’re so used to the pain and confusion in our lives that it takes the Navi’s lyricism to paint a picture of what life can be like. It takes the Navi’s poetry to show us how glorious it will be to lay down the heavy burdens of today’s lifestyle and become souls with bodies instead of bodies with souls.
I’ve come to observe that you can finish davening feeling uplifted and supported by the tefillos of others. That you can sense how the sum of the whole has far greater power than the value of its parts. And you can feel comforted about life, even though the state of the world hasn’t changed much since you entered shul.
I also realize that when you emerge from shul, holding your little girl’s hand, into the crisp winter air, you think maybe something has changed since you entered shul. Even if it’s just that it is Shabbos morning and the sky is a heavenly blue and you did it, you got up and you went to shul and you davened.
