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.