Band-Aids paper clips zippers earplugs Bubble Wrap tea bags: What do these items all have in common? This: They are indispensable fixtures of daily life they make our lives much more livable — and they are taken completely for granted.
Take the lowly paper clip. Do we ever give it a second look? But try holding documents and papers in an orderly manner without a paper clip and then you will appreciate what life would be like without one.
And what about those useful little Post-it notes? They come in all colors and sizes and help us organize (or in my case un-disorganize) our activities. Our lives are filled with such ubiquitous little helpers: Scotch/cello tape Saran Wrap aluminum foil — all those anonymous household items that we take for granted but make life a little easier.
Atlanta’s Museum of Design is now presenting a special exhibition of these overlooked everyday items which they call “Hidden Heroes: The Genius of Everyday Things.” In the exhibit for example the humble paper clip is displayed with a special frame of its own together with a legend outlining its history its inventor date of its first use and its general provenance. The same treatment is given to Post-it notes tin cans corkscrews Saran Wrap and other unheralded little things — 36 in all — that smooth our daily existence. The exhibit’s creators want to focus our attention on the small items that enhance our daily living and that invariably go unrecognized and unnoticed.
The exhibit set me to thinking. Perhaps we should mount a similar exhibition in the museum of our minds a display of those items in our daily lives that we also take for granted without giving them a second thought. As you enter this virtual museum on your right will be a special room featuring “taken-for-granted prayers.” Inside you will find specially framed reproductions of overlooked but indispensable prayer fixtures of daily life. Here you will not find Kol Nidrei or Ne’ilah or Hallel; instead in one corner is a framed reproduction of Ashrei (Tehillim 145) recited three times each day 365 days a year. Ashrei is the paper clip of davening: We say it so frequently that we take it for granted often mumbling the words while our thoughts are a thousand miles away. But Ashrei is the paper clip that keeps daily prayer together. It deserves a special gallery of its own that will remind us of its glorious role in Tehillim and in davening and just why it opens up Ne’ilah on Yom Kippur afternoon.
The next frame would feature the Aleinu prayer. Pity the poor Aleinu the majestic prayer that because of its ubiquitousness has been reduced to an exercise in speed reading at the end of the davening as we rush out to our mundane lives. The Aleinu frame would feature its provenance its authorship (Yehoshua himself) and how it achieved its unaccustomed once-a-year recognition during the Yamim Noraim.
A third frame would show the tiny three-letter word Amen. Recited endless times each day by shul-goers this is the poster child of neglected prayers. And it is a prayer for it represents the affirmation of the brachah or the Kaddish that precedes it. How many people know of its crucial importance? Or that its proper pronunciation requires kavanah or that its three letters (alef mem nun) stand for Keil Melech ne’eman — G-d trustworthy King? This paper clip of our davening surely deserves a prominent place in our virtual museum.
There would be space for other displays and exhibits. Brachos in general deserve a spot especially that poor abused all-purpose brachah shehakol nehiyeh bidvaro which is recited not always consciously before drinking water or imbibing many other foods. The rest of this gallery room would show a beautifully framed Bircas Hamazon recalling its authorship: none other than Moshe Rabbeinu and Yehoshua and King David.
Such a museum has endless potential for bringing into our consciousness the myriad elements of our tefillos that are indispensable for meaningful living — most of which we take for granted. Future museums could feature other hidden miracles that we take for granted — wives husbands children friends teachers.
Paper clips Post-it notes and tea bags; Ashrei Aleinu and Amen — could they be more un-alike? And yet in some mysterious way they are closely related. Because everyday things and everyday prayers and everyday people are not everyday: They require our constant unflagging attention. And they keep us from sleepwalking through life. —