The Prayer

The Prayer

"Religion is something infinitely simple, ingenuous. It is not knowledge, not content of feeling (for all content is admitted from the start, where a man comes to terms with life), it is not duty and not renunciation, it is not restriction: but in the infinite extent of the universe it is a direction of the heart"

-Rainer Maria Rilke

I met Nora, my best friend when I was two years old. We lived in apartments in close proximity to each other. Tall red brick buildings that faced the Long Island Expressway. Her parents had come to the United States from Egypt in 1978. I remember when I first saw what she had posted on her refrigerator. The Arabic words were like calligraphy that I could not decipher. To me they looked like art, pictures made out of language. On the paper in the center the type was significantly larger. “That is Allah” she explained “the rest of the words are the names of his prophets” The words were separated subsequently into blocks. I remember mid-day in her apartment in Queens, her mother praying on her Persian rug. There was a golden clock that at certain time would make a discernible noise, signaling prayer. Her mother would curl up into a fetal position and whisper inaudibly. I remember the silence we had to uphold. It was something I could not describe, but it had become so routine that whenever I would see her mother getting ready to kneel on the rug, I would dutifully remain quiet until she was finished. I was a young Jewish girl at the time already attending Hebrew school in Hillcrest, however I liked watching her pray, there was some kind of beauty, antiquity to her whispers, her devotion to prayer. I thought of davening as I observed her. Although davening was recited aloud, both actions seemed to represent the same kind of hope that God, Allah or some universal and dominant force was going to get us through our day.
After I graduated elementary school I moved away somewhere far out on Long Island leaving her behind, yet still remaining one of her closest friends. I started at a New Hebrew school almost immediately. I was technically Jewish but unlike Norah’s mother, I had not made prayer an installation of my life. Of course on the High Holy Holidays I would go to synagogue and participate. I don’t know what motivated me to go or sit through services. My family wasn’t particularly pious and I was not in anyway devout. However, whenever I would enter the temple this indescribable feeling enveloped me. The doors of Temple Beth-El were made of glass, upon entering a Menorah and Torah were displayed in a case against yellow paneling. On the wall there was a brass engraving that listed donors to the temple chronologically. There was a staircase that led to the higher region of the synagogue. From the top one could see the organ and look down on the Congregation and the tall doors that held about three or four torahs. The doors had carvings on them that looked analogous to doves. They were beautiful. It had a humongous white arched ceiling, rows of mahogany seats and in the center the Rabbi would read and I’d follow along in my blue prayer book. I could recognize the Hebrew letters, unlike the Arabic. (I would later learn that Hebrew and Arabic were actually derived from the same root, both Aramaic). Congregation please rise. The sound of prayer would reverberate throughout the huge room. Sometimes I would feel as if I was saying something to God. The text next to the Hebrew was so beautiful and eloquent that I felt that if he God could hear this and recognize this, he would be extremely appreciative.
“Blessed our God, Hashem, King of the Universe”
I wanted to be devoted to something, I wanted someone to hear me and feel like I was part of this greater force, this greater presence.
“Blessed are you, Hashem, our God King of the Universe, who makes the creatures different”
I thought that my words at that moment would make some kind of cosmic difference.
“Blessed are you, Hashem, King of the Universe who has given us his knowledge of flesh and blood”
Of course it was just that generic sense of naiveté, a phase that every person goes through. As I grew older some vague image or presence of God became less and less believable. My mind began to crave physicality rather than spirituality. I began to doubt if God even existed in some remote Universe.
We invited Nora to our yearly Passover celebration. I found this kind of beautiful irony in the fact that she could sit through certain passages about The Jew’s struggle in Egypt, the arduous trials that the Jews had to undergo. It did not excuse history; however it illuminated the fact that these events took place so far in the past that maybe forgiveness could possibly overshadow pain. I didn’t feel as though I wanted to hold Nora responsible for these heinous acts. Unlike certain ideology that condemned generations and generations of the same religion for their history, I felt that to keep that anger that hate inside me would be unnecessary. I could pinpoint moments in time, I could go search through books that would inform me about dates and occurrences, however, there was no book, nothing that in a clear concise manner that could describe Hashem or Allah. There was nothing that could illustrate a force so great. I think this was partially the reason why we never discussed God. It was never alluded to or considered a topic for conversation. At the time I believed friendship to be a much more powerful and visceral force than a supreme being that was so loosely defined and shaped. When I was around Nora, no scripture, no religious text would deter me from her. In my eyes her religious preferences were ultimately part of her, but did not totally define who she was and apparently the feeling was mutual, I sensed this as we were sitting at the Passover table, reciting the prayer over the wine and breaking the matzo.
About a Year after our Passover together, Nora was killed in three car accident on Queens Boulevard. It was as if almost eighteen years of friendship were destroyed in that split second. Upon her death, my skepticism about God transformed into sheer dismay. Nora’s death confirmed my doubts about the levity of my prayer. My words were meaningless. I felt as insignificant as an ant, an insect that no one even took notice of. This great force had wiped out someone who was extremely close to me. For days I heralded this belief, but then I realized it wasn’t God who did this. It was an accident between people that was inevitable. Like the naïve person I had been before I had been blaming something inconceivable, something or someone I wasn’t even sure existed for my loss. I dug up all the old photographs of us moving through childhood, all the letters we’d written each other, family videos in which she was included. I could no longer hold onto her physically, but I owned these memories, as much as I was furious that this had happened I forced myself to accept that I had been blessed with a good friend for many years.
A few months later almost in an implausible sequence, arson was committed on Temple Beth-El. The fire had scathed most of the temple and it would take an extensive period of time to fully renovate it. Like the rest of the members I was devastated. That was the place where I used to speak to God, where the sound of prayer permeated through my body. As Nora had been a component of fortune in my life so was that synagogue. It was a privilege to have attended its services. I felt in my heart that the words I’d recited years before and the prayers and requests to God from the many others who stood in that humongous room lay amongst the ash.
When I walked passed Temple Beth-El I closed my eyes and imagined myself standing amongst the congregants, listening to the Cantor’s angelic voice singing in Hebrew. Then I thought about Nora, I thought about the structure and shape of the letters and the painterly brush strokes of the Arabic text. I thought about the similarities in both of the languages. I thought about the similarities of all human beings. In my mind I recited a prayer. I was silent. I was not sure if I was beginning to believe in God, but as I stood there in front of the temple, I knew, deep down that I was beginning to believe in something.




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