10 March 2005 (Thursday)
eighteen
Thanks in part to a conversation with roommate-of-Ari B. (who shall remain unnamed until and unless he gives me permission to use his name), I've decided that I need to work at least daily one Amidah into my (quite sparse) tefillah plan. At the moment, on Sunday through Friday mornings I daven: asher yotzar (because I almost always forget throughout the day); birchot hatorah (and accompanying passages); elohai neshama; the fifteen blessings from birchot hashachar*; and the three paragraphs of shema. Friday nights I usually do kaballat Shabbat and ma'ariv, though if I am going to shul and show up late I will join up with kaballat shabbat wherever they are in it rather than starting from the beginning myself, since (as far as I'm concerned) a big part of that portion of davening is to welcome Shabbat with joy, and I'm not feeling very joyful if I speed through some tehillim while everyone around me is singing lecha dodi. So. Shabbat mornings I am almost always in shul in time for the start of davening (and if I'm late I'll play catch-up). We've been trying to make it back for mincha and ma'ariv, but if we don't I also don't bother saying those at home.
Anyway, I feel like it's time to add a bit more to my daily tefillah. Yes, I know that I should be saying more already, and I'm really not in a place to contemplate wearing tzitzit** (not required of me as a woman) when I don't even say Shema twice per day or daven shacharit and mincha (all arguably obligatory for me), but I also am of the opinion that there's no use in taking it all on at once since it would likely result in my coming to resent the practice altogether.***
I suppose the most logical solution is to add in the morning amidah, along with the few lead-in paragraphs (after the shema), both of which I probably should be saying anyway. Problem: I'm late enough as it is in the mornings, and while I could (and maybe even should) give up my fifteen minutes or so of early-morning email-checking and blog-reading in favor of a little more God-speak, I don't want to. The other problem is that I feel weird enough as it is davening only part of shacharit and I'm not sure that adding another part (rather than going whole-hog) is the way to go.
The next most logical solution is to daven mincha. It's short, and I'm probably obligated to do it. Problem: at this time of year I'm not always back from work early enough to say mincha at home, and I certainly would not be in the winter. I'm not going to start davening Mincha at work. At least, I'm not in the right mindset to say now that I could do that, so this is not the best time to start the mincha thing, even if the days are getting longer.
That leaves ma'ariv, which ironically seems like the least time-bound of all of these yet is the only one (to my knowledge) that women are definitely not obligated to daven. In my mind, this is the one I can say more or less at my leisure, since my evening schedule is the most flexible part of my day. The added perk of ma'ariv is that I get in another shema, and this time around I'd probably actually say the prefatory brachot as well. I don't think I could commit to not eating dinner until after ma'ariv, especially in the summer. Is that a requirement? This also goes back to the tzitzit problem...shouldn't I be doing the obligatory tefillah instead?
Suggestions, thoughts, experiences, and input of any kind are welcome.
* A related post about the second, third, and fouth brachot is coming soon.
** What? You didn't know about that already?
*** This is why my observance of tzniut (modesty) in dress, particularly kisui rosh (hair covering) is currently not on par with the objective halachic requirement. Even to get to this point was a slow build-up, and I have not at any time made any commitment to myself or anyone else to progress more than one step (I define "step") past where I am at any given time. If two years ago I had decided on the spot to go from shorts and tank tops to long (no-slit) skirts, long sleeves, high nicklines, and wigs or snoods, I'd probably go into full rebellion mode within a month. For the record, my current "boundaries" are: no shorts; no skirts that are more than one inch above my knees when standing (and I only have one of those; the rest hit at least the middle of my kneecap); nothing sleeveless; nothing that shows cleavage when I am not leaning over (and I try to avoid loose tops that would show more than intended when I do lean over); hair covered at least with a beret whenever I am not at home (and not in another private home where I know no men are present). The hair covering during job interviews is still an issue, but this footnote is already getting far too long, and naomi chana is going to get miffed because only she is allowed to put the interesting diversions into footnotes.
I'm not going to comment on the main gist of this posting, because you are already almost infinitely better than me about davening.
My question is why will you wear pants but not shorts. and why short sleeves, but not shorts. My argument for wearing pants is that it's normal for women to wear pants in our society, and no man will look twice at me. same goes for shorts. Then again, I feel like the same goes for hair covering.
Well, you already daven more than I do! (Okay, not much... approximately two paragraphs worth of Sh'ma that I really should add! But then I'd have to flip more pages in my siddur... I just do a couple of precedding passages, Sh'ma and v'ahavta, and the brocha after that are still sort of part of Birchas HaShachar. (The preceeding passages (from "Aval") chosen because the first one mentions akeidas yitzchok, and nothing else I was saying did that, and then it seemed silly to skip from there, so I just go straight through to Sh'ma.) Oh, and I am so bad about not adding anything special for Shabbos and Yomtov. I said Shemonah Esrei on Rosh HaShannah and Yom Kippur.
I think our Rav officially holds that I need one Shemoneh Esrei a day, but like you, if I'm going to daven Shacharis, I'm going to dave Shacharis, not skip to the Amidah. I do say a streamlined version I learned at Ba'al Teshuvah Camp, but it still takes something like 20-30 minutes instead of the 3 for "Brochos." (What you describe above.)
I know, you think I have 6 little excuses, but I'm not buying that. I think I'm just lazy.
Umm, suggestions and advice, you said, not write my own blog post. (oops!) Oh, you said experiences too, so I'm okay. ;-)
I say add Ma'ariv. It is the easiest to schedule in, and obligatory or not, it still counts as davening. Mincha is hard if you work, and Shacharis is better said not in a jumble while running for the T.
ok, i'll echo miriam.. try whatever you can schedule in, and i'll add, whatever you choose daven with as much kavanah as you can.
but i actually found davening minchah the best thing for me.. ok, what? in the middle of my busy crazy day? YUP.
I'll say a super duper quick shacharis, but that's only because i am incredibly lazy and don't get out of bed until about 10 minutes before i have to leave so it's a rush to the subway.. [sometimes it'll even be a concoction from a jewish messies yahoo group, essentially "Ribono shel olam, please give me strength to do everything, the knowledge to do what is right, and the patience to get it all done. and to accept, that it isn't going "my way" .. it's going according to hashem's plan. and as importantly to smile at my day and to serve hashem with joy and happiness". Ideal? no, but it’s -something- and every little tefillah counts. (i do have a siddur at work which i will often continue davening from, but it's not the most ideal of situations.. when i wake up early i try to daven with more kavanah at home and then still rush and get ready after.. but i rarely (if ever) get as much "in" as you or miriam do.. and i don't have any little excuses..
in my office building, there's a minchah minyan that meets around when my lunchtime ends. do i go? i wish one day i will take keys to our basement storage room and hide in there and answer omein behind a very interesting mechitzah, but i digress...
when i worked on a different floor i would go into the stairwell after lunch time (around 2pm) and daven minchah... and it served many purposes... 1) i got a fresh breath of air (i rarely get lunch and this stairwell open to the outside), 2) i could daven without people finding me, and if they did they actually left me alone (i can't go to the bathroom without someone looking for me and the few times i davened in my office it was not very fun), and 3) i could actually daven without it all being like a rushed and silent shemoneh esrei.. but now i have a quieter office away from most of my firm and that gives me more privacy and unfortunately a lot more stale air... i find that i daven there (because i’m lazy) and it just isn't the same. probably because there is some much to distract me from my davening. i'll try next week to go back to the stairwell..
i find it makes my day much better... not as good as days are when i daven in the morning, but every little bit helps...
and the days i miss ... well, those are bad days and nothing of any sort gets done .. especially in the afternoon...
but do what you can, don't stress too much about what you can't or don’t (you won't sleep at night) ...
but my advice to that is to say kriat sh'mah al hamita... when i forget i have insomnia until i say it..
do i daven ma'ariv? rarely.. but i should. it would keep me away from the computer for a few minutes in the evening...
so, lastly, your post gave me a nice swift kick to try to daven a bit better during the week.. bli neder i'll try to add a bit to sharcharis...
another thing.. this shuir is on YU Torah ... Women & Prayer by Rabbi Hershel Schachter. I'm actually listening to it now, so I can't really tell you much about it yet.
(there is also a very interesting kippah shiur, but i digress)
gut shabbos.
When possible, I've managed to sneak a quickie mincha in during lunch breaks. It helps that I have my office to myself when the other intern leaves for lunch.
An old co-worker of mine would do a similar thing, and just inform the other co-workers that she was on "a very important long-distance phonecall." :-)
For starters...I did not post this to show that I am "better" than anyone, because I don't think that the quantity of one's tefillah makes her a better person. I don't even think I'd say that the quality of tefillah has that effect. I am just exploring whether certain changes in this realm of my life will have a certain effect on me...and, if so, what those specific changes should be.
Felicia - The short (no pun intended) answer is that most shorts stop far above the knee, and I am not comfortable with that length. In theory I suppose I might wear Bermuda shorts, but they look terrible on me. More on tzniut in a future post, I hope.
Miriam - I think your six little excuses are a very good reason. The differing obligations for men and women exist in part because women (generally) attend to the small children, who can't (generally) be ignored for the better part of an hour each morning while their caretaker davens a meaningful shacharit. I have no such excuses, though, so for my part it really is laziness. We'll see how long I can use the laziness excuse after Purim next week, when I have to go to a 5:30 shacharit minyan so I can hear Megillat Esther before work. *yawn*
peninah and Ari - No office door here, nowhere private to daven. Mincha is right out. I do agree with you, peninah, that "every little tefillah counts" and some days a heartfelt on-the-fly quickie prayer feels better than a rote recitation of morning brachot. I need to think about that, too; whether adding predefined liturgy is really what I'm after.
I agree that little excuses are good ones. but if both spouses are working, then childcare should be split evenly (and I think should be split evenly on the weekends regardless). So the question is, does caring for the kids while the father davens count as part of the mother's half of childcare. or do you subtract time spent davening from total childcare time before you divide in half (and if so, does the mothers davening time count too)?
Felicia - I don't think it's a mathematical discussion (or, at least, this particular thing is not) so much as a practical-demands one. If your baby is exclusively breastfed (no bottles, even of pumped milk), then Daddy can't really handle a hungry baby while Mommy davens for an hour...and some very young infants can't even go for an hour between the end of one feeding and the start of the next (or so I've been told). This sounds like it's going to be another very interesting discussion about childcare responsibilities...add another potential post to the list.
