I did not grow up with apples and honey on my mind.
I was not raised with the words of prayer on my lips and yet today they are and will always remain.
I love Rosh Hashanah.
I love Rosh Hashanah and I love the liturgy.
I embrace prayer,
As an old friend who I in the future hope to greet every morning,
Every evening,
To have with me in every step I make in life.
I spent most of my day immersed in prayer,
This is no easy task.
A full morning service is over four hours; how does one pay attention?
How does one keep the intention, Kavanah?
When do I need to stop and take a break?
Can I take a break?
For God never rests but I do…?
Prayer on such days is like a long, in-depth spiritual dialogue of the deepest kind.
The dialogue is quiet yet loud,
Soft yet strong within,
Like a smooth river flowing through my body with thousands of years of holy words coming to the surface as I fully prostrate my body on the floor in Tefillah,
Prayer.
As I lie on the floor my tallit is a silk blanket that flows with the river down my body and coats me in the silence of knowing, at this moment, it is just myself and Elohim, and God.
It is beautiful.
It is hard.
Rosh Hashanah Tefillah is long, exhausting, and within this, where does the intention to continue to remain?
Where the intention to start come from?
I think of each prayer as one separate dialogue,
Statement,
Each word carries its own significance, each part of Tefillah requires a part of me to dive in,
Not into a river but rather an ocean,
Endless in thought and only becomes brighter, heavier with holiness.
9 am Tefillah:
The sanctuary echoes with the words of a few individuals who come to hear the silence and serenity in the peaceful morning hours.
You walk through the sanctuary freely, standing in the middle of the aisles and nothing surrounds you except the space you create.
You stand like a tree rooted to the siddur, to the prayer book as words flow from your lips as if they are coming from the centre of your heart.
Your deepest desires, failings.
You stand with this in your heart as you prepare.
11 am Tefillah:
The echoes are felt as vibrations of hundreds of voices that have filled the silence with communal melodies
Silence now feels thicker when it ebbs and flows between the filled rows of seats that at 9 am had no occupants.
The silence now has more meaning in the collective ability to pray individually.
On Rosh Hashanah, we pray for ourselves while our voices are heard together.
I remember why I come early.
I remember why I stay until the end.
It is within my personal, deeply spiritual dialogue that time no longer exists.
It is not whether Tefillah lasts 4 hours, more or less,
It is whether within the space you spent praying,
Did you do so intentionally?
Did you pour yourself onto the pages of prayer?
Did you not only hear but listen to the sound of the shofar?
Did you feel content for the sake of YOU feeling content?
I pray for myself, nobody else.
Apples and honey are on my mind and I pour this sweetness onto my words,
I pray.
I pray with my whole body, my whole being and the dialogue does not end when I leave the sanctuary.
I hold prayer close to me on the days that it can be difficult to find my space.
The 9 am prayer space is harder to find in the crowd.
I found it this year.
Did I have to take a break? Yes.
Did I always bring my whole self to every conversation? No.
Did I remind myself why I came that morning? Every time I spoke.
Did I remind myself why I stay committed? Always.
Prayer is an old friend.
I welcome prayer into my arms as I let the world around me exist as it is,
The congregants, the seats, the crowd, the silence,
And within myself,
I bask in the sweetness of Rosh Hashanah Tefillah.
Two days of prayer, reflection, introspection, a reminder of why I stay committed to Judaism.
The sweetness of prayer remains on my lips as I continue into this new year with a holy conversation that for me is l’olam, forever.
Meanwhile, I will sit silent, while my soul speaks those holy words that root me to the ground,
Like a tree,
Like a river where honey flows endlessly,
Sweet.