Is a Synagogue a Place to Pray?

I was in the Upper West Side this afternoon, just before the sun was setting, and I hadn't yet davened mincha. I was right near the Carlebach shul, and while I didn't know about the shul's hours, I thought I ought to check to see if I could daven in there. I found the doors locked, and so I rang up and heard a voice call back, "Who's there?" I didn't see why that mattered, but i told him my name, and that I just wanted to daven mincha. The voice replied, "what did you say? I can't hear you." "I just want to daven mincha by myself," I told him. The unlocking-door buzzer sound, and i was set. I came in, found the light switch myself to what must be the sanctuary, took a siddur off the shelf, and I said mincha.

I was thinking of how many times I have tried to do this and have found locked doors. I passed the church down the block from the shul where I had just prayed, and I thought of the way the church is portrayed in the movies-- if a person needs to reach out to God in times of crisis, despair, or even gratitude, there is a house of prayer that is always open and available for his or her outpouring. I think Chassidic stories tend to portray the synagogue in the same way. But today, our shuls are opened for services, and that's usually it. If a person wanted to call out to God, she might have to do it in the movie theater across the street from a locked shul, in a phone booth (not a bad choice, but they're becoming more and more uncommon) or next to a tree planted in between the pavement of the sidewalk in front of the imposing, locked building. These are places I've gone to pray at times that i haven't had a house of worship available. Of course, my prayers were the same as the ones they say in synagogue during the services, mostly-- I'm just not good with timing. But what if I wanted to call out to my creator from the innermost parts of my heart.

The services are really that conducive to this kind of thing, themselves. But a locked building really kills the opportunity to use the shul as a place to connect to God within a Jewish framework. Of course, those other places also have little angels waiting to carry your prayers up to God, but this phenomenon of the locked synagogue is a missed opportunity to actually create a sacred space for all Jews at all times. Imagine a person is having a hard day, and during his lunch break, he stops into a shul at an off time and goes to rendezvous with God there. That's a pretty cool thought, no?

Writing in Rhyme

Often I will begin to write a poem, and the first thing that comes out is a rhyme, somewhat resembling a Mother-Goose nursery rhyme. I will begin to write, and then it's as though the sounds of the words make the poem-song write itself.

This is very interesting to me, as a poetry teacher once told me to avoid the rhyming style, since it's too easy; too simple. Find a better word- try harder to make it work. I hear what she was saying. The search for the write word can be hugely important and rewarding. And the rhyme becomes the cop-out.

But what if the reason Nursery rhymes hold the power they hold is that they rhyme. The process of writing a rhyme is, just like i said, one where the sounds make the poem write itself. As though the poem was there before me-- before time, before the words even existed. Like the way the midrash says that the Torah predated the whole world.

The fact that a rhyme seems to write itself, the way a cadence needs to follow the Dominant Seventh, or the listener is left unfinished-- unsatisfied. The rhyme needs to be written, or else you're playing tricks with our minds.

And yes, mind games can be cute, and hold messages. But those messages are not as basic as the one that predates time. And anyway, you often don't need to mention the rhyme, because everyone knows what it was going to be. Since it's expected, the variation from that pre-existent theme is appreciated.

So we can just stop being afraid of what's predictable and human. The experiences we might be going through might sound cliche, but it's precisely the face that everyone experiences it that makes it cliche. And it's okay to be Cliche.

I wrote this poem a couple years ago, and this post reminds me of it:

Tzimtzum

I want structure like a rhyme

But I don’t really have the time

to sit around and think up ways

to measure out words and phrases.

I want to burst out of my very own skin

and dance on the street, so I can begin

to be who I am, no more and no less

and stop for nothing, lest I regress.

See, structure like rhyme is fine and it’s cute

but in my soul, structure makes me feel mute.

If the reason I am writing is because I’m alive

Rhyming a poem’s like going on automatic drive

Where the sounds of the words

and the rhythms I’m hearing

Create all the music

and my mind has no bearing.

Still, there’s something to music

that I can’t get enough of

it, something that’s calling down to me

from way up above.

Penetrating deep into my inner existence

That continues to persist, despite resistance.

How can there be beauty in these far-fetched, stretched lines?

All structure would seem to do is confine and undermine

all human expression, unless that’s just the thing--

that the beauty we hear and feel is exactly what we sing.

Of course, life also has surprise in it, and that's what the plays on the rhyme can try to capture. But I still find the rhyme a comfort and a pleasure.

Comments are welcome, as always.