The Scene: The Barry Flass Coat Room, sometimes referred to as the Baflacor.
The Characters: Dave Geiss and his friend Feivel Murglewitz.
The Smell: Burnt waffles – Congregation Bnei Avos was recently presented with a waffle maker, and the kehilla was still climbing the learning curve.
Feivel sniffed the air. “Boy, it's gonna take a lot of syrup to cover up the taste of those waffles.”
“And if they use real maple syrup,” added Dave, “it's also gonna take a lot of cash. You ever see what a small bottle of kosher maple syrup costs these days?”
“Nope. Is it that high?”
“You bet. Mrs. Geiss has this corned beef recipe that calls for maple syrup, and the syrup part of the dish costs more than the beef part, almost. I keep pleading with her to use one of those artificial pancake syrups instead, but she says she's making corned beef, not pancakes, and until they come out with artificial corned beef syrup, real maple syrup it is.”
Feivel put on his coat. “So nu, when are you going to invite us over for Shabbos when you are serving corned beef?”
“It's been a while since we've had the Murglewitzes over, hasn't it? Tell you what, I'll speak to Mrs. Geiss and also sell off part of my stock portfolio to buy the ingredients.”
“I am fortunate to have such a friend as you.”
“Likewise.”
As Feivel was leaving, Sam Schniddlegerv came in for his coat.
“Oh, hi, Dave,” said Sam
“Hi, Sam. How are you doing?”
“Just fine, Dave. And you?”
“Baruch H-shem.”
“That reminds me,” said Sam, thoughtfully. “I've been meaning to talk to you about davening, Dave.”
“Yeah?” His face brightened at the prospect of Sam finally beginning to understand what was driving Dave.
“Yeah. Do you realize that you often squeak during the 'silent' Shemoneh Esrei?”
Dave's bright hopes were dashed like an improperly handled fluorescent light bulb, shattering on the sidewalk and leaving a powdery residue. “Once or twice, maybe. It's been mentioned to me before.”
“Believe me, it's more than once or twice. I'm telling you as a friend, and as a member of the tzibur, you ought to be more careful, because it sounds weird.”
“I'm not doing it intentionally, Sam. It's a by-product of certain of my davening modes.”
Staring at Dave, Sam repeated, “Davening... modes?”
“Yes.” Was it worth going into any details? Swallowing once, Dave pressed on. “You know how Chazal say you shouldn't let your davening become rote? So I figured, if I have alternate modes of davening, and it seems like it's getting rote using one mode, then I can switch to another.”
“Davening modes.” Sam shook his head. “What happened to you, Dave? You used to be normal. You never had trouble keeping up before.”
“But before, I wasn't thinking about davening the way I do now.”
“Who has time to think about davening?”
“You mean you don't think about davening at all?”
“Well sure, I do think about it. Like today, I was thinking, is this one of those days where we can skip Tachanun? Or last week, I had this thought: Is there going to be some schlepper at the amud?”
Dave's expression spoke incredulity. “Don't you have to speak and think about the tefillos to make it at all worth the effort?”
“Oh, I've got the speaking part covered. I figure it this way. When you learn to read, you read out loud. Later on, you read to yourself by trying to not let your lips move. But there's some vestige of lip activity, however slight, going on from your original brain programming. You can actually feel it. Or at least I can.”
Dave desperately hoped he was not making the face that would usually go with what he was thinking right now. “How can lips move that fast?”
“I know it's hard to believe, but they do.”
Based on rough calculations Dave worked through in his head, it didn't shtimm. To reach those davening speeds, lips would have to vibrate at 220 Hz, which would produce the tone of A below middle C. Many sounds could be heard coming from the mispallelim at Congregation Bnei Avos, but that was not one of them.
Sam continued. “You know, there's a good reason for the brisk pace. It's so that the mind doesn't wander. It actually boosts the kavanna. It forces you to have a laser-like focus.”
Normally, Dave's natural reserve would kick in at this point, and he would just nod and smile and walk away. But this time it didn't quite work out that way. Perhaps it was because Sam was 15 years older than Dave, 6 inches shorter and 50 pounds heavier, and Dave figured that Sam was one person that he could actually outrun. Whatever it was, Dave continued, “Yes, but the object of my focus these days tends to be lips vibrating at extraordinary frequencies.”
Sam had found his coat and put his hand on it. “You know, you're really getting carried away with davening.”
“Halevai!” Dave exclaimed. “Halevai! If they had to carry me away after davening. That's the kind of davening I want!”
“You really have too much time on your hands, Dave.“
“I wouldn't have so much of it if the kehilla davened at a normal pace.”
“Hey, the tzibbur's pace is normal. It's your pace that's not normal.”
“Excuse me, I meant a pace at which normal people, rather than massively parallel supercomputers on two legs, can digest what it is they say when they daven.”
“All right, go ahead, think all you want to during davening. It doesn't matter to me. Just follow my advice and put your voice box on mute while you're doing it.” Sam grabbed his coat and left.
Dave was about to leave, too, but before he could do so, Rod Miltar entered Baflacor with a “Hello, David.”
“Hi, Rod.”
“Was that Mr. Schniddlegerv walking out of here with a bit of a mad on?”
“It was he.”
“Right. You don't look so fair yourself. Has he been giving you a hard time, then?”
“It wasn't one of those conversations that men call 'an exchange of pleasntries'.”
“Were you talking about davening, by any chance?”
“Why, yes. How did you know?”
“Seems these days that any chat that leaves you looking like you do now, is about davening.”
“Well, you're right.”
“It's a shame, too, since I think you are spot on, most of the time .”
“Really? It's nice of you to say so. But tell me, do you notice that I squeak during davening?”
“Squeak? What, like a dog whose paw's been stepped on accidentally?”
Dave grimaced. “Is it really that kind of a squeak?”
“It reminds me of that, sometimes. But it doesn't happen too often. That particular one, at least.”
Now Dave's face began to sag. “You mean there are others?”
“Well, there are also the ones I think of as 'opening the medicine chest' and 'sneakers on the basketball court'. But none of these occur what I would call 'often'.”
“I'm really sorry.”
“Don't be. To be honest with you, it sounds a little like crying, and that gives me chizuk, that someone here's thought to cry during davening.”
“Yeah, but I wasn't really crying. Unfortunately...” A spark of something flew into Dave's imagination. “But you know...”
* * *
A new davening mode.
Its lure was too much for Dave to resist. And not only was “crying while davening” quite promising in and of itself. The other modes had been falling flat of late; adding this one to the repertoire could re-energize them as well.
Of course, one of the keys to a davening mode is that none of the other mispallelim should realize it is in use. Dave had to make sure to quash any sound effects, not such an easy task for this type of mode, but still within reach.
“You squeak during some of your other davening modes,” said the yetzer hara. “Kal v'chomer, you know that's going to happen in this one, don't you?”
“Oh, be quiet,” replied Dave. “Since the whole point is about crying, I'll be self-conscious enough to keep a lid on it.”
In this mode, it had to feel like crying with mental images and facial expressions alone. That met the secrecy criteria; no one should be looking at his face, since while davening they would be looking at their siddurs or closing their eyes.
“And what if they finish earlier than you do?” asked the yetzer hara. “That is what usually happens these days, isn't it?”
That was a good point, he had to admit. “I'll just have to keep my facial expressions subtle.”
Dave gave the new mode a run at Maariv that Sunday night. The results were not pretty. By his own count, he had let loose with six dog-paw, two medicine-chest, and three basketball-sneakers squeaks. He also earned at least five weird looks. And that was just through Mikabetz Nidchei Amo Yisroel, at which point he gave up the mode to avoid further difficulties.
“But I'm was not licked yet,” Dave said to himself, knowing that the yetzer hara was listening. “I just have a bit of fine-tuning to do.”
“Try a paper bag over the head,” was the yetzer hara's advice.
Tuesday night's Maariv saw Dave's next attempt. He managed to apply crying mode to the whole Shemonah Esrei this time, but the squeak counts were still too high, and the scowls on other faces and shushes on other lips were trending in the wrong direction.
Maybe it was time to shut down this experiment, but Dave couldn't understand why. Crying during davening was not exactly a novel concept. People all through Tanach, all through the Gemara, through countless generations down to our own times, cried as they davened.
But among the mispallelim right here in Congregation Bnei Avos, it was unusual. Very unusual. Generally you would not find a moist eye in the house, outside of allergy season. Was this a precedent to violate? Even this synthetic form of crying, which in due time would be executed so silently and subtly that no one would be aware Dave was doing it? Or would he completely wear out his welcome in the shul before he made it to “due time”?
With the symptoms of an impasse headache coming on, Dave decided to seek outside counsel. It was now well after Maariv, but Boris Teimsky was still in the Beis Midrash.
“Shalom aleichem, Boris,” said Dave.
“Aleichem shalom, David.”
“Boris, I want to ask you a question. What do you think of crying during davening here?”
A dreamy expression crossed Boris's face. Then he looked at Dave. “I am not thinking of this during davening. I thinking only of words, this is my personal fallacy.”
Language was sometimes a bit of a barrier when speaking with Boris. “No, what I meant was, what do you think of the idea, now?”
“You are asking me to daven now, with crying? It is already after Maariv!”
“Not to actually do it, just what do you think about it? Good? Bad?”
Boris thought a bit before responding, “Must be the answer is, bad.”
“Really? Why do you say that?”
“I say that because, why would you crying if it is good?”
“That's not what I mean. What you are davening about and crying about could be a bad situation. If it's bad, is it good to cry as you daven about it? Is it bad?”
“I do not know this situation is it bad. Tell me situation and I evaluate.”
“I'm just talking about any difficult situation! Okay, here is an example. Your son's been looking for a shidduch for six years, and nothing's worked out yet. You've been davening for him ever since he started going out, but never crying about. Now you're here in shul, and as you daven for him, you begin to cry. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
Boris looked upset. He thought over the matter for a long time. “My son, he is ten year old. He has looking for shidduch since of age four? This is bad thing, especially not I know about it.”
“Boris, I was speaking hypothetically.”
“For hypothetically, you speaking sounded actually to me. Or else, how can I hear?”
* * *
Reflecting on that conversation at home, it occurred to Dave that maybe he had been answered after all. Maybe the trouble that Boris had in understanding Dave, and the feelings which were stirred up, were meant to be a message to Dave. Don't try that davening mode anymore, the message was saying. It will cause enough misunderstanding and upset to your fellow mispallelim that it just would not be worth it. The more he thought about it, the harder it was to argue. If it weren't for just one thing, it would be a done deal.
If it weren't for that slight boost in kavanna.
It was barely perceptible, with the self-consciousness levels running so high. But it was there. Dave might just have succeeded in adding a new facet to his relationship with the Ribbono Shel Olam, and that felt pretty good. So where was this cancel message coming from? Well, where else?
“You don't like this mode, do you?”
“How did the bag idea work out?” the yetzer hara inquired.
“Don't try changing the subject,” warned Dave. “If you're against it, there must be something to it.”
“Look, I really don't care what you do during davening. It'll all end up in the same place, eventually. If you want to fake the crying bit, go right ahead. Just keep in mind that you're faking it.”
“Now I am. Later, maybe it's for real.”
“Ha!”
“We'll see.”
“Listen, if you really want to cry, I've got an image for you. A supermarket, and your wife is shopping, and she's rolling her cart down the cereal aisle, and she keeps going and going down the aisle, past the oatmeal, past the granola bars, and then she stops. She reaches out her arm, slowly, slowly, then grabs something off the shelf. It's... it's...
“... a bottle of maple syrup!”
