Read Online As Close to Us as Breathing: A Novel by Elizabeth Poliner - Free Book Online
Authors: Elizabeth Poliner
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from face to face.
In the next instant, as if the minyan had been waiting for him and Nelson, the service began, a chorus of Hebrew muttering. Perhaps because his brother-in-law Leo Cohen was standing just outside the clump of men, the group soon enough considered Leo their minyan leader, and within minutes Mort heard Leo’s Hebrew mumbles rise above the mumbles of the others and sharpen into defined words every so often, enough to keep the pack praying at the same pace. Good for nothing was the way Mort thought of Leo at the store where he employed him, despite how frail and sick he was, because he owed Vivie that much. He knew he did. But right then, surprisingly enough, Leo Cohen was good for something. The rabbi, as was often enough the case for morning minyan, was nowhere in sight. Mort was glad, for he liked it better this way, a minyan of equals, men perfectly able to get the job done, without supervision. God was with them, after all, and that was all the supervision they needed.
The prayers began, the Bar’chu, the Sh’ma, and they were racing already toward the second Kaddish, not a mourner’s Kaddish, just a regular Kaddish, a kind of marker, five sections of the service, five Kaddishes. That’s how it went. My father could almost glide through them, saying each Kaddish without even knowing he was saying them. In fact, if he didn’t snap himself out of it he could get through the entire morning service that way, waking up at the end as if from a nap. He’d done that on so many occasions he felt ashamed; come Yom Kippur he always had much to atone for. That was a hazard, yes, but there were so many days that were otherwise; there was that point, and perhaps they were nearing it just then, when he’d become immersed in prayer, when the sound of the Hebrew mumblings around him, and the sound of Hebrew issuing from his own lips, and the sound of Hebrew swimming through his mind, transported him and he felt that the language and he were one, that the prayers and he were one, that God and he were one. This phenomenon, he understood, was the transcendence of prayer, a kind of freedom he’d experienced now and again as a kid but more and more as an adult, and the older he got the more frequently he found himself in that place—foreign, unmapped, lost—a wonderful, ethereal place conjured forth by the beauty of the ancient words, and his soul would nearly burst with the gratitude he felt for them, and his heart ached with joy. It’s true, your heart can literally hurt with joy, my father said to us on more than one occasion, though when he did we had no idea he was speaking of prayer. It can really be a pain you feel, he continued, a terrible, wonderful pain. I always assumed he was talking about fatherhood.
At shul that Friday morning Mort hoped that he was nearing that moment when he was to achieve that blessing of transcendence, hoped it was just around the corner, following the second Kaddish, swooping in at the start of the next prayer, the Amidah, and, like the others, he took three steps back then three steps forward to ready himself for the presence of God that he would meet, if he were steady and focused, in prayer, in this most serious prayer, this prayer so big, so central, one of its many names, his father had once taught him, was simply The Prayer. But just then, three steps backward, three forward, a quieter Hebrew muttering began, a mentioning of the ancestors, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, and another relation came to mind, an extant one, his son Howard, who had promised to arrive that day from Woodmont in time for morning minyan but clearly wasn’t going to come through.
God of Abraham, God of Jacob, God of Isaac, God forgive me, Mort continued, ad-libbing, which was not allowed, which was another thing for which he’d ultimately have to atone, God forgive me, but you grant a son a wish, help him and the family get to the beach, a summer of all play and no work, a summer of
In the next instant, as if the minyan had been waiting for him and Nelson, the service began, a chorus of Hebrew muttering. Perhaps because his brother-in-law Leo Cohen was standing just outside the clump of men, the group soon enough considered Leo their minyan leader, and within minutes Mort heard Leo’s Hebrew mumbles rise above the mumbles of the others and sharpen into defined words every so often, enough to keep the pack praying at the same pace. Good for nothing was the way Mort thought of Leo at the store where he employed him, despite how frail and sick he was, because he owed Vivie that much. He knew he did. But right then, surprisingly enough, Leo Cohen was good for something. The rabbi, as was often enough the case for morning minyan, was nowhere in sight. Mort was glad, for he liked it better this way, a minyan of equals, men perfectly able to get the job done, without supervision. God was with them, after all, and that was all the supervision they needed.
The prayers began, the Bar’chu, the Sh’ma, and they were racing already toward the second Kaddish, not a mourner’s Kaddish, just a regular Kaddish, a kind of marker, five sections of the service, five Kaddishes. That’s how it went. My father could almost glide through them, saying each Kaddish without even knowing he was saying them. In fact, if he didn’t snap himself out of it he could get through the entire morning service that way, waking up at the end as if from a nap. He’d done that on so many occasions he felt ashamed; come Yom Kippur he always had much to atone for. That was a hazard, yes, but there were so many days that were otherwise; there was that point, and perhaps they were nearing it just then, when he’d become immersed in prayer, when the sound of the Hebrew mumblings around him, and the sound of Hebrew issuing from his own lips, and the sound of Hebrew swimming through his mind, transported him and he felt that the language and he were one, that the prayers and he were one, that God and he were one. This phenomenon, he understood, was the transcendence of prayer, a kind of freedom he’d experienced now and again as a kid but more and more as an adult, and the older he got the more frequently he found himself in that place—foreign, unmapped, lost—a wonderful, ethereal place conjured forth by the beauty of the ancient words, and his soul would nearly burst with the gratitude he felt for them, and his heart ached with joy. It’s true, your heart can literally hurt with joy, my father said to us on more than one occasion, though when he did we had no idea he was speaking of prayer. It can really be a pain you feel, he continued, a terrible, wonderful pain. I always assumed he was talking about fatherhood.
At shul that Friday morning Mort hoped that he was nearing that moment when he was to achieve that blessing of transcendence, hoped it was just around the corner, following the second Kaddish, swooping in at the start of the next prayer, the Amidah, and, like the others, he took three steps back then three steps forward to ready himself for the presence of God that he would meet, if he were steady and focused, in prayer, in this most serious prayer, this prayer so big, so central, one of its many names, his father had once taught him, was simply The Prayer. But just then, three steps backward, three forward, a quieter Hebrew muttering began, a mentioning of the ancestors, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, and another relation came to mind, an extant one, his son Howard, who had promised to arrive that day from Woodmont in time for morning minyan but clearly wasn’t going to come through.
God of Abraham, God of Jacob, God of Isaac, God forgive me, Mort continued, ad-libbing, which was not allowed, which was another thing for which he’d ultimately have to atone, God forgive me, but you grant a son a wish, help him and the family get to the beach, a summer of all play and no work, a summer of
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