The room was packed. One would assume that because it was filled with so many people one would hear the whispers and giggles of those distracted from prayer, but, in that special setting, that assumption would have been wrong. Despite holding so many people, the room was silent; everyone entirely engaged in the Friday night Shabbat prayer service. To my left sat my friend that I felt like I had known my whole life, but in reality, it had only been 3 days. As a congregation, we all moved in unison, following the leader, the chazzan, singing or humming along to the beautiful melodies of the Hebrew songs. At the start of the prayer of the ‘Amida’, a prayer I basically just mindlessly mumble to myself on a daily basis, the friend on my left asked me a question that would entirely change the way I look at act of prayer.
“I would like to say the prayer, but I do not know it. Will you please say it with me?”
At first, I did not quite understand the impact this would have on me because my initial thought was simply that ‘of course I can help her with the prayer! This is something I feel very comfortable with’. And so, I happily offered to help her. However, as we peered over the siddur, I felt her concentrated eyes as they followed the words on the shared siddur between us. She was truly thinking and feeling the words of the prayer, those same words I usually just mumble through.
The three days previous to that Friday night had been filled with smiling, laughing, memory-making, many questions, and simply spending time my new-found Hungarian friends. I asked them questions I had about their lives, culture, and language and they would always answer me with patience. Even when I mispronounced a recently learned Hungarian word for what felt like the thousandth time (as I almost always did!), they continued to respond with patience, each time kindly telling me how to properly say the word.
So when my new Hungarian friend asked me to help her say a prayer, I was so excited. Even though she had asked me questions about my life and culture before, this question felt different. At first I didn’t realize how much her question would mean to me, but after the prayer service, I felt its impact on me as it moved on from a simple question to quite a moving one. After years of attending a Jewish day school, davening every morning, and often just muttering those very words mindlessly, they finally felt precious, as though a new life had been breathed into them. As we read the English and the Hebrew of the blessings, my heart felt full. She profusely thanked me and she told me how she was so grateful that I could teach her that prayer because she has always wanted to say it, but she was just not sure how.
Her deep love and genuine curiosity for the prayer makes me realize how much more I can learn and how much more I can grow. I will take this memory with me throughout my life, always remembering that there always presents an opportunity to grow and always a chance to learn more. And, although my friend was the one thanking me at the time, I should have been the one thanking her. She taught me more than I could ever teach her.
