Davening: Grade 3

In third grade davening gets even more exciting when Morah Bauman announces that we're going to start learning Shmoneh Esrei. This, I think, is where being a little kid ends. Or at least it's a step in the right direction.

Every day right after davening, Morah teaches us a little bit more about Shmoneh Esrei. Only I don't know what she's teaching exactly because I'm always still davening when it happens. They keep saying that the more you practice, the better you get at reading and following along, but it's not happening to me. I'm still mumbling my way through shema when the lesson starts. And the more I want to hear what's going on, the longer it takes for me to finish. It gets to a point where I can't do either, and yet I can't do both. It's terribly frustrating because the longer I try, the further behind I get.

Eventually it settles into a sort of routine. Instead of feeling like I should be doing something else and getting all upset when I'm not up to the right place, I've just become one who sits on the side during that time.

Finally, after months of distracting practice, everyone gets to say Shmoneh Esrei on their own. When I finish shema, the classroom is silent. I look around at my classmates - they're standing, walking back and forth, bowing, beating their chests, swaying... I realize with shame that I have no idea what to do.

Suddenly I begin to have more "kavana" than ever - I pay extra attention to every word, enunciating even more slowly than ever and not skipping a thing. For the rest of the year, I finish shema exactly in time for the end of davening...

1 comment:

Floating Reflections said...

It is sad that the teacher did not or rather chose not to help you with your reading but on another point, for so many years when I started to daven s''e with the class I could never finish it in time and to be honest there was a lot of missing out and mumbling. I'm sure that u saying shema like u did was worth more to Hashem.