BoomerGirl Diary

One of my strongest memories from childhood is the sight of my grandmother davening every morning.

Davening may not be a familiar term to you: it’s a Jewish practice that is in some sense midway between prayer and meditation. Traditional passages are spoken softly and very fast, preferably in Hebrew, preferably chanted under the breath. If you are standing up you sway back and forth (called shuckling) in a prescribed fashion, bending the knee at appropriate times, bowing from the waist at others, at times stepping backwards, at times forward.

If you go to an Orthodox Jewish synagogue you will see most of the men and many of the women (men and women sitting in their separate sections, as is the Orthodox custom) doing this, each at his or her own speed, a kind of unity in anarchy.

But people also daven at home, sitting down, and that is what my grandmother (and also her mother) did. Ever morning Baba would get out of bed, go to the bathroom, and then sit in a straightbacked chair with her prayerbook, muttering in Hebrew for about 20 minutes. Then she’d get up and start her day. She did this (as her mother also did) essentially every day of her adult life.

From childhood through young adulthood, it was a special treat for me to spend the night in her small apartment. In the morning it was always the same: Baba waking up, perhaps a bit grumpy from her bad knees, spending 20 minutes davening, and then getting up from her chair calmed and transformed.

I was not aware until decades later how deeply this ingrained in me the idea of practice, daily practice, done as a matter of course, the way we brush our teeth and wash our faces, not a choice, not dependent on what we feel like doing, but something we just do, every day.

So when I was asked to be one of the meditation/spiritual virtual columnists on BoomerGirl, I couldn’t think of a better way to start out then to give you the image of my grandmother in her straight-backed chair, prayerbook in her hands, arms resting a little on her lap, davening every morning.