My new routine nowadays is to drive early to Brooklyn to miss the traffic; learn and daven; and then go to work. I tried out a few shuls, and settled on a wonderful, warm place that perfectly fits my hours, including having a learning program before tefilah. It’s a Syrian shul/Beit Midrash, and I’m the only Ashkenazi (pretty conspicuously so). I’ve learned most of the right places to say the right things out loud, and the different order of some of their tefilot, but otherwise just follow nusach Ashkenaz. The people are friendly, especially the Rabbi (who sometimes speaks ‘Ashkenazi’ to me – a very kind host), though 6:45 am + learning + davening isn’t exactly social time.
I guess I’ve been there for enough weeks now that they decided to give me a kavod. The gabbai came up to me this morning and asked if I’d open the ark. I had a moment of anxiety, and told him that I’d never done it before, feeling incredibly silly as I said this. Sefardim do the equivalent of hagbah (showing the Torah) right when they take the Sefer Torah out of the ark, and because their Torah is in a case, they have to hold it in a kind of awkward way facing outwards. While it’s not exactly rocket science, and though I’d seen it done many times before, I didn’t want to do anything wrong, and was worried about what I might miss. The gabbai looked at me sweetly and said he just wanted me to open the ark, take out the Torah, and give it to the next person who’d open it and show it to the minyan. I felt quite a bit less nervous, though I still didn’t want to mess up. When it was time to put it back he had to leave, and very thoughtfully told the person across from me to please let me know when I would have to open the ark again to put the Torah back. It kind of felt like a child being looked after, though in a very caring way. I’ve never got so many (and sincere) chazak u’baruchs for something so, well, small.
It was a weird feeling to be 49 years old, totally comfortable in just about every part of davening, from leining to leading, and getting nervous about opening the ark, or holding the Torah correctly. This experience made me reflect on a few things about learning. For those few, very low-stakes moments, it reminded me how hard it can be to be a learner of new things, and how much we take being experts for granted. I deeply empathized with our students in that moment! But more, that what I as an ‘expert’ learner feel as pleasurable and smooth, a new learner, especially a struggling learner, feels as anxiety, worry, and incompetence. We sometimes forget those strong feelings when we teach others, and push them to do things that aren’t so hard for us. And what also makes a difference (other than understanding the directions correctly, which I clearly did not), is to start with small steps, and have an understanding and kind guide. I had that in the gabbai. Hopefully we as learners are all privileged to have that in our teachers. It makes such a huge difference in how we feel in those moments of worry about what we don’t yet know how to do.
Now I’m just nervous about them offering me an aliyah. Anyone know a good Sefardi coach?