In the morning, I woke up much earlier than I expected. Lately, I've been working from home on Sundays. That, coupled with the fact that I went to sleep so late, meant that I didn't even bother to set an alarm. I figured the kids would wake me up sometime around 8 o'clock. But as soon as I opened my eyes, I knew it was definitely much earlier than that. The house was still very quiet - not all the kids had even woken up. Strange sounds filtered in through the open window. As I came to full consciousness, I immediately recognized what I was hearing. It was a chorus singing one of Maimonides' 13 principles of faith, the one that has a very popular melody to go along with it, the one about the coming of the mashiach1:
אני מאמין באמונה שלמה בביאת המשיח. ואף על פי שיתמהמה אחכה לו בכל יום שיבוא
A thousand questions flooded my mind. What is this? Who is singing? What time is it? Am I really awake?
I squinted in the bright light and turned to the small alarm clock next to the bed. It read 6:39. At least I could get an answer to one question. For a moment, I tried to dismiss it and go back to sleep, but then the singing ended. Now I heard someone shouting short sentences, possibly through a megaphone, which were answered each time by a cheer from the crowd, but I couldn't make out what they were saying. Now I was sure I was missing out on something big. Was this it? Had mashiach come, with no forewarning, and begun to assemble the masses in the nearby park? Was he rallying them before the march (or drive) to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple? Or was it just some early morning activity at the geriatric center across the alley? I was very sure that the center didn't open so early, so I ruled that possibly out right away. That could only mean one thing...
Determined to find out what was going on, at the very least in order to satisfy my curiosity (who had choir rehearsal at such an hour?), and at most to take part in the greatest historical happening in our time, I made up my mind and sat up in bed. After saying my Modeh Ani2 with particular intent and wonderment, I very purposefully starting getting dressed. Immediately I was requested to close the window shades by my wife, so that she could continue to sleep. I shook off the impulse to ignore the request (since I was on a possibly very important and urgent mission), since if this really was what I thought it might be, I knew it couldn't come at the price of inconveniencing others. A moment later Elisheva, aged three, met me in the hallway and requested that I wash her off - she'd been wearing a diaper all night. I felt like I was being slowed down, but I did as she requested, trying hard not to seem annoyed. I entered the laundry room in search of a clean undershirt, and tried to peek onto the park. The south end of our building abuts the park, but our apartment is on the north end of the building. Out of the laundry room window, which faces east, I could only see a single young man with a talit on. My curiosity only heightened.
As I made it into the living room, I discovered that nearly all the children were up, but engaged quietly in various occupations, such as reading library books. I wanted to ask them if they knew what was going on outside, but I no longer heard anything, and from the looks of it they hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary in any case. Elisheva asked me to make her a peanut butter sandwich. I tried to refuse, explaining that it's too early to start eating, but she insisted that she was ready for her sandwich. I glanced at the clock. It read 6:50. I was concerned I might miss the crowd and never know what really happened, or worse yet, find out later that I had in fact missed an opportunity to join the mashiach's entourage. I considered turning on the radio - if this was it, wouldn't the news be picking up on it? Then I decided that if they were going to leave, it probably wouldn't be before 7 o'clock. Nobody started a group trip before 7 o'clock. It was unheard of. Even for mashiach.
I sat down at the kitchen table, sliced some bread, and smeared some peanut butter between the slices. I presented the sandwich to Elisheva, who was standing next to me in wait. She picked it up, then looked and me and started crying. She said something about the last piece not having peanut butter on it. The last piece was the end piece, which was considered a delicacy by all children in the house because of the sumptuous crust. It was usually eaten separately, unadorned by condiments of any kind. Elisheva, however, is not a typical child. She wanted her end piece connected to the rest of the sandwich. So I spread peanut butter on the second to last piece, stuck the end piece to it, and gave it back to her. She plopped on the floor and renewed wailing. At this point I was basically clueless as to what she wanted, and almost ready to leave her there on the floor, crying, as I ran to join the masses of the faithful in the redemption march. I mustered up my last ounce of patience and asked her very calmly and clearly what she wanted. No intelligible answer. Then I got an idea. I asked if she wants me to spread the peanut butter on the end piece itself, not just on the other part of the sandwich. Her crying seemed to come down a notch. I applied peanut butter to the end piece, and moved on, since Elisheva seemed to be satisfied with the sandwich now.
I finished getting dressed, grabbed my talit and tefillin, and started to head out of the house. As I unlocked the door, I remembered that I had been asked to take out the trash in the morning. I went back into the kitchen, grabbed the garbage, and asked Avigail (age 13), who had just drifted into the kitchen, to put out a new garbage bag. As I headed down the stairs and towards the municipal garbage cans, the bag of trash in my own hand gave me a sense of reassurance. I was doing the right thing, not forgetting those around me as I ran off to join a higher cause. I was reminded of a tale about the Arizal3, who one late Friday afternoon told his students that the time was ripe, they were now going to go to Jerusalem and bring the mashiach. Since it was so close to Shabbat, one of the students asked if they could wait a moment while he ran to let his wife know he wasn't coming home. The Arizal sadly announced that because of that student's hesitation, they had missed the chance, and the coming of mashiach would be greatly delayed. But wait - I thought - that's the opposite of my story! I pushed it out of my mind.
After disposing of the trash, I hurriedly climbed the alleyway up to the entrance to the park. Initially, the shrubs prevented me from seeing what was going in the park, but I heard voices, many voices. My heart started beating faster. I turned the corner, and then I saw them. Hundreds of religious teenagers, boys and girls, were standing, sitting, and milling about the grassy area in the park. Many of them were wearing the Bnei Akiva movement shirt. From the large backpacks strewn about, I quickly deduced that the park had been designated as a meeting point for some sort of Bnei Akiva camp (some schools started summer vacation last week). The singing I'd heard earlier? It was not uncommon to sing that tune after the morning prayers, particular in youth group settings. So it wasn't exactly what I thought it was. But maybe it was close. I looked around - young people of different backgrounds and ethnicities (I was pleased to see a sprinkling of Ethiopian teens in the crowd), all together, chatting and laughing and playing catch. There was no fighting, no name-calling, nobody sitting by themselves off to the side. All these teenagers - an age renowned for sleeping in late - had gotten themselves here by 6 o'clock in the morning for the morning prayers before catching the bus to camp. The world had not changed, but at least here was a living example of how things ought to be. And I was right about one other thing - it was already 7 o'clock, and they weren't boarding the buses just yet.
Epilogue
I made my way through the park to the yeshiva where I planned to participate in the morning prayers. It took me more than ten minutes just to put on my tefillin, an act that normally took no more than a minute or two. My mind was still reeling from everything I'd felt and imagined. I was reminded of David Ben Yosef's4 story about the moment that had turned his life around. He was in the Yom Kippur War, asleep in an encampment in the Sinai peninsula when an early morning Egyptian attack caught them by surprise. An Egyptian tank loomed on the hill above him, and he lay down in the sand, expecting to die any moment. Suddenly he decided to take action. He ran to a nearby machine gun nest and starting spraying the tank with rounds from the machine gun. Unexpectedly, the tank turned around and fled, along with the rest of the invading force. Afterwards he went to the morning prayers, and his scrape with death made the overly familiar words in the siddur speak to him. From that moment on, he began to actually live. While I can't say my experience was intense as his, I do feel changed by it. I mean, what if today is the day - the day that everything else depends on? You can substitute your paramount event for mine - it could be your last day on Earth, the day you're going to meet someone who you've been waiting to meet your whole life, etc. (and if you don't have a substitute for mashiach, what does that mean?). Even if there is only a remote chance it's actually going to be today, wouldn't you want to get things right? What would our days look like if we got up every morning and told ourselves these things? I think I know - they would look a lot better than they do now...
1 I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah, and, though he tarry, I will anticipate daily his coming.
2 Benediction said first thing when you wake up in the morning, thanking God that you're still alive
3 Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, the most well-known of the mystics of Tzfat in the 16th century, and teacher of many of the others. In this version of the story I relate, the moral is slightly different, and more in line with my own thinking. The version I relate in the body of the blog is the one I remember. I don't know which version, or any, is more authoritative
4 David Ben Yosef was a very fascinating person. An Israeli writer and self-help guru who was a deeply religious man, wrote books that were either essential diaries or actual correspondences he had with others, despised institutionalized medicine, and healed himself of cancer 5 times. He claimed that cancer was the easiest disease to cure. He passed away last year at the age of 84.
