Under His Tallit: Choosing Our Prayers

“One single thought raised to heaven is the most perfect prayer!”

Minna von Barnhelm, act 2 – G.E. Lessing (1767)

I shared almost nothing in common with my father.

He was born at the turn of the 20th-century in Eastern Europe, I a half-century later in America. His mother-tongue was Yiddish, mine English. When he spoke Yiddish, I was embarrassed. (I later taught Yiddish to help pay for medical school, amusing him.)

He had no use for sports, TV, movies or books. I was enthralled by them all. He however, could recite by memory any verse from Tanach, any prayer from the Siddur. I could not.

He was a simple man, preferring to sit at the distant end of the last row in Shul, avoiding conversation, content to immerse himself in prayer. I was not.

American fathers traditionally bond with their sons playing ball, fishing, camping, attending sporting-events. He did not.

The only “hobby” we shared was attending lectures given by The Rav, Rabbi Joseph Soloveichik, both savoring the intellectual excitement of studying with this frail, brilliant icon.

I recall sitting with my father at one particular Shiur  as if it was yesterday. The Rav seemingly looked me squarely in the eye, to authoritatively declare we are absolutely forbidden from choosing a favorite prayer. No single prayer is more perfect than any other. As he said it, my mouth desiccated.

The Rav knew my dirty little secret. I had a favorite prayer, “the most perfect prayer”, Birchat Kohanim.

My choice made no sense. Neither my father nor I were Kohanim. We didn’t go up to the Bima to recite it. We remained in the audience.

Nonetheless, I recited its enigmatic closing-paragraph with more fervor than any other orison.

The reason was simple. It was the only prayer allowing me to directly, explicitly beg God to extend my parents’ lives.

Why was it more important to me than anyone else? Did I love my father more than other sons did?

I am ashamed to say that was not remotely the case.

I recognized his virtues. He was honorable as well as honest, religious as well as observant, responsible, hard-working, modest despite his acumen, the first person to Shul and work, respected by all who knew him, rabbis, laymen alike.

He was a great man, and even greater Jew, setting standards I could never achieve.

Sadly, his nobility did not extend to his performance as father and husband.

He was a provider and ethical role-model, but little else, never expressing verbal or physical affection, “Touchy-Feely” only in the sense, if I displeased him, and he, not infrequently, touched me, I felt it.

Why then was I so determined to implore God to reward him?

For the same reason I so readily accepted his deficiencies as a father. He was a Survivor, losing his child, wife, parents, sibs and friends in the Holocaust.

My mother and I were replacements, treated accordingly.

He never shared any of this with me. Didn’t have to. I saw the numbers on his arm, heard him wake up screaming every night of his life.

Because he died (as I prayed for, at advanced-age) on Friday morning of an early Shabbat, I had two days to obsess over his eulogy.

It had to be completely truthful as The Rav explicitly instructed in his eulogy for the Talner Rebbe, but I still needed to honor him.

The words eluded me. Desperately, I absent-mindedly mouthed the opening-words to my favorite paragraph.

For the very first time, I heard them.

“Avinu Hanikra Ish Tam – Our father referred to as Tam.”

What does Tam mean?

In the Haggadah, it means”Simple”, unpretentiously hewing to the verity of our faith.

In Korban Tamim,  it means “Complete”, lifting 100-lb  bolts of fabric with the same arm he wrote poetry.

In Tamid, it means “Eternal”, despite his Job-like suffering, continuing to practice our abiding truths.

My favorite paragraph was “the most perfect prayer.” It defined him.

As I quickly transcribed it, I suddenly comprehended the real reason it was my favorite. When I recited it, to avoid looking directly at the Kohanim, my father embraced me under his Tallit.

For those precious few moments, I was a fledgling, secure under the wing of an invulnerable eagle..

Under his Tallit, Auschwitz was very far away.

Under his Tallit, he didn’t cry out for his murdered child and wife.

Under his Tallit,  I felt his love that otherwise, he could never express.

I buried my father under his Tallit. It was where he had always belonged.

And, so had I.

My medical school roommate, Dr. Sheldon Feldman, when asked why he chose to specialize in breast-cancer, explained his sister died from it. He didn’t choose it; it chose him.

The Rav was right.

We don’t choose our favorite prayer. It chooses us.