Blessings in Disguise

The door is flung open; a prayer shawl hangs precariously upon the shoulders of its bearer. A vexed and sweaty Aryeh, drags a toddler and a baby, one in each arm, both dressed in matching velvet sailor suits, into the hall. He wears a look of annoyance and chagrin, but he has made it. It took some effort that is quite clear, but he has made it.

A freshly polished floor, clean whitewash and starched tablecloths are all but forgotten when the shul is packed to its rafters on a Pesach morning. The melodic sound of a young and innovative cantor, his voice completely masked by an interspersed collective hum or two by the congregation at strategic moments, noises that bear all the markings of an attentive and satisfied audience, all tell Aryeh, now slowly edging forward towards his place, progeny in tow, that his children will merit the priestly blessing soon to commence.

After him through the same door, just in the nick of time, another child, a well-dressed baby, in the arms of a young uncle. The prepubescent uncle is shy, but needs must. As he enters that big door, he is embarrassed. He turns bright red; he fails to stifle an involuntary smile and smiles sheepishly at no one in particular. He takes his temporary charge towards its father, who nods in gratitude as he holds his tiny woolly hat sporting son at a tangent in his arms, furiously turning the pages of a prayer book that sits open on the table.

Older congregants move from their seats, making way for the next generation, they don’t have much choice; still, they wear their altruism on their sleeves.

There are now lots of infants dotting the shul, some held in the arms of their fathers, others seated on hard wooden shul benches alongside their older brothers who uncharacteristically abound with an annoying quantity of brotherly love. Pride is plentiful in the shul hall, masked on faces of fathers and even more subtly so on faces of grandfathers, detectable nonetheless, pride not masked at all by older siblings, as they all care for their brethren, children or grandchildren, who are dressed in their finest attire perhaps even purchased subconsciously, solely for this event by doting mothers.

At once white tents appear haphazardly, like bubbles in a simmering pot, all over the shul as fathers fling their shawls over their heads and far beyond, right down and up to the table in front, completely covering themselves and their children with them, propelled and anchored by those weighted silver head adornments their shawls all have.

“Kohanim!” the cantor calls. Those who are considered Aaronid priests now line the front row of the shul, and respond with a precursory blessing. The cantor’s melody is overlapped again, but not masked, this time by tiny young congregants, by whimpering infants who feel claustrophobically trapped in these woollen tiny tents of containment. Some children scramble away leaving their troubled dads feeling stranded and rather helpless, in an impossible situation. They can’t re-harvest these elusive getaways for they shield others who still occupy these temporary hot and sweaty, prayer shawl abodes.

One child does cry hard enough. There is an unspoken consensus, and one particular father must leave the hall with his child, before the main event actually gets underway. It is Aryeh’s child, the baby. Aryeh looks torn between a rock and a hard place. Who can hold the toddler as he removes his bawling child from the shul? He glances around, moves in the direction of a neighbour on the next bench, and then seemingly thinks better of it. He drops his prayer shawl and lifts both children once more and heads in the opposite direction, for the door.

Outside, he hands the two back to their mother. He nods his head from side to side with vigour as if to say, I told you so. “What happened?” she asks. Aryeh does not reply, but motions furiously at the younger of the two children. “Nu, nu, nu,” he says, and swiftly darts back into shul.

How much effort has gone into getting these children ready and tip top clean in time? Aryeh’s wife had walked quite a distance, estimating with care how long it would take to get to shul. She does not to arrive too early or too late. Yet here she is caring for them back outside again without garnering that all sought after blessing after all. Adding to her anxiety and frustration is an annoyed husband who must soon be placated.

After a few minutes, men stream out of the shul entrance, as does Aryeh. He smiles sheepishly and nods again. “I told you not to bring the baby,” he says. His wife shrugs her shoulders. All is apparently forgiven and Aryeh has remarkably swiftly recovered from a minor faux pas in shul.

For Aryeh knows that the purpose of these shul excursions is not so much to get the children blessed by kohanim of various ages and dimensions, but rather it is to place ones children, boys in this case, on an  imaginary shul podium. And that, in spite of his wife having misjudged their youngest son’s temperament on that morning, has been achieved in style.