Modeh – Ani*

Modeh – Ani*

Modeh – Ani* 1440 1440 Diane Gottlieb

I started praying recently. Wake up each morning and say, Modeh ani lefanecha. Stretch the long “o” in modeh, linger on the “e” in ah-nee.

I pray in Hebrew. A language I don’t understand.

Ru’ach chai v’kayam

 

Friday evenings at sleep-away camp. The cafeteria, alive with kids. Loads of us: hormones, pimples, sweat. Some wore baby fat, still. Boys in short-sleeved white button-downs, girls in crisp white blouses. Seated on long wooden benches attached to thick laminate tables. After the chicken, the waterlogged green beans, after cookies with colorful sprinkles, a hush fills the room. The sound of our breathing. The quiet, before we pray.

She-hechezarta bee

Who knew what we’d become? Some of us would maybe be teachers. Others, stay-at-home moms. A few would get cancer, two would O.D., one would be killed by her lover. None of us knew, and none of that mattered, not when the plates were cleared away. It was time to give thanks for our food. Our voices rose together, song filled the space. That was God. That was God in the room.

Nishma tee

My husband went to a different sleep-away camp, where woodworking became his devotion. He loved the pulse of the hand saw, the back-and-forth rhythm, the beat. The soft tumble of wood shavings. Saw dust as it fell through his fingers. Most of all he loved the smell, the peppery mint of cut pine.

When his car skidded years later, on a Wednesday evening, on wet country roads, when it slammed into a barrier head-on, when the police rang the bell to our house in the woods, I learned of his death among pines.

B’chemlah rabbah emunatecha

I couldn’t bear the thought of spending that summer at home, so I got a job at his old camp, one town north of mine. Friday nights were my favorites, kids in Sabbath whites, similar wood benches, same waterlogged beans. These cafeteria walls were covered in crafts made by campers from years past. One Friday evening after dinner, my eyes scanned the worn paneling and stopped at a section of thick wooden plaques. I got out of my seat and looked them all over. One had my dead husband’s name.

His eleven-year-old hands had sanded that wood, carved deep the letters, painted the grooves with dark stain. I reached up. Touched the tiny blisters frozen across the wood’s grain. He’d laid on the varnish too thick.

I wished I could hold him, that boy he’d been. Wish I had taken that plaque. But his work, it belonged there, with him in that room, carried on the voices of prayer.

 

It’s ten years since he’s gone. I’m not sure when I began my daily prayer ritual. Not sure why. But every morning, I sing out long “o’s” and chant long “e’s.”

Modeh ani lefanecha

Some things I’ll never understand.

 

*Translation: “I give thanks.”

Photo by Madison Greathouse.

Share This:
4 Comments

Leave a Reply

Close Cart
Back to top