Praying With Rabbis

This week, I prayed with rabbis. I don't usually do that. But this week, I was on a four day retreat with about twenty five other rabbis in the farm country of Maryland. A group called Rabbis Without Borders gathered for its annual alumni retreat, and it was a simple pleasure to daven in their company. Because it was  RWB (Rabbis Without Borders) kind of retreat, our group included a wide range of denominational and professional difference; so we didn't have a set plan for minyan. We can do a lot together, but we still have some boundaries even if we are trying to be without borders.

Still, each morning a small group of rabbis got together to pray the morning meditations and read the parsha on Monday. Rabbis. I got pray in a group of leaders. A mamlechet Kohanim. A gathering of kindred spirits and love of Torah. One of us was saying kaddish for a parent. And there was a lot of easy singing and niggunim. It is not that rabbis are somehow better at praying, or better in general. In my experience, rabbis have great facility with the text and language of the tefiilot. They have given a lot of thought to the order, history, and even mystical prayer experiences. But they are like everyone else when it comes to reflective thinking, and we are certainly subject to all the more distracted and biased ways of thinking that are common among all men and women who seek to make and keep tefillah meaningful.

Still, it felt like the buzz in the room was a little bit higher, a little more in tune. Like a old style radio, dialed in a bit closer to the proper frequency, but still . . . not quite there. In that way, my tefillot with my friends in Rabbis Without Borders was wonderfully unique, and at the same time, just like those of many others, rabbis, Jews, non-Jews and you. A tefillah of striving to embody the best of my spiritual abilities, and the best of my traditions ideals. It helps to pray with rabbis sometimes.