People are often amazed to discover that I still daven regularly \u2013 twice a day \u2013 even with one, two, three, four kids. I would hate to misrepresent myself or my spiritual devotion, though, so I think it\u2019s important to share just what my \u201cprayer\u201d looks like.<\/p>\n
Once, when my oldest was a toddler, I noticed her pretending to wash dishes in her toy kitchen while mumbling under her breath. Because she knew that\u2019s how I washed dishes: mumbling to myself.<\/p>\n
Once, when my youngest was a toddler (she still is), I was sweeping and she looked at me and said \u201cIma, daven!\u201d Because she had only ever seen me sweeping while saying words of prayer.<\/p>\n
Once, when number two was two, we dropped his sister off at school before I\u2019d had a chance to daven, and there were errands to run on the way home. So I said berachos and pesukei d\u2019zimra while driving, then pulled into the store\u2019s parking lot and stood next to him in his car seat to say shemoneh esrei.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know if this sort of multi-tasked prayer is common or if I\u2019m the only one. I do have other friends who prioritize davening no matter what, but I choose to assume they manage it better than I do and have never taken a poll. I also never asked a shaila to determine whether I\u2019m on sound halachic ground, though I was very excited several years ago to come across a mishna in Berachos (2:4) that says workers in a tree or up on a platform can say shema (though not shemoneh esrei) without coming down. \u201cThat\u2019s me!\u201d I exclaimed to my husband. \u201cMy whole life is up in a tree! I have precedent!\u201d Rambam even indicates they can keep working while praying in the tree, except during the first paragraph of shema (Hilchot Kriyat Shema 2:4), but I can\u2019t claim enough expertise to determine whether it\u2019s really justified to apply that halacha to my situation.<\/p>\n
So why do I do this? Is there really value in davening this way?<\/p>\n
I had this conversation with number 3 recently, when he told me he had discovered at school that day that he shouldn\u2019t do something else while bentching \u2013 his teacher told him. I gulped. I knew where he got the idea that it was okay, and I knew it wasn\u2019t his teacher who needed to tell him it wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Is it confusing to sometimes you see me doing other things while I daven? Do you know why I do?\u00a0 Because Hashem gave me four very special jobs <\/em>(he smiled, recognizing himself and his three siblings as my \u201cjobs\u201d), and when they need me, that\u2019s the most important thing. But there are also other things I need to do, like talk to Hashem. And I don\u2019t know if I do it the best way; it\u2019s a mitzvah to daven, and it\u2019s also a mitzvah to take care of my family, and some people would say to daven much less while the special jobs are little and there\u2019s so much to do. But I decided that it\u2019s important to me to keep talking to Hashem as an important part of every day, even if it\u2019s not the best kind of davening, because I want to keep the habit, to always be a person who davens. And when you get big, you\u2019ll figure out the best way for you to do all the things that are important to you \u2013 but right now, you don\u2019t have any jobs to worry about when you\u2019re bentching!<\/em><\/p>\n Habits are funny things. Of course, we don\u2019t ever want our prayer to be habitual, because that implies that it\u2019s dry and rote, that we\u2019re just going through the motions. And in large part, that is often what my davening looks like: just saying words while I sweep, pour cereal, pack lunches, etc.<\/p>\n But \u201chabit\u201d also means something you keep up. I try to be in the habit of going to exercise a few times a week. If I miss a week, it\u2019s a little harder to get back into it the next week. When I missed months for pregnancy and while my babies were little, it was much harder to get back into the routine \u2013 not just getting out the door, not just the workout itself, but scheduling it. It became that much harder simply to remember<\/em> to make it a priority to put that time in my plans and make it happen.<\/p>\n Yes, I\u2019ve learned the Magen Avraham that many use as halachic basis for women to daven the barest minimum. Yes, I\u2019ve heard about the gadol \u2013 the Chafetz Chaim, I think it was \u2013 who reported that his mother didn\u2019t daven at all while her children were young. But for myself, I was afraid that if I didn\u2019t maintain the habit of twice-daily prayer, then I wouldn\u2019t notice when my kids were old enough and self-sufficient enough that I could really manage all my responsibilities and add tefilah back in. It might be completely legitimate to cut certain corners in certain circumstances \u2013 but what if we forget the corners are supposed to be there?<\/p>\n I had experience with this, after all – also in the realm of prayer but long before I was a parent. When I was in high school, we were allotted twenty minutes for shacharis, which was not enough for me to say everything. So, I prioritized. We had learned in halacha class which prayers were the most important when short on time, and since I was short on time every day, I figured out how far down the list of priorities I could get within twenty minutes, and that\u2019s what I said. That became my habit.<\/p>\n I still remember the day, two full years after graduating high school, when I actually laughed at myself during shacharis one day because I suddenly realized I was still in the same habit. I had been learning in Israel for two years, with plenty of minutes available to me for shacharis, but was so deeply in the habit that it never occurred to me to change. Two years immersed in Torah, and I didn\u2019t notice that I could \u2013 and should \u2013 be saying all of Pesukei D\u2019zimra.<\/p>\n That experience taught me something about both the value and the danger of habits. I realized how important it is to create and maintain good habits, and I realized how challenging \u2013 and important \u2013 it is to reevaluate habits as circumstances change.<\/p>\n The second part of that conversation with my six-year-old was not about his future as a busy adult, but about mine. I told him that I had been thinking lately about how I daven, and that he and his siblings are getting old enough that I should really be able to start navigating things better. I told him I was worried that years of letting myself do other things while davening, because I didn\u2019t know how else I could manage everything, might have gotten me into a habit that would be hard to break \u2013 but that the time was coming to work on it.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not one to pay much attention to the secular new year, other than trying to remember to write the date correctly (talk about habits!), but new resolutions are always good, right? So, in 2018, I am going to try to remember that my kids are old enough to help out, that I don\u2019t have a newborn who might scream for me at any second and make it impossible to do anything if I don\u2019t grab whatever minutes I can, and most of all, that my kids are watching me and learning from me. A year from now, I hope they will have no reason to associate sweeping or dishwashing with mumbling, or think it\u2019s okay to play while bentching, but instead will have a strong role model for dropping everything periodically to check in with G-d and focus on relating to Him.<\/p>\n With G-d\u2019s help, I hope to be climbing down from the tree a lot more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" People are often amazed to discover that I still daven regularly \u2013 twice a day \u2013 even with one, two, three, four kids. I would hate to misrepresent myself or my spiritual devotion, though, so I think it\u2019s important to share just what my \u201cprayer\u201d looks like. Once, when my oldest was a toddler, I<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133529,"featured_media":33414,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-parenting"],"yoast_head":"\n