CyberTorah

Imagine a couple without children. They have traveled from place to place for work, looking for their own promised land. As much as they love each other, and they really do, they also yearn deeply and completely for a child of their own. At one point they were able to have a child with a surrogate (but only with the husband’s genetic material), but they continue to hope for a child together, where they can both be the biological parents.

One day they are visiting a dear friend. That friend, like them, has been wrestling with infertility. While staying there, the friend and the wife develop a closeness. There is even a measure of flirtation, maybe even a thought of starting something between the two of them. Yet they realize how wrong and hurtful that would be and they vow to remain friends.

This couple are deeply spiritual people. Their friend watches how much they love each other, how much God is present in their interactions. He sees the way they bless and complement each other. So he turns to his friend, and asks: Would you pray for my family? Would you pray for me to have children?

For a brief moment, the husband imagines turning his friend down. He saw the flirtation, and that hurt. It was partly his fault if he is honest. He had hinted that they weren’t really married, or not so close, or something. And he too yearns so much for a child; how can he pray for someone else? Yet he swallows his pride and his hurt, he turns towards the friendship and he offers a prayer that Abimelech will have children.

This is the story of Abraham and Sarah, the story that immediately precedes the birth of Isaac. According to Rashi, it was because Abraham prayed for Abimelech that he too was blessed with a child. When we offer a prayer or blessing or gesture to someone we love and care for, it is often the gesture that we yearn for the most. I often suggest to couples in pre-marital counseling that they pay attention to the gestures their partner offers to them to express love and then reciprocate with the same gesture.

The birth of Isaac, God taking note of Sarah, is the story we read on Rosh Hashanah. This story of infertility and prayer, of offering to others our own deepest yearning, is what preceded Rosh Hashanah. We may think the holiday is about God taking note of us, of praying for our own good year of health and fulfillment. But maybe the purpose of Rosh Hashanah is different.

I want to suggest this year as we prepare for Rosh Hashanah that we think about the needs of others in our lives and in the world. What if we tried to offer up prayers and hopes for our friends and family, to hope for them that which we believe they need most in the world. What if we looked beyond our own needs and yearning and instead saw Rosh Hashanah as a day to pray for everyone else?

Further, as we pray for others and the world, what if we then began to think how we could help fulfill those prayers? What if we, through words or gestures or actions, could be God’s partner in helping others have a good year that was filled with blessing?

I suspect this practice would help direct our own hands and actions in profound ways. I suspect it would deepen the quality of love and tzedakah that we are able to offer others. And I wonder if it might also help us get in touch with our own deepest yearning and find a path to see that prayer, the prayer for our own needs heard by God as well.

Shabbat Shalom-

Rabbi David Booth