From the heart of Jerusalem: One under the sun

The four-thirty morning air felt like ice-water on my sleepy flesh. The Old City stones slumbered all around me, and above me stretched a starry nighttime sky. Not a soul stirred in the square as I made my way bit by bit.

As I approached the Wall, inarticulate murmurs of prayer wafted into my ears. Deep within the walls of the sleeping city lay a core long since awake, pulsating with spiritual energy.

My footsteps were the only sound as I turned the last corner and the Kotel came into view. Before me stood a mass of Jews gathered to pray. My step quickened as I hurried to join the community.

I entered the prayer area and started wrapping my tefilin with the large group. There was not a trace of daytime in the sky. But as we began the morning blessings, a pink haze was just barely beginning to paint a water-color hue over the horizon. With more clarity than ever before, I felt the entire earth rotating under me and carrying the city slowly into the sun’s rays. The moon powerfully reflected the sunlight from millions of miles away. The colossal planetary motions became tangible and apparent. Nature was unfathomably mighty.

The Chazzan led the group with a thick and penetrating voice. I was engrossed in my siddur, carefully following his every word and mouthing along with him. Gathered in a place sacred to all of our ancestors, praying with the same faith to the same God, Jews from all different backgrounds unified in prayer.

But behind I heard someone struggling to keep up with the group. The pace of prayer was particularly important because we intended to say the Amida service precisely with the sunrise. But eventually this man behind me was so far behind the group that his prayer seemed entirely distinct from ours. Most striking was that despite his aloofness, he prayed with vigorous volume. As hard as I tried to focus on my words, his shameless voice was impossible to ignore. I lost my place time again due to his persistent discordance.

As we proceeded, the lagging prayer only grew louder. I was relieved when we reached the Kaddish, where the congregation recited in unison. Here I heard the masses join in one and overpower the lone davener. With each word I said, I felt the mighty backing of a universal community behind me. I was enjoying the single voice of the group gathered at the spiritual center of the world.

I could hardly believe when I heard the dissenter still davening aloud after the Kaddish finished. He deliberately isolated himself from the entire group by insisting on his own pace. I was deeply disturbed that this davener seemed to have no interest in the rest of us. What is Judaism without the community? And suddenly the dissenter was reciting the Chazzan’s Kaddish.

Now I understood. I looked up from my siddur and saw that gathered behind me was a group huddled around a second Chazzan. With slow, pained reluctances, my eyes continued to wander and I saw many, perhaps six other minyanim dispersed across the courtyard. I listened closely and heard them each reciting distinct parts of the service. How wrong I had been. In this one place, universal Jewry was not united but blatantly fragmented.

As sunrise approached, “Shema Yisrael Hashem Elokainu, Hashem Echad” rang in my ears over and over as the minyanim advanced separately. I heard a once harmonious symphony painfully distorted by offset parts. The words drummed in my ears in monotonous competition. Individuals were yelling the pre-Amida blessings. The many voices rang in cacophony as everyone rushed to catch the sunrise. There was jumbled disarray. Heart-pounding anticipation became fury and chaos. Each man aloud to himself. Rising tones quickened. The masses erupted, “Ga’al Yisrael!”

And suddenly, silence. Dead silence struck the pandemonium instantly and uniformly as the hundreds of men come together in soundless climax. All was still as the first sunrays stretched over the horizon. Out of the depths of dissonance emerged a unity stirring in its finality. For although the minyanim gathered disjointedly, God only created one sun for us to share.

That morning I saw that unity is rooted in shared experience. It takes a phenomenon of such grand consequence and scale as the sunrise to bring the masses together. What we forget is that God shows us the sunrise every single day. Much too often entire communities get so involved in their own davening paces that they forget to look up to catch the sunrise.