I’m sitting in a large synagogue in midafternoon trying to study some Mishnayos. I am all alone. It is perfectly still — except for a strange steady murmuring a faint almost haunting sigh that seems to envelop me. I try to ignore it but it persists a veiled muffled sound like a soft whisper. I look around me. No one is here.
Mesmerized by the steady murmuring I begin to drift off into half-sleep and slowly the coils of the physical world begin to peel off. But as the physical world around me slips away the murmuring becomes more distinct and I am able to recognize certain words.
They are words of prayer. I am sure I hear an atah and then a baruch. And now I make out a phrase asher kideshanu… Pieces of sentences tremulous fragments — all are now quite audible. But not only audible. Gradually they become visible as well floating all around me. Alefs and gimmels and zayins and kofs — every letter of the alphabet is spinning in the air the letters forming themselves into fragments of passages. Now I am seeing what I only heard before: I actually see the words yehei Shmei Rabba before me… but not the rest of the Kaddish. I see Baruch Atah but not the balance of the brachah. A lonely Amen drifts by me but not the passage to which it is a response. Snippets of prayers dart across my eyes tiny gleanings of brachos bits and pieces of Shemoneh Esreh Ashrei Aleinu Oseh shalom. But only fragments. Not a full brachah not a complete passage.
Why am I seeing only broken shards of prayer? Certainly the words of sincere prayer rise up directly to Heaven. Perhaps I need to look more carefully for the adjoining pieces. Were they concealed somewhere in this building? Or on the other hand could it be that only parts of these prayers ascended Heavenward and that the balance remained behind within the walls of the shul? Was it because they were refused admission On High? But why?
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