Shabbat adventure

I am feeling very differently about this kaddish year than the one I underwent seven and a half years ago when my mother died. Then I was having anxiety dreams about missing kaddish. (http://mykaddishyear.blogspot.com/2012/01/kaddish-anxiety-dream.html) This time I'm taking my obligation to say kaddish as much as I can, but within the confines of living my life in the way I feel I want and need to. And so I've missed kaddishes because I've taken on some extra work obligations which results in getting home after afternoon prayers. I've also missed mincha (the afternoon service) because I had a doctor's appointment that was difficult to reschedule which ended too late for me to make minyan.

I've also missed some minyans because I'm part of a mind/body awareness training program that meets on weekends. To participate in these workshops, I need to stay in Manhattan over shabbat and so am not able to attend my normal synagogues. Last shabbat was one of these times, and I went to a synagogue that I've gone to before when I stay in the city. This time, however, they didn't get a minyan for shabbat morning. It was snowing and some older men who usually attend didn't make it. By 10:30, there were still only nine men. Due to my kaddish obligation, I was advised to try a different synagogue about a 15 minute walk away. I set out and found the shul. Fortunately they had a minyan. Before I knew it, I was being given an aliyah to the Torah and being encouraged to stay for a chulent kiddush.

The question was where to daven mincha. The latter shul didn't hold mincha services. I recognized one of the men there who I'd seen before at the first shul. He told me he would go there for mincha and so there would be a minyan. I trusted him.

A t late afternoon, I left my workshop for shul. Eventually, 10 men, including me, not more or less, arrived. Since they hadn't gotten a minyan for the morning service, and therefore didn't read the weekly Torah parsha (portion) for that week, the rabbi did something remarkable: he leyned (read) the entire parsha for the first aliyah, then leyned parshat shekalim for the second aliyah (a special reading for the sabbath that precedes the holiday of Purim), and then the regularly scheduled reading for the third aliyah. And all this could only have happened because I was there.

When you are saying kaddish, you can witness and be part of amazing things. As Shlomo Carlebach was found of saying, "You never know, you just never know."