Talking with our hands

Israelis are known for talking with their hands. Observe any curbside exchange from the window of a passing bus, and you quickly measure the temperature and intensity of the sharing. One weekday afternoon when I was immersed in my Talmud learning at the Kotel, I noticed an elderly gentleman struggling to wave people over to assemble a minyan of for Mincha. I had not planned on interrupting my learning was feeling sure he would soon have his minyan - since minyanim consistently assemble every few minutes at the Kotel, and dozens of minyanim had convened in the hour that I had been attending to my learning that afternoon. For some reason he was growing desperate, still short of 10, so I rose from where I had been learning to join him. Perhaps he was in a rush, I thought, so now was as good a time as any for me to pray Mincha.

I shall not soon forget what turned out to be an uncommonly moving weekday Mincha service. There was an intensity about this gentleman’s davening – manifested in his shaking his hands heavenward every time he intoned the word Attah (“You”/”God”) in his repetition of the Amidah. He was talking to God with his hands. The works of God’s hands fill our world – cosmic and personal. How fitting that this earnest gentleman taught me one way to return the favor.