From the heart of Jerusalem: Davening for college

There is a feeling when you’re so exhausted, so sick of slaving away at whatever work you need to do, that light becomes sharp. You look around your room and at your computer screen, and the light’s flare burns and stings your eyes. And all you want is to shut your eyes, to black-out the pains that at that moment are consuming your life-force. You want to crawl into bed but meanwhile fear the moment when you will inevitably need to crawl back out.
There were serious time-periods during high school when this miserable feeling of overwhelming toil took over. Even with wonderful friends and family by my side, rigorous academics had a terrible potential to impose the most caustic stress.
Then this year came as a breath of fresh air. The firm deadlines flew away. The measured, critical evaluations evaporated. I had a year to work without stress, work that would stretch my intellect and grow my character without devastating my frame of mind.
But last week I had an experience that brought me back into the abyss of stress. I had to take a writing placement exam for college, admittedly not the most significant assignment. But because of Yeshiva trips and Shavuot, my time available to read the extensive source material and write the analytical essay was severely limited.
I opened the test and was shocked to feel the painful flood of pressure rush into me. I worked late into the night, and when I woke up early to continue, I felt that strain in my eyes that was at once so familiar and so unpleasant.
Eventually I was disappointed to look at my watch and see it was time for Shacharit. I had not accomplished even as much as I had hoped by then. Knowing I still had most of the work ahead of me, it seemed irresponsible to take off time now to daven. I paused. And it dawned on me that if I couldn’t take 45 minutes off from a mere placement exam, I didn’t stand a chance in college. Skipping davening now was too dangerous a statement. So I reluctantly left for Shacharit.
But I was tired and my davening was weak. I was racing through the words out of mindless habit with my mind still stuck on the exam. I knew this was not davening. But I was determined to get something out of it. I hadn’t interrupted my work just to waste my time reading words that meant nothing to me.
I forcefully slowed my breathing. I said sentence after sentence stopping to contemplate each message. When it comes to davening, I believe patience is everything. And the more I worked to focus on the words, the more I was able to put the exam out of my mind. Finally I found myself utterly immersed in my siddur. Each line came to life and directly described an aspect of my life. In the end, it took a stressful setting for me to appreciate the power of tefillah.
It is clear to me, more than ever, that I need davening in my life. I can’t say it was a sudden explosive awareness of the divine obligation that brought me to this conclusion. Rather my experience absolutely convinced me that davening will enhance my college years. And college is just the beginning of a life of challenges I hope to endow with the blessing of tefillah.

Samuel Fisher grew up in Newton, Massachusetts and graduated from Maimonides School in 2010. He is spending the year studying in Yeshivat Orayta in the Old City of Jerusalem after which he will attend Harvard College.