Grappling with Prayer | Holiday Booklet by Uprooted

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This Rosh Hashanah ritual explores the ever-changing relationship you might be experiencing with prayer as you traverse your fertility journey. It includes personal narratives from others who have gone through this experience and invites you to experiment with a ten day reflection endeavor. You will want to print out the image included in this ritual. You may want to perform this ritual in a peaceful, quiet place where you are alone and free from distractions.

Rosh Hashanah is a holiday with a strong emphasis on prayer. There are hours spent in synagogue praying, repenting, reflecting on the year that has passed and dreaming about the new year that just is beginning.

During a fertility journey, prayer can be very challenging and may evoke any number of emotions. There may be times when you feel called to pray and express your longing for a child. There may be other times when prayer feels like the furthest thing from your mind. Perhaps you have been praying for a child for so long you are deeply frustrated with such efforts and may feel as though they are fruitless. You may have also had the experience of someone asking you if they could pray on your behalf, and you may have had any number of reactions to this request.

To begin this ritual, I invite you to read the following personal narrative from Fertility Journeys: A Jewish Healing Guide, a book created by Uprooted and Mayyim Hayyim. As you read, I encourage you to pay close attention to what rises up for you, and what feelings emerge as you listen to Judith share her story.

In the Presence of God
I didn’t even realize I was crying. I was in temple during High Holy Day services years ago, listening to the Rosh Hashanah Torah portion of Sarah’s heartache and anguish about not being able to get pregnant - the lament of a barren woman. Then came the Haftorah portion about Hannah’s anguish about not being able to become pregnant. I was feeling the same bewilderment and pain as the matriarchs from the Torah. I was moved, and I empathized so greatly with Sarah and Hannah’s plights about not being able to conceive. In my life so far, being able to become pregnant was my greatest struggle. My struggle was also Sarah and Hannah’s, and unbelievably to me, the struggle of so many other women in the Torah. Listening to the struggle of Sarah, the chosen matriarch of the Jews, then listening to Hannah’s story of desperately crying and praying was too much to bear. God had promised that the Jewish people would be fruitful and multiply, so why was this happening? Why were we women, Sarah, Hannah, me, and so many others, suffering so greatly to have a child? Why wasn’t this easier? I never imagined trying to have a child would be so difficult and become such a test of my faith.

Family and friends close to me advised me to “Ask God.” After all, our matriarchs in the Torah, also struggling with infertility, asked God for help. During the time that I was trying unsuccessfully to conceive, I took a trip to Israel to visit my sister and her family. My sister suggested that I go to the Kotel, the Western Wall. I went on a drizzly, chilly day during the Passover holiday. I gave tzedakah (charity) and a rabbi gave me a blue string. He said to me, “You will have a boy.” Really, did he just say that to me? There were not many people at the Wall that day, just a group of Haredi (ultra-orthodox) women sitting on chairs studying Torah, and me. Being right at the Wall with these pious women made me question whether I was religious enough to speak with God. Would God hear me? I remembered Sarah’s strength and Hannah’s courage, and put my hand on the Wall. I prayed to God for a child, and then I realized that the Haredi women disappeared. I was completely alone at the Wall, in the presence of God. And I prayed. I prayed just as Hannah had so desperately prayed for a child. At that moment at the Wall, I experienced an incredible connection to God and I was spiritually moved and changed by my experience.

Consider the following questions. You may want to write your thoughts or explore them in your mind.
(1) Have you felt inspired, obligated, or interested in praying at any point during your fertility journey?
(2) Has your journey impacted your relationship with prayer, and if so, in what way?

The time period from Rosh Hashanah until Yom Kippur is called Aseret Yemei Teshuva/the 10 Days of Repentance, or the 10 Days of Returning. These 10 days are a special time designated for prayer, reflection, and reconnecting. For these 10 days I invite you to engage in a period of prayer-reflection. The goal is to take note of how you feel about prayer. This is a judgment-free observation! You are looking to better understand what is residing in your heart, and then to consider if there are any actions you would like to take in order to achieve greater alignment between your heart and mind.

You may desire to be a person who is very connected to prayer, but you may notice that many of these days you feel disconnected. You may have a desire to step away from prayer and place your focus elsewhere, but you may notice you still feel a pull toward it. This self-reflection is for you to give yourself the space to think about and consider what is best for you.

To do so, I invite you to print out 10 copies of the image above. For each of the 10 days starting from the first day of Rosh Hashanah until Yom Kippur, you may want to look at this image and place yourself in the image in a location that best represents how you feel about prayer on that particular day. You can do so with stickers, drawing a stick figure, placing a dot, or any other way that feels right for you. If it is not your practice to write on Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur, you can make a mental note, and write after the holidays.

After these 10 days, lay out your images of these peaks and valleys and see what you notice. You may want to set an intention to take a particular action to move your relationship with prayer in a direction that you desire. You may also want to save these images, perform this same ritual the following year, and see how your relationship has shifted, if at all.

May you achieve your desired relationship with prayer and may you remember that it is a lifelong process that will always include experiences of peaks and valleys.

Booklet Section: Introduction