A wing and a prayer

For seven consecutive Fridays (so far) some gal pals and I have dialed in for Shabbat Shezoom.

Every week, we overdose on screen time, and we sit still for too much of the week. And yet, we rally for this.

We light candles. We have a few laughs. About half of us are Jewish, but that’s beside the point.

We all are just winging it now.

In Judaism, seven is an auspicious number. There are seven wedding blessings. Several holidays last seven days. And that’s how long we mourn when a loved one passes. Seven is special in almost every culture. There are seven verses in the first sura (chapter) of the Qur'an. When the newborn Buddha rises, he takes seven steps.

Last week, unaware of the timing, one of our Shezoomers brought news to share: Her birth father had died a few days before. She didn’t know him well, but she wanted to mark the occasion, in the company of friends.

Over the past seven weeks, five of us had birthdays. Two survived the virus. One closed her business. And someone’s mother died. On that Friday alone, more than 6,000 people died around the world of COVID-19.

Someone had the idea: We should say a prayer.

We scrambled around the internet, and found the sacred mourner’s kaddish. The English translation was pasted into the chat.

With 10 of us on the call, we coincidentally had a minyan—the minimum number of Jews required for a ritual.

So, together, we read the words. All but one of us was muted, so the voice of the daughter could be heard.

Kaddish is a prayer for the dead. It praises God. And ends with a plea for peace.

The God part is tricky—for me anyway—but I didn’t say so at the time. I just read along. The way the words were written.

Because peace is the thing we need.