Epilogue: Entering and Exiting
Postscript: Some parting thoughts, upon exiting these Talmudic stories:
On any given day, we find ourselves entering and exiting a variety of locations and contexts. In each place we have a different role to play, a specific responsibility, a different amount of power we can wield. We might even hold different names in each context (friend, father, boss, student, employee, client, daughter…). We move between these contexts constantly, and sometimes - like a whisper only we can hear - the context is switched and our role becomes entirely different than the one before it. In this decade of smartphones, our contexts keep switching and overlapping in faster and faster succession. We are constantly entering and exiting.
But then Nehunia ben haKanah stands at the doorway, and pauses for a brief prayer. “What is the nature of your prayer?” they challenge him. “Upon my entrance, I pray that no mishaps should occur because of me; and upon my departure, I offer thanksgiving for my portion.”
I’d suggest Nehunia’s prayer is a call to intentionality as we enter and exit our various contexts. He’s warning us about the detriments of not noticing the context that we’re in, not being aware of the role, responsibility, and power that we wield; of the name we must answer to. His solution for himself was to create short moments of intentionality, kavana, and tefilla. He allows his hands to shake a bit, before entering a role of power and responsibility. Let no mishap happen because of me. Then, upon exiting, he brings his hands together in thanksgiving and appreciation, ensuring that next time he enters, he recalls the goodness and not just the trepidation.
Nehunia’s personal prayer is metonymic of the entire project of Mishna Berakhot, the tractate from which this aphorism is taken. Berakhot is a calling to live intentionally in the world, and it offers a unique formula, which one could call “The Secret Structure of Jewish prayer”, but I prefer to call it: The Art of Sandwich making.
Berakhot encourages us to sandwich our experiences, trials and tribulations with brief prayers. “Before one enters a city, say one prayer. As you leave the city, say one prayer”. We are called to say a blessing before eating, and four blessings after. So too with waking and sleeping, with learning, with seeing an old friend. We even say blessings before we say blessings, and say blessings after we’ve said blessings. Sandwich upon sandwich upon sandwich.
Yet before it became a ritual murmuring, it was a call to intentionality. A note to self: be wary of the power you wield. A reminder: be thankful for our portion. I’d like to enter all my contexts the way Nehunia enters the Beit Midrash.
The last two words of Nehunia’s prayer deserve an extra focus. He gives thanks, acknowledgement – a noble and universal sentiment – but not for his destiny, or calling. Rather, for his portion. As he leaves, he demarcates an area which is “his portion”. The language is interesting: “portion” acknowledges that what he has is part of something larger than himself, that he is simply a part, a portion, of a grander scheme. Yet on the other hand, it is undoubtedly his. “My portion”. May my portion be among those that are thankful for their portion. Merely my portion, yet it is mine nontheless. Even if I never get to see the whole.