It’s time to get honest about religion as an adult – and more specifically, as a parent.
It’s hard.
When you’re a kid in a Jewish school, you start every morning with davening. Fully out loud in the younger grades, finger on the place, following along, getting stickers if you daven nicely. Then you get older, and davening gets quieter; your brain has more space to wander, and you have to work at your concentration. (Maybe.)
Then you become an adult. Life gets hectic. You need to be out the door by 7:30 to catch the train or sit in traffic to make it punctually to your 9:00 job. Sometimes you daven, sometimes you don’t have time, and sometimes you simply forget in the morning rush.
Then, if you are so blessed, you become a parent. Now life is really crazy. Your sleep is all over the place, you’re bleary-eyed every morning, you’re spending more time and effort getting your kids out the door than yourself and, for a while, daily davening becomes a thing of the past.
The thing is, it’s more than just davening that suffers.
It’s belief itself.
What are my thoughts about G-d? If you asked me as a kid, I’d tell you He was like the sun, burning bright and warm and friendly. “Child me” felt G-d’s presence all the time. Life was good and G-d was good. G-d took care of me and all the Jewish people. In fact, I was taught that because I was a kid, my prayers had a special energy and G-d heard them so clearly. I never felt as close to G-d as I did as a child.
As an adult, your relationship with G-d becomes more complex. You see bad things happen. You go through hard times. You feel the heaviness of being responsible for your family’s well-being. You know grief and anxiety and understand that life is not a storybook with a guaranteed happy ending. And if that’s the case, then where is G-d? Is G-d actually in charge and taking care of me? …And other questions you may not want to even entertain.
At the same time as complicated religious questions start cropping up, you also realize you don’t have the time or easy access to religious teachers to deal with these questions as you used to. The daily grind takes up most of your mental energy, and you’re no longer in a school setting where teachers are at your disposal whenever you need their help. Sure, there are knowledgeable people in your community who give shiurim at your shul, but they don’t necessarily focus on your specific questions, and who has time to go to shiurim, anyway?
In fact, those religious doubts and complex thoughts may not even plague you most of the time. Most of the time, you’re just trying to get through the day. You send your kids to Jewish school and let the school take the lead on religious inspiration. Sure, you try to make Shabbos and Yom Tov as fun and meaningful to your kids as possible, but how often do our kids see us truly immersed in Jewish practice because it brings us joy and connection to G-d, not because it’s just what you do when you’re a religious Jew?
And so, something like davening, which, as a mother, is so easy to rationalize skipping because you have kids to take care of and you’re not required to daven with a minyan anyway, might fall entirely by the wayside.
Then everything changed.
After 10/7, the trauma made me feel so disconnected from G-d. How could He let this happen? I didn’t understand how a G-d who was in control could allow for such horrendous things to happen to His people. The ones who were savagely attacked, and the ones who are still in captivity undergoing unspeakable horrors, did not – and do not! – deserve that, no matter what “bigger picture” is being painted. I was angry.
At the same time, though, I also craved more connection with other Jews. Not that I’m not “connected” – I live in a vibrant Orthodox Jewish community with several shuls, a Jewish day school, kosher eateries, and so on. But when tragedy strikes, you want to be with your family, and that’s how I felt in a broader, more communal sense. So, I spent a lot of time on social media following Jewish influencers and their reactions to what was going on. I was glued to news provided by Jewish sources. I only wanted to be in Jewish spaces, and I started to feel the overwhelming importance of my own children’s Jewish identity.
I finally understood the vital need for our kids to be educated in Jewish schools that provide an atmosphere of Jewish joy and pride, and are not just about giving over information (shout-out to my kids’ school, which I think does an excellent job with this). And I realized that my own religious questions and struggles should not get in the way of giving my kids the chance to find their own connections to G-d and Judaism.
So here we are back on the topic of davening, one of the first Jewish practices you learn as a kid. I grew up in a home where I saw my parents davening every morning when I came downstairs. I understood it was the Jewish way to start the day, and I wanted that for my kids, too. So, one morning, I decided to make davening a priority, even if things felt chaotic and not ideal for praying.
Don’t get me wrong; it is chaotic. There’s no “getting up before your kids for prayer time” when your baby wakes up at 5:00 and your other kids get out of bed as soon as they hear you out and about. Davening for me does not look peaceful and full of kavanah. It’s me davening in the kitchen while also refilling my baby’s highchair tray with Cheerios and stopping every so often to stop my older kids from fighting. But my kids see me doing it. They see me making it a priority. And when it’s mayhem and my mind isn’t on the words I’m saying or I have to stop in the middle of Sh’moneh Esrei because my kids are yelling at each other, I do feel like at least I’m passing on the value of t’filah – and maybe that’s enough.
Of course, it’s not always a scene out of Kindergarten Cop. When I can find moments of quiet, talking to G-d through prayer has helped my own connection, too. Complex questions will always be there; I think that’s just part of being human. But when I make the effort to open that siddur and say the words, the muscle of my religious mind remembers that innocent and all-encompassing belief I had as a child, and it helps me believe that, even just for that half-hour, G-d is actually listening to my prayers.
Shira Zwiren works in marketing and has loved to write from a young age. Around the edges of her day as a professional and a mom of three adorable kids, she tries to find time for personal creative writing and art. Follow Shira on Instagram: @myjewishjoy.
