The women’s section was full… of men

IT

was Parshas Vayechi. My little ones were excited to hear “Chazak chazak v’nischazeik” in shul. We were usually Mussaf-comers, popping in just after the Haftarah, but that day we left a few minutes early… and arrived, promptly, a minute after the Chazak.

Oh, well. The kids were disappointed. “We’ll make it next time!” I promised. “End of Sefer Shemos. We’ll leave super early!”

The joke was on me, because Vayakhel-Pekudei was the very first Shabbos after our neighborhood shut down during the pandemic. We shouted “Chazak!” in our living room, at the wall that we fondly referred to as the Kosel during those long months.

I was an avid shulgoer in childhood, a habit that faded in my sleepy teenaged years. After the birth of my third child, I went to shul here and there. Ours was a yeshivah minyan, and if I didn’t make it there early, I’d miss the bulk of davening. But it was always a comfort when I made it to shul, my Amens swallowed up by the sound of a few hundred others.

During Covid, I found a new appreciation for davening in shul. Shul meant an empty building on Pesach, taking my time through every tefillah. Shul meant standing on the other side of a fence near a parking lot minyan, whispering responses with the men. Shul meant a tzibbur, a gathering, something that had been taken away from us for so long.