Ascending God's Mountain: A New York City Marathon Story

As with just about anything New York-related, there’s a Jewish aspect to the city’s annual marathon, the 26-mile river of humanity that gushes through the five boroughs on the first sunday of November.

For over 30 years, Shearith Yisrael, a historic congregation on Central Park West, has organized a minyan for marathon runners near the race’s start line. This year, three pre-race Shachrit services were held in a small tent next to one of the administration buildings at Fort Wadsworth, at the base of the Verrazano Bridge, where the race begins. There were tables of tefillin bags, and photos of services from years when the race fell on Rosh Chodesh, showing Torah readers decked out in their marathon bibs. A fellow racer helped me put on tefillin, something I admittedly hadn’t done for awhile. The service ended with the shir shel yom, the psalm for the day of the week, which, I noticed, includes the line: Mi ya’aleh b’har Adonei? (Who will ascend God’s mountain?) The words brought on a chill of recognition, even the suggestion of tears. Maybe it was talking about the marathon, I thought. This is a totally solipsistic reading, but those words from the Shachrit service would echo through my head for the next five hours, and longer.

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