Proud Dunce

Or, Heaven Is the Home of the Hearts*


Did you ever have a love affair with a way of life, with a community? A great romance?

No, I bet you you didn't. When I was talking with my counsellor the day before I left for LA, I found myself telling her of my grand romance with this previous Jewish community and congregation. And I realised that, indeed, for me, it was a love affair- both love and hate mind you- but ever engaging and drenched in commitment.

I don't know if this is a once in a lifetime thing, but every time anyone mentions or expresses vision or possibility for the future of this place, my senses tingle and I become alive to possibility. I don't know why. One would think that any congregation/Jewish community would do. But I suspect that not every community is, as they say in the social science world, a "good fit". I'm guessing that it's the people. I'm guessing there is such a thing as bashert. Sometimes I feel like the Richard Dreyfuss character in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, compelled towards a vision and a future he barely understands, until he gets there.

There is a woman I met here last year, a friend of my friend's. She plays the harp in hospices. She left a congregation in Arizona, and her rav, to be closer to her grown children. It was a sacrifice. She talked about how blessed she was, how happy she was, in that time. It is different now, without that community and that rav, but her soul shines strongly, nevertheless. Her children are the compensation.

I find it interesting that people think that there is an easy answer to loneliness or dashed dreams or to loss or disappointment. They think that anything can be a substitute. They forget the process. They forget or perhaps do not know what it is like to mourn. Or to be torn from family. And I do mean, "torn". And I do mean "family". Tearing leaves deep wounds. People know what it is to miss their family. Yet, religion seems to provide the easy answer, or the glib solution or balm- it can be a slick palliative. Basically the answer comes down to making lemonade from lemons, no matter how it is phrased- in Hasidic terms, one would say wherever you are, bring joy to it. Or, conversely, in a kind of stern, bolt of divine lightning from the sky kind of way, the words of G-d are wielded by worshippers of Thor in a way that is supposed to mask their ignorance and hardness of heart- their inability to empathise. In other words, I get scripture thrown at me, and gee, I thought only some Christians did that. You learn something new every day.

I have recently encountered a paucity of imagination and heart, wrapped in the warm fuzzy certainty of religious dictum, with a soupçon of amateur psychobabble thrown in. Right now, I am thinking that the Book of Job is the most genius creation in Judaism. If only people could hear themselves, free thinkers and conformists alike. My non-Jewish friend pointed out to me yesterday that people can be more vicious when they are "religious" and I sadly admit that that has been my experience so far. In the secular world, you get your general lack of nicety, but in the religious world, the hubris and ignorance can be astounding; it seems that religion gives some a licence to kill (metaphorically speaking). Neither had I encountered so many deeply disturbed people until I entered the religious world. I guess, in a sense, part of this post is not about Jews but about religion in general. And in the Jewish world the crazies and not-so-crazy are alive and kicking, and this Renegade Rebbetzin sounds as if she has some stories to tell.

Did I mention that I had been on the board of my previous synagogue? Well, you would have to be there to understand how being somewhat in the limelight draws the strange. I'm thinking that blogging is not that different. It gives some people licence to raise a righteous religious banner, that has nothing to do with life or real life. Torah becomes a bunch of words thrown scattershot in my face. Christian fundamentalist déjà vu all over again, with a Jewish twist.

Being on the board of a shul (like blogging about religion and religious experience) is also interesting in that if you can withstand that, and keep your faith intact and your cynicism to a minimum, I think that you can withstand anything. The beauty of acting as trustee is in seeing Torah brought to life in the most inhospitable of circumstances- to be suddenly surprised by a tiny sprout amidst an extensive stretch of parched mud, all the while striving for an oasis. Indeed, there are the slackers who retain their positions year after year after year, who lack any sort of vision and it makes you wonder why they continue. Call me naïve but being on the board is largely a deadly thing; I imagine that it is made all the more deadly by the presence of those nearsighted slackers, so I cannot fathom why anyone would actually stay on the board beyond a term or two. Yet there are people there who have "served" beyond a decade. Wow. And if they think that it makes them machers (bigshots), and large in the eyes especially of the congregation, they have another think coming. Perhaps it is the seductive image of power or importance, I dunno. But from the community's jaded perspective, where many have been jilted and left desolate and bitter by religious institutions more often than most lovers, you might as well be adorned with that shaming dunce cap they used to make Jews wear in the Middle Ages. Some people would look quite fetching in one. Yet, rather like those medieval Jews, others on the board manage to turn those silly hats into a badge of pride.

In these times of cloying and deeply oppressive cynicism, idealism is a dirty word. You look stupid unless you are scientificobjectiverationalpragmaticrealistic. Though such a long and grave word surely has a legitimate place, what has that to do with what matters to G-d? And especially, what does that have to do with Torah in terms of vision? The Torah, on one level, is all about idealism. I find it doubly ironic, that those who pride themselves on their religious smarts, in effect, romanticise rationality. I think that rationality is easy, and that faith is hard. Living Torah is even harder, though doable. People talk about idealism as if no one could ever live up to the precepts of Torah, as if no one could live Torah. Better to accept the way of the world, which is also presumed to be the way of most Jews. Better to remark that, like "boys will be boys", we are only human. Better to resign ourselves to the way things are and not expect too much.

And yet I see people all around me living Torah, if the essence of that ideal is to be humanly holy. To be humanly holy is much. And it is happening here, in Los Angeles of all places- the shallow, dirty, loud, narcissistic underbelly of the world, while in the gentle, pristine, audaciously silent hinterlands, where I currently live, they haven't gotten there, as Rosenzweig might say, yet.

The former is also the reason that I'd rather be here. Though at the moment I detest lemonade or, more likely, I haven't found a recipe that works (if there is one). I'd also rather be here because this is my family, a family which strives to be humanly holy, and that fact is as plain to me and as predictable as the rising of the golden light of the California sun; I find succor, joy, and inspiration hanging out with them in this brash and 'nouveau' place. I am also a sucker for true love and my family makes me want to be a better Jew. Wiithout a certain amount of nourishment, you're just another person thirsting in a desert along with all the other wandering, thirsting Jews who have no Moses to strike that rock. I am no Moses. And it's no fun just to maintain and not to aspire.

On my former synagogue board, there are the bright, the bold, the few, who really want to make a difference and live Torah at the same time. They often do not last long. I have spoken with past presidents who would not do it over again if you paid them. I have seen people drop out after a year of frustration. They were no less idealistic than I. Idealists keep Judaism on its toes because they want to change things for the better, because they believe. They bring their hearts to it. Call them holy fools. They are the ones who keep me going in the hard times. They live the life, they strive to better lives, they invite strangers into their homes, they give hope, and elevate the lowly in practical ways and they put themselves on the line. This is not a 'lifestyle', inculcated or otherwise, but a way of life, consciously chosen.

We in the blogosphere get to yack about religion as if we were holy but it's all just a load of words- really easy to do, often empty. And show me a cynic not raised to cultural cynicism but had cynicism thrust upon them and I'll show you a disillusioned idealist. I've been there. I know. I had a choice. Got the Tee shirt for cynicism so now I'm giving idealism a chance. Besides, it's in my nature, and you can never fool Mother nature, ya know. Judaism has allowed me to finally be who I truly am and to express it, with gratitude. For all the pain of striving to live an ideal, I prefer it to the continuous, unremarkable, neverending soul eroding painless little deaths in cynicism and its rational kin. With either one you pay a price. And that's not a rational conclusion. Just wise. So I will continue to strive to wear my Jewish dunce cap proudly, and grow into it, wisely. My choice. And a wise one, in my opinion.

(Update: And as it turns out, my sojourn here has been met with an enormous outpouring of love. I am speechless. Who struck the rock?! I want their name and telephone number!)


* Psychedelic Furs