Ragtag Shabbat

For some Jews, I'm guessing there is no "normal" Shabbat. I'm counting those like me who live on the fringes of Jewish community. You may not be the right age, the right sex, the right orientation, the right class, reasonably or unreasonably single, without family, shy of friends, live too far away, live unmonied, live in a single room, or the shul or rabbi or "ideology" are not sympatico. What do you do? Having tried everything, I hit rock bottom, and finally I stopped feeling guilt about how I didn't fit the traditional Jewish norm. Instead I discovered the joys of my unbidden solitariness.

Since I don't have family obligations, Shabbat is the one day, currently, when I feel that G-d's love rests on me (and I almost never feel G-d's love). Ensnared in a vicious time loop the rest of the week, I feel a release when the sun descends. Shabbos is the one day that is without worry for me- care free. Truly without worry. Worry is the froth of small, razored jaws tearing away bits of my time, chasing each millisecond down right to the sub atomic level. Meanwhile, gratefully, time gnaws at the carcasses of my worry, which grow bloated and fat at every chomp and swallow. On Shabbat, both piranha and leviathan not only starve , they are annihilated. It is true, in G-d's world, in Shabbat, time as we know it, ceases to exist, and so can the bestial.

What makes my Shabbos ragtag is that it has taken trial and error over many years to get to a place where you can say to yourself, okay, this is my situation. I'm done crying over what I don't have, what isn't working out, what isn't working for me. What is it that I do possess, here and now?

My little palace in time is filled with anticipation. I don't have to labour at anything. If I feel so moved, I daven, but with that extra measure of soul on Shabbat, sometimes I don't feel the need. In a sense it is a vacation from the intense contemplative practice (a future post) of the rest of the week- that acute scrutiny of soul and G-d that comes with contemplation of the Big Mystery; it's a lot of work.

Reading the Torah portion lately has become an adventure. Often, I wonder what's happening in that world, am keen to read the next chapter because to read Torah is to live it for real, to live it wholly, whether I know it or not. It never stays the same. I once remarked on this blog that when we contemplate Torah, in those moments, our souls are the Rorschach ink blot to the Torah's clear-eyed interpretation: Torah tells us who we are. And I may have read the same words before, but Torah may reflect back to me something unexpected and novel; not always, but enough times to keep me wanting to finish the story.

Lately, I've come to find the commentary rather superficial. Go figure. I've read it for years but now as I study it, it doesn't seem to satisfy. Perhaps these things ebb and flow. I'd kill to get my hands on the Rosenzweig and Buber Torah. I find reading Torah brings up something magical. You can sometimes surf along the waves of words, skimming them, curious, skeptical, questioning- like a child listening to a fairy tale. And like all fairy tales, sometimes, things turn magically grim. I don't always read the Torah portion.

Often I prepare food the day before Shabbat, but sometimes I cook. I try to buy one special treat to eat on Shabbat. Sometimes I buy things, usually a few groceries on The Day. I go for a walk. I listen to music. I surf the net. I watch TV and DVDs. I read. Sometimes I sit in silence for hours and watch the wind through the trees. I take pleasure in not dealing with phone calls (unless it's my best friend). I like the idea that I can say to someone, "I'm sorry, I would love to go with you to "X", but it's my Shabbat and I'm lying low for that day". Maybe one day I will say "yes".

I always, always, always, light candles. And I do it, oddly enough at the prescribed time, according to halacha. But once in a while, I don't. I tried havdalah, the whole shmear, by myself, years ago, and hated knowing Shabbat was over; separating was almost traumatic. And I hated doing havdalah alone; I had experienced the ceremony in intimate communal settings, you see, so for me, havdalah would be more like sitting shiva than a beautiful, strengthening transition to the beginning of the new week. I'm thinking again, of just doing the candle, to start. I'm thinking about it.... I do love light.

In all of this I guess I sanctify the day, though some of it seems profane. I don't think about that much. When I wrestle with some electronic device on that day, I note the wisdom of not using it. When I jostle through crowds at the mall, I recognise the wisdom of staying home. On the other hand, I am alone. I'd rather be immersed in a felicitous Shabbaton, but I'm not. I am here and now.

Creative acts? What are they? I know a woman who spends Shabbat embroidering; it's her form of relaxation (and probably meditation). My greatest difficulty is to keep from writing. Even writing nonsense on a piece of paper would be considered a creative act I am sure. I took on the mitzvah because that's the one that challenges me. Most of the time I have refrained. Ironically, on Shabbat, I am most inspired, have the greatest ideas and thoughts and revelations, and later, poof! All gone. I usually don't remember. Last Shabbat I jotted down a few ideas; I don't want to lose them anymore. But to create anything larger and whole? No. That, indeed, is work.

This present kind of Shabbat is a very different world from the one I left and have mourned lo these several years, over many pages in this blog. At one time, I had it all. My rabbi z"l, my shul, my congregation, my minyan, days of Shabbat splendour and daily minyan grace, bringing Shabbat services to shut-ins, chanting my first ever Torah portion on the bimah, dreaming about becoming shaliach tzibbur within the next decade, singing for Neil Young (heh, just seeing if you're paying attention), etc.

But this is here and now.

It is said, "more than Israel has kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept Israel". I would take it one step further: More than I do sanctify the day, Shabbat sanctifies me and makes me whole. Sometimes, when Shabbos ends, I am refreshed. Sometimes I am out of sorts. I don't think much about the effects of remembering or keeping Shabbat. I am just glad it comes every week without fail. Shabbat waits for me- such is G-d's faithfulness, I figure.

And it is true, that it is, indeed, hard to be a Jew without a community, as I have shown above. Still, even without community you just become a different kind of Jew- ragtag maybe, and solitary, but remain a devoted Jew nonetheless.

I would love to hear from other Jews on the fringes. I would love to hear how you keep and remember Shabbat (if you do)- what the day is like for you. And if you strive to remember Shabbat, what is the day like for you?

Providence

Updated below

I keep a private journal. It's interesting to read through it sometimes and to see that the same questions and the same truth remain relevant no matter what the year. This entry is from over 2 years ago.

I wish I could get a handle on Providence: What do I believe? What is true? What is real? How much is made up?

I went into Judaism totally believing in Providence because that is what I read. A part of me still apprehends in some manner that, yes, G-d is everything, and that everything happens according to his will, and that means the good and the bad and the driven leaf.

The rationalists smirk at the notion. But I don't find comfort in the rational. If I wanted that I would not have bothered with religion. And my very strong feeling is that it is easy to depend on the rational as a way of life when your life is going well.

Talk to me when the bottom has dropped out of it.

Update:

Rachael comments: I would myself say that it is easy to fall back into rationalism/empiricism when the bottom drops out (Why me? I'm a good person! This must mean that the universe is just random and unfair after all!). That's where I am in my own struggle in the here-and-now.

I'd be interested in how you feel about what you wrote from your current perspective. How have your convictions/beliefs changed since that time? If at all?

My first thought is that asking "why me" when the bottom drops out is not, in essence, a rational response, but a cry from the heart. And searching for answers to that cry may be done empirically or not, but in fact, it's really about a search for meaning.

So here's something to think about:

I know that there are a multitude of past "why me's" still battering the gates of heaven, all mine. Made me wonder about what part Providence played in that life. Providence is just such a marvelous mystery to me. It suggests an interconnectedness, a unity that lies behind all things that happen, and, therefore, fits right in with the entire idea of "G-d is One".

Most everything I know and have read about Providence suggests that the peak moments that seem providential are usually in retrospect, and more importantly, are sweet. The ideas of kismet and bashert fit nicely into that category. It's like the notion that when something good happens we think it is due to G-d's intervention or Providence.

I took a look at what the sages like Maimonides wrote about Providence, right through to Hasidism. Everyone has a theory. In essence, the theories suggested some hierarchical, elitist notion of Providence, depending on your closeness to G-d or perfection in doing mitzvot and the nature of your soul. Feh. Cause in the end, they were theories. Rational but unsubstantiated.

And my biggest question was: if I accept Providence as the warp and weft in my life, in all its glory, then I cannot only accept the good and the sweet, but also the really horrible and rotten. It was all or nothing. Either G-d's glory is shot through everything or it becomes a tattered free for all-- the Land of Theories.

The story of Job, for example, resonates a lot for me. I thought about him a lot through many trials. Job's was the ultimate "why me". And though the Rabbis tacked on a happy ending, the only answer Job received from G-d out of the whirlwind is, "What do you know? What do you understand? I was at the beginning and I am at the end. I am G-d". Well, that certainly puts a person in their place! And to know your place is to know humility. But it surely doesn't seem satisfying to the cry of the heart.

I began to think of negative space. In art, negative space defines the form and elaborates on it. Without it, nothing can exist; it is as necessary as positive space to make a whole. At the same time, I ruminated a lot about the Shoah, the ultimate Whirlwind. I thought of the 6,000,000, each and every one of the tortured and dead who must, at some stretched moment, have cried, "why me". And I thought, I could have been one of them. Born in the right place at the right time, that could have been me.

And I pondered the promises G-d made regarding Abraham's descendants, that for 400 years they would be aliens and suffer unspeakable affliction as strangers in a strange land, and then they would be redeemed. (Well, it took 430 years, if you want to read it literally, which irks me, and even then, it was a rush job, but that's a whole other post). I thought about all the people whose destiny it was to suffer as slaves and not know redemption, and realised, I could have been one of them.

I could have been one of those waiting to be scooped up by G-d and saved, and it just never came. Why me? Why not me?

Every single one of us who cries from the heart to G-d, enters a genuine mystery, the mystery of G-d. Job's engagement with G-d was the real reward, I think; he experienced a closeness to G-d that he had never known through all his correctness and fine piety. Doing the right thing, whether genuine or superficial, in my experience, gets you diddly squat in this world; even though the Rabbis tried to determine otherwise with that tacked on happy ending after Job gets humble.

And still here's another paradox, it is only through G-d's favour that closeness to Him is possible. And when that does happen, in my experience, it is when G-d hears the cries of a broken heart. There are spiritual worlds to explore, traverse and uncover with a cry to G-d from the heart. The answers, however, are never what one expects, in my experience. Certainly not the answers that others give, for they are answers that belong to them, not you, not me.

Job was brought low, in my opinion, in order to know G-d. As for G-d's great and powerful rumblings, there is a reason fear and awe of G-d are stressed in tradition and in history and in the story of Job: the journey can be perilous, and G-d demands a lot (YHWH: A Terrible Beauty).

There is nothing rational about a relationship with G-d and I think that's why the structure of religion, in ritual and observance is a must. It is a sound anchor.

To answer your question more simply: the empiricist in me continues to garner evidence, through experience, of Providence at work. My belief in Providence has changed in that I now see Providence as a whole, both good and bad. Do I see it working in my life? Most often, in retrospect. I still thank G-d for the obviously sweet, but have given up on the wonderful Hasidic tactic of sweetening the bitter (e.g., "think good and it will be good"; "it's all for the best"), basically making lemonade from lemons. Frankly, I haven't found anything yet as strangely comforting as simply going to G-d like David, who said to Gad, "I am in great distress; let us fall into the hands of Adonai ".... and always remembering, "Why not me"?

After a lengthy apprenticeship in learning and observance and Torah (not perfectly, but familiarly), you need to discover your own answers, your own questions. I have found there really is no other way, except from the origins of who you are.