Barefoot Jewess

Conversion and Identity: The Loaded Jew

2010-03-05T14:36:00.000-08:00

I've recently trawled the net checking out Jewish blogs, especially this one, Michaltastik!, written by a passionate, opinionated Jewess and a convert. It got me wondering...

Being a proselyte, I find, can engender a loaded identity. I really want to say, "having been a proselyte". I fail to understand the need to identify oneself as a convert years later (unless, I guess, you are looking to marry, and that's a whole other story). Why does it carry so much meaning, for it seems to me that it only carries so much baggage. I surely can't imagine making a career of it, and yet I have encountered a fair amount of people who seem to do just that.

One might as well identify oneself as a Neojew (with greater emphasis on the 'N' than on the 'j') because we all really need one more formal category to fragment the tribe. In a 'post' or 'trans' denominational Jewish society, heck, what's one more division? Neojews should start their own movement, like the Ba'al Teshuva movement, with the tag, "Once I Was Lost and Now I'm Found". Amazing grace, indeed. Let me be forever stuck with these extraordinary monikers rather than revel in being an ordinary Jew.

It doesn't help that fuelling the Jewish identity juggernaut, around the fringes you get the almighty Orthodox triumphalists who, like rote ridden hamsters, feel it is their religious duty to set us all straight; like trolls, you can identify them by their insistent derailing of cogent online discussion where, parrot-like, they smite us with arguments about cheeseburgers and driving on Shabbat. Because, of course, these things undermine the very core of Judaism and all Jewish thinking and especially Jewish identity. Oy vey, the drama!

I'm not knocking the facets of identity which we all depend upon to keep us sane and balanced as individuals and by which we are recognised. Without identity, one is truly adrift and forlorn. Those who converted sometimes have stories to tell that born Jews and others can barely fathom. Yet above all else, true religious conversions ('to convert' finds its roots in Latin, convertere, to 'turn around'), stand alone, whether it be Jewish or Christian or Muslim or other.

True conversion is not merely about adopting a different religion; it is an event wherein one encounters G-d and one's hidden self. Abraham was in essence a convert when he encountered G-d, as were Sarah, and Jacob; their names were changed for a reason that had nothing to do with 'adopting' religious practices. Moses, even more strongly than they, was the quintessential convert, whose identity was initially hidden until his encounter with G-d; once uncovered, Moses turned around to who he truly was.

Then Ruth came along. Ruth adopted both a religion, and for the first time in spectacular conversion history, a people, and she did it out of love. Unhappily, it seems that it has been forgotten that she was the enactor, the adopter, not the adopted. Sadly, her conversion can superficially be represented as becoming Jewish for all the wrong reasons, often an argument in contemporary times.

In possibility Ruth's conversion may have heralded a contemporary veiling of that initial truth, of conversion as a 'turning around', as an uncovering of identity after an encounter with G-d. Instead, she becomes a gioret (masc., ger), forever identified as a stranger. So now we argue fruitlessly about "who is a Jew". In my opinion, we are asking the wrong question and it is not a good question either.

Today, yes, you bring with you all the experiences from the past which will always remain a part of you. But they are not always religious experiences just as they may not be for born Jews. When you bring all of yourself to a Jewish present, your past makes not one iota of difference to your Jewish identity which is shaped by one's encounter with G-d and/or an encounter with other aspects of being Jewish. If you question Jewish identity, then you are looking and living on the surface, whether Neojew or born Jew; the question of identity will always haunt you and harangue you and others and undermine Judaism and the Jewish people.

Mordecai Kaplan described Judaism as an evolving religious civilisation. That is not a belief I share but it makes me wonder. When so many of the Orthodox, at least online, and so many big macher rabbis are concerned with the minutiae of practice and developing greater and greater stringencies within halakha, when the social consequences of people's religious practices take centre stage, it makes me wonder if he wasn't a bit prophetic (if you substitute 'devolving' for 'evolving') . Here it seems that Judaism is becoming more and more "man-made" in the sense that enhancing the encounter with G-d is irrelevant. Jews are becoming strangers to their own religion.

And perhaps it takes someone who was once on the outside to point that out, and that people convert or return for all sorts of reasons, but the one I think that is most powerful is an encounter with G-d, echoing the paths of our spiritual kindred. Converting people to a godless model, on the other hand, is simply unJewish (cf this cogent argument for being Orthoprax and how that relates to Jewish identity).

I think that G-d does work in mysterious ways. You may convert to marry a Jew or Jewess and then it snowballs from there or it doesn't. But if it snowballs, there is some encounter with the core identity, the Jew you were meant to be but was denied you at your birth. In some ways, we are like Esau, whose birthright was stolen. And I don't know about anyone else but the coarseness and sensuousness of Esau is as much a part of me as Jacob the delicate geek (as represented by the Sages) studying in tents. Meeting Jacob is the crucial moment, becoming Israel matters more than anything, and after that, wrestling with G-d is the constant refrain.... just like any other Jew for whom Judaism encompasses more than ethnic/religious/social identity.

The core identity does not rely on a religious society and its norms. Community is all important, especially in Judaism, but on some level religious identity transcends religious society and its norms. In my experience community is there to keep you going and keep you growing. It can be a nurturing, inspirational environment, the kind that encourages one to aspire more, do more, study more, be more; and it provides support and hope. On the downside it can be alienating and strangle all expression and wrestling with G-d, just like the rote ridden hamsters.

The experience of conversion, the moment when you are called, and when you decide to answer that call from G-d, who points you in the direction of home, is unspeakable. It is not in the ritual or in attending to religious norms. It is so powerful that it sweeps you along with perfect faith and certainty that this is what G-d intended and that G-d will help you see it through; it made me fearless in that pursuit. To see the raised Torah scroll was the validation, because I finally met myself.

When you go through the ritual of conversion you dissolve into the tribe, and you are absorbed. It happens because of G-d, not because of the tribe, and because of G-d some of the tribe accepts and receives you. You bring your unique self to the community just like any other Jew, not your identity as a convert, unless you are invested in being a Neojew.

Yes, in day-to-day sharing and relating, it can be awkward when born Jews speak of their past, their family experiences, things you were deprived of in terms of Jewish experience. But, in my opinion that is a relatively small thing, unless that is all that matters or is a relatively big thing in a community. What you carry with you is a remarkable story and experience intimately shared with our spiritual ancestors. What you carry with you is the fact that your soul was Jewish from day one and that you are no different than any other Jewish soul. There is no need for a Neojewish identity, for you have simply uncovered what was always there. The rest is merely commentary.

Kaddish and My Father

2010-02-28T12:28:00.000-08:00

What do you do when you need to say Kaddish for your father, and it brings up so much pain that there are days when you hesitate to do it? When that which should bring healing, comfort, uplift, simply becomes another dreaded situation to avoid, at which you balk? And when you finally say Kaddish, and sincere and earnest as you might hope it to be, you often forget the words, or plough through it, or stoically recite every.single. syllable. you wonder if this reluctant, fractured whole counts for your father's soul. Even though every word drags as if you're wading barefoot through a quagmire of molasses.

I never imagined that reciting Kaddish could seem like a curse.

I can now place z"l after my father's name. But is he really "of blessed memory"? As the cliché goes, "It's complicated". We had been estranged (as I have been from the rest of my family) for 20 years.

I learned of his death a week after it happened, through my ex. The ex and his wife had been away, so the phone message was a week late. My sister said that my mother wanted me to know that my father had died. Sis left her own phone number, but no other details. My sister is not a fan of mine and hell will freeze over before I call her.

I finally found a death notice online a week later. He died suddenly in Mexico, and he can't be buried till the ground thaws in the spring. He died enjoying life. But in his obituary they forgot to mention that he was a war veteran. I have not yet written my mother; I hate that my sister will read the letter.

Therapy showed me the annihilating influence of my father, his browbeating, when I was a child. I adored him then, and admired him for the longest time. But in the end there was only pain and grief and disappointment. But he is dead now, so our relationship has changed.

In Poland he was raised taunting and trashing Jews. Ironically, his uncles were partisans during WWII and rescued Jews from Treblinka. As an adolescent I would call him to task about his casual, mindless denigration of Jews. I don't think there was hatred; he just never thought about it. I guess it's quite an irony that I am a Jew, but I consider my fortune due to the merit of my great-uncles. It is also more than ironical that the life he endured as an adolescent during the war, as a displaced person, interred in a labour camp in the gulag at Arkangelsk is akin to what so many Jews suffered. He knew so much suffering and loss, and saw horrendous deaths and murders. As a child.

I did not attend his religious service which was 3000 miles away and too late. Actually, nobody asked me. I have no family to mourn with. I have no Jewish community to mourn with me, to support me, to sit shiva, and I am too far away to go to minyan every day.

So every day I say Kaddish for my father and the experience seems antithetical to its purpose. I have always thought of this most beautiful and life-affirming of prayers as the balance and steadiness and antidote for all grief. Ritual provides structure but Kaddish also provides healing over time. What I have hated so far is that saying Kaddish brings memories of my father back, and with them my deep ambivalence. Every day I am forced to think of him, if only briefly. My mourning is complicated. At the moment, Kaddish highlights that point.

On the other hand, my father now is pure neshama and there is no longer that relationship of mutual disappointment and hurt. Our relationship has changed, but surprisingly it still exists. And there is no question for me that he has passed on to another life and that certainty is not due to pure faith but a knowing.

I've been looking at photos of him and it has disturbed me that gazing upon his face through the years I am not moved. I have felt guilty, too, that somehow I cannot summon visions of great loss now. I have been mourning the loss of my father for decades, so I suppose that this is not different; I never imagined there would be reconciliation either. I guess I mourn the relationship or lack thereof more than anything.

One day, after saying Kaddish, I forced myself to peruse photos of him again, from my childhood onwards. You can keep the pain at bay, but not forever. And I found my father in the photos devoid of his image, yet totally infused with his presence. I realised the enormity that was this working class man's shelter and feeding of me, and of my first rate education. Even more so, he, like I, was obsessed with home: he built them, I'm still searching for one. In early retirement, he singlehandedly built a couple of houses, taking wood from the forest of my parents' property. He taught himself and did it all. I was so proud. They owned forest and field, garden and spring, a small farm and gallons of maple syrup. I find my father in the nature that he dwelled in. My father's presence is everywhere, in every picture without his image, in every picture where he was.

My father (and my mother) suffered so much loss and terror as children, so much trauma. They passed on that trauma to me. It is hard not to excuse him for everything, knowing the life he was cheated of, but that would be unfair- he does not totally get a pass. Still, he wanted to live the American dream, and I am so glad he got to live it to the fullest. He died on vacation, too, which I find quite fitting.

My grief is complicated by all these things- the abusive father, the father I understood and felt compassion for (even when young), the father I simply adored and was proud of and admired, the father that in the end rejected me. He was a decent human being, a man of his word, a snappy dresser, had beautiful handwriting, an operatic singing voice, was intelligent and intuitive, a quick study and very skilled with his hands, but found little of value beyond himself and his few interests, and really did not value people. We never really had conversations; all I remember is his jeering. He wasn't crazy about Jews, either. And he was damaged.

My grief brings up many losses, the reliving of primal emotions, the loss of family and possibility and the loss of potential, among other things.

I miss my father, the one I knew simply as a child . I realise that, then, his presence gave me a sense of place, a love of nature, and a hunger for home. When I look at his photos now, they do not move me; but when I see photos of the houses he built, the land he owned, the countryside and parks he strolled through and fished and swam in, then my father becomes real and he and I meet and I feel myself a part of him and he a part of me, and we, part of it all.

Baruch Dayan Emet.

Rest in peace, kochany Tato. May God spread his shelter of peace and healing over you and all who love you. You are finally Home.

At Christmastime: Musings about Pig

2009-12-03T18:52:00.000-08:00

What dire straits!

I itch to put up lights or decorate a tree, a couple of things I loved to do. It meant rich beauty and vibrance and life. I love light. I hanker for those days this year. I know it comes from the fact that I have no Jewish community, and no Jews in the neighbourhood. This is a place where you have to scour for candles for Hanukkah. I have been using candles in the past sent by a friend from LA.

As I was hunting for them I realised I have a hanukkiah meant for oil, my very first Hanukkah purchase. So I will use that this year.

Still, Hanukkah is when I decided to leave my marriage and in addition it's been downhill financially ever since. Not great memories. And I am also ever mindful that it's a minor holiday, because for me, it's a rabbinic dictum and not from the Torah. I can't take it as seriously.

My best friend from LA, as always, is sending me little gifts for all the days and she is not a Jew. There is a place in heaven for her.

Often I think about the relative ease that some Jews have- being born into a community, having kosher food at your fingertips while I still crave bacon that many have never tasted. I don't really keep kosher but I do refuse bacon and that takes a lot of effort on my part. I wonder about those born into a community where keeping kosher is not difficult, where even the pizza is kosher. I marvel at that. Or where there's a shul or mikvah within easy reach. Where everyone eats and talks and believes a lot like you. Where the only thing that occupies someone is how to become more stringent or to determine whose kitchen is kosher, or how to organise one's life more Jewishly. How much you all take it for granted and are blessed. You wonder about believing in G-d, or what constitutes an infraction of some mitzvah or belief, or what your neighbour is doing, while I just struggle to not eat pig.

Clearly, G-d has a sense of humour.

Chag sameach to all!

This End Up

2009-11-02T17:15:00.000-08:00

Chasing the dragon:
One thing I have asked of the Lord, this I seek, that I may dwell in the House of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon His beauty, and to visit in His sanctuary. ~ Psalm 27

Walt, in the comments below, suggests that in my "chasing the dragon" I am, in reality, chasing my tail. Having given this some thought, I disagree. I am chasing G-d.

I understand that all paths on this earth lead to G-d, whether conscious or unconscious. Yet I think that the beauty of revelation is that your life doesn't turn out in any way that you imagine when you're just treading the conventional path of hopes and dreams, a path that most people happily embrace. It's something else when you end up struck in no uncertain terms by the pull of G-d, and you know it is real and then your life, as I have written many times before, becomes no longer your own.

It isn't like you've given up your life to G-d. It's just that things happen to you, events take their course and you're basically yanked along, off the beaten path, because at some point there was a "yes" and some binding to G-d. So you end up following some mysterious Divine plan instead of the one you imagined for yourself. And all without the comfort of Abraham's G-d, who promised him so much.

The notion of "success" as we understand it goes out the window. You end up being what you were meant to be and having to live with its implications and consequences, which are considerable and quite grand. It is overwhelming and can be unsettling and intriguing at the same time. This is what the experience of awe is like. All of this, coupled with a destiny of obscurity.

So, if I'm in shul, davenning away, and suddenly and surprisingly I find myself in some other space where I've entered G-d's plane, a heightened, charged place of infinite freedom and possibility where you can really breathe, and can see myself through G-d's eyes, and what I see is that davenning is what I was meant to do, that is my sole reason for being, that is who I am, it throws one for a loop. I hadn't read that on the list of approved occupations.

What does one do with this sort of knowledge? It's not as if there is some secular blueprint for how to be uniquely what you were meant to be in the world. It's not like prayer as identity can be proffered on the world stage as something valid when we identify ourselves with our secular jobs and roles. I suppose one could say, "I meditate" "I contemplate" but that's pretty amorphous and insubstantial. I suppose one could become a rabbi or join a monastic prayer community in an attempt to legitimise one's identity to society or oneself. Other than that, there really are no other adequate descriptors. How does one tell: I was created for prayer.

Some say we were meant for praise, which indeed defines prayer beyond supplication. That's the beauty of Judaism for me, there is much room for praise. We begin in the morning with blessings. And we are expected to say at least 100 blessings a day. It takes mindfulness to a whole other level, and legitimises it within an acceptable and sane religious structure. It gives us words when we lack them. It directs us to the divine moment. All we have to do is know that this is what we seek, for to pray is to become praise. You become something else, you enter the flow, the realm of the Divine. It is a being at one with the boundless.

And it's not as if the Divine has not always been there. It just takes a change in consciousness to see what has always been here, the Garden of Eden. And if you've tasted that and seen yourself through G-d's eyes, why would you not want to chase what in essence is the ultimate reality? The mitzvot were created for just that purpose, as was prayer. They make all things right and good and true. In the midst of great suffering within and without, it is sanctuary and respite and the bliss of knowing. It keeps one focussed on what matters and gives strength to bear all things and do what is necessary. Torah addresses the ultimate reality in great detail and the psalms address the chasing.

On the downside, you may start out destitute, abandoned by parents, with no family, feeling displaced until G-d finds you**; I think it's safe to say that most people would find this too high a price to pay, but it isn't something willed. Then having tasted the good and the pleasant, you end up relentlessly and exquisitely sensitised to the venal and ugly and to evil. On their heels come an all-encompassing sorrow and hatred of evil, and an overwhelming desire, part selfish, part selfless, for everyone to see what you see. It's the promise of prophets:
The earth will be filled with the knowledge of G-d, like the waters cover the sea. ~Isaiah 11:9
What can one do, though, to make that happen? You toil in the dark soil of G-d with your chasing and deeds hoping someday the world is flooded with the knowledge of G-d. And at the end even praise ceases to be and you fade away and nothing will be left except the nameless work of your hands, the ultimate reality, here.

** Compare with The Varieties of Religious Experience

Chasing the Dragon

2009-09-20T13:07:00.000-07:00

And so it goes...

I've felt hugely ambivalent about trying out one more venue for High Holy Days. Last year, I finally made it to Jewish Renewal services for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. The room was serviceable and small. It was clear that this little community was quite tight-knit. As in all religious communities, some were welcoming and some were frightened of, or indifferent, to strangers. In such a small gathering it is not difficult to feel a cliquish atmosphere.

Let's talk about bliss. In such a gathering it is possible to notice that people are more expressive according to their needs. There was one fellow who certainly was in another world, of meditation, of connecting with G-d. Reminds me of the Self-Realization Fellowship Temple in Pacific Palisades where you walk these serene, harmonically beautiful grounds dotted with closed-eyed meditators, their faces radiant.

There was a lot that I could relate to, the world view, the emphasis on all those good and free form hippie ideals, metamorphosed by Judaism. But, eh, the liturgical nuts and bolts were too chopped up and jarring for me. No flow. Well, not my kind of flow.

I love the traditional form. My beshert ('I would die for him') composer is Bach. When I enter that experience, life becomes organised, sublime- intensely focused, and preternaturally lucid. There is endless play within the form; it allows for the free channelling of passion (I'm listening to the Brandenburgs as I write).

And that's what I love about the traditional service, the traditional prayers and their seemingly rigid form- infinite play within the familiar- like a gossamer structure cradling all thought and feeling- the ultimate safety net.

The Jewish Renewal version I experienced had a wonderful, thoughtful rabbi, yet a liturgy that was pieced together mainly from the Reconstructionist prayer book (which I love- I often use it to daven) and other bits and pieces in fits and starts, using odds and ends and mucho commentary. The services emphasised a lot of group acknowledgment and world unity, rather than a focus on liturgy. I find it difficult to stay within a meditative frame of mind when group interaction is encouraged (and the bleeding davenning is interrupted! by arbitrary commentary!).

It was there that I learned that though this kind of service did not fit my needs, I could see where it did fit the needs of others. I am not into beating drums, chanting anything outside of Hebrew chant, incorporating non-Jews into the service on Yom Kippur (or actually, most elsewhere in services), or a cheery ('upbeat') environment on the most solemn, gravest day of the year. But that is me.

Bliss. I have seen bliss not only there and at the Fellowship Temple. When I was just learning about Judaism, and experiencing my first services which happened to be at a Conservative shul, I noticed bliss. It was so unexpected and fascinated me. Not induced bliss. The Torah scroll had been carried through the aisles and was handed to the lucky man who got to hold it for the duration of the haftarah. I saw bliss. For the first time ever. In the face of some average, colourless Jew who just sat there, cradling the Torah as if it were his child. No fireworks, no bells and whistles. Yet, pure bliss.

This is what I love about Conservative/traditional services- the quiet bliss, unobserved. Not a goal. In effect, a gift from G-d. G-d's favour. G-d shining his countenance. And a whole lot of passion and love. In most ways, restrained, internalised.

The psalms are fraught with chasing the dragon, in its most elemental form- pursuing the bliss. In this case, the bliss is the experience of cleaving to G-d. Most say that this is not possible, but in my experience it is. The Song of Songs is a perfect example of the love between God and human beings- the endless longing and desire to be together. So many dreams.

If you have ever stood before G-d and suddenly known yourself and your place in the cosmos, then you have experienced some kind of bliss. If you have received comfort or a feeling of well-being from prayer or the psalms, then you have known bliss. If you have felt G-d's presence then you have known bliss. If you have been touched by the kindness of a stranger, then you are no stranger to bliss.

My "chasing the dragon" consists mainly of wanting to be with sympatico Jews. To that end, I spent an hour's journey, mostly by hard-seated bus, to be with any Jews who were willing to daven on the second day of Rosh Hashana. I went nowhere yesterday. Renovation in the apartment above me and its brutal effects the entire last week pretty well laid me out flat mentally. The irony never ceases to amaze me- that I long for quiet contemplation and am surrounded by 'noisy abundance' (Hirsch) to the nth degree.

I wanted to the feel the grand solemnity of Rosh Hashana, the Day of Judgment. I wanted to chant the words with other Jews; it doesn't get any better than that. Yes, you can do it alone, but at this time of year, the Days of Awe, that small personal remembering and teshuvah somehow don't evoke shades of that smoking hot time at Sinai.

I had vacillated about today, whether to try a service at Chabad. Chabad in Los Angeles was my first, glorious experience of davenning High Holy Days and the passion and aliveness left an imprint, I think. The ad, here, seemed very welcoming and I didn't have to pay or be a member which is a whole other story. In addition, in desperate times, I really don't care about the mechitza- that issue is for the privileged.

I travelled on a bus that goes through the most desperate area of town- junkies, drunks, homeless, all over the streets, some stretched out, on the sidewalks sleeping; seedy hotels, squalor you can only imagine. For half the way my seat partner was a very stinky guy who clearly had not washed in a long time and slightly smelled of alcohol and tobacco. I fear bedbugs (which are actually rampant in my part of town). Other denizens looked hard, ashen and strung out.

I finally made it to Chabad and may I say that I thank G-d they had a store front window. The room was about the size of my very small living room, with about 5 men. There was no mechitza that I could see, and why should there be at this point? Five men, that's it, not even a minyan though of course Jews seem to forever live in Jewish Standard Time.

Disappointment. Huge. Heavy. Grave. Brain dragging disappointment.

Again.

Not to mention that I wore pantyhose and a dress! Which almost killed me.

What's new?

I could have stayed home and davenned instead of dealing with the noisome, loutish city, I thought. Do I score brownie points for making the effort, I thought.

The light sabers of ambivalence clash again.

All the while I am grateful to Chabad for providing the only other High Holy Day alternative besides Jewish Renewal. Somehow, they both rise higher in my estimation than all other streams because, in my opinion, in this case they are living Torah purely. Hello, membership/money junkies! You're missing the mark. You ought to be ashamed.

I chase the dragon. I never realised it until now that I have experienced bliss. But it's not true bliss without my fellow Jews, I find; the bliss gets amplified and just seems so much truer. I want, long, to be with other Jewish souls. And like the poets and psalmists have stated, once you have known bliss, you want to return. I think that is what teshuvah is all about- to return to that state of grace, that intimate cleaving to G-d. It's not really a high for it carries a serious price. And it seems to sometimes need other Jews to make it sublime.

I pretty well have lost all hope of ever having a normal Jewish life. It is ironic and sad. But there you are. G-d works in mysterious ways.

A belated Shana tova to my aggravating, mysterious and wonderful, lovely, storm tossed and most beloved sea of Jews.

More Cowbell

2009-06-28T10:31:00.000-07:00

Mourning the destruction of the temple

This has been the fitting conclusion to the slow and agonising death of a once vibrant Conservative congregation: "Guess what?! I've got a fever, and the only prescription... is more cowbell!"

The recipe is simple: Take one LARabbi™ who killed himself, throw in a sweet pinch of interim rabbi who held the place together in mourning, toss in a carefully hand-picked permanent rabbi who gets kicked out after a year for characterological "defects", add a big dollop of a board executive who rarely if ever attended religious services, throw it all into a pot of bitter tears, and mix everything thoroughly with one self-centred, ambitious, manipulative glam loving cantor with a cold hatred of traditional Judaism/liturgy... of Judaism.

Anyone who actually cared about the soul of the temple who tasted of this concoction has retched and tossed it out. It sickened them and so they have been leaving. In droves. Not the ones who had some quibble with a personality or rule, but the hardcore, diehard spiritual strength and centre of the congregation. People who have given decades of their lives in genuine caring and support. We all know who they are, in any congregation- the ones who are involved in services and festivals and learning and teaching and supporting on so many levels. The ones we can count on. Even if we don't know them personally.

I have found this phenomenon in minyan as well. Not all of us know each other on a personal level but the unspoken bond is there and the strength is there and when hard times come it is the only place to be, even if you never talk about it. To me, coming together at minyan is the purest form of Judaism and all that Judaism was meant to be. Those who attend regularly, in my little minyan, want to be there. Although as Conservative Jews we are also obligated to pray, this minyan has always been about more than duty. In its finest sense:
Prayer is the continuation of prophecy, and the fellowship of prayerful men is ipso facto the fellowship of prophets.~ Rav Soloveitchik
Almost everyone in the congregation who truly was a pillar, has disappeared, particularly after the current rabbi's firing. The temple has lost a lot of members with more losses to come. When the previous board presidents got together to brainstorm ways to stem the hemorrhaging and offered their services to the executive, they were told that they had no valid standing and their offer of help was summarily dismissed. Every president I had known in the past had been religious in a good way and heavily involved with the temple community. This cannot be said for the present board. I had spent a time on the board chairing a committee, so I had gotten to know the players quite well.

This was a congregation in crisis from the moment that my rav died by suicide. Since that time I've been a firsthand observer of the butterfly effect, of how the ripples of this single act have flowed outward in ever and ever increasing circles, like shock waves without end. At his funeral, almost 1000 people attended with barely a day's notice. When we were asked to stand up if he had personally touched our lives, almost the entire crowd rose. Now the circles cannot be stopped. I am convinced that his suicide did have some influence on a young man who also killed himself.

Will these ripples ever come to rest, I wonder? Will they ever end? Because we're not looking at the present only, but future generations, all from this one abortive act. It is devastating to return to what was once your spiritual home and sanctuary and discover it a barren wasteland where, finally, and indeed, G-d has left the building. On reflection, this is what it must have been like to lose the great Holy Temples and experience the utter devastation and disintegration of the Jewish people that followed. And there is much weeping and gnashing of teeth.

I went to his grave and raged at LARabbi™. What else was there to do? I see so clearly the great panoply of events that led us to this moment. In my case, I lost my first and only spiritual home- it was my Great Temple- and I even lost my minyan. Most of the regulars are gone. Apart from the beginning blessings, my minyan was gutted beyond repair, with a total loss of preliminary prayers- over in 25-30 minutes on a slow day. Stopping to recite a passage in English or telling us the meaning of prayers, ye gods. There is no way to retain kavannah with a bunch of stops and starts and no way to create a meditative space, which is what davenning is at its very best.

The dumbing down of services continues. Some happy singing, and a lot of talking at. Which brings me to the villain of this piece- the cantor. He's a show biz, Broadway type who spent his youth in yeshiva and came out a miserable, bitter anti-Jew. It's a job. He hasn't a spiritual bone in his body. His voice is uninspiring and adequate. He's a big ol' skinny tanned unctuous smoothy. Like a snake. I could go on.

When LARabbi™ died he was there to pick up the slack (and get a raise). Yeah, he knows Hebrew which I think must have been the only requirement. He changed services to reflect his interests. Which happened to coincide, it seems, with a bowdlerised version of Reform (Reform services are so much better). Liking the sound of his own voice, he destroyed the liturgy by hacking off chunks of passages and interspersing it with his fulsome "teaching" minute by minute, hour by hour, usually aimed at middle school minds. We get to hear show tunes like those from Prince of Egypt and electrified instruments during Shabbat services.

When the permanent rabbi came on board, Old Scratch (the cantor) dug in his heels and managed to erode that rabbi's position and influence; he surprised and shocked me, when I saw him, through his behaviour, diss the rabbi on the bimah during Shabbat services. In keeping with my own instincts, I tend to believe those in the know that it was the cantor's concerted effort that largely led to the rabbi's ouster. While there is a lawsuit brewing, the cantor just signed a contract for another year and is picking up the slack (with a raise). Out of this whirlwind, the cantor is the only one still standing.

Some people are trying to salvage what's left. Some are bitter because they perceive others as disloyal. Others force cheeriness on us saying it's time to meet members' needs which usually means a dumbing down, and always a cut in liturgy. Some think that singing simple catchy tunes will raise our spirits and bring in hordes. Most think that it doesn't matter about the rabbi, that it's the community that matters, the members, the congregation; we've seen how well that's worked out, haven't we?

Once I went raging to LARabbi™ about the congregation and he said, "You have a real love-hate relationship with this place, don't you?" I did, but I didn't understand, until I began listening to how people perceived the place. The largest argument has been for community and that's all that matters. In fact, the new president's vision is in restoring the community. They fail to see that without the spiritual/religious element, it's just another chavurah. Where is G-d in all of this? It deems itself a religious community only because it has a synagogue as its centre, not G-d; it is simply another sociological structure.

I didn't fully understand how they could make that mistake until I picked up Rav Soloveitchik's The Lonely Man of Faith. Here, the two Adams of Bereshit in the Torah are seen as representative of the respective essential natures of human beings: one is "majestic", that is, creative and utilitarian, and the other is "covenantal", committed to G-d; both are valid. To be wholly human means to have this dialectic of two natures raging within you. The lonely person of faith is a convenantal faith oriented human being who struggles to integrate the utilitarian and covenantal within themselves and into a covenantal faith community; this, unlike the majestics, includes the experience of G-d.

If you take a look at most of our religious institutions, so many of the shuls, this holds true- they are largely religious communities, but not covenantal faith communities. They are, indeed, "religious cultures" where faith has its uses and its message changes with the times. So, without the informed participation of covenantal faith types, the cultural edifice becomes weakened and crumbles into disarray, or ossifies.

Notwithstanding that Western man is in a nostalgic mood, he is detemined not to accept the dialectical burden of humanity. He certainly feels spiritually uprooted, emotionally disillusioned....Yet this pensive mood does not arouse him to heroic action. He, of course, comes to a place of worship. He attend lectures on religion and appreciates the ceremonial, yet he is searching not for a faith in all its singularity and otherness, but for religious culture. He seeks not the greatness found in sacrificial action but the convenience one discovers in a comfortable, serene state of mind. He is desirous of an aesthetic experience rather than a covenantal one, of a social ethos rather than a divine imperative.....

His efforts are noble, yet he is not ready for a genuine faith experience which require the giving of one's self unreservedly to G-d, which demands unconditional commitment, sacrificial action and retreat. Western man diabolically insists on being successful. p. 98
I really hate the word "sacrifice" but what I think Soloveitchik means here is essentially a humility, a sacrifice of the ego, an acceptance that the ultimate power is G-d and that we depend on G-d for everything. And without people like that informing the structure, the centre cannot hold. Without a rabbi who also informs the culture as my beloved LARabbi™ did, you get the poseurs and destroyers- you get the cantor. Without an executive that cannot see beyond the immediate, you get more of the same, and the cantor who counts and hoards success at the expense of everything else. This trickles down, like suicide, even to minyan. And to me, who stopped going to services, and finally could no longer bear to go to minyan and who has now lost my only spiritual community; the chances of encountering another one are nigh improbable at this point (and not for lack of trying).

I had to step back and give up on trying to fix it, since I don't live there any longer. In the big picture, I realised my time or influence there was pretty much over, since there was barely anyone I knew left. In the bigger picture I hope that the place will self-destruct and rise from the ashes, such is the cycle of things- ever Jewishly hopeful.

But meanwhile, I knew it was over when I endured the cantor's commentary on the passage in the Torah regarding the Shema and the wearing of tzitzit. He was speaking to a predominantly non-Jewish bar mitzvah audience. He likened the tzitzit to cowbells. That Jews wore tzitzit like cowbells to remind them of the commandments. And all I could imagine was a bunch of Jews in a field wearing a big, clanging bell around their necks. Talk about a death knell! I was mortified that non-Jews would see us depicted in such a manner. It offended my sensibilities on so many levels. It was crass and discordant. Cause yeah, according to him and the executive, they and the shul have a fever and what we need is more cowbell.

Seasons of Dryness

2008-12-26T11:23:00.000-08:00

So, it's been since May that this spiritual dry period began, and it still continues. I can't even believe I'm using the word "spiritual". I still can't commit to asserting that I actually have a contemplative practice.

I haven't found a way out of the dryness. Sometimes I become lazy because nothing is happening.

I don't know how to describe it; it's not as if I expected anything to happen. If I could find words, I would say it was a bit like living in a state of grace when I prayed. I felt connection to G-d, felt G-d's presence. The shield of Abraham was a reality, 24/7.

Not that I don't feel G-d's presence now. It's just different. I don't know... was I in a state of bliss before? I don't think so. But it felt like an elevated state. Now, it is no less an extraordinary state because it doesn't feel ordinary, just indescribable...unexpected...unknown. Unformed.

I distressed over my lack of practice and connection for months even though both occur, unevenly, in fits and starts. It's been a hard year, very hard, but I hung in there. That is different; even though G-d was slaying me I remained faithful so maybe that's something. After all, I chose this covenant.

Last month in prayer, feeling the connective lack, I suddenly realised that there was more to my life than prayer. There was still ritual. There were the mitzvot, large and small, unannounced, throughout my days...and suddenly I grasped the big picture, felt a little more connected. I'd become so focused on what wasn't going right that I lost sight of the whole, and what was going right in the midst of my distress.

I can't tell if I am being too hard on myself. I have no idea if I am on a path or not. I don't know if I am just dumb or slow or missing the point or everything is as it should be. I just don't recognise this experience as anything but frustrating and yet, I have no true idea of what is.

Limning that question are unexpected moments of ultimate compassion for creatures and events, an absence of judgment, as if seeing through G-d's eyes. Another fringe of moments when the world is alive with personality, a tree, a flower, even a cloud...transformed. There are moments where everything shifts and I see and experience differently...moments of G-d, just not in the way I am used to.

And the miracles continue, of healing, of things getting better or, once in a while, of going my way (diamond rare), of the inflow and outflow of kindnesses and friendship...of seeing miracles for others as well.

This all must create something, must weave some wondrous cloth I am too blind to really see.

I feel guilty.

I feel like I'm doing something wrong

Approaching prayer is just boring. And I feel guilty for that as well

I don't know what to do.

My inner life sucks.

...Doesn't it?

The Duckless Summer

2008-08-18T11:42:00.000-07:00

© Barefoot Jewess

The usual duck models were not available for this photo shoot.

Dog Days
© Barefoot Jewess

The dogs were happy to oblige.

Reporting on G-d II: Tisha B'Av, Mourning Ground Zero

2008-08-07T15:24:00.000-07:00

Though he slay me, yet will I trust in Him (Job 13:15)

Him? "Him"?

No, there is no "him". I don't remotely believe or experience G-d to be separate from me- G-d suffuses everything. Everything is G-d. The pain, the blood, the joy, the delight. There is no question in my mind.

As for Job, who can stand here and say their story is akin to his? That notion is rather daunting and humbling. Perhaps it's just that we can relate. We may not be so extravagantly prosperous, but maybe we've known extravagant happiness and blessing and suddenly it is all snatched away, in ways we never imagined. Job's story is related so compassionately.

In that tale, the Satan, G-d's familiar, is directed to afflict the soul in whom G-d has tremendous confidence. We see Job as a man who mindlessly clings to ritual and doing all the right things that he thinks have brought him the great rewards of prosperity. Well, I am not sure how many of us can relate to that part. In fact, I think it is G-d's confidence in Job's core soul that allows Him to risk such material and emotional devastation on Job's life, even though Job simplistically believes right acts lead to reward.

It turns out that shaking a fist at G-d and standing his ground is Job's real style, his core nature and soul. In the face of everything, he finally declares: Though he slay me, yet will I trust in Him. Or, "yet will I argue with Him".

I've observed G-d for quite some time, now. And rarely really reported on the phenomenon. I read Psalms and discover a pattern: that the Psalmists are always experiencing G-d and/or trying to get back to G-d and the experience. I discover another pattern in Shaharit, the morning service, that addresses an awesome encounter, a description of that encounter, and the desire to remain within that experience; and having had that encounter, to live in hope of it and of G-d's grace and favour, to be suffused with that supernal light which is hoped for, wished for, craved, longed for, and which you can't buy, bargain for or will. It's all about returning to G-d. Over and over again.

Sometimes, I feel as if I'm on a treadmill. The "getting back to G-d" treadmill. Crap happens. I turn to G-d. Crap happens again and I turn to G-d. Even when I think I'm being faithful, doing the right things, crap happens and I'm back to square one. Or lately, back to ground zero. I have to ask myself at some point, is this that damned Buddhist wheel of suffering? Am I not getting it? Am I not understanding?

And then Tisha B'Av comes along. I remember, once, reading Eicha, The Book of Lamentations, and fasting, all by my lonesome and being struck by the thought of there being no G-d, no cosmic meaning in my life. As I've mentioned before, the realisation filled me with utter terror, as if I were torn away...violently rent from the source of Everything.

Ask me if I am not relieved to have Tisha B'Av descend upon us this Saturday night? I may feel as if I'm on a treadmill, but it somehow brings relief, becomes a touchstone. I have so much to howl at this year, and Lamentations is as ground zero as you can get. I will grasp at any holy verses that capture the essence of our tender, vertiginous lives and the nightmares that petrify our dreams. They are as real as all the hope and glory, and they are as much sanctified.

No one can answer why bad things happen to good (or innocuous) people. Any answers I have ever read have always created a limited god, a god of our projection, a god of our personal understanding, touted as the god. No. There is only mystery, and perhaps a spark of great unfathomable love, if we are lucky. A love that encompasses the good and the bad, because, in the end, it is all good.

Feh. In my raging pain it remains cold comfort; I want my friend back as she was, I want some shred of remembered happiness with no cruel unabiding centre.

Still, Though he slay me, yet will I trust in Him (Job 13:15)

Go figure.

Not Fade Away

2008-08-05T20:48:00.000-07:00

This blog has always been about the spiritual/religious journey. It has been about discovery. Sometimes it's about Jews, sometimes it's about my life which I deem not my own but belonging to G-d. The latter has never been a choice for me, it just happened.

My best friend, L, the love of my life, yes, the love of my life even though some man in my life should be my bashert, has Multiple Sclerosis. It's been ten years since we met, and 5 years since she was diagnosed. She is the only family I have.

Her symptoms are not so physical, contrary to what most people experience or know. Her fatigue has grown over time but she lost 10 IQ points when she was assessed 5 years ago. yet her brightness remains unabated. She has difficulty with her memory, difficulty with tiredness, difficulty with initiating anything. Lately, in my experience, she has difficulty with empathy and seems indifferent to the latest symptoms. She has changed, not for the better.

Where does this leave me in my journey? I'm losing the one person with whom I was actually happy. It's not like she died. She's just fading away. Which is far worse than death.

Where does this leave me in my journey? I don't ask this because it's just about me, but more so, it leaves me confused. As to what do I do? How do I manage this, in a divine sense, when she shows indifference? And why, G-d, why, did you fashion the person I love into someone who is fading away from me?

I've had ten years of true love. I am so grateful. But I'm mourning.

Meanwhile, life continues. It just does.

And I don't know how to approach G-d on this. Since G-d came through, my life has taken an ostensible turn for the worst- aloneness, poverty, humiliation, betrayal, deprivation. I have imagined my life so differently, if I had only chosen safety and security. Material benefits have sucked, no matter what.

Since that seminal moment, life continues to be a challenge and not of my choosing. I am astounded by how endlessly rotten it can be. And yet blessings of an untagged sort, do pour in. Go figure.

I want G-d to make my best friend okay, or at the very least, come back to me, yet I know it will never happen. But I keep praying for her healing. Because it's what Jews do- live in hope. And because even though my encounters with G-d these days are not a happy happening, even though my spiritual life seems arid and wasted, so dry I want to spit, I tussle with the Big Guy, asking questions, demanding answers. I want to know that in the midst of all of this crap, divine love rains down. That, even in the midst of my anguish, the questions and love never fade away.

Baruch Dayan Emet, Again

2008-05-11T11:11:00.000-07:00

Where are you going, my little one?

H died last week by his own hand. He jumped into the path of a fast moving train. He was 19. Sweet, gentle, kind, heartful H.

Mangled body parts were strewn everywhere, some hundreds of feet away.

Blood covered the tracks and platform and stairway. People had to walk past the blood.

A body part hit someone standing 10 feet from him. I had no idea trains did so much damage. I thought that they would just smack you and throw you elsewhere, but he went under....

A lot of people saw it, felt it; a lot of people were traumatised.

I can't imagine what the family is going through. L and I spent warm and lively Shabbat dinners with him and his family where we always felt welcomed, wanted and cherished, by not only the adults, but by him and his siblings. That they have a whole Jewish community supporting them is a testament to their passionate commitment to Judaism and the Jewish community- a purely golden thread in the communal cloth. So, this is good.

Baruch Dayan Emet....even though he took his own life....there is a Plan, yes.

Many hundreds at his memorial service.

Several hundred at the Hillel service.

And yet, he's dead, just like LARabbi™ z"l. There was not a single person either felt that he could talk to. I think that the fact that LARabbi™ was his rabbi, too, and an influence, is not coincidental.

Students at his college are talking about his being "picked on", bullied all year, which makes me so angry. The whole thing makes me angry; unlike Rabbi, who had much life and experience under his belt, H was a child, with few learned coping skills. He was also small, nerdish, had an adenoidal voice- things that would make him a target for bullies. But in an ocean of students, how did they find him? And perhaps, that is only part of the story.

Why did he mine so inside himself that there was no way to ask for help? Why do they never seem to ask for help?

It doesn't get any better: 1 suicide, 2 suicides. A bullet list. You might get used to death, but never to suicide. It's a special kind of tearing that is permanent. It rends the fabric of the world and that trauma and horror lives with you forever. And the grief...of so much possibility lost, an entire universe.

I can't help but muse, having entertained thoughts of suicide most of my life (though not for several years now, since I discovered a good therapist, and a contemplative Jewish practice), why did I never take that final step? How were they different from me?

Watching H growing up, he reminded me of myself- highly intelligent, sensitive and yet emotionally fragile- my "excitable boy". He was a young man of deep feeling, and passion, and conviction. Idealistic. He was kind and gentle, all qualities dismissed or derogated by our society, but which are worth their weight in divine diamonds.

Yet unlike me at that age, he wasn't so self-absorbed, or seemed withdrawn, or moody. Perhaps it would have helped if he could have gotten in touch with that side of himself, sorted out the darker side , seen it. And I can't help but wonder if religion can kill, sometimes, when you're a young idealist... to try to live up to an image that isn't balanced with an acknowledgment and acceptance of your human frailties. In one so young, that balance is not expected. It would have helped if he had had someone to talk to, where he felt safe, secure.

Perhaps perhaps perhaps. With suicide there is only "perhaps", only supposition. You never find an answer, you never find closure, it can never become integrated into the fabric of your life and made into whole cloth.

I read the official eulogies for him and I'm not impressed. It was all about achievement and how he eagerly drove himself, whether it was academically, religiously, politically, or as a human being, to be successful. In the midst of this rush, where was H? What happened to H? He truly was blessed with great gifts, and given the climate of super-achievement, he was, indeed, a hurried child.

In the only place where he rested and where it mattered, I remember him with a heart too big for this world. And so, it need be broken.

I can't believe I am pronouncing this again, under similar circumstances: Good night, sweet prince. And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. You were too good for this world. And that's the truth.

I Got Over The Jews

2008-04-09T22:51:00.000-07:00

Update: April 30/08

My blog seems so depressing. Bad stuff always seems to happen to me and it kinda makes me look like a loser. Still, I consider this all a spiritual challenge and journey, so take it for what you will.

I did get that job, with Israelis, with fellow Jews. Last week. Who were humane, unlike my previous employers. I serendipitously got Shabbat off. They even told me yesterday what a rare gem I was as an employee. And then told me I was losing my job. They are closing the store. They've been looking for a buyer for several months. They did not tell me that in the interview, and now want to spin it as if they crunched numbers only this weekend and came to that decision. They refuse to acknowledge that they should have told me upfront in the interview (which is what I stated). I got played. Because of the timeline, and the state of my savings, I find myself on the precipice of welfare again.

This is the extent of their awareness: one owner told me that, yeah, it was not great for me, but he was sure I understood that is was far worse for them. I kept my mouth shut. He's been harping on that, trying to garner sympathy, actually, trying to relieve his guilt (how pathetic that the fact that he has the decency to feel guilty elevates him in my books). I know he would be argumentative trying to justify their bad judgment. But inside, I'm going, yeah, it's so hard for you, you took a risk and you have no head for business and dabbled, and you lost but you still have a job as a prof at the university, a home and family, while you just deprived me of my livelihood. Yet, I cannot say this.

This is my first close up encounter with secular Israelis in the diaspora. I have seen their liveliness and warmth when Israeli buds hang out in the shop. They know I'm a Jew. It's clear that they feel no such connection with fellow Jews. None. Thanks to the fundamentalist freaks that overshadow Israel for that. It is so sad.

I'm still in shock. Working out my week, and working out the clearance sale because I need the bucks. Wondering what G-d's purpose was in throwing me into this. Said owner is afraid that I will hold a grudge. I don't, though I am still pissed. Actually, I feel kinda sad when I am not feeling sorry for myself. Sad that they are so disconnected from their Jewishness, and sad that they don't get how their actions affect me; sad that they are, indeed, strangers in a strange land. It's like G-d wants to teach me the lesson of compassion through poverty. I just want to say, enough already!

But I also feel the love of fellow Jews. A huge shout out and scads of gratitude to eliyahu, to Shira, for leaving such support. To Norman who keeps me going in a rare email (after all, he's a hermit :)). To the stranger (DM) who left a tip in my tipjar. I never realised how much you all keep me going and assuage my rather painful and disappointing encounters with other Jews.

It will be interesting to see what happens next.

April 9/08

Hey, it's been a while.

I had to quit my job (not unhappily) cleaning houses, because of allergies and "hyperreactive airways". I haven't applied for unemployment insurance because I've become skittish of any government "program". I'm not saying it's bad, just that it's an ordeal to jump through the hoops. Been there, done that.

I have a lot to say about my latest wrangling and understanding of G-d, but given my ongoing financial situation, that telling hasn't been uppermost in my mind.

I went for a job interview today, thanks to the job counsellor at Jewish Family Services. No big deal, except for me the big deal is that they were Israelis. I mentioned JFS in my cover letter. With names like Ronit and Noa and Rafi, they were kinda self-evident. I imagined that they were secular. I was not wrong.

I think I've been sucked in by tales of Jews who help other Jews. Today I got over that. Where I live....one Jew helping another...well, you never know. I got over the Jews. In the sense, that, you keep trying, but you just never know. Community? My %&#.

Even so, I long endlessly for it. For the faith.

The Toilet and G-d and Miracles

2007-12-14T09:12:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I'm alive and kicking. With bells and pomegranates on. And cleaning toilets. And feeling like I'm living through a miracle. Since I began cleaning houses I have often felt semi-comatose from exhaustion, so I have not been able to find the energy to write. Frankly, the stories about the Rabbis of the Talmud labouring all day and then studying Torah all night reek of the stuff of legend!

I have a gem of an apartment thanks to Jewish Family Services. And to G-d. It has given me much needed peace, and healing. Meanwhile, the holiday season is upon us. There is so much more for me to say but suffice it now to quote my words at Matzah and Marinara, on what it's like to be a convert and to experience Christmas:

I am a total sucker for Handel’s Messiah and have no problem with it. I do, however, have problems with other Xmas music. I love How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and think that we Jews are the Whos. It gets confusing.

I love Xmas trees. I miss them terribly. I love looking at them. But I do prefer Hanukkah lights to Xmas lights. Yet, I looooove Xmas lights!

Sigh.

I loved being in Israel around Xmas time. I didn’t miss anything remotely Christmassy. It was such a relief. Only Israel will save me, I suppose :).

And here is something I wrote a couple of days ago:

Miracles Freak Me Out

(Well, at least they don't creep me out. Unlike my experience yesterday, cleaning a defunct crack house in the richest part of town; where the carpet in one bedroom was replaced and the windows had been open for a week due to a decaying body. I was cleaning sprays of blood from needles from the walls of the bathrooms.

so

I won't go on....).

I am living in my little gem of an apartment thanks to the efforts on my behalf of Jewish Family Services. I am cleaning houses for an agency, which is why I haven't posted: exhaustion rules my days and paralyses my mind, right now. I am, however, very fit. JFS also found me a bed, and a bit of furniture. Damn, JFS and all those who think of me, make me proud to be a Jew. In fact, I said that very same thing for the JFS newsletter, using my real name cause I am so proud. And also so amazed to connect with living Torah, which means JFS and you.

So in this season of remembering miracles, I want to say that I feel that I am still living through a miracle, of which you have been no small part. And my most profound miracle, I think, has been my best friend, L, who sent, as always, 8 little gifts. And finally reminded me that I no longer need mourn old, pitch black memories at this time of year.

So, here's to miracles. They are real. As G-d is real.

Amein.

Pikuach Nefesh, Sukkot, Shelter & Home

2007-09-25T16:48:00.000-07:00

To all who have shown such kindness to me and kept me going and in reality, along with my friends, kept me alive. I know that pikuach nefesh traditionally refers to violating commandments to save a life. Still, it also means saving a life, and you have saved my life.

Thanks to Jewish Family Services here I am in the midst of moving to my own apartment (with no furniture, but they are searching). I am on welfare, but I start a job for a housecleaning agency on October 8th. I may not have internet for a while. I have a lot to say.

Meantime, I want you to know that when I am settled, and with internet, I would like to thank each one of you personally. Whether it was words or money, you have kept me alive and going. Seriously. Amazing how even a little bit helps enormously!

You have made me proud to be a Jew, and proud that I joined the tribe. You have been the light that balances an almost overwhelming darkness. You truly are where G-d is, G-d acts, and G-d speaks. I know it sounds over the top, but if only you could see it from my perspective, at ground zero.

I want to mention the serendipity and beauty of my move to my own home. Perhaps Providence? Sukkot, the Feast of Booths, is my favourite festival. It is also a marker of a beginning, when I left everything behind and went to LA and the first services I attended were on Sukkot at the shul where I met LARabbi™ z"l and where I chose to make my home.

Sukkot is also a remembrance of my conversation 4 years later with LARabbi™ z"l while the Chatsworth fires were raging; he talked about the "end of days" (I do obsess at this time of year).

I found home with Judaism. With Torah. With Jews (even when you make me crazy). Shelter is very fragile, as I can attest. And don't think that any of you are immune. But as with all sukkot, where the rules dictate you must construct them so that one can see the sky and the stars, I can attest to the fact that I have been blessed by you and my close friends who kept me sheltered with word and money, and who kept the roof open; and I have been blessed by Jewish agencies, though not by my shul community (where the rabbi hasn't called for a month since the original cry for help). I hope, finally, that soon I will have no need of tzedakah.

Thanks to you all, to your small and large gestures from kindness and compassion and justice, I am able to see the sky and stars. Still.

Soul Accounting and My Rav, LARabbi™ Z"L

2007-09-12T10:39:00.000-07:00

What a downer for the High Holy Days, huh?

Or maybe a reminder.

My last memories of my rav z"l are on the High Holy Days. At that time the California fires were burning so close you could see them on the horizon. Day and night. Helicopters, looking like mosquitoes, filled with water rather than with blood, disturbed the heavens. I mentioned the fires to him, and he replied, "It's the end of days." I said, "You're kidding, right? It's so Christian." He said, "No, I'm not; it is the end of days". 3 weeks later, he was gone.

This man, this erudite rabbi, had a family, had friends, had many worshippers- people who adored him. Had immense compassion, ongoing humour, kindness, concern, genius intellect, a love of words and fresh ideas, etc. etc. He was there for you. He was almost too good to be true. What makes a human being like that check out?

I don't know.

But his legacy is this: I know personally the devastation that he left in his wake. I know how his absence affects the practical aspects of my life (like references and aliyah). I know how he left behind many others just like me. I know that we never know what effect we may have on someone in the future, in those windows that we can't even begin to see through or fathom.

It rather irks me that I am accountable for the future; that maybe somewhere at one point, my being here matters for someone. Unless you are completely self-absorbed, just the notion that one matters, in the future, aborts all ideas about annihilation.
To me, it's even better than the threat of fire heck and Sheol. Or whatever people have fantasised about as punishment.

During this time of Elul, we are doing a soul accounting; well, I haven't really, because I'm just trying to save my life. Nevertheless, the wonder and vexation of the future is that you never know whom you may encounter that is touched by you, affected, or influenced. It is easy to shun most responsibilities in life, or even take on the more conventional ones with pride and feel good and say, "that's enough".

But who lives their lives for the sake of the future? Knowing that you may matter at the proper moment. That without you, a lot of things couldn't happen. Not out of pride, but out of responsibility. Out of command.

I know what happened with the removal of my rav's presence. His being had such power that it messed with the axis of the world. Scary, really, that kind of butterfly effect. Most of us never have that kind of impact. But then, you never know, do you?

If you feel remotely responsible for your behaviour and what happens to others... you just never know the magnitude of your being, here.

Poverty and Shiva and Curses

2007-09-06T16:26:00.000-07:00

The thought occurs: talking with or to a person who is on the verge of bankruptcy and homelessness is like talking to the loved one of a dead person. Both are sitting shiva, only the shiva of a poor person seems to have no end, in terms of losses. Often it is best to sit by their side and hold their hand and remain silent and follow their lead when they do speak.

Becoming poor, I realise, is very much about loss, and the financial aspect merely the tip of the iceberg, the surface of things. Just imagine the losses, if you are able. Most people inhabit the world in which loss is concrete, in terms of love, in terms of death, in terms of fripperies. There are social and/or religious rituals for all.

But, what is the ritual and protocol for the descent into, and being in, poverty? I finally met with my therapist today and it is clear she didn't grasp that I was sitting shiva, though I can't blame her because it was all about feeling overwhelmed and disorganised with all the things I need to do, and all the bureaucracy; no time even for tapping into the chasm of forlornness that pervades it all. Still, I hope people understand that those who lose financially are losing so much more and there is so much bereavement, beyond any feeling of shame or humiliation or anything you can imagine.

I never imagined my blog would turn in this direction. But it has. It's like living in a completely different world from others. It's like moving through this world on a different frequency, with such different needs from the needs and hungers of the general populace. Often, your world is reduced to the penny on the street. Yet, somehow, I don't begrudge others their prosperity (ok, except for the venal types, and a curse be upon them).

Speaking of curses; I was studying Ki Tavo last week, and here is what was written (edited for pertinence):

But if you do not obey the Lord your God to observe faithfully all His commandments and laws which I enjoin upon you this day, all these curses shall come upon you and take effect: The Lord will let loose against you calamity, panic, and frustration in all the enterprises you undertake .... The Lord will make pestilence cling to you... The Lord will strike you with madness... and dismay ... you shall not prosper in your ventures, but shall be constantly abused and robbed, with none to give help.....If you build a house, you shall not live in it. If you plant a vineyard, you shall not harvest it. ... A people you do not know shall eat up the produce of your soil and all your gains; you shall be abused and downtrodden continually ... The stranger in your midst shall rise above you higher and higher, while you sink lower and lower: he shall be your creditor, but you shall not be his; he shall be the head and you the tail.
All these curses shall befall you; ... Because you would not serve the Lord your God in joy and gladness over the abundance of everything, you shall have to serve — in hunger and thirst, naked and lacking everything — the enemies whom the Lord will let loose against you. He will put an iron yoke upon your neck until He has wiped you out.

Source

If anyone got this far in their reading, know that when I read it, I wondered, wow, sounds like I am cursed, because I sure have experienced the above. And if I am cursed, I don't get it. I just don't get it. Like, is it karma? Because my sociopathic landlady is prospering while leaving me and the wreckage of any secure life I had in her wake.

This is a total conundrum to me. If I am cursed, if this, my life now, is a curse, then what? What in heaven's name would it take not to be cursed?

While I sit shiva, I have had friends. Including those who come here or in email and leave comments and hold my hand. And listen to me. There is no greater kindness, or greater Jews. Thank you. I imagine, overall, I have been blessed way more than I have been cursed. At least I would like to think so.

Elul-ul-ul-ul-ul

2007-09-04T05:47:00.000-07:00

As I was writing this response in comments below it made me realise how different life and people are from what we have been led in Judaism, to believe. In Judaism and tradition, there is the legend of cause and effect. For example, you ask for help, and the community comes through for you. You are in distress, and some Jew cares. You are poor, and someone will try to elevate you from your poverty.

But the part that I find so striking is the idea that there is someone who will take a personal interest in you. You read it in midrashim and in anecdotes, and also very much in Hasidic literature, which many non-Hasidic rabbis and communities are ready to adopt and promulgate in a piecemeal kinda way. You know, that feel good idea that we are all in this together, a "holy community" and that the Jewish obligation is to look out for one another? Yeah. Sure.

The reality is so different. Everyone is busy. People plead busyness- that's their excuse. Even rabbis have to prepare for the High Holy Days with their exhortations for what, I am not sure. Probably because their livelihood depends on it? I know there is always a plea for money. Usually for the building fund or the mortgage and other expenses. I understand the pressure. But it doesn't justify their focus. For several weeks all other concerns get swept away. Cease to exist. And yes, I am talking about the urgency of what is happening to me. At this time of year, Elul, increasing tzedakah, seems to mean that the poor and the needy, are expected to be the most generous. in their understanding, of a general indifference while the machers do their thing. I am not one of them.

Is there no one clear-eyed, clear-hearted, and brave, left? To be fair there is always a reaching out to the disaffected, but unless you are a charismatic orator, all I can say is I admire the "dull" ones their perseverance. Because the "disaffected" are the most likely to bring lunch on Yom Kippur. The truly disaffected have been long gone from the shul.

And there is Project Isaiah, providing food for the poor; doesn't it feel great to supply kosher food to the faceless kin? Because, G-d forbid that you should notice a poor Jew right in your face who might take you out of your happy, shiny people comfort zone. G-d forbid that you might be inconvenienced at some time to deal with the intimate tsuris of a "needy" Jew.

It makes me wonder, if nowadays, the Judaism promulgated is a fantasy, not the squirmy reality. Talk among yourselves.

Meanwhile I want to mention with gratitude, the mensches in my life, who perhaps even put lie to what I wrote above. I know I have missed some, but this is all I can manage for now- I hope to repair the omissions. If Judaism is Jews, then the following make Judaism look like a viable faith alternative; but more importantly it shows to me that the "captive G-d" of Heschel's nightmares is a lie. G-d is ALIVE and FREE. And the following have kept or set G-d free.

To the following commenters, all strangers to me:

joey,
I know that people can't often give money. Still, your soulful support and understanding mean more to me than you can ever guess; I have learned that not everything is measured in money- sometimes words are such a treasure (as is money :).

anonymous,
I wish I were in NY. I did not know that having any legal power exists for people like me because you are right- I don't have a lease and have no rights whatsoever. Man, I wish I lived there! Thank you so much for your concern. I can't say often enough what that means to me, because it can be so isolating, this experience, and thinking you can depend on the Jewish community can be one of the most devastatingly disappointing experiences imaginable. I won't go on....

Sk,
Thank you for your solid and unimpeachable words. I so agree with you. Your words are a treasure. Pure gold.

Sefardi,
You touch my heart and you understand things and emotions that make me crazy too and the sheer nuttiness of the disparity between the ideal and the reality. You have a gimlet eyed (and disillusioned) view that I share.Wow.

I can't email you because you share no public address. Help!

Lioness,
Well, I think you are my poetic soulmate. You GET it. Not that others don't but you get it on the level of feelings and the glory of words.

To all, especially those I have missed right now:

I am so amazed and touched that this loving handful get it in so many ways!

I also especially want to thank my anonymous, constant and faithful angel who has helped keep me going for a couple of years now; who always sends words of blessing and hope to me. You GET it, too.

I don't know what to say. None of life and Judaism and Jews has turned out anything like I expected. Hmmmm, maybe there's a great post in that, someday :).

To be poor is to suffer. To encounter the face of G-d in kind and generous people who have no reason to love me, have never met me? This is no romantic fantasy. This is the real deal. And it so eases my suffering. And gives so much hope. Beyond choosing life or death. Because when you see others choose such Life, to choose blessing and not curse, to live it and share it, to offer you Life (without the needy having to beg first), it shames you into wanting to be just like them.

And one other thought- there would be no beggars if everyone became an offerer, not a giver, but an offerer.

Reporting On G-d

2007-08-29T09:08:00.000-07:00

There is nothing in the world more grievous than poverty—the most terrible of sufferings. Our teachers said: If all afflictions in the world were assembled on one side of the scale and poverty on the other, poverty would outweigh them all. Exodus Rabbah, Mishpatim 31:14

I'm on my way to Jewish Family Services (where they have been nice) but I had this notion.

Yesterday I applied for welfare. Was it demeaning? Yes. But surprisingly no more demeaning than trying to get through US customs. I'm single, female, with a dodgy record regarding money, and of course, I will fall for the first terrorist that pays me heed or makes me swoon. Yah. I am that dumb and desperate.

Back to now. You would think that emunah, i.e., faith in G-d, would be a real challenge. For me, who is looking at homelessness, still, it's not even a question. I have experienced G-d's miracle, the one that let's you see G-d's glory everywhere, seen the delights of G-d's world. G-d exists, is real, so emunah is not really a question for me. It's a done deal.

As for trust in G-d. Well, that's up in the air and that is what this experiment is all about. Here I am, on the verge of declaring bankruptcy, and being homeless. So, the question is, does G-d actually have a "mighty hand"? Is He the champion of our prayers? Does He swashbuckle his way through history when He so chooses?

I have been mollified and comforted with the words of people who speak about miracles. That- actually, wildly and desperately, gives me hope. But in the meantime....

Let's just wait and see. Will report back.

Some Religious Jews and Their Bullshit

2007-08-14T20:22:00.000-07:00

Oh, the great god Judaism. Excuse me for a clear eyed view of some.

This is what I wrote to the local rabbi who knows me and whose shul I attended and still volunteer from, and we worked together recently for Habitat for Humanity, (though I am not sure my rav z'l, LARabbi™, I am sad to say, would have done any better).

I emailed this, this morning:

Dear Rabbi,

This is hard to write. For the past few years I have been living below the poverty line. Through resourcefulness, some jobs and the help of my friends I have managed to make it this far. I have not been able to find a decent job and/or one that gives me a living wage.
Currently, I just took a job at a deli (not a lot of hours yet) starting today; I balked at going to welfare, though I managed to get as far as the bus stop. The job at the deli may not work out because he wants someone long term, and I cannot stay there permanently where I have to live hand to mouth.

As it stands now, I have a little over $100 in the bank. I have no means for paying rent or bills for the coming weeks (the rent situation I cannot discuss with (my landlady)- would rather die- let's just say I would never have stayed here if I had had the means to get out, and as far as she's concerned I have "no rights as a tenant"), cannot afford medicine and am considering the food bank. I have been living off my friends' tzedakah for the last couple of months [and I might add, an amazing angel from the web]. I have been job hunting for 3 months with no results. My last interview, last week, was for housecleaning. Though they said I was a "strong candidate", I did not get the job. I am beside myself now- if I can't even get a cleaning job, what are my chances in this world????

I am in dire need of help. As you can imagine, this is a terrible, humiliating state to find oneself in. I never imagined it would happen to me.

I hope to hear from you soon.

I phoned him this morning to point out my email, according to his direction. He left a voice mail while I was working and this is what he said:

I can only give you a couple of hundred dollars. I suggest the Jewish loan society; or Jewish social services.

Please phone me and tell me what I can do for you.

Freaking hellooooooooo?

A bunch of them are buggering off to an island to "meditate and contemplate" for 3 days this weekend. I need a decent job and I need money to keep me off the streets. What the freaking hell do you not get???????

Judaism is about community? Well, I suppose it is. Just not mine. Heschel talks about "G-d held captive". Well, maybe so, maybe not. It does not help or comfort me. And I am pretty pissed at the idea of G-d held captive. Oh, he has little power. Well, then , to take up the slack, if you are not helping the poor, then what the frig kind of Jew are you???????

You think it's all even, you think that claiming you have no resources is justifiable? You think because I am not a schnorrer then I am less valid, because I don't play that role? You think when I humble myself and ask for help that there is more that I could possibly strip from myself to convince you of my plight and desperation? Do you think I should stand on a bridge and threaten to jump off to get your attention?

My G-d, if Judaism is not about helping the poor, the orphan, the widow, the stranger, then I don't know what the frig this religion is about????? That is what I signed up for. Oh yeah, I forgot- it's about the threat of intermarriage, the laxity of ritual and mitzvot, the philosophy of G-d's presence in the world, the problem of finding a nice Jewish mate, the ideal of community (what a lie) and communal unity, and the rough certainty of bigotry, tribalism and triumphalism.

Such complacency.

I had argued once that Judaism is Jews. I stand by that even more now. In my experience, that Judaism has often sucked. My pious heroes, I know, if they had the means , would rescue me. But unfortunately, they don't have the means. Instead I hear a rabbi preaching about the love of G-d, to soothe you and comfort you. You will find him on the lush island, he will come to you, in meditation and contemplation. He will make you feel good and help you not ignore others. We are all one. He just doesn't have any money or means to keep you from starving and off the streets.

PS. If I do end up without shelter, I will lobby in front of the shul (which is, by the way, in the richest town of this country) with a cardboard sign and shame them all.

Update 08/15: My landlady decided, with "difficulty" to increase my rent for an 8x10 room, with no bathroom privacy (her door connects to the toilet) from 450 to 550. One hundred dollars in increase. I shall be leaving, but in what way, I don't know yet.

My job? He lied. He hedged his bets. I am "in training" for 8 dollars (minimum wage) an hour. I am not working, now. He's waiting for the summer kids to leave. He can't even promise me 40 hours in the future. It was all vague, you understand.

6 Degrees of Ekev

2007-08-04T21:30:00.000-07:00

This story involves a sociopath, who was a true heel. Weirdly enough, this psycho was the catalyst for my discovery of Judaism. Fittingly enough, his name was Kevin. I have been fascinated by Ekev ever since.

I looked up translations on the net for the first words of this parsha. This is what I found: Ekev means because; Ekev means if; V’hayah Ekev means if only; Ekev means in the wake of; Ekev means as a result of; Ekev means if you do.

What speaks to me though is while Ekev here means only, in other parts of the Torah it means heel; and where it is presumed that the word Ekev literally means heel, "on the heel of certain behavior good things will happen".

I remember Jacob grabbing the heel of his twin, Esau, when they were coming into this world. Commentators say that Jacob did it so that he could be firstborn and claim the birthright. Well, he got it later, but with much deception for which he paid a high price.

You know, Esau was Jacob's twin and I love him for it. He got royally screwed later on, and I felt for him. Okay, he was not the brightest of bulbs, but he loved his father and his father loved him and though the reasons seem less than high minded, why should that matter? Jacob later paid dearly to fulfill his G-d-given destiny. Don't we all.

In the parsha, Moses recounts the Israelites' testing. But what stands out for me is the fact that being chosen has nothing to do with your virtue. Nothing to do with your high mindedness. It has to do with the fact that G-d cannot stand, it seems, the wickedness of others which seems greater than anything darkly potential in your soul because you are covenanted with G-d. And, G-d cannot stand, the wickedness done to you which must be so much darker than anything you are capable of, because you are bound to G-d. So, G-d clears a way.

The ex-slaves of Mitzrayim (Egypt) suffered privation, and were hip to a rainstorm of abundance. And also were more than scared that it would all disappear, in the blink of an eye. Who is this G-d, they ask themselves. I give those ex-slaves credit for asking the question. Ekev- if you do, if only , because, in the wake of, as a result of, on the heel of.

Well, of course it is my question too.

I remember Kevin because maybe he was my bashert twin, the dark side of the coin. He showed me the glory of Judaism but from his side, it was all a lie in the end. Talk about deception. He wasn't Jewish, and he was a pathological liar and a con artist who left an enormous amount of damage in his wake wherever he alighted. But he sent me Kaddish, which opened up worlds for me. He was a heel of the first order, a heel I grabbed onto at first. But "good things happened".

Speaking of "heels" and my barefoot status (do I have a foot fetish that I don't know about?). I found wisdom here:

It is very easy for us to do all the big mitzvos while we insulate ourselves completely from showing gratitude, love and feeling the pain of the stranger. To this the Torah says take off your shoes. The heel is one of the most sensitive parts of our body. Take off your shoes and feel where you came from, your surroundings and where you are going.

The Mitzvah of Eikev is to exercise our sensitivity and keep our feelings healthy. Try to imagine what it feels like to be hungry and then feed the poor. Imagine what it feels like to be alone, and then make a shiduch. Think about what it would feel like to be disabled and than go visit the sick. Eikev Tishmiun, if you can listen and feel, than G-d too will feel our pain "veshamar habris vehachesed shenishba liavosecha." (My experience is that G-d is moved, but that may not translate into all goodness, and kindness and mercy.)

Before Moshe approached the holy ground he took off his shoes. Before the Kohein walks into the Holy of Holies he takes off his shoes. On Yom Kippur and Tisha B'Av we take off our shoes. Before we walk into marriage, parenting or a life of mitzvos we too must take off our shoes and then be blessed with the blessings of the Torah "I will Love you, multiply your offspring and sustain you forever".

Well, as of this writing, I am skeptical about promises, yet live in hope of blessing. And I do understand the necessity of being stripped bare when approaching G-d. And maybe G-d does clear a path at some critical juncture, in the wake of unrelieved wickedness. Because.

Ragtag Shabbat

2007-07-29T02:17:00.000-07:00

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

2007-07-22T14:26:00.000-07:00

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.

Ground Zero

2007-04-19T11:32:00.000-07:00

Woke up this morning feeling not too bad. I don't know why I am feeling not too bad. The storms of Passover are now over, thank god. Emotionally, it was a devastating time- so many old memories erupting through my endless and ongoing disappointment in my communal Jewish life.

I would like to think I am feeling not too bad because I have gone back to tallit and tefillin and morning prayer.

I finally made this decision: to pare down my religious life to essentials, to things that I know work for me and add to my life, not things that distress me and make me feel worse than before. Case in point: I am not good at kashrut; to me it means deprivation. I am hard on myself there. I guess I will never be that ideal kind of Jew. I just can't do it.

I omit pork, and mostly don't eat meat and milk together, and largely refrain from shellfish. But I don't think I have gotten very far. I need to drop this notion of my ideal Jew cause it just makes me feel like crap. I don't mind some discipline but for me it turns into utter misery that I think must be emotionally tied to something else, not to mention that it simply intensifies an already difficult life.

What I am good at, and love, is formal prayer. I feel connected then; often it gives me joy. I feel like G-d cares. It is pure. It places me in the realm of the divine, and that remembrance seems to suffuse my day. I've gone back into prayer with a new curiosity, and tossed out all preconceived notions about what prayer is about. I've discovered that I don't know what prayer is about, so I'm just letting it happen and going with it. How's that for ambiguity?

I no longer know what prayer is about because I've given up listening to everyone or to any authority about the meaning of my life (being seduced by authority is a failing of mine). A lot of people who put out a lot of ideas over a lot of millenia about what G-d is about, and about what a relationship with G-d is about, often think they know what G-d wants from, not only them, but from everyone. That was my mistake-- falling into the pit of shoulds, leaping into the maw of musts, surrendering blindly to the regime of god pictures, images of god that people have over the centuries promulgated as the god.

In the end, I realise, they are all false gods. Someone else's thought. I take seriously that wisdom from I Chronicles 16: for all the gods of popular imaginings are mere idols; and from Psalm 146: Trust not in human benefactors, in mortal beings who have no power to help. Their spirit leaves, they go back to the ground, on that day, all their thoughts are lost.

I chose Judaism for a myriad of complex reasons; but the simplest reason of all is that I was born with a Jewish soul, and by formalising that Jewishness, I have come home. It was bashert.
There has not been a moment that I have ever doubted it.

I've now wrestled through several stages of naiveté, thinking that everyone would act the ideal, thinking that community for a Jew is anywhere there are Jews, thinking that Judaism, the most perfect of systems of thought, makes observant Jews perfect.

And yet, like every system of thought I've encountered in my life, it all turns out to be just someone's opinion. And every system of regulations guarantees that there's someone who knows what's best for you, better than you know yourself, elevates itself to the level of dogma; find me a religion that doesn't. Judaism is no exception. To go one step further, much of this dogma is embedded in a religious Jewish culture so deftly that even mere artifacts of Jewish community and society become accepted on the level of Jewish law.

I've discovered that as much as I have wanted to painfully belong in doing things "right", I can't do dogma. There is something inherently unhealthy about a life of stricture and a whole bunch of people to tell you how you're failing; people who seem to know the desires of G-d even better than Moses did. People who have some image of god that they are sure is the one true god. And I'm not talking about some simple person out there who had a god experience, but learned authors, sages, all sorts of authorities.

Maybe I'm getting the message all wrong. Maybe I don't get it. But I have yet to read a disclaimer in any religious book that this is simply the author's opinion and that your experience of the divine or god or the ineffable may be entirely different, whatever your religious path and home (not "spiritual", but religious). I expect that's why explanations in theodicy are never really satisfying, except perhaps to the author.

Aspects of G-d- I think that's all there is. And I possess a rich tradition to choose from, to follow, to wrestle with; without that foundation, without doing it and experiencing it, how could I ever have questioned it? Somewhere, I think I got it all wrong, because some of the things that make Judaism great, and bring greatness, simply don't apply to me.

There is no place for me in the Jewish community at the present time; I'm still wrestling with poverty and have had to deal with more than my share of monsters and joblessness; I'm still worried about my next rent payment; I have been unable to make any Jewish friends here, but surprisingly a born again Christian friend who looks out for me; I have not found a felicitous Jewish circle even when serving at the homeless shelter, yet have found felicity at a housewarming full of Christians- go figure.

And it isn't as if I haven't tried; until this moment, this blog has been all about "wading through a sea of Torah and Jews", with trying to find community, a place and minyan with whom to daven, to learn with the learned, to no avail. I am single, "mature", female, bereft of family, and poor, and that puts you out of the mainstream of even Jewish community. To add insult to injury, Judaism stresses family and community, so I think it's all rather ironic, although there are some days it just makes me feel like crap.

I'm a fringe Jew, and it makes me wonder how, still, after millenia, the "problem" of fringe Jews never seems to change, how human energy always goes into maintaining the status quo. One would hope that that is one of the purposes of religion, to include everyone. Isn't that what all that talk in the Torah is about? Love the stranger, care for the orphan and the widow in a personal manner and not just as a charity case? Maybe that's just my idealism talking.

I'm not saying it's all bad, or disappointing....there have been Jews who live Torah who have kept me going on so many levels-- who exemplify what it means to be humanly holy-- I know I'm on the right track, when I encounter these souls....they shine, so.

But this is my life now. This is where I am. And I understand, much better now, the way of the world. I finally understand tradition's place, for me. So, I divest myself of the thought cloaks of others and am going exploring. Because for me, the one truth that comes to me over and over again is that there is nothing but G-d. And I want to meet that god.

Mission Statement

2007-02-12T11:25:00.000-08:00

When awards arise, when my blog is mentioned, it falls into the category of "personal blog". Oh, no! It is so much more than that! Every entry revolves around Judaism. If I had wanted to write a personal blog, it would be so very different. This is not a personal accounting by someone who happens to be a Jewess, purely cultural stuff. This is an accounting of my life as it relates to G-d, to Judaism, and to religious experience.

In my opinion, a "religious blog" is not necessarily just about religious ideas; it is also about religious experience- the personal is the religious.

My life and days are organized and defined by the Jewish calendar, and Torah, and Conservative halacha; imperfectly, I admit, but still my ruling and organising force. How much more religious can it get? Cause I don't talk kosher, or Shabbat/halachic stringencies? Things I consider none of anyone's business?

This blog is a paean. To G-d. To Judaism. To my life as a Jew.

Necromancy Romance

2007-02-12T10:22:00.000-08:00

I have a friend who sees and hears dead people. I am well aware of the interdiction in the Torah regarding mediums, and all forms of magic and prophecy-- avoid! It took me a long time to understand that the Torah was not debunking supernatural phenomena, but simply, telling us to stay away. And I wish I had.

My rav z"l died by suicide over a year ago. I come back into a world, my former shul, that is still torn apart, even more so, to the point of emptiness and darkness. Dramatic, I know, but true, nonetheless. The nature of his death has left everyone reeling, without compass, and of course, the vultures rush in to fill the space; not nasty, grasping, obvious vultures, but the ones that seduce and fill the hole, whether by authority, complacency, or smoke and mirrors. Take the vulnerable, and you can do anything with them, as the messianics have shown.

There have been people who have contacted mediums, because the trauma is so great, and the need for answers a driving, hungry, relentless force. The idea of dead people hanging out on this plane creeps me out, just as any notion of talking to the dead creeps me out, because...Why? Because I have a notion of life beyond the grave and that notion is as idealistic as the torch I carry for Judaism. Better to believe what tradition alludes to- that once dead you get 11 months of soul searching and then you move on.

So, it freaks me out when my granny shows up in my friend's eyes after 14 years, and her urgent message saves me from something psychologically terrible. My friend, who is terribly burdened by a gift which she largely keeps to herself. My friend, who ends up corroborating that my rav is still hanging around, confused and concerned. Not around me, alas, but around others who desperately need him, still.

And it seems to me, that the earthly plane continues in some grey land of souls, in an alternative and corresponding plane, where the dead need to work out their stuff. And there is no shining light of awakening, remorse, and moving on. Yeesh. I want to know that souls move on! Though others may be comforted, I am not.

My accidental foray into this shadow world makes me grateful for the Torah interdiction. I would like to think that G-d is not so unkind, that G-d shows us the way once we are dead. That life after death is not another ordeal or another trial that leaves us hooked to this planet, and material and emotional life. Honestly, it's so unimaginative! So, deadening.

The upshot of what I've learned that I must do, is that while my rav continues to be embroiled in earthly matters, all we can do is pray, and that other than that, nothing but "a higher power", in my friend's words, can release him. Well, I am praying double time, just in case, but I am pissed.

In the end, the Torah is my comfort on so many levels. More so, every day.

Blessed Light

2006-12-20T20:53:00.000-08:00

I've come home after almost 10 hours at work with rotten, abusive, self-absorbed, entitled customers, and a rotten, deceptive, gimlet-eyed management, for all their "appreciation" (do they think I am that stupid?). The word that comes to mind for all of this is, "ugly". While I love beauty. So many customers and others sure take the "Christ" out of "Christmas". I'm working 11 hours tomorrow, and the following day. 6 days this week. I won't do more.

I turn on the tv to the local PBS station, and I see menorahs on stage and hear Jewish music and I'm crying. Lately, I've taken to wearing a "chai", but tomorrow I will up the ante and wear my Magen David. The holiday shopping just offends me and pisses me off; I don't see the value in the proliferation of electric lights (which I love to see) , either, except for a real desire for meaning. This year, the lights took on an obscene tint, when all around, others had electricity, which meant heat and light (and showers) during freezing temperatures, and our block did not.

I plan on volunteering at the homeless shelter this Sunday, depending on my schedule. At this point, I will do it. My note of tentativeness to the Social Action chair got me a cheery note saying, "Oh, don't worry. We have enough people". Well, just stick needles in my eyes and stab me in the heart. I need to do this! I need to feel like a Jew! To do Jewish things! I want to do something with Jews, and do something that I love to do, for a change. It's rather sad, that I cannot do what comes naturally.

It's all just plain weird. For me, this is Sheol.

Two years ago, I sojourned in Israel with my Rav z"l, and synagogue familiars (oh, I am so grateful, now!). No Christmas lights, no holiday music, no frantic shopping (except for the tourists, oy! OK, I was one!) Largely, the rhythm of marvelous, vivid, Life. Jewish Life (see Israel Reflections on the sidebar). I remember Zion; may my right hand wither if I ever forget, etc. I'm sitting and crying by the rivers of Babylon.

I am so grateful to all those who comment in such touchingly supportive ways. It helps me know that there are Jews out there (as well as non-Jews, including my best friend), with me, and that is the greatest light that I could ask for. It keeps me going. Thank you. You are the true miracle and blessing.

PS. I don't feel like a victim. I feel rather frustrated, and I have a terrible longing, and that's it. I hope that comes across.

Festival of Darkness

2006-12-17T19:54:00.000-08:00

Hannukah is when I decided to leave my marriage.

Hannukah is when it is darkest.

This year, Hannukah has meant no electricity, sleeping in below freezing temps, while the temp in the room is 51 F. Oh yeah, it's fun coming home from a brutal day of work dealing with soulless, entitled, crybabies, to fingers numbing into frost bite, when you wake up and discover somehow they escaped the down shelter of the comforter.

Yeah, I am not impressed by Hannukah.

Moreover, it was created/instituted by the Sages, not inherent to the Torah, a minor holiday. And it's not even clear what that victory was about- because later, as I understand it, the revolt of the Maccabbees set off a terrible moral and religious decline. Ya never know. I guess the miracle of the oil wasn't enough.

Or perhaps, it was only meant for the moment, that celebration, that triumph, but like everything, like every other event in life, it happens and passes, and then who knows what might happen subsequently. So, for the moment, let's enjoy the miracle and the light. Cause that's all we've got.

May the darkness be dispelled, and may we ever walk in light, and know the age of miracles.

Factor Y and X(tian)

2006-11-20T14:32:00.000-08:00

Y is my co-worker in retail. Right now, it's only him and me holding down the fort, without the luxury of at least 2 others to spell and support us. Which means we face good fortune and misfortune together, suffer the slings and arrows of the most well-shod but ill-bred, mean-spirited customers this side of the Rockies, and generally need to depend on each other, or kill each other. We are looking at some nasty behaviour in the time to come, the holiday (aka, "Christmas") season. Only Y and me.

"Y" is a born again Christian, I guess. He is a Baptist. He was an alcoholic who was saved. Sixteen years ago. Y has his quirks, but he's mature, responsible and caring and unabashed about his being saved.

How do we help each other through these extremely trying retail times? It sounds funny, to talk about the largest part of our lives spent serving others, "trying". As if retail weren't a bitch? It can be fun, but fun isn't enough; nor is the drama that attaches to it, the fires needed to be put out, all the while with a smile. I have never met so many unhappy, vicious, soulless people in my life, in one of the richest cities in the country; they aren't having a bad day, they are having a bad century, and they want to share it with you.

As much as you want to sympathise with customers, at some point you are sympathising with crybabies, people from 20 to 80; now that is a challenge. I really just want to write them off, but I was instilled with manners, and Judaism taught me not to shame people in public. Yeesh. I want to be Machiavelli laced with Dorothy Parker. I took a fun test once and and my dark side evoked Darth Vader, not Han Solo, or Princess Leia or Luke Skywalker. Yeah. I want to be Darth Vader. On some level, I am Darth Vader. Get out of my way or I'll bring you down. Kill you.

It bugs me that I can't do it. Blame it on G-d. Or some sensibility that cuts me off at the mouth. Not that I'm even remotely quick off the mark, but I would be so willing to learn at the feet of a master mouth. I would make an art of it and a life's work. But then, maybe I would not survive and die a drunk in some literary salon, like Dorothy Parker.

Instead, I've got "Y". We offer an old-fashioned service in a ratrace world. When those worlds clash, the rats try to crush everyone in their path, which means, us. Y got so angry at the talkback, that he took his break and kicked an entire container of floor cleaner all over the back room, the lid being loose. He felt better but I didn't, though I could totally sympathise with having to deal with whining, abusive 60 year olds.

I told him it gets me distressed, when someone is that violent. He went home and came back the next morning with the insight that he was afraid of losing his job. The guy is a total gem, and the best at what he does, I told him so, and emphasised that right now we have leverage cause if we go, that store goes down. But more so I told him about the past couple of years, of living below poverty level, of fearing that I'd end up on welfare, or on the street, and somehow making it to this point, nevertheless. I am no longer afraid, I certainly am not afraid of losing my job. I have been blessed by angels, from online, and from the non-virtual world, loving friends, who kept me going. Frankly, welfare doesn't seem that scary to me, either. I have been with the homeless and discovered that there is not that much difference between them and me. Whether I am rich or poor.

But most of all, Y and I have G-d in common; he talks about G-d more than Jesus. Do I perceive G-d's hand in everything that happens to me? Oh, yeah. And I told him so. Sometimes those are the only words that one needs to hear, from another who's been through a lot, to raise themselves up back beyond fear. I, personally, do not see Jesus saving anyone, but I keep quiet. Y has opinions about the role of men and women that I don't share. I haven't really said anything controversial yet, except to mention the times for his break. But what we do have in common is a desire for shalom, even though we may use different words for it. And we're willing to work to get there, carrying each other.

Cross Currents

2006-11-13T01:22:00.000-08:00

I have a job in retail now. Not a lot of money but enough to keep me off welfare. I am grateful. It's also something I love to do, in retail, educating, selling. I don't have to lie (I couldn't) and I don't have to dissemble (I wouldn't). The product is worthy of praise. And so I praise and sell and perhaps, bring a little bit of pleasure and connection into people's lives.

The hours are long. I have no life other than work (not my choice) and the day-to-day chores of living. Still, it's work I enjoy, though I pray for a more balanced life. A retail life means insane hours, no social whirl, and for me, no Shabbat, and rarely, anything Jewishly communal. I can't begin to say how much I envy every blogger who has the luxury to argue the minutiae of Jewish Law or mourn the state of their shul (synagogue). I'm still dreaming of obtaining my own sovereign space, where I can live a more disciplined and more expansive Jewish life.

It's funny. I had great dreams, when I became a Jew. I had amazingly vivid, real dreams as well, of the woven colours of the sanctuary, of its beauty in the desert, and the shelter of that beauty, when I walked into that tent. I had dreams of Israel, of one day living there, rather like the ending of the film, "Damaged", in some exotic place, but with a happy ending.

I had dreams of community.

Funny. Those dreams did not come true.

When I started this blog, I was so involved in "Wading Through a Sea of Torah and Jews". I did wade, and it was a hard slog, reading so much vitriol from another stream of Judaism, being shocked and appalled, and feeling like I was fighting the tide and yet still trying to surf it, to understand. And I have come to the understanding that there are different worlds within Judaism, and clearly, never the twain shall meet. Well, bummer. There goes part of the weft.

But in the long run, I find it just doesn't make that much difference to the life I lead. If Judaism is about community, then I have found very little, here. That is not to say that anyone or anything is at fault, as much it seems that yes, my shul is rather lacking in kindness for the single and alone, and yes, in order to live, I must work on Shabbat and against the Jewish calendar.

So, where does that fit into the Jewish way of life?

Because this is my Jewish life: hastening for the bus and saying the Shema on the way. Sitting on the bus at other times and reading morning prayers. Being too tired after Shabbat to read Torah, yet thinking of reading Torah, sometimes longing to read it. Recognising with every Shabbat that I am not observing Shabbat except for lighting candles and sometimes, not writing (for myself). Once in a while, coming home after sundown on Shabbat, I sing "Shalom Aleichem", and imagine angels accompanying me on my way. I have not bowed to the Sabbath Queen for over a year.

Rest? So, not spiritual, these days. Last month I missed cooking, with my shul companions, for the homeless, because I was working, and I think about it. All of these things, among so many others, I find selfish. I miss them. I long for them. I want them back. I want my very Jewish life back.

Instead, every day is a struggle to practise Jewishly. Not to stay Jewish, which is a foregone conclusion, but to do what Jews do- not only ethically, but ritually, and in my most desperate dreams, communally.

Today, a day off from work, I travelled to a bookstore, just to find a lot of silliness about Kaballah, and very little relevant about Judaism. Actually, I discovered a book on Buddhist wisdom that spoke to me, while I was looking for a pocket Torah.

I find that secular life, in this particular place, especially, demands my time for coin. My creative life has become a pish-tush. I am indoctrinated by people at the top to believe that the company is worthy of devotion and yet I don't buy it and I don't think so. They flatter and they invite me to believe. I realise that the words of those devoted to the company and its glorious leader are empty words, meaningless, and it just makes me feel sad. Neither can I subscribe.

In the midst of all these currents that cross, which is the one for me?

I have come to this conclusion: that where I am is where I am. For some reason, this is it. I used to have this fantasy that having been "chosen", that that meant special things for me- like a copacetic Jewish community and an opportunity for me to practise Judaism in a big way. I was so wrong.

I don't recall now, what it is exactly that G-d promised me. And now I think, perhaps, not even a place where I would not be alone as a Jew. I feel kind of like a Christian, where it's just me and G-d. Maybe it's my fault. Maybe it's due to my choices. Maybe it's something else.

I used to think that it was so weird that G-d would lead me to Him, that He would point the way to Judaism, that that way would be wickedly difficult, and then, afterwards, the way would continue to be fraught with challenges so simplistic compared to the erudite yet totally irrelevant (to me) debates I read on blog pages.
Now, I can't help but mourn the life I hoped for. And yet, here I am with the little I have, with something. Perhaps that is all I have. Perhaps, for me, that is all that there is. I don't know anymore.

Yet, it seems surprisingly great. And, as if, there is a road less travelled, and never talked about, or perhaps, rarely known, in Judaism.

Sometimes, when clearly, according to Jewish standards, I have little, I feel like I have it all. I just don't get it.

Letter to My Rav: Between Two Worlds

2006-09-30T22:52:00.000-07:00

(A month before his yarzheit.)

Dearest Rabbi,

I have so many words and so many tears, and neither wants to come- to show itself so I would know that I am mourning you. Instead, I get stomach aches and I sleep so very little and I go around feeling down and depressed when all I want to do is wail, if I remembered that it was you that I wail about.

Why can't I remember that it is you? Why can I not bring it to the forefront? Why does it linger in the shadows like an ill-willed ghost, taunting me instead of making its face known, even though I don't know what that face looks like? I think, though, that I am terribly afraid of it- after the numbness and the anger and the tears, where have I really gotten?

I remember all too vividly the things you said and the things you did before you died- the things I wished I'd seen and the things I wish I could change- but most of all- I WANT TO BRING YOU BACK- to haul you up from your grave and put you back among the living where you belong. If my heart were strong enough and big enough, I would will you back; I still want to will you back, and that's what is so painful, what cannot be faced.

Acceptance? What is that? Today I do not accept- I accept nothing. I do not accept that you are gone- will not- I cannot- I don't know why. I am alternately furious and helpless and speechless and forlorn, but nothing will bring you back. I don't even know why I want it so badly.

Perhaps because this life is your rightful place, not death. You, more than others, were life and brought life with you, and healing- everyone, except yourself. See, I still can't find the words to express what I really feel, what I really want to say.

I feel like I'm in this great, not unpleasant abyss- not unpleasant because I don't know I'm there- free falling, and yet I am close to the edge and might clamber my way out, and yet, I can't do it. I try and I try. But you are with me there, in that great black hole, and I can't drag you out of it, no matter what I do. So I stay with you- I'm crazy- better to be with you, I guess, than totally without you.

Rabbi, why did you do it? What could be so dire? Why why why? Why did you leave us all alone while you struggled to live and to die? Why did you leave us all out? See, these are not the right questions, either.

Can I tell you I loved you? Can I tell you how much you meant to me? Can I tell you what you gave me?

But then I think, what did I give you- it all seems so one-sided. If I had died, you would have gone on well without me. But I, well, it's hard, cause you were like a father to me and I can't tell you how much I bless you for that!!!!! To know true love at last, a father's love, and kindness and understanding, and to have someone there for me, someone who never let me down- who was everything I could of dream of as a father and a human being. No, you weren't perfect, but you were loving- such treasure. And I guess what I feel, most of all, is that I have lost treasure so great, so irreplaceable- I was so lucky and blessed to know you- I don't have the words.

My love screams in that abyss as well as the loss- if I could only shout you out.

Iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou...... that's all I know.

Remembering LARabbi™

2006-09-30T22:40:00.000-07:00

A month before his yarzheit (anniversary of death).

I'm carrying this giant load- one I do not know I have- but my guts know.

I carry this around speechless, with no words to even begin to describe a kind of soundless scream that reverberates deep inside of me.

Rabbi is dead yet I remember him as if he were alive, and here, in the next room, or a phone call away- all his goodness, all his graciousness is mixed up with the horror of these Days of Awe last year. The burning fires, I remember the burning fires in the Chatsworth Hills, so close by we could see them, and I remember him standing beside me, talking about "the end of days". That will always be burned in memory, seared for as long as I live, and the fact that I can't turn back the clock and do things differently.

The Days of Awe- always the happiest, and most profound holy days for me, and deepest ordinary days- they will have the added tenor of days of, not only triumph and repentance and joy, but days of horror, the days of death that go with the Book of Life- where some are written in, and others stay outside of it.

I wish I knew what to say to you, Rabbi, but I haven't any words. I just have that silent scream inside me that seems to go on forever. I look at your photo, and the radiance and extreme goodness that shines from your smile, and I don't know where it all went wrong- except perhaps that we mistook you for an angel, when you were only blessedly human.

Well, you were an angel to me who never knew many angels in life, and never one so radiant. Who made me laugh and made Judaism fun, and bright, and shining. You were also my father, the one I never had, who cared and was solicitous and went way out of his way to look out for me; someone who also took great pleasure in my triumphs and little victories, and who could see me as people only dream to be seen.

Somewhere inside, where you can't see, my mourning wears me out, and turns me old and withered... my life seems blighted, dimmed...

I sit here, trying to find words to say what cannot be spoken- no more than Isaac could speak on the altar, no more than you could speak on the day of judgment.

I will never understand why G-d brought such an incandescent soul into the world, only to stand by and watch it burn out.

Out of Step Jew and the War

2006-08-16T18:38:00.000-07:00

You must read Out of Step Jew for an insider's thoughtful and provocative views on Israel and the war. Oosj is a man willing to ask "improper questions". For those in need of a reality check.

Duck Days Redux

2006-08-09T08:49:00.000-07:00

Duck Semaphore

© Barefoot Jewess

The Chicago Way

2006-07-21T17:32:00.000-07:00

Malone: You said you wanted to get Capone. Do you really wanna get him? You see what I'm saying is, what are you prepared to do?

Ness: Anything and everything in my power.

Malone: And *then* what are you prepared to do? If you open the can on these worms you must be prepared to go all the way because they're not gonna give up the fight until one of you is dead.

Ness: How do you do it then?

Malone: You wanna know how you do it? Here's how: they pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way, and that's how you get Capone! Now do you want to do that? Are you ready to do that?

From the movie, The Untouchables

Am Yisrael Chai!

Beggared Lunacy and Shabbat

2006-07-03T09:54:00.000-07:00

I am a wallower. Indeed, I am. I freely admit it.

I am not sure what a recent response to my poverty post, "don't marry trouble", means. That's right up there with "Think good, and it will be good". I am sure this helped the millions who waited with hope in the Shoah. Why do I bring up the Shoah with seeming irreverence, with seeming bitterness? Because I think of it every time I think of my situation. Poverty and its attendant marginalisation challenges all the Jewish truisms, clichés, sayings, and lore we've absorbed- thoughts and attitudes by which we lifted ourselves up in life through difficult non-material times.

I thought of the Shoah when I asked myself "why me?". I found the answer in the Shoah, "why not me?". I no longer ask that question. Perhaps the Shoah is G-d's answer to Job, writ large and real- final and unambiguous; maybe we had to be hit over the head with a sledgehammer to finally understand. There is no explanation that we can fathom.

'Specialness' to G-d somehow loses its meaning. 'Chosen'. I don't think so, when 'special' and 'chosen' signify good things. Still, if not special, at least, 'chosen'. Yes. Absolutely. The covenant stands. It's indissoluble. Through poverty, through degradation, through loss and death. I don't think I have 'married trouble'; I 'married' G-d. The covenant stands.

Will this, too, pass? I don't know. Will my fortunes rise? I don't know. This is not an existential crisis. This is reality- of statistics, facts, life predictors. Do miracles happen? Yes. But often, they don't. I am not that special, even though I pray for release every single day. G-d did not release the Hebrew slaves from Egypt for 400 years; how long is 400 years in my time?

In the 9 weeks that I lived and worked like a beast, from Tuesday through Saturday, I observed that I became more mean-spirited. I became more impatient with everyone and everything. It was a kind of delirium, where I wondered whether the world was demented, or was it just me? I was caught up in a whirlwind, but did not know it was a whirlwind.

I did not have Shabbat.

I had turned down a well-paying part-time job a couple of years ago, when I was still solvent, because it necessitated working through Shabbat- I would miss Shabbat. And the thought of that? It was as if someone had ripped my insides out. The thought staggered me, left me terrified.

Circumstances changed, and if I did not take this job, which sounded like Paradise, I would be applying for welfare, a fate worse than death (largely because of how they treat you). I would have to sacrifice Shabbat and I knew I would be the loser. I just didn't know how much.

My Shabbats usually involve davenning (praying), contemplation, reading Torah and commentaries and just generally kicking back and absorbing the day. I rarely go to shul because it is too far and takes too much time for very little return, community-wise. But I anticipate my Shabbat like a lover anticipating the return of their beloved. It is everything to me. I like to wallow in its glow.

When I keep Shabbat, I know what to do, what decisions to make- I remember my past and look to the future. And often, words of the Torah leap out at me, or the commentary speaks to me and sheds light on my troubles. The Torah reaches out to me and embraces me, seeps into my very bones and marrow, and the world rights itself once again and I am restored to sanity.

I kept this past Shabbat. I davenned, I contemplated, I read the Torah and commentaries. Order emerged from chaos- the hours and minutes and seconds fell into pleasant lines. Shalem, wholeness. I wallowed in it. While the demented world out there, somewhere, circled upon its axes. The shredded mantle of poverty fell away- I was rich.

How bitter poverty makes one! How harsh. And yet, we often expect the religious poor to live a life of transcendence, to count their "blessings' in an attempt at uplift, to be generous in the midst of gnawing deprivation. We would rather see their piety than their poverty. As if religion could cure all that ails us. As if blood can be squeezed from a stone. We forget that there is a time and a place for beauty and truth and preaching, and a time to listen to need and want; that bitterness is also very much a part of the human condition and not readily transcended when your poverty runs deep. Just ask Job, or G-d, and then, ask them about Job's friends.

In studying JTS commentary on last week's parsha, Korach, I happened upon the following:

By the third century of the Common Era, with rabbinic leadership in ascendancy in Roman Palestine, Rabbi Yohanan, who led the academies in Sepphoris and Tiberias for decades, sharpened the qualifications necessary for religious leadership. He claimed to derive from the fragmented profile of Moses in the Torah that God would single out individuals for prophecy only if they possessed strength, wisdom, wealth, and humility (BT Nedarim 38a).

For the prerequisite of personal wealth, which I find most interesting, Rabbi Yohanan cites the verse in our parashah that states Moses never had the need to avail himself of anything that belonged to an Israelite, even for reimbursement. That is, Moses was rich and self-sufficient. In other words: To guard against greed and venality in public office, religious or otherwise, requires that the candidate be without want. Poverty is a condition that can subvert piety. Schorsch Commentary

Poverty is a condition that can subvert piety. I suppose there are all sorts of poverty, that are not material in nature. Still, one must feed the body in order to feed the soul. You would think that is self-evident, but clearly we forget. Sometimes, I think that Christian charities understand this more viscerally, places like the Salvation Army, for example. Perhaps it feels more 'religious' because Christian charity is not as ethnocentric as Jewish charity can be. Even though tzedakah means 'justice' to the Jew, how is it anything but religious in nature, and yet we don't really think about how poverty interferes with piety, with a Jew's soul. But I digress.

That same day I happened upon an unfinished draft upon the subject of my Rav z"l, LARabbi™, whom I miss terribly:
Do the Right Thing

At LARabbi's ™ funeral, Wednesday, Rabbi Ed Feinstein mentioned 2 characteristics of my rav, that aimed so true. One was this: yes, the world was corrupt, but even so, it is important for a Jew to play by the (Jewish) rules. No matter what. I remember many a time, when I, as a needy congregant, poured out my disappointment, and in return, he kept me on the straight and narrow. He turned me towards what mattered, without ever literally invoking Torah of any sort. He showed me where I could find strength - besides minyan, it was always in doing the right (Jewish) thing.

I don't really ever remember my rabbi preaching in a personal session. Yet in the moment, he would steer me where I could find refuge- in doing mitzvot, in being a mensch in the midst of those who were not, in davenning at minyan, and he never, ever indicted or fashioned apologetics for the others, or the otherness- he always suggested to me what I might do and there was never a focus on the other. Truly. This is what I remember.

The second characteristic: ....

Well, I left myself hanging because I don't remember the second thing. Perhaps it is not that important. What is important is that in working to survive, I had lost time, and in losing time, I had lost Shabbat, and in losing Shabbat, I had lost myself, the real me in G-d's eyes. In losing my rav, I've been impoverished beyond words.

Lack of poverty, wealth, lets you wallow. Buys you time. Buys you space. Buys you sanity. Buys you dignity. Buys you Shabbat.

Please G-d, let me and every poor Jew wallow once again. Very soon. In our time. Amen.

Poverty and Boaz & Smug Jews

2006-06-27T00:08:00.000-07:00

I am poor. I just quit my job because my boss was a demeaning, belittling, haranguing, nit-picking bully, and I ended up in the hospital, exhausted and dehydrated; I've been referred to a stress clinic. It was a brutish life. The setting was a garden centre, looking like a sumptuous Gan Eden, where I slaved under a makeshift greenhouse, in extremes of temperature, with half the manpower we needed, led by a viper who hates women and manages by confusion, degradation and intimidation. This meant 8 hours with no breaks. No lunch time, no nothing, eating on the run. Physical and mental stress did me in. I know what the Hebrew slaves in Egypt were up against. I would have died 40 days down the road, my body worth more as fodder for the bricks than alive.

But I was poor before. I was and continue to be one of the working poor. Working poor are people who barely make enough to live on, get no benefits, and live hand to mouth. When you're labouring to live, you find yourself too exhausted and emotionally numb to blog, or even to think, and your life becomes like the beasts in the field- groan and toil, eat and fall unconscious, and forget.

I have mused and marvelled, more than once, how our Sages could hold down a full time job of labouring, and then contribute all that light and fire to the Talmud. It's either a mystery looking to be solved, the answer to the universe, a guide to 7 easy ways to do sagacious work while digging ditches, or a miracle. But I'm feeling a tad skeptical that they did it all and did it so well all by their little, humble, wise, and learned selves. That they just came in from a hard day's smithying or cesspool cleaning and tidied up, grabbed a bite, and hurried to the great halls of learning to burn the midnight oil. And that's only if they were single. What about those fruitful and multiplying families? What about the wife?

Very few people with Jblogs know what it means to be really poor, grindingly poor, even though you have a job, and to be counting every cent, all the while knowing that this poverty may never end- that the future holds more of the same, and that "upward mobility" began sliding downhill when you got divorced and older, with distant friends, and no immediate family.

When you are poor people treat you as if you are stupid. As if your brains fell out of the holes in your pockets. No matter how learned or educated or wise you are. They treat you as if you can't possibly know much, or have an opinion that matters. They treat you like a project, or a mission, but they rarely ask you what it is you need or know or have to say or what your story is. They treat you like you have no taste, no refinement, no discernment. They treat you every which way but humanly. Wraiths possess more substance in fairy tales than the poor. People assume things about you because you have no money, and it's never anything other than embarrassing; history, remembrance, cease to exist for the poor. To be poor is to be powerless. To be poor is to have your experience, your life, and your person denied, diminished and dismissed. Yes, Virginia, amidst so much abundance, life can be that harsh- and privation is a reality, especially in the way others deprive you of your dignity, although you may very well be feeling damn fine about it!

I volunteer at a homeless shelter every couple of months- we cook loads of food and then serve it. I love doing it because it means I can commune with everyone- I'm in the zone and it's all flow. I'm also attracted to cooking vessels of extravagant proportions. I notice lately that we have a lot more in common, the homeless and I, than little. It is a privilege, not a chore, doing this small thing, for I love to cook and I love to connect and since I have no money and no home to set a table, to buy and cook food and to invite guests, this is, in retrospect, my Shabbat table. My granny actually cooked for an army, and now I do it, too.

Last time, we were "requested" by email, not to serve, because a mom and her 'on-the-cusp-of bar mitzvah' kid would be taking on the duties.

I was angry. Then I was sad. I love to serve. How come fly-by-night mom gets to dictate how things go down? I'm a selfish git about that, but that's why I'm there. And does anyone understand the meaning of a mitzvah? As long as there is any distance between you and the other, as long as you create differences and lines and boundaries and fantasies for yourself, then all you are doing is engineering something utilitarian in servitude to another thing that may look, smell, feel, even taste like a mitzvah, but, as an event, what is it, really? The homeless become tools. The mitzvah becomes form, not substance- one of those damned k'lippot, a broken vessel, an empty shell. What's so sacred about that?

You know that whole thing about "Adonai echad"? The Lord is One? How ideally, we should meditate on it, turn it round and round? I recite the Shema almost every day (and it's about all I'm doing these days), and I rarely dwell on it as I'm running for the bus, but I always wonder about it. And yet, sometimes it hits me, as it did with that meddling mom and her "get her son some volunteer experience knowing what it's like to serve the homeless project and he can put it on his resume and also he is going to be bar mitzvah and that looks good too but of course he has to own it, so everyone else, get out of the way, cause this is a serious project for her and sonny boy- this 'serving the homeless' thang". In one fell swoop she made it something else- not a mitzvah, but a "performance". Not human beings, but "projects". Not communal.

Instead of the kid merging with us, being one of us, just hanging out with us, another hand helping and working and sharing with our merry little band, she set him apart, off by himself with her, doing their little bit, seriously- oh the gravity of it! Later, the kid stood alone with mom, and faced "the homeless". So much for learning anything about I-Thou, so much for learning to experience (v the performance of) the mitzvot. MItzvah as achievement. As performance art. As a pencilled check on someone's score sheet. MItzvah without fun. Without lightness of heart, lightness of being. Don't we all need to unload that weight, when doing a mitzvah? Isn't that part of it? Isn't a mitzvah about elevation? Of everything and all?

If truth be told, for all her earnestness, there was no way to "serve" the line of people all by themselves, so chaos ensued, and then order, and then we were eating bits of cauliflower souffle, and breaded chicken and roast potatoes, and sharing brown sugar and honey-sweet baked apple, and before you knew it, the kid had melted into the crowd, no longer "different". What he took away from it, though, I fear to think. It was nothing. Except a sense of achievement, or relief. It all just makes me weep.

Here's the true test for every Jew that crows about their religion and its greatness and specialness and touts its supremacy and its "truth" and the superiority of mitzvot through elaborate and ingenious "proofs": how do you treat the poor person? How close have you come to a poor person? Do you think they have something to say? That they have wisdom? Would you hug them? Would you ask for their advice? Can you even look them in the eye?

When the Torah speaks of loving the stranger, the orphan, the widow....who is the Boaz among us, who invites the poor to glean in their fields and then marries them? That's the true test of what it means to be a Jew. Until it happens I will not be terribly convinced of the piety of most pious and proud Jews with their smug and largely frivolous content of what passes for true Judaism on blogs these days. Poverty humbles one, and concentrates the mind, fiercely. The truth of religion becomes very simple, indeed.

Continued: Beggared Lunacy & Shabbat

Addenda

1. On a personal note, I grew up on and around the poverty line in New York (depending on the month). I’m Jewish, highly educated thanks so my ability to work my way through College and now through grad-school–as have my younger brother and sister–so theoretically I’m doing great, demographics wise. But my family’s adjusted gross income is still hovering around poverty line. We ourselves don’t avail of the Met Council–we make it through the month–but just think, if we are where we are, how many other families are doing worse than us? I’d say a lot–which was so shocking about the statistic when I first got to know it.

Finally, I think it is important to say in this forum that it doesn’t matter who the poor person is–whether they’re secular like my family or Ultra-O like some of the families that for sure make up the over 100,000 Jewish poor in NYC–the problem is that poverty exists and that the main Jewish orgs aren’t finding it a priority makes me a bit queasy.

Comment #26 by Ariel Beery — 6/16/2006 @ 1:31 pm

2. It’s a constant struggle. As for my own level of observance, I am not shomer shabbos and I don’t keep kosher, but I go to (a non-Orthodox) shul and/or a shabbos meal most friday nights, and celebrate holidays (though not the way I used to). I also still learn with friends, but what’s different is that we feel comfortable syaing whatever we want and women are involved and equal participants. I hope I don’t sound too bitter here, but there are a lot of people in my position who really need help and support with basic life needs, so I just get frustrated sometimes about the $ being given to dubious cultural programs (which is not to say that there are not many meaningful ones out there, but a lot of is shallow, in my view).

Comment #32 by ffbguy — 6/18/2006 @ 11:05 am

Found at: Jewlicious. Poverty and New York Jews

Also see: Jewish Poverty

Happiness Is a Warm Alef

2006-02-26T17:17:00.000-08:00

© Barefoot Jewess

How to spend a blog hiatus when words run dry.

On Hiatus

2006-02-22T11:31:00.000-08:00

Because of a series of personal losses, and worrisome circumstances, and because I continue to search for work, this blog is on temporary hiatus. Thanks to all who have commented. Especial thanks to those who continue to be encouraging; it means a lot. I just don't have the heart for this right now, or the words.

B'shalom,

Barefoot

Word Cloud

Kaddish for Ti

2006-02-22T04:00:00.000-08:00

Our dearest, most cherished circus kitty, Ti, was put to rest

It was a good death- held close to L’s heart

Our grief is unbound

Ti owned several names- “escort kitty”, “no frills kitty”, “zen kitty”, “little Seabiscuit”, “the great hunter” and of course, "Her Majesty/The Queen".

For the first year Ti lived with someone else, and her name remains lost to time. Then L found her as a rescue in Venice, California and took her home because she was so friendly. For the first two weeks Ti was kept indoors for her own safety, and hence, briefly retained the suitably eponymous moniker of “Tiger”. Once she was let loose to roam outdoors, about the grounds of a safe interior garden of the apartment complex, she mellowed out and became forever known as Ti. That other name, her secret one, only Ti knows.

Ti was not much to look at - in that first year she must have been malnourished. She was little, had a pot belly, overlarge rib cage which made her look underfed, and bowed spindly legs; people always kept asking if she were pregnant. Her happy tail was a crooked, almost held aloft pipecleaner of fur, bent at an angle- that’s as far as she could raise it. The tip of her left ear was missing- slashed neatly across. Ti did not look like other cats, the thoroughbreds, even the mutts, and that was her singular charm.

Into the night, Ti would go, and proudly bring home praying mantises, crickets, giant, iridescent black beetles- bugs alive and kicking, or squirming, crawling, hopping, fluttering or lifeless, and straws (sometimes with the lids attached). Many an evening was spent with L screeching about wayward crickets in sinks and bathtubs and under beds, begging for their prompt removal and release. Buggy body parts were disposed of with a loud “eewww”. The straws stayed for a while, in the garbage.

She was called “escort kitty” because her greatest pleasure and duty in life was to escort people along the myriad pathways and byways of the complex. Day or night, you could depend on “escort kitty” to see you along your way. She didn’t ask for much- not even a pat on the head- just the pleasure of your company and a destination.

She was called “circus kitty” because when Barefoot came to live, Ti took great delight in jumping across Barefoot's head in the middle of the night, when she wasn't using Barefoot's stomach for a springboard. In time, Ti, the meek and unobtrusive, fashioned for herself a human doormat and 3-ring fairground, and would raise the tent high, in the last years, when Auntie Barefoot came to visit.

Ti was a “no frills kitty” at the beginning of Barefoot's sojourn in Ti's apartment. She was safe, had food and love and a place to explore; not for her the cute and woolly ways of ordinary cats. She talked very little if at all. She went about her business and industry in a solemn manner, while Mama worked. But Ti was a quick study. She wanted the screen door opened, Then she wanted in. Then she wanted out. She would gleefully announce her latest prize. Never one much for the purr thing, she learned to love skritches, to sit on chests and laps, to sleep on heads and arms and feet, and her little purrs filled the air. Ti became articulate. And ringmistress extraordinaire.

In another incarnation, Ti must have been a dog. Her favourite other past time was to go for walks. Without a leash. The three of us would saunter down the pathways, while Ti ever kept to the pavement, exploring things on the lawn and then returning. Her favourite game was to wait until we were far ahead of her, and when we turned and called her, she would dash up to us and past at the speed of light. It became a ritual- time to walk the cat. On her final day, Ti still wanted to go for a walk, but her legs didn’t.

In the last few years, Ti became known as “little Seabiscuit”. Sure, she was kinda plain, no thoroughbred, easily overlooked. No one would have guessed that behind that modest exterior, the skinny, knobby legs and little ball of a belly, what great character and heart she possessed. How she withstood the ingress and egress of various annoying ferals and kittens and strays who snatched her food and commandeered her toys, unruffled. For she was feisty to a fault when it came to her turf. At the same time, she learned to eat peacefully with them, including a possum.

In these last 2 years, when she suffered with chronic renal failure, she endured frequent tests at the vet’s, subcutaneous fluids almost every day, various nasty potions, a ton of antibiotics, raging thirst, acid stomach, and sniffles and coughs to the edge of congestive heart symptoms. And through it all, she remained mistress of all she surveyed, and she did it with little complaint. Her biggest kvetch was not getting out enough. Meanwhile, she remained a master hunter of straws.

She was the kitty of zen. Quietly accepting most things, except other cats in her home, and sub-Q fluids. She slept by her mistress’s side all of her life and forgave her for visiting Long Island and leaving her behind 3 times; she did not hold a grudge, and never reminded her.

I think that Ti was a no frills kitty because she had secrets, from her mysterious beginnings. She never did tell us what happened, and it doesn’t really matter., She got what she needed - someone to know her and to love her, and she received it with gratitude. And so, Ti blossomed into lambent beauty.

It is thanks to my best friend/sister, L, that Ti found home, a soulmate, and learned her true name(s). No one could have been a better Mama, a better companion, a better steward of G-d’s heaven on earth, than L. Ti and L were bashert. Her last moments were so fitting, resting against L’s warm, beating heart.

Have you ever heard a mockingbird improvising wildly and rapturously in the middle of the night right outside your window, from the highest branch of a blooming white bottlebrush tree? If you have not, you have not known heaven. When I remember the mockingbird’s ravishing vocabulary, I think of Ti. Who fooled us all by doing things so quietly and modestly and who slipped from this world with the same unassuming and perfect grace.

On Shabbat. On the 18th of February. Ti H. 1994-2006. May peace and bliss be granted her in the world of eternal life.

"We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth."
/
-- Henry Beston, circa 1925

False Gods

2006-01-09T14:43:00.000-08:00

Jblogs come, and Jblogs go. Some are amusing, others are thought provoking, and a few others are inspiring. A whole lot of Jblogs seem to affiliate with Orthodoxy, the "Torah true" hashkafah (point of view, philosophy), according to their authors. Sometimes they tend to be the loudest, and certainly attract like minds. Then there are the questioners and the seekers, who restlessly swarm the Jblogosphere.

Why do I read? Not to be validated, not to get warm fuzzies, but to help me know where I stand, to know what I stand for. To define my place, unlike others sure of their place. There are more like me, I find - the commentors- than the bloggers.

The people who attract me are questioners- everything is on the table- I admire and love the stark and hard won honesty. Indeed, the writers I find most compelling are those where the author and commentors have lost the "faith". I see a whole lot of engagement in the minutiae of Orthodox Judaism, for example- like Science v Torah.

In that sphere I see the likes of Dovbear whom I consider the Mozart of Jbloggers- who is loyal to Orthodox Judaism, and can argue rationally about things like the belief in G-d- that we are commanded and therefore he believes. I think of Dovbear to some extent as once removed from faith (in G-d)- he has no faith that is experiential, but there is a tradition of Tradition and that is what he cleaves to and has faith in- all that has gone before; he knows his hashkafah is honourable and fits. Dovbear has defined his place vis-à-vis Judaism- he plays on the themes and constraints and freedoms of Orthodox Judaism as his own, and, thus, is always a delight.

Then there is the incisive and honest and hungry intellect that is the Godol Hador. I relate most of all to his clear-eyed questioning of everything, where nothing is sacrosanct. He does it with love. I think he is beyond brave as well. He takes the mesorah (tradition) and turns it inside out, looking for clues. Godol Hador is like this fabulous surgeon who knows where to cut and expose the vulnerabilities needing healing. I fancy him a surgeon with a deep abiding faith in the outcome, and that is why he is The Man, as far as I am concerned.

I also hang on the words of Jewish atheists, Conservative apikorses, rebels and disillusioned ba'alei tshuva and unOrthodox Jews, all who often strike me as the ones who love Judaism and what it means to be Jewish the most intensely- the ones most invested, the ones most disappointed, the ones most burnt, who are the ones willing to express and describe their disappointments in great detail, who dedicated their hearts and souls to Judaism until it let them down, intellectually- or the people who espoused it let them down. These are the ones who possess a forceful and sensitive integrity; in a sense, having gone to the wall, they are liberated, while all the while there is a part of them that grieves for home....

Fact is, all of these bloggers (and others) love Judaism and Jews, beyond compare. And that is why I read them. And I read them for resonance- I'm like a humpback whale, making the song, listening to the echo and the reply. I listen for orientation. And what has come through, over and over again, is this question: we love Judaism, but who loves G-d?

That is the issue with Orthodox Judaism and other streams as well, for us, the rank and file. Way beyond what the gedolim (Torah greats) or "liberal" leaders think or dictate, are those pesky 13 articles of faith established in tradition as a touchstone- by the Rambam (Maimonides), one of the reasons, I could not, in all good conscience, affiliate with Orthodoxy, because I do not accept some of them as written. Similarly, I see post upon post of arguments about science v Torah- people digging through the arguments, wondering, and digging further into uncomfortable and inconvenient dark places.

It makes you think.

How many people would even bother to follow halacha (Jewish law), if the fundamentals are debunked- the universe was not created in 6 days, the Torah is more than a document to be taken literally, how much is due to myth and how much is history- did Moshe write the entire Torah as dictated by G-d? The fundamentals, too, are mesorah. It makes me wonder sometimes: is the mesorah so strong that it has become something to worship in and of itself, something to cling to blindly when you get confused or challenged?

And what about reward and punishment- are we so clear on how to interpret G-d's moves ? Is there that much certainty?

The debates and arguments in the Jblogosphere have shown me that much of faith seems to be based on keeping the myth alive- up till now, it has not really been about G-d, or faith in G-d. It has been about details and about a people. About Chazal and the prominence of Chazal's authority for some. It has been about authority and the tradition of bowing down to that authority, been about those who look past the authority to their own experiences, about those going eyeball to eyeball with "tradition" and finding it rationally, lacking- and so, they reject Judaism. But what they don't address, directly, is the crisis of faith. It is not about all-or-nothing. The main issue is faith.

It really is about G-d, which embarrasses most Jews. It really is about nothing else. It, in truth, is not about having a crisis of Jewish identity, because the mesorah ensures your ethnic identity, even if you don't believe in the soul or in G-d- many Orthoprax individuals make that clear. And so do Jews who are ethnocentric and bigoted.

It is fundamentally a crisis of faith. It is akin to saying, Judaism has let me down, because it misled me about the divinity of the Torah, and I admit that I thought that Judaism is all about Torah.

No, it isn't. I think that Judaism, like all religions, is about G-d.

And Torah is the vehicle, the "blueprint", for Jews, to find their way to, and to connect with G-d. It's that simple. Even if it was not brought down by Moshe, all by himself. It does not invalidate the thought of fellow Jews that came after him. Torah is pure genius but nothing that I am willing to worship, anymore than I am willing to place the Rabbis of the past on a pedestal, though I think that often they were divinely inspired, if that's what you want to call wisdom.

Thanks to thought provoking Jblogs, I realise that I have been privileged to connect with G-d through Judaism. Judaism is my heart and my soul. It is me. Even though I don't think that G-d created the world in 6 days, or that Moshe wrote down all of G-d's thoughts, etc. Even though I don't take the Torah literally. But I have faith, in G-d. So, not Jewish, I am finding.

Gratitude

2005-12-20T15:08:00.000-08:00

I want to specially thank all of you who took the time to leave a comment regarding my Rav's suicide. Thank you for your understanding and wisdom and compassion, though I find my expressions weak and deficient in letting you know how much you have touched me. Your words mean more to me than you can imagine, in a world filled with shame about such things. Sometimes, it seems, it is strangers rattling about the four corners of this planet who bring comfort across seas and mountains, when others closer to you, do not, or cannot.

I scan J-blogs and it feels like a wildly colourful passing parade, flags fluttering and raised high, J-blogs crunchy and bitter and sweet in their offerings. It is a parade that I feel sliding by me, because time crumples into nothingness when there is suicide, and the world takes on the texture of a playground for innocents.

Somehow, blogging about this-and-that feels like such a gift, a privilege, a pitch for life, not death. I am so envious of those whose lives go on merrily, or crankily, thoughtfully, or superficially. I long to be in that stream, but suicide leaves you half-stunned, and part dead, raging with love, and it seems impossible to write anything unless you want to start a suicide blog. And you don't know when this exceptional, unwelcome, bitter and obsessive grief will die down, when the questions will be at least partially satisfied. There is a rent in the fabric of the universe, and that's all I know, right now.

So, I am deeply grateful, close to undone by those who came forward to succor the hidden, uncelebrated, ordinary person that is me. It is so tragically true that with suicide, unless you've been there you can't even begin to grasp the cacophony of grief. May you and everyone be blessed to never know its shattering grip. May you only know love, and may it keep you whole till love and time cease to exist.

Jewess

2005-12-15T17:59:00.000-08:00

A lot of hits to this site follow the word, "Jewess". I currently came upon a site where a Jew was totally grossed out by the word, "Jewess". What can I say? It seems that he and I live on different planets.

I remember a few years ago, I had used the word "Jewess" in some email to a very popular Jewish site, and that email had been publicised. In return, I received an email from someone who was totally disgusted by my use of the word: he said, to this effect, "Don't you know how humiliating this word is, how denigrating"????

Well, uh, nooo. I was not here at the inception of its trashing.

I wrote back to him, and said that the word "Jewess" fills me with pride. It so reminds me of the word, "lioness". I always think of Jewesses as fierce, fiercely intelligent and protective just like lionesses (oh that reminds me, major props to The Lioness, a Jewess on my sidebar who is always an inspiration).

As for those who are repulsed by the term- meanwhile, I do recall from Ivanhoe, for example, a noble Jewess who sacrificed so much- so, what is your problem? Cause I am thinking it has way more to do with your identity as a Jew than mine. More to do with smearing Jews in general, a kind of self-hatred or uncertainty resulting from some sort of confusion and dependence on some evil zeitgeist that has nothing to do with our community. Cause in the end, tell me why the moniker of "Jewess" makes you gag. I'm thinking this was not a moniker promulgated by the "goyim". Cause then, are you telling me there is no grammatical feminine equivalent of "Jew" in Hebrew that we can proudly put out there?

I also do recall that a close friend, a Jewess, never used the word, "Jew", when she could use the word, "Jewish", instead.

I warn you though, I am not gonna be on your side about this. But I do wonder and I will listen. In the midst of this, did I ask a question? Yes, I did.

Ain't it just like Jews, to quibble over the details. I wonder what that means?

My Rav Z"L: All Honour To LARabbi™ and To Us

2005-12-04T18:51:00.000-08:00

So, I've been reading a lot about suicide, and I have been reading about
the "shame" and "stigma" of suicide. I now have, as so many others have, experienced the muzzled, dirty consequences of that taboo. In addition, I remember, very clearly, when Ofra Haza, a popular Israeli singer, died, someone I did not know, and all the mystery surrounding her premature death at the time; no one wanted to admit that she died from AIDS. I also remember countless newspaper obituaries, where the word "suddenly", accompanied without cause of death, could readily be deciphered as "suicide". So great and pervasive is the shame.

I suspect that shame is also what led the family of my Rav, to ask the Executive Committee not to release details of his death until after the funeral. Rumours burbled throughout, and loshon hara grew exponentially- all because suicide is so complicated an experience, and so heart achingly raw that it fills you so full of guilt and grief and confusion, that understandably, anything remotely publicised would feel like standing naked in front of the world.

I have fretted about this for weeks, about what to say, if anything, and have been caught up in the shame and the sense of mortification that everyone attached in some small way to my Rav, feels. I have heard more than one person say, this all belongs to us, and we should not air our dirty laundry. This belongs to us. And I bought into it for a while (though not faulting them).

Yes, it does belong to us. And because it does, we can share. And there is no laundry dirtier, in my opinion, than the minds of those who determine that it is best to keep it amongst ourselves, out of shame. We point to dirt when we see dirt. And I was swayed by it, wandering in a world of really cheesy crap, till I got a clue, today. Because in my little world, there is nothing dirty or shameful about suicide, especially my Rav's suicide. There is shock, devastation, anger, guilt, grief, anguish, even blame, but not shame. Because, ultimately, there is a wanting to understand, and there is love, and a desire to make the future better.

I am not willing to define my Rav by the way that he died, but by the way that he lived. And "so", Kurt Vonnegut would say, "it goes".

My Rav Z"L*: Now Cracks a Noble Heart

2005-11-25T16:02:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, grief stops all the music.

In fact, for many years now, I had stopped listening to Rachmaninoff's sonorous Vespers (Russian choral version), and then there is today, a good day for weeping. The music and voices, combined, are luminous and grave and transcendent and uplifting and spiritual- which just about describes my Rav. Funny, how it takes his death for me to actually say it out loud- "my Rav". And he was. I would call him my rebbe but he wasn't, because that seems to designate him my leader, as I understand the term, in current times. He was never designated anything. But my most beloved and cherished LARabbi™, it turns out, indeed, was my Rav.

In one of our last conversations, he was hanging out with me and L for a bit after kiddush, a rare occasion. Actually, he wanted to talk to me. After nailing the invitation for lunch in the sukkah (and Sukkot is my fave time of year), he then expressed his pleasure about my inclusion of him in my blog- he especially loved his title and my trademarking of it.....oh, it meant a lot to him; he was touched, and that fact was there on his face and in his body, beyond his words. He might as well have done the "Happy Dance". I was pleased as well as taken aback. Subsequently, he related his abortive attempt to scoop up LARabbi as his license plate moniker when he moved back to California, as well as LARav; I do recall that his previous plate read, NJRabbi. I guess there are a lesser number of vanity plates back in New Jersey.

I told him that his words are far reaching, that he was immortalised.

Funny, this last time around, he made an effort to remember my Hebrew name when I was honoured with aliyot at minyan and main services, as well as my trademark phrase- whenever asked if I would be attending a service or whatever, I would proclaim that I would be there with "bells and pomegranates on". He finally made a point of remembering.

My Rav, a rabbi whom I totally know G-d meant for me, who would never write G-d with a dash, who welcomed me and guided me through my conversion, was my spiritual guide and mentor, radiant soul, a wise and experienced voice and judge, brilliant, very learned, funny, warm, witty, nurturing and compassionate, passionate about Judaism, a fabulous father and son, the healer of an entire congregation, a community leader, an anchor for the times I felt lost, losing, grieving and adrift, and my ultimate fan, who seemed to have it all, that is, half of which I would kill to have- a loving family, friends, peers, and congregation, respect, and material things- died by suicide.

I've wrestled over this, whether to speak of it or not for quite some time. For me, it is not about shame but about protecting a family and a congregation traumatised by the manner of his death. It could also become a case of dirty laundry, a thin line. And yet, I keep thinking- it gets dirtier the more it is kept under wraps, and murkier**. The suicide of someone from the clergy, Jewish or otherwise, opens up a massive can of worms that most people do not want to deal with. Because, after all, if we cannot find purity and truth and consistency in our clergy at all times, where, indeed, can we find it?

* "zichrono liveracha", May his memory be for a blessing
** This is NOT about details!

Baruch Dayan Emet

2005-11-10T18:22:00.000-08:00

I have just learned that my most cherished and beloved LA Rabbi™, whom I believe to have been a tzaddik of the first order, who was my welcomer, my sponsor, my teacher, my mentor, my spiritual model and constant religious and spiritual presence and guide, a father to me- all of this, even at a great distance- was killed earlier today in a car accident. He was only 48 years old.

Though love is stronger than death, I am devastated and completely bereft... a light has gone out of the world.

Simchat Torah: Dance Me to the End of Love

2005-10-24T19:57:00.000-07:00

I remember the time when I carried the sefer Torah on some festive day in the Jewish calendar and I felt like David dancing before the Ark. My first experience of the deep love of Torah was on the face of a man who was cradling it to his cheek as he sat and held it on the bimah.

I see that love more in the faces of men. I hear the men who sing lustily at minyan, I notice the men who attend regularly, some so quietly, and the men who make a special effort to attend for a yahrzeit. I have known the passionate faces of the founders of this congregation and I have known some of their deaths. I see that love, also, in the faces of the gabbaim (sextons) who, business-like, bop on up to the bimah for Torah readings, and in the face of the men, constant and true in service, who hand out aliyot (honours), though some women do it, too.

I have recently seen men who have embraced a male convert and stayed with him and nurtured and mentored him throughout the cycle of Jewish days. I have also known male converts who went Orthodox because they were not embraced and mentored. Men provide the fun in Purim shenanigans, they build the sukkah, whip out the Torah seferim on Simchat Torah for the rest of us to hold and raise and spin. They barbecue, and make drinks to increase our joy. Even in this egalitarian, Conservative shul, it is the men who sustain the heart of religious devotion- and joy.

Women wander in and wander out. They quietly sustain us with food at kiddushim and onegs (celebratory meals), make all of our simchas truly abundant, and our beings replete, support the bowed and the stricken, without a face, and without fanfare. They provide scholarships. I have not seen a single woman from the group ever mentor a convert. I have never seen a female convert embraced and nurtured and mentored in temple by the women. If you are a woman you can serve and you can be domestic, but there are almost no women to mentor you intellectually or ritually or halachically unless it is domestic. Few women dance with the Torah. Few women shake the lulav. Few women (make that 1 or 2) wear tefillin. I have served behind the table. But I have also danced with the Torah.

Most of what I have known or learned has been from the faces of men. In Israel, men prayed together at the Kotel (Western Wall). Women prayed separately, reciting the Psalms or whatever. How passionate those women were! How intense and focussed! But, still, isolated unto themselves, apart. I think it must be my fault for not noticing the women. Some of them also sit together at services but they are more likely to ask you to serve at an oneg than lead prayers.

Having said all that, have I missed their faces? Do the women cradle the sefer Torah to themselves in other ways? My experience hasn't been terribly enlightening in that area. I think I must be missing something.

Tomorrow evening, erev (eve of) Simchat Torah, I so look forward to grabbing a gorgeous Torah scroll and parading it up and down for smiling faces to touch and to kiss, and dancing away. Oddly, I carry with me the faces of all the men I have seen dance with utter joy and utter embrace. I am waiting for the faces of many women. The public face, the public expression matters deeply; I long to see the connection. Because as far as I know, Simchat Torah describes the faces of all the true dancers I have known who would never dare say it even to their wives (and, sometimes, their husbands), yet somehow can express it all to G-d :

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
~Leonard Cohen

Shaken, Not Stirred

2005-10-23T07:29:00.000-07:00

L and I were in an accident on an LA freeway, last Shabbat. At 60 miles per hour it is hard to grasp that all 3 of us, from two vehicles, survived intact, with no one else involved, but we did. For me it was akin to watching a pool shot, watching the ball miss the pocket (i.e., missing crashing head on into the wall), bank, and bounce back into traffic, rolling out of control. The other car (SUV), that is. It fluttered on 2 wheels and ricocheted. While we were minding our own business in the slow lane.

My life did not flash before my eyes. My thoughts were disappointingly ordinary- I was especially irked at the looming inconvenience if we crashed. Thoughts of sick kitties, and a big chunk of time gobbled up in this disaster filled me with annoyance There was no time for fear, and that, I feel, is a total gift from G-d. L (my heroine) finally had to put on the brakes when it was clear that we would not miss the SUV, and we crunched into it, met at our respective corners, and we all survived. By the way, the SUV was looking to rollover but it came to a dead stop as we did. The execution was a dizzying cosmic display while the laws of physics, in simple truth, stood as witness to beauty and deliverance, of the logical and scientific kind. G-d resides in physics.

I was shaken afterwards, physically, emotionally, though neither driver was. Perhaps that was because they had to concentrate on keeping control while I had nothing to occupy me but the slowly unfolding scenario before me. The other driver stated later, in insurance talks, that she was a Christian and she is convinced tht angels surrounded her, and I can't disagree with her because she should have been so dead. I was shaking and shaken and I wondered what it all meant. It was dramatic, this experience, but perhaps a little diminished by the fact that so many highway accidents happen each day, and because we came out of it without any visible injury.

I relived it for a couple of days, and I cried. When I cried, it felt like awe. It felt like I, and everyone else, had been plucked out of danger by The Hand of G-d. You go into another space, for a while. And everything is so beautiful.

So, I was expecting a revelation. Expecting something to change. Nothing was happening. Meanwhile, I attended Sunday minyan and mentioned my ordeal to LARabbi™. I asked him (and I was quivering) if I could say the "blessing for getting out of danger". He pointed out that to "bentsch (pray) HaGomel" (thanksgiving for deliverance from danger) one needs a day where the Torah is read. Okay, the next day was Monday, when traditionally the Torah is read if we have a minyan. Oh, yes!

And these are the words:

hagomel l'chayavim tovot shegmalani kol tov, "who grants favor to the undeserving, that He has shown me kindness"; and the congregation responds: mi shegmalkha kol tov hu yigmalkha kol tov selah, "He who has shown you kindness, may He deal kindly with you forever" (O.H. 219:2). Guide to Jewish Religious Practice

On that day, preliminary prayers sported no minyan, but by the time of the Amidah, all was copacetic, coalesced. I can't begin to describe the relief, the comfort, the warmth that flooded through me, in knowing we had a minyan, even though most of the attendees were strangers to me. I was honoured with an aliyah, I said the blessings over the Torah, I bentsched HaGomel. And then somehow everything fell into place, somehow everything became complete, okay. The agitation fled. The world had righted itself.

In minyan I reconnected with the the self I knew. Was anchored. And filled with gratitude. I cannot begin to stress how completely healing this was for me- a refuah shlemah. LARabbi™ spoke last night about sukkot- fragile, evanescent shelters that are our lives- spoke about 9/11 and how those icons of America's power, the twin towers, ended up being so fragile, and so vulnerable. So it is with trucks and with SUVs and all the armour that we imagine protects us.

Later, oh, drama queen that I am, damn, I was not stirred. I have been waiting for great revelations given the grandness of the encounter with death, and they have failed to arrive. Can anyone help? I find myself not particularly stirred by this encounter with death and life, knowing full well that it was G-d that made all the difference. Life goes on, and I am forgetting. I go on, as well. I am rather thrown by it all.

Is that all there is?

And yet, I suspect, that G-d had a message for me, even though I feel so dense. And yes, I believe we can be so blessed.

The Word G-d Dares To Utter

2005-10-09T02:26:00.000-07:00

Are personal events in the world rooted in a G-d source, a G-d machination? Or are our attempts at teleology merely post facto forays into guessing/explaining G-d's motives? These are the questions that LARabbi ™ raised in this Shabbat's Torah portion, Vayelekh. I no longer recall the verse, or, perhaps it was the commentary to which he was referring. It was a fabulous question, nevertheless, given the Days of Awe that we are living at this time. Especially in consideration of the accounting to which we hold G-d, as well as ourselves.

And what about that description, "Days of Awe"? Okay, these days are solemn and scary, if you take such things to heart. These are the days for teshuvah (repentance), tefillah (prayer), tzedakah (charity), to mitigate G-d's judgment of our lives and His original decree. Add the hair-raising alarm of the shofar, and then, fear "concentrates the mind wonderfully".

During the Days of Awe (or any other day in the Jewish calendar), perhaps there is more wonder than we ever imagined. And perhaps, most of us never imagined that there is wonder, but that is surely true for me. All of Judaism is a great wondering. And that wondering especially stands in stark relief, graceful and true, at this time of year. This is the time of year to wonder about G-d's presence, and why He hides, it seems, when we most need Him in our lives.

During the discussion of the parsha, questions of life and death and suffering were not answered. However, someone did submit this analogy: During Passover, children search for the Afikoman (nominally, the dessert matzah, ), in a game of hide and seek. The Afikoman cannot be hidden too cleverly or obscurely. It is hidden, yes, but not out of reach of discovery, or else it would be too discouraging. And so it is with G-d, it was said. G-d may hide Himself, but always in such a way that He can be found.

This led me to the thought that, G-d's hiding becomes less so during these days leading up to Yom Kippur. It's there, in the Torah, plain as the nose on your face, that G-d has instituted these Yomim Noraim for us to connect with Him. He is hiding in plain sight. Regardless of other questions about why bad things happen to good people, this time of year is a guarantee that He is not hidden, and that the connection is direct, without a whole lot of static. Though He may play hide-and-seek with us the rest of the year, at this time, He is revealing Himself and saying, clearly and immediately, "Hineni", Here I Am.

Jewish Stuff

2005-10-02T13:33:00.000-07:00

I'm back at the old LA Jewish homestead, amazed at stuff.

I happened upon a tv program, which happened to be Jewish, about Jewish choral music, a fairly recent phenomenon, having become westernized in the Western world. Within it I discovered the core definition of spirituality, as simple as all truths. One of the choir participants spoke of her intermittent feelings of alienation in the world, how that happens as a matter of life, and how she returns to the choir and she feels "whole and connected". And I'm thinking, that is spirituality in a nutshell.

Davenning here is so different from davenning where I live. The ruach here is deep-seated, hooked onto tradition, whereas, there, the ruach is pretty and pleasant and inviting, but not demanding.

Simple prayer at minyan has been a revelation: who knows a black soul, a less than pristine heart? This year my soul is sootier than the leavings of wildfires along the Chatsworth hills. I'm shocked and appalled. Never mind a surgical analysis of my sins and transgressions. It's really ugly and for me, beauty is truth, and truth, beauty. Clearly, this year, my behaviour exemplifies neither.

Breaking the Tablets: LARabbi™ mentioned how some Biblical exhortations are about a state of mind, like the maftir of the Netzavim parsha (Deuteronomy (Devarim) 29:9 - 30:20). He also mentioned that the 10th commandment, the one about "coveting", also refers to a state of mind. If that is so, if there are no mitigating factors such as not acting on the coveting in any way, such as trashing the covetee, then I am so shockingly guilty, I am actually in awe of the way human beings deceive themselves. Though I must add, envy has been more destructive to me than to anyone else unless you think about how it brings a disconnect to all involved and destroys possibility; how it brings deadliness as an offering. Okay, I get it. Not good, One of the big commandments. Very important. Transcendently important! This is a tough one: to break this commandment is to be a seriously broken human being.

Perfect moments in opera give me goosebumps; the shofar invariably makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I understand that the shofar was used as an alarm in days past. It still is. You have to be there to understand the impact. Scary shows about spirits and poltergeists on tv pale in comparison.

Immerse yourself in a mitzvah and everything is transformed. All faith and belief, and all trust in humanity may crumble, but a mitzvah does indeed lead to another mitzvah. The experience of it is life affirming. Even G-d may let you down, but a mitzvah will not. Such is the genius of Judaism.

However, a mitzvah done in a vacuum must make G-d proud and weepy all at the same time. To be a decent human being, when there are no others, I think, is the ultimate Jewish challenge.

This morning, at minyan, there was an overflow of participants, so unusual. There were more of the devout ones. We all sang quite lustily. It was heaven. Afterwards there was breakfast. The woman sponsoring it, had lost her grandparents and extended family in the Shoah, the first day of Rosh Hashanah. It was a privilege to support her Yarzheit. It was a moment imbued with sorrow as well as pride. It connected us all, mourners, sinners, tzadikim, the guys setting up stuff in the Sanctuary for the Holy Days, afterwards.

LARabbi™ went to Mexico where it turns out that there is a huge community of Jews who keep to themselves right down to their laws (aligned with secular laws). The assimilation rate is 2%, but then, try to marry out and find yourself shunned and excommunicated. Even more so, here is the clincher, and a question we can all ask ourselves:

Jews in Mexico thrive and multiply because they identify themselves as Jews first and foremost. If they would have to leave Mexico it would not grieve them a whole lot. Being a Jew is their primary identity. Whereas a lot of Jews in the rest of the Diaspora perceive themselves as 'X' first, and then as Jews. I don't think it is a matter of insularity, either. I think it comes down to how you perceive yourself, your core identity.

Is your primary identity Jewish or is it other?

Breaking the Tablets

2005-09-25T13:40:00.000-07:00

The Story goes like this: that after the sin of the Golden Calf, after Moses dashed down the stone tablets in response, after the Israelites were punished with death or repented, after a new pair of tablets was created- a pair rumoured to be fashioned from sapphire, like the first (Rashi)- after that, a midrash says that when the Israelites travelled, they travelled with both sets, Divinely made, and handmade with G-d, the broken and the whole, nestled inside the Ark of the Covenant.

In recent days, the guilt has been piling up. LARabbi™ and I corresponded a bit. I had mentioned that I had not even begun any sort of cheshbon hanefesh (spiritual accounting) and the thread of time and opportunity was growing slender. I had not been feeling fear, but a kind of comfort. I knew I was going back to Los Angeles for the Holy Days and beyond. I knew I was looking forward to the marathon of festivals from Rosh Hashana through Simchat Torah. I am also going to visit people whom I consider family. I am going home.

But, oh, the guilt! LARabbi™ had responded earlier by saying he thought that the problem was not in starting an accounting, that was easy, but in keeping one's resolve and following through, of doing something differently, and permanently. I said that follow-through was a fabulous point; that is also my complaint about synagogues that are all-fired to welcome you, then do not follow through. It's all about follow-through. Otherwise the disconnect continues.

LARabbi™ is an avid golfer. And so, he elaborated, "the most important part of the golf swing, as any pro will tell you, is the follow-through. Without the follow-through you've only made a half-hearted attempt to hit the ball. Apply to synagogue life, and there you are".

Ugh. Oy.

My cheshbon hanefesh has officially begun. The guilt meter is spiking at 12, well beyond the upper limit of 10.

Thoughts swirled. Did I follow through at temple in order to make the best of it or was the attempt half-hearted? Oh, I tried, and then I gave up on a plan. Guilty.

Visions challenged me. Oh, the beach was shimmering light and sand, the sun a liquid golden drop, the water a path of diamonds, the sound of its rush where surf and blood meet, and the ducks and the dogs a quiet delight. Joy. Instead of Shabbat services. Guilty.

Certain rituals dropped, or half-hearted attempts. Guilty.

Personal stuff that's none of your business. Guilty.

Sin against G-d, sin against your fellow human beings, I remind myself. I'm down to a 9. Okay, not everything will go my way in life. It is just that- life, and not necessarily a transgression. My problems at temple have nothing to do with religious expiation, although I suspect an undefined disconnect there, somewhere.

I remind myself that this year has been arduous, emotionally. Not a normal year. If I have sinned, it may be in the realm of self-pity and whinging; however, I know that this year, it is not really true. I further imagine G-d will cut me more slack than I do. This is the crack in any stony accounting- the danger of guilting yourself into depression. I imagine G-d wants a broken heart, not a broken spirit. For me, treading that fine line is real, as I imagine it is for a lot of Jews. Maybe forgiveness also comes in the form of finally taking a page from G-d's book and cutting yourself some slack. When you can do it, it is evidence that G-d has forgiven you.

What did I promise G-d last year? I realise that I promised Him nothing definitive or else my mind is really slipping. Except to try again, and perhaps this time, the boulder will roll up that friggin' hill and finally stay there . Or even better, roll down the other side for good. Perhaps forgiveness feels much like the moment the stone crests that hill- there is release. Sometimes, I envy those who claim to outwardly follow most of the rules, who seem so disciplined, though I wonder why it is important for them to claim such things. I imagine G-d likes modesty. Meanwhile, the shofar's piercing, unearthly wail really strips you naked of any claims.

Rabbi did offer one more thought, "It's like what Mark Twain said about quitting smoking--done it lots of times. It's easy to start doing heshbon ha-nefesh, but the hard part is actually carrying out what you've resolved". Clearly, rabbi has never been a smoker. Studies show that it takes several tries for smokers until they finally succeed. I can attest to that. But his point is very persuasive, and that is when the guilt meter struck 12. Oddly, not only about the non-religious difficulties, but concerning my offering, and my commitment, when I'm down to the wire and standing exposed before G-d.

When I think of golfing (and I never thought I would), the follow-through moves beyond the point of contact - the momentum continues until the swing is completed; without completion, your ball is not going to go far, or necessarily in the direction you want. I was simply thinking about connection. I am happy to return to G-d. I am happy to go home. I certainly could use that shelter "high upon a rock", for it has been a while. But I see that there is more. Maybe I was content to slice and chop and smash away at the ball, as long as I connected with it. Hmmm, not very elegant, or far-reaching.

True, repeated connection leads to the sustain, gives you the strength to follow-through- to try again. You are not going to get a hole-in-one, on your first try, or perhaps, ever. And perhaps a hole-in-one is more of a dream than a realistic goal. But I also remember the Torah stressing that we must not approach G-d empty-handed, "but each with his own gift, according to the blessing that the Lord your G-d has bestowed upon you" (Deuteronomy 16:16b-17), or put another way, "they shall not appear before the Lord empty" (16:16). I don't recall the Torah ever saying that we approach G-d empty.

To appear before G-d empty is to do things half-heartedly. So it is for the welcomers at shul; if they are half-hearted they have offered up an empty gesture, an empty mitzvah; or for those who welcome G-d by mouthing empty prayers or indulging in empty ritual.

So it would be for me, if I came to G-d depressed, racked with guilt, despairing and demoralised. As much as I have failed, this year I have also succeeded. I bring G-d my little gems and chips of follow-through. I bring G-d my entire self, blessed with this gift of life. I bring G-d my own gift, my blessing from G-d, which G-d sees better than I. Even if it possesses no name, here, G-d knows it and has named it.

As for a renewing of follow-through, for another commitment, these coming Days of Awe, oy, do I have to make a concrete promise, write it in stone? I don't really know. I have failed so often, broken something, what can I be sure of any longer? Yet, thinking about follow-through has forced me to search my pockets; some hapless rooting actually has uncovered something other than lint; my hands are no longer empty. This is my offering- I bring G-d a question. And I hope to follow through on His answer. And I bring something concrete, with the question. Guilt down to a manageable 5.

Will I be inscribed in the Book of Life? I used to really pray hard for it. But over the years, I failed to see any literal connection between t'shuvah (repentance), tzedakah (charity), tefillah (prayers), and the extravagant promises offered by G-d. Material life was hard, often arduous, full of pain and loss. Does G-d follow through? I'm guessing He does, but in ways unknown to me. I don't count on what I know any longer. However, I do count on an answer to my question.

Shatter our stony, failing hearts.
Keep us far from the petrified and the forever broken
Yet let us not forget.
Help us carve a heart of sapphire,
Graven with Your touch and fire,
So that we may be whole.
And nestle us in your Ark.

L'shana tovah, um'tukah, uv'racha.

Thank you, my LA Rabbi!

Rest

2005-09-02T15:58:00.000-07:00

Inspired by the incomparable Carnival of the Cats, I decided to post another old photo (pre-digital) of one of my kitties. I confess, I am a cat fanatic, to the point where I was doing TNR [trap, neuter, return] (in totally shameful hysteria- next time just jab red hot pokers thru my eyes), naming and living with ferals, as the sidebar indicates. The fact that I can't own cats right now makes life tough.

Barefoot's Vincent

Shul and the Single Woman: Lamentations

2005-08-12T11:34:00.000-07:00

For the time being I have stopped going to services. Even though Tisha B'Av ( more here) is coming up, I will not be attending. On Saturday evening, there is no complete bus service, and I don't want to beg for a ride. Funny, that word, "beg". If I felt part of the community, I would not feel as if this were an imposition, that I was coming from a position of scarcity. I would be like the beggar at the gates, saying "Gain merit, through me". Instead of alms, people could give rides.

The last time I attended services, three weeks ago, I just felt miserable, though I started out optimistically. It was one of those better Shabbats, when the rabbi is off on vacation and the numbers thin to a core group. It's far more like a morning minyan, then, without a lot of frills. It is pure. A simple minyan somehow seems rife with possibilities, unlike the usual set piece that is standard for this congregation, and which always interferes with my concentration.

It still bothers me, though, that they cut out everything after modeh ani until Nishmat. There is no settling into prayer, no slow and subtle change of consciousness, no mining deeper inside yourself where the quiet is, and where G-d resides. No time to divest yourself of the voices and fripperies and futilities of the world and really listen to the word of G-d. It's more like power davening without the warmup, more like a sprint. You just have to be skilled at instant focus, train the muscles of your mind to turn inwards to that other place and be exceptional about blocking out all distractions. I'd like to see some guy meditating on a mountain top try that amidst a bunch of schmoozing, often irreverent, Jews!

The services were fine, if rather brief for my taste. As I sat there, my eyes filled with tears of supreme envy. I envied the lay cantor for getting a job by happenstance, because we didn't have a professional cantor, and she has a lovely voice and knows Hebrew, and so, can take a load off the rabbi. She is also very "spiritual". It's hard for me to see her clearly and fairly, filtered as my eyes are by a jealous heart. I envy her her complete immersion in synagogue and community life. Because I remember that I was forced to leave a place where I, too, was engaged wholly and deeply. But she is not a cantor with years of profound and intricate study, and it shows. She doesn't inspire me to aspire. I guess, ultimately, she does not have my respect. I don't want to learn from her, but I think that is a flaw in me.

During services it is hard not to note the clusters of people who hang out together. I am greeted warmly by some, but it never goes further than that. It is a fact of life, too, that if you have enough learning, you have instant entrée into the synagogue world and community. Prayer leaders are always needed, gabbaim as well, and all things in between. Hence, an older couple, who have been members for far less time than I but who contribute a lot of their time and knowledge, sit in the inner circle, the one that warmly says hello to me, but then tells me there is no place at their table.

In LA, though I was on the board and chaired a committee, somehow I don't think I found an inner circle. I think it was partly due to my being a single woman, and partly due to my complete inability to schmooze or hang with a group at services. And, in all honesty, it was partly due to my ambivalence about being part of the inner sanctum- I liked to wander and schmooze and welcome and see who was alone and shouldn't be. I was also often almost terminally last in line at the groaning board and by then, seats had filled up. On a rare occasion, someone would wave to me and include me in. I never got the hang of strategising- grabbing a seat and placing your purse there, trying for the front of the line for food- or recognising that as a single woman, I was less likely to impinge on people's consciusness, except perhaps, in an unkind way. This is a truth that I don't want to know.

Even with all my strategising, here, in this other place, I haven't made any inroads. During the Torah portion I look around me and realise that these people are familiar and that is all. I realise that most of them don't know what they're doing and there are very few older people with knowledge in the congregation. I get no sense of continuity and not a whole lot of sense of history and tradition- not that there is no tradition, but just that there seems to be no gravitas to it. It's like a space ship without mooring.

Last time, a lovely older lady beckoned me over to her table, at the kiddush lunch. The food tasted a little less like ash.

I have spent my Shabbats, since then, going to the water, communing with the ducks and the dogs, soaking up the warm breezes and the light, wandering from green to grey-blue, from sand to lawn, from pier to rock, from log to bench. I text L in LA, telling her that the ducks say "howdy". I photograph what strikes my fancy. I eat french fries and quiche and sip terrible iced tea. I try to read a book on Shabbat, but it is all about rules. I wish Heschel's meditation on Shabbat was not packed away in someone's garage. I cling to the knowledge that it is Shabbat, even though I am transgressing like crazy; I "remember" even though I barely "keep". And when the sun begins its slow descent, I have spent a day without tears, in peace.

In the past months, since my return from Israel, I see my observance going down the tubes. Sometimes I daven, often I don't, though I always talk to G-d. Some Shabbats I study Torah on my own, and often I don't. I'm more lax in the food I eat (though I am not anywhere close to keeping kosher, yet). I still light candles to keep myself anchored, but I ask myself what is the point of making kiddush, when it's just me and some bread and grape juice. Every Shabbat is a struggle, about which to choose, the beach or services- this Shabbat no less than the rest. I don't remember G-d as well as I did. I feel guilty about what I am doing or not doing, and it's as if I am having this crisis of identity.

A Jew cannot be a Jew without a community. A Jew cannot grow in Jewish learning/observance, or even spiritually, without cleaving to a community. I don't know how to mourn the destruction of the Temples, when I have so much to mourn about the destruction of a Jewish way of life. When I observed Tisha B'Av in the past, I recognised that there is nothing more terrifying than the loss of G-d, to live in a world without G-d, to live so alone. That's what I felt, in Lamentations. That the mourning was about the complete loss of G-d. This Tisha B'Av I will be mourning the single woman and the loss of Jews.

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat, sat and wept,
as we thought of Zion. (Ps.137)

At the Shore

2005-08-04T19:58:00.000-07:00

Today I Am Wading Through a Sea

© Barefoot Jewess

Halachic Cool

2005-08-02T21:36:00.000-07:00

A huge shout out to Z and her fine post, with a fine title, Halachically Illegitimate (wish I'd thought of it! heh.). A great companion piece to the one below.

The social scientist in me can't help but wonder things, like, why is it that converts need to be caught in the crossfire in the ideological warfare between Jews? In my experience, people are not necessarily sensitive to converts, either, no matter what Torah and halacha say. In fact, some people think that converts have no right to criticise what occurs among Jews, or even think. I find converts are an easy target. From a psychoanalytic standpoint, it's comforting to place a red string around our respective or collective necks and send us off into the wilderness.

But I also think that converts stand at the fulcrum of our internecine wars, and Jewish identity. Whither go the converts, so goes the Jewish people. Because how you treat a convert affiliated with whichever stream, shows what defines you as a Jew (and that goes for converts, too); more importantly, it shows what you feel and think about other Jews who are not like you. And so, it predicts for you the future of the Jewish people- united or wretched or confused or stuck or dead, or disappeared from the face of the earth.

Perusing the J-blogs yesterday, I came across a comment from someone who said he would never marry anyone who is a convert other than one who is Orthodox. He felt that Orthodoxy was the only way to churn out legitimate Jewry. And, by the way, he stressed that he was secular. So, I wonder, what does Orthodoxy represent to him? I'm thinking, legitimacy. Ethnic legitimacy.

Moreover, in discussing The Law of Return, it became clear that for some, Orthodox conversion is viewed as a way to confer citizenship, never mind, the only way. There is no mention of religion, merely of conversion as a mechanism. And only one mechanism is the legitimate mechanism. The fact that people convert to any religion because they believe and experience certain things does not seem to enter into the equation.

It would be hypocritical to convert in a manner not consistent with one's beliefs, conscience, and sense of integrity. Or to attach oneself to something for the sake of acceptance and validation. I wouldn't want a new Jew like that. Yet this is something that is completely dismissed by the front for tribal triumphalism- bigotry, by any other name. Belief doesn't enter into it. Even if you don't believe in Torah miSinai (that Torah and Oral Torah are directly from G-d), implicitly, that is not the issue. Acceptance of and submission to a lifestyle is paramount. If you do not accept/submit, then you cannot become a Jew. Which means that similarly, the only thing left for born Jews, many of whom do not believe in Torah miSinai, nor accept/submit to the Orthodox lifestyle, is their legitimacy through ethnicity- that they were born to a Jewish mother.

So what do some Jews do in order to determine which potential converts will accept/submit? They turn the conversion process into an elitist boot camp. Make it tough. Survival is paramount. Ya gotta be nail-hard to be a Jew. If you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen. Weed out the religious wimps because halacha is tough even though we don't necessarily follow it ourselves, because after all Jews are flawed human beings like anyone else. But of course, converts have to be superhuman. Even if they are only looking for a home and not barracks.

I found this swaggering stance surprisingly prevalent among some young, hip Orthodox adults on the net who hope to bring tender, disaffected or uninformed, impressionable young Jews into the fold. You know, show them a good time, bring them home, feed them, turn them on to new music, party with them, show them that being a Jew can be a happenin' contemporaneous experience, that it's cool to be a Jew. This explains to me why some males have taken to wearing baseball caps instead of kippot. How that shows reverence for G-d I don't know, but I guess you could call it Jewish cool.

When challenged about tzniut (modesty) in posting decidedly untzniut-like pictures (and you don't have to be Jewish to find them offensive), the response was surprising. I naïvely was under the impression that if you publicly assert and support Orthodoxy (or are any kind of religiously devout Jew), then the obvious answer to posting soft porn on a website is a no-brainer- you comport yourself with modesty. This was halacha that the posters chose to transgress, for reasons I don't get, unless coolness supersedes halacha.

Orthodoxy for some of the young and passionate, it seems, has become a way to affiliate with a weighty tradition, that to them, confers cultural and ethnic identity and, especially, status. (Kinda like O is 'Boston old money' v non-O, the 'nouveau riche', and the 'carpetbaggers'.) All this, without addressing the religious work or the roots of Jewishness which are religious. Just like our secular Jew. Or addressing it on their own terms, in choosing which mitzvot to work on, just like non-Orthodox Jews, yet without giving up the perceived status. Where religion and peoplehood have become mutually exclusive, and where, when push comes to shove, ethnicity supersedes religion. You don't have to go to a good school to be elitist any longer. Nor really be devoted. Just religiously civilised. The Diaspora cuts deep.

They will shoot from the hip: "I think you're a nice person and all and I would invite you for Shabbat, no sweat, but I won't marry you because your rabbis don't agree with mine". As if that were logical, and not subject to challenge. And as if that is kind or thoughtfully presented. If they get really pissed they will say, who cares about how religious you are, you haven't passed the tribal test, to which my rabbis, who happen to be Orthodox, hold the key. In other words, you don't possess the pedigree. Can you produce papers?

What is our future? It seems that in terms of some young Orthodox, not much has changed except perhaps the stance- very macho (and really amazingly foulmouthed). Yet, for all their fine words, and desire to unite all Jews, they continue to be enamoured of an era 200 years ago, when Judaism became changed and institutionalised in a new way, but not for their forebearers. It also resembles the unconscious stance of survivors of war.

What I see is transgenerational fear and transgenerational fantasy, none of it original. It happens all the time, in the young and in the more mature. And when in doubt, show the converts how tough you are. It's more punk than cool. And more bigoted than authentic. Rather disappointing; I was hoping for...well, hope. Meanwhile, is that a red string I see before me?

I certainly don't see all of Orthodoxy in that light. After all, some of my best friends are Orthodox. Still, those described above have some influence and they may be some of our future leaders. I'm only hoping that there will be substance behind the seduction. A novel substance, removed from transgenerational obsession with survival. A substance that desires to be something fresh and new. That truly has a shot at unity, because oneness is what matters more than all the differences and hierarchies. I think that takes imaginative genius, released from the past, like an arrow, released from its bow. A genius of the humble sort. Now that would be really cool.

Jewish Intermarriage

2005-07-31T19:34:00.000-07:00

I think the title is stark. I wanted something more provocative, as if the title weren't provocative enough. Or bleak. Or a dirty pairing of words.

Halachah (Jewish religious law) dictates that one Jew can only marry another Jew, and only if both Jews are halachically legitimate. This means that, in one interpretation, most Orthodox Jews cannot marry a non-Orthodox convert, because O rabbis do not recognise the legitimacy of non-O rabbis. A halachically legitimate Jew is one who was born to a Jewish mother, and also means an Orthodox Jewish convert; yet it also means a Conservative convert, yet one who would not be recognised by most of Orthodoxy (thanks to their rabbis); while a Reform convert, usually would not be recognised by the other two movements. Marriage and conversion seem to be seminal signposts for Jewish identity and "survival".

Where faith and religion fit, is another question. Amazing, if you think about it, since Jewishness is based on Torah, which sounds a wee leetle bit, like a religious thing. And yet, it seems that often, the idea of religion takes a back seat to bigotry (via Jewlicious). Or perhaps devotion to a Jewish G-d doesn't matter, as much as your pedigree.

I think that this is the dilemma. There are Jews who just want to ensure the survival of the Jewish people. And there are Jews who want to connect "religiously". And there are Jews who just want to connect religiously. Of course, there are always the Jews who don't want to connect on any terms but their own.

Regarding, "religiosity". The former want to connect with the rules, and the latter want to connect with faith, where belief is integral.

I place myself in the latter category. I keep wondering, what would it take, for a man to attract me? A beshert. A friend. Would it suffice, if he were a dyed in the wool, got the papers, Jew, who never or infrequently goes to shul and rarely gives tzedakah? And even if he did, would that be enough? What about the Jew who doesn't care about shul but gives generously to the community? What about the Jew who does not see his Jewishness as more than a nonsensical, huh?...label?

As a female, I am privileged because my babes would be Jewish (for argument's sake). Actually, I am waiting for the day that the Conservative movement finds a halachic interpretation that renders all Jewish males, Jewish progenitors. Meanwhile...

I was thinking about my closest friend, L. She is not Jewish. I think she has a Buddhist soul.

When I roomed with her, given that the space was hers, this is what happened, with her blessing: I slapped a mezuzah on the doorway; there was Jewish art on the wall; my rather copious set of Jewish books resided on a living room cabinet. I brought in people who needed a place to rest for Yom Kippur during the break. She knew where I went and what I did, Jewishly, and we talked about it. She attended shiurim (classes) along with me, as well as community dinners. She was at my Beit Din, and she watched me dance with the Torah.

I lit Shabbat candles, and she chanted the English. We went to synagogue together on many Friday nights. She didn't attend on Saturdays but she drove me to morning minyan, waking at 6 am to do it, an awakening that normally would kill her. On the festivals, she was there to witness the blessings. She recognised the importance. I remember Chanukah especially, because we would say the blessings and watch the candles flame in the face of the Christmas lights over there. She kept my dessicated lulav and etrog, and the case I carried the former in.

She watched me chant Torah for the very first time. She read the prayers for my mikvah immersions to help in healing me from terrible trauma. She placed her hand on the sofer's hand in beginning the scribing of a new Torah scroll. What a cool moment!!! She bought me the most gorgeous tallit for my birthday.

When we speak about my personal issues, she is the one who puts a Jewish spin on it, and sometimes it irks me to hell. For many Shabbats, we sat on the balcony reading Torah-like stuff. She drove me to all J events. She made sure I was there on time. She joined me in some. When I needed to do chesed, she helped me. At temple, L was considered a part of it all. More than one person came up to her and asked her why she didn't convert to Judaism, cause they thought of her as so much a Jew.

Okay, a religious Jew, but clearly not in the halachic DNA. It was more than just love. She was interested, involved. It all did something for her. It mattered.

Yet I can marry a born Jew, who couldn't give a flying leap about being Jewish, or the guy who doesn't even know what it means to be a Jew (and I have met them). And I can convert according to the religious aspect and marry a Jew who couldn't care less about the religious aspect and Torah and no one has to know, and some who couldn't care less about Jewish survival. Or I can meet the Jew who loves Torah and Judaism for its own sake, as I do. I figure that's pretty rare.

I can be blessed with the likes of my beloved friend, L, who understands and somehow is involved. It reminds me of X, who was married to A for several years before he was moved to convert. What helped convert him? A man who now is a dynamic force in the synagogue, bringing Jews closer to the Torah? His daughter, who was raised Jewishly, fiercely so, and whom he later marked as an impetus for his conversion- "when I look at you I know there is a G-d".

So, what does it come down to? The halachic Jew, from no matter what stream, who meets the criteria, or the person of faithfulness and understanding- I know it sounds so Christian. I also do know that, Z, and her husband Anth, also embody that anomalous mix, just like L and me. Ask her: Matzah and Marinara.

Bottom line, I find myself saying, I would take the person of faithfulness who can relate. Period. Because some people are more Torah-like in their living than born Jews, even "religious" Jews. And, yeah, that does matter.

The Duck Days of Summer

2005-07-25T15:10:00.000-07:00

Today I Am a Duck

© Barefoot Jewess

Dancing in the Dust

2005-07-21T22:24:00.000-07:00

One year, during the dog days of summer, helicopters circled, flags undulated and tefillin straps sashayed, dry trees rustled, huge speakers blasted out the music from a little booth. The music was a compilation of Middle Eastern dance tunes, called Middle East Grooves*, sung largely in Hebrew with a smattering of Spanish and rap and who knows what else, thrown into the mix. I bought the CD at the Israel Independence Day Festival in Los Angeles. You can't listen to this music without rising from your waking sleep and taking a spin. Even if you are by yourself in a small, cluttered room somewhere in the soggy Diaspora. I especially love a rockin' multilingual fusion cover of The Animals' Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood**.

I remember that festival well. That one year, we were 50,000 strong and there was almost no write up about it in the LA papers. You have to be there to appreciate the intense liveliness of the gathering. Firstly, how often do we in the Diaspora get to experience such a massive number of the tribe all in one place doing our Jewish thing? Out of the masses, this little booth was manned by a few young men, browned and gleaming from the sun, who would take turns dancing in the dust. Dancing for their lives. Once in a while others would shyly join in. The beat was contagious for those few hardy souls who would twirl and dip and sweat some more and for the rest of us standing, mesmerised, just sweating.

It was difficult to leave, hard to tear my eyes away from the fire, the energy, the life inside this dirtbowl. It's like being at the ocean and watching the light play over the waves, and the endless surf rushing in, infinite and varied, the mercurial changeableness of its colour riding the waves,and somehow you cannot break away from it. Meanwhile, over in the distance, a green oasis- in the welcome shade of some trees, people danced the hora, ever so lightly, barefoot. No matter where you stood, you couldn't help but glow, couldn't help but sweat, and swallow gallons of sweet water, even the recently introduced magical-Kabbalah-water which, at that time, the Kabbalah Centre acolytes were handing out freely and generously. Or the bottles of water handed out anonymously by Messianic "Jews" before the gates, while we snaked along in ribbons of waiting, our throats parched. All the while flags fluttered and snapped in the breeze and helicopters circled beating the air with their wings.

I remember how amazed I was by my first experience of the Galilee in Israel. It was so lush, so impossibly green, so fertile- black soil, verdant hills, and cows (photo)! More than a gentle, pastoral land, it positively raged with life. My ignorance of Israel was monumental (still is)- I expected desert everywhere. On our return from the charcoal iron plains (photo) in the Golan Heights we stopped at a kibbutz where once again we were being shepherded in to view one of a seemingly endless stream of films- this one about the human legacy of the wars. But before that we lingered in the shop which served up food, drinks, and souvenirs. I was getting desperate to buy something . I hate dwelling on the politics and war- I don't deal well with any of it. I found myself a soft, green, hooded IDF sweatshirt; this was the first time that I noticed the emblem: a sword entwined with an olive branch. I wear it proudly.

I was the last person left at the shop, deliberately straggling, and the fellow at the counter indicated that I follow the rest to see the movie. I refused, saying I could not do it. That I could not watch. He quietly placed his hand on the counter and gestured side by side, saying in broken, accented English, that Israel is both things, the beautiful, yes, but you cannot dismiss the terrible. For Israel, they go together. That Israel cannot have one without the other. I could only agree with him. He saw the truth of it.

I remember the very first Jewish festival I attended, a couple of years before. It was held on a college campus in the San Fernando Valley. It was relatively small in size, with the requisite little booths from synagogues and lots of brochures, and enough food and music to satiate the belly and the soul. Neshama Carlebach was playing that year. My friend and I sat way up on the hill, under the feeble shade of some palm trees and watched and listened. The heat was intense, the earth was bone dry. I really didn't know who Neshama Carlebach was, and it was the first time that I heard Am Yisrael Chai.

Soon, a hora line magically appeared down below, increasing dancer by dancer, then, spiralling inwards. The music was slow, hypnotic, almost hushed, and kept building and building. Am Yisrael Chai repeated over and over again. Until the music and the movement turned to fire, until, dead centre in a wheel of people, a huge blue and white Israeli flag ballooned out above the crowd, floating and fluttering. Several dancers had also covered themselves with flags, like a tallit, like capes that supermen and wonderwomen wear. They danced and they danced on the parched ground, like dervishes, like I imagine David danced, until human and flag dissolved into each other. And there was a moment, in watching them and a sea of Jews, when all sense of place and time became lost, a blur, and I was there with them, everything was one- and we were dancing at Sinai, proud, ecstatic, joyous, unquenchable, Am Yisrael, and it was a moment when I knew exactly why I had become a Jew.

*Described as "The Best of Israeli, Moroccan & Middle Eastern Music". None of the music is labelled.

**I tracked down the unusual cover to a group called, Alabina; the track is called "Lolole".

Coming soon: Dancing in the Dust II- The Word Jews Toss Around Promiscuously. (I figure if I announce it, then I will have to make it so.)

More Jewish

2005-07-17T20:17:00.000-07:00

Yes,... your lifestyle may be more Jewish than most, maybe even more Jewish than mine, but so what? It’s Conservative and its just not something I believe in. I concede that you may be closer to G*d than me, you may be more spiritual, you may be a better person but I do not accept the authority of your Rabbis, just as you chose not to accept the authority of mine.

I appreciate bald statements. This reply is from ck over at Jewlicious, #389. I can't think of a worthy comment except to think that this is bigoted.

Simple Offerings

2005-07-15T17:40:00.000-07:00

My best friend L emailed me today with something that stumped her. It was more of a wondering. She wondered why Ms E, who is 98 years old, did not phone her when she needed a ride to go shopping. L has stressed that Ms E feel free to phone her; my friend is the most naturally kind person I know.

Ms E has to be the coolest chick around. She had 3 husbands, of which the third turned out to be the love of her life; she also inherited his children. He was not Jewish but the children's mother was. Ms E's grandfather was a rabbi. His son, her father, was a socialist and an atheist. So was Ms E.

Ms E had a career in journalism. That is amazing, for a woman in the early days of the twentieth century. She often supported herself and her husbands. I like to ask people who have been on this planet much longer than I for words of wisdom. She reminded me of the Serenity prayer which asks G-d to grant us the wisdom to accept the things one cannot change, change the things one can, and the wisdom to know the difference. She said whoever wrote it forgot another line: to not accept anything unacceptable.

She told me that at one time, she was felled by bouts of ulcerative colitis. She got rid of husband number 2 and the colitis went away. My ears pricked up at that. I don't think that it was a miracle; but I think that she was wise. And that she is right about that prayer.

Every year, we gather to celebrate her birthday. We go to some steak house, and she orders a fancy drink and a nice slab of meat, which she finishes. Nowadays, it's a triumphant and defiant and hopeful countdown, like the ball in Times Square on New Year's Eve. She wants to make it to 100, fiercely. She walks with a cane, and she continues to live in her own house. She is one of G-d's great moments. Not only because she lives and continues to thrive, but because she relishes life, and is curious about people, still. Me, I'm thinking I might get jaded by that age.

She doesn't dwell on her Jewishness, though she is proud when presented with it. My friend gave her the book, The Gifts of the Jews for Chanukkah, and she loved it; for her, the accounting is like a curious historical artefact . Being Jewish is largely a label to her, a heritage, less important than her socialist leanings. When she dies, she is perfectly content to return to the earth. She does not believe in a soul and she does not care. She gives a whole new meaning to acceptance and faith.

It turns out that the reason she did not phone L about shopping was that she didn't want to "put her out". I know how she feels. I used to get a ride to services (which otherwise takes me almost 1 1/2 hours in travel time one way, 2 hours return)but then I stopped going for a while. Each time, I would have to phone and ask these people for a ride. In all the time I have been away they have not phoned me nor inquired why I was not going to services, etc. To give them their due, it is not as if they are obligated, anyway; and they have been kind. But for me, it becomes awkward.

I have a friend who, before she was my friend, used to offer me a ride all the time when I was sojourning in Los Angeles. She even stopped her car while I was walking, to offer me a ride. I rarely took her up on it, but in the meantime, she took on the image of someone I could depend on. I learned from her, and from the incident with L and Ms E, that the most important thing in doing chesed (deeds of lovingkindness) is to be sensitive to the needs of others, to scope out that need all the time, like radar, and to offer, offer, offer, so extravagantly, to the point of annoyance. And believe me when I say that my lala friend got annoying.

People say Judaism is so complicated. No, it is quite simple. Like my dear and wise Ms E, it does not accept the unacceptable.

YHWH: A Terrible Beauty

2005-05-10T03:29:00.000-07:00

I've always found it fascinating that G-d is sometimes referred to as HaMakom, The Place. When I first learned this, I fired off an email to the Aish rabbi, asking for clarification. I thought the concept of G-d as The Place was so brilliant, so unlike any other way of referring to G-d. And it made so much sense! By that time it was clear to me that the G-d of my childhood, was not "out there". Perhaps he had even been real. But I had never experienced him as real.

And then one day, G-d came through. And stayed. To me G-d is very real. There are no doubts. So, it made sense that something like "The Place" carried a sense of that concreteness, gave gravity to the presence. Words like "The Place" provide the ground for apprehension, and probably came from, an apprehension of G-d as the space for everything to rest, inhabit and live. Like an embrace.

In more prosaic terms, HaMakom means that "everything is contained within G-d (conceptually), while He is not contained in anything. As our Sages say: "He [G-d] doesn't have a place, rather He is The Place of the Universe"." What particularly struck me about this name for G-d was its neutrality. G-d provides the matrix for being and that state is described purely, without embellishment, without emotion. All assumption of character drops away; it seems value neutral.

A similar neutrality could be said to inform another of G-d's names, HaShem, The Name, a reference to G-d from the Rabbinical period, circumlocuting the Divine Name, the Name Revealed by G-d. The increasingly popular HaShem carries the least amount of information, and if it is at all possible, is less emotion laden than HaMakom. The use of HaShem is like pointing the finger in the direction of the Divine Name as it passes strangely before us in the distance. One cannot apprehend a Name. Both HaMakom and HaShem , I think, suggest a bit of a Zen Buddhist/Taoist sensibility.

Look, it cannot be seen - it is beyond form.
Listen, it cannot be heard - it is beyond sound.
Grasp, it cannot be held - it is intangible.
These three are indefinable, they are one.

From above it is not bright;
From below it is not dark:
Unbroken thread beyond description.
It returns to nothingness.
Form of the formless,
Image of the imageless,
It is called indefinable and beyond imagination.

Stand before it - there is no beginning.
Follow it and there is no end.
Stay with the Tao, Move with the present.

Knowing the ancient beginning is the essence of Tao.

~ Lao Tzu

But the name that gives G-d a pre-eminently Jewish sensibility is the G-d of Jewish history- YHWH. G-d is The Place, G-d is The Name, and most importantly for us, G-d is a verb. Whereas the former two describe an experience of G-d, the latter is a revelation of G-d. G-d reveals his name on Horeb, at the Burning Bush, to Moses: "ehyeh-asher-ehyeh" (Ex. iii. 14), in translation, a form of the verb, "to be", officially interpreted as "I am that I am". G-d is alive. And G-d makes himself known to us, deliberately.

The G-d of the Bible swashbuckles and plots his way through history, engaged, full of character and emotion, learning as he goes along, engrossed in his creations, in relationship to them. Always in relation to them, even creating a covenant with them. G-d is alive!

And yet, G-d, for all his charming ways, seems very cognizant of the fact that we cannot get too close to him and live. We also learn in the Bible that if indeed, one does accept the covenant, for all of those rosy promises, there's one hell of a price to pay. There is a price to pay for getting closer to him, for enlightenment. Moses saw the "face" of G-d and lived, but Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, got zapped when they tried to cozy up to him by offering him "strange fire".(Lev 10:1-2) Some hapless shmo got too close to the Ark when David was moving it and G-d stopped the poor guy dead in his tracks. I wonder if Moses lived and the others did not, because G-d chose Moses, but did not favour the others.

G-d also chose the Israelites, and did not allow them to venture any farther than the foot of Horeb, and shrouded himself in clouds, spit out fire and thunder so that they should not die by getting too close to him.( Deut 4:31-36 ). Still, they quaked in their sandals, so overwhelmed and terrified, that they asked Moses to act as intermediary and relay the rest of the commandments to them.(Deut 5: 22) I imagine by that time that they were all prostrate seized up jellyfish on the ground.

Then there is the famous cautionary tale of the four sages who entered Pardes (the orchard). One gazed upon the divine and went mad. One became an apostate. One died. And only Rabbi Akiva left in peace, for he had entered in peace. Another perilous G-djourney ends in tragedy.

Isaac lay bound upon some cold, rough stone altar, supposedly a willing sacrifice to G-d. A sacrifice also offered by his father, who was willing to slash the throat of his beloved son and heir and watch the life force gush out of him in crimson red streams and watch his traumatised body flop like a fish in reaction as he died. It was G-d's will.(Gen 22: 1-19). I imagine that father and son were beside themselves with fright and anguish and grief. A midrash (exposition) tells us that the angels in heaven wept at the sight of Isaac tied down and trembling, wide-eyed with fear, and their tears washed his eyes, and blinded him, yet he could see beyond human sight. After the Akedah, Abraham and Isaac leave separately and there is no further record of them ever speaking to each other again.

It seems that all journeys involving YHWH are perilous. And it seems that if G-d does the choosing, and you accept, you have a fighting chance of getting through the peril. Maybe. This much I do know, as I have written once before, "I feel bound to a life that is not my own; it belongs to G-d....I honestly don't feel it is within my purview, that which happens to me. I am carried along, transported by a life that somehow, for the time being, in some way needs me even if I don't know how. It may not even be a life of my choosing...." Even after writing this, I had no clear idea of what it meant to be compelled by G-d. How terrifying that feeling was, not remotely like "love". There is an element beyond awe that creeps in once in a while when I look at how perilous my journey has been and continues to be, a journey I feel I have not chosen. I would have chosen a Mediterranean cruise, instead, thank you very much.

A few weeks before conversion I was having vivid dreams, some of them felt like out of body experiences. Incredibly rich and colourful dreams. There was the gorgeous tabernacle in the desert, a tent of rich, textured, multi-coloured fabric straight out of the Bible; it seems my dreams know how to sew to specification. There was the queen of violet roses, and her twin sister in her white frock holding a golden sheaf of grain. Several times, I rose up to the heavens and finally knew everything, I knew the answers, only to come back into my body and upon awakening, instantly forget. And then there was the power of YHWH, as I and other pilgrims were compelled to our knees in the desert in terrifying, overwhelming, awe before G-d's holy mountain. I was shocked by how bone-meltingly scary it was, like feeling the force of a full scale nuclear blast.

Now there is always an element of fright, because I don't know what G-d will do next or will ask of me. The comforts of home and hearth seem light years away. G-d may be love but that is not all G-d is. G-d is compelling in his presence, and in his desire. Meanwhile, I've learned that nothing in life could ever be as terrifying as being without G-d. Fear of G-d, yirah, is just as real as G-d is real. So is fear of losing G-d.

I used to wonder if I was crazy.

And then I happened to crack open a commentary* on Psalm 42; the psalm begins,

As a stag yearns for streams of cool water,
so does my soul yearn for you, O G-d.
Indeed, my soul thirsts for G-d, for the living G-d....

Here is part of that commentary:

... the poet cannot stop remembering the happier days of his younger years, and, in so doing, is forced to confornt the awful, disturbing truth that the quest for a life in G-d has not brought him prosperity, fame, and unbridled happiness...but just the opposite: a life of ridicule and insult.

On top of all that, the poet's road to G-d also passes through Fear. Indeed, he suggests that he has already experienced the presence of G-d in the palpable, sensory way cultivated by the psalmists' guild, and he knows that the knowledge of G-d can be as terrifying an experience as it is a satisfying one. He remembers the feeling of being totally vulnerable, the sensation of drowning in G-d, of being lost at sea like Jonah (who also had the horrifying experience of just barely escaping death by drowning on his journey to fulfilling his own destiny in G-d , as did the Israelites on their way to Sinai).

Worse still, the poet's tortured road to spiritual fulfillment also passes through Worry in that, for all its intensity, his yearning for G-d cannot make him forget that G-d, at least most of the time, appears to be totally unconcerned with his problems. And, since the search for communion with an unseen G-d will always be an unsettling, confusing experience for practical people, the poet's uncertainty about the ultimate nature of his spiritual path is part of that worry as well.

Moderns who bring their own ambivalence about religion to their spiritual lives will find a kindred sprit in the author of the forty-second psalm, especially if they allow his words to prompt the asking of deep, challenging questions: can we moderns harness the creative energy generated by conflicting certainties about the nature of the Divine to propel us further along our spiritual paths towards communion with the elusive G-d of Israel? Or are we doomed, as so often seems the case, to be paralysed by uncertainty, almost as though respect for spiritual honesty and intellectual candor were somehow to be incompatible with living a life totally given over to yearning for redemption in G-d?

Alas, my G-d is not often a cool buddha. At least now I know that if I am crazy, I am not alone. But consider this. A psychopath who pretended to be a Jew, turned me on to Judaism. So, if I'd had a choice, sailing in the Galil would have been far more appealing. Or being shot out of a cannon. G-d does, indeed, possess a strange and terrible beauty. Remember that. And be kind to holy fools.

* Martin Samuel Cohen, Our Haven and Our Strength

Shul and the Single Woman

2005-05-08T13:58:00.000-07:00

I thought I would return from Shabbat services at Om Hadash, pop in a video and celebrate my brand new little tv (my only luxury item), and chow down on some potato chips (my favourite junk food) and soda. Regardless of circumstance, I make Shabbat something special. I light candles, make kiddush. I have always said, "When the sun descends, Shabbat descends". There is no question in my mind of the gift that G-d has given us.

I used to not watch tv, and not use the computer, when I was with people. My absolute ideal is to keep more kosher (and that's not saying much but it is much for me!) than I do, to lay the table with beautiful things- flowers and cutlery and Irish linen and colour, and cook the Shabbat meal, or several, for friends and strangers. To centre our lives around Torah- to make it all so beautiful and warm, perhaps spiritual, and very welcoming. And that includes including the strange and annoying and alienating and, well...strange, though I would prefer to not make them a constant.

Today the rabbi (not my rabbi), in speaking about the parsha K'doshim, mentioned, as is always mentioned, exhorted, presented, referenced, endlessly, in many texts, many sermons, many classes, every mussar moment- about loving one's neighbour as oneself. Hey, at this synagogue, you could say it is an article of faith! At least from the top, if not down.

The services included a bar mitzvah. The father has done great fundraising financial things for the place, which the rabbi mentioned during services. It is clear that here is a man with power (I'm not talking about the rabbi). The kid will make a great politician/saviour, with Torah as his guide. The kiddush luncheon was held outside, in tents with heating, for the congregation and the kids. We had small balloons and packets of M&Ms arcing across the table. When I was leaving, I pressed my face against the glass doors of the social hall- wow! What had I been missing? The lights were dimmed, someone was speaking at a microphone, there were exotic flower arrangements on each table. I was glad to see that the food seemed to be the same. Heck, we were missing the party! How did that happen?

I remember with great fondness a bar mitzvah I attended which was part of the service in maybe the smallest synagogue in all of LA. The interior walls were concrete. The ark was a box. The joy was palpable. I didn't much care for the service, but the pride and joy and celebration- simcha- were clear. How could you not melt?

I remember most fondly the kiddush luncheon afterwards. My friend and I hesitated at the threshold of their teeny tiny social hall. Yet, there was the father, moved and heartfelt, who stretched out his arms to us in welcome, and bade us to enter, to share in the food and the joy. I will never forget his all encompassing embrace. To me, this is Judaism at its finest. Or perhaps, a great Jewish excuse for emotion.

It was a Reform temple.

So, back at the tented ranch, I wander in figuring I can get a seat amongst people I know. Can't say anything bad about them at all- at least not those who gave me a ride and at one time, salved my wounds. I want to be fair to them. Truly.

I saunter over and hover at the table. I am informed that all the seats are taken- there is no room. These are people I know. Who are telling me there is no room.

I go over to a nearby table and sit there, amongst 9 other empty chairs, for a full10 minutes before someone joins me. He sits down beside me- the infamous tutor. Geez, what were the chances? We exchange totally pointless words and then others sit down and he is adored by all those seeking his favour with their kids for the forseeable future, and I have ceased to exist. Not that I care in this case because his words meant nothing and his indifference is palpable and matches my own. The food is damned fine. Even though I had asked for a ride from someone at said Table of Rejection earlier (and they are very nice people), I find myself leaving early. Pardon me while I cry.

Craning my neck, I noted that the seats I was not allowed to inhabit were taken by the lay cantor and the Pres of the synagogue. Reservations. I never knew!

I actually exited crying. Cried on the buses (it takes me an hour and a half) all the way home. I cannot fault these people for acting obliviously. Yet I do fault them for not seeing past their own comfort. I live in a state of perpetual ambivalence.

Living Torah, in my eyes, is not easy or comfortable. It means forever placing your needs second to the task at hand. And what is that task? To show and bring people closer to the Torah- to be a light to our own nation and the rest of the nations. One would think that in the midst of so much personal abundance (not necessarily material), people would share honourably and with good heart. My bad, for thinking it.

I am in such a raw place where it just does not take much to trigger me. I have decided that finally, though I admire the rabbi's efforts, etc., and the superficial friendliness of some members, man, I hate being at this shul. I was thrown out of my seat once because "someone else" was going to be sitting there, in the midst of a whole lot of empty seats. This being my attempt to get to know the "regulars".

I think I just can't care to stay. If you are single, forget it. If you are single, you must make your own way in spite of the crap thrown at you. If you are a single woman, forget it. I think I've found my mantra.

Judaism and Jews, no matter what the f you say, you fail us, cause you can't get out of your own frickin navels. And that's putting it kindly. And everyone stop telling me "they are only human". Heck, then I may as well have subscribed to another religion. And if you don't understand that then you don't understand Torah and what makes it so especially beautiful and singular and compelling.

I have decided to leave this synagogue.

(Esther, over at My Urban Kvetch eloquently voiced her own concerns on the same subject a while ago.)

Rabbi and Congregant

Divine Comedy

2005-05-08T09:19:00.000-07:00

I... awoke to find myself
alone in a dark wood ....

~ Dante Alighieri, The Inferno, canto I

Being here can sometimes be like suffering in sable- but suffering nevertheless. The wood is beautiful, the light does not seem too dim. It reminds me of Ps 23:

You spread a full table before me,
even in times of great pain.

You can't argue with beauty. Bummer.

And I Entered Wearing Tefillin

2005-03-30T15:06:00.000-08:00

Someone, via email, has asked about my wearing tefillin.

I am sure that there are some women and men out there who can spout out halachic chapter and verse and variants. I know there are those out there who perceive the whole thing in academic terms. I also know that some approach it in intellectual terms, as in-- I am gonna put on the tefillin and I will report back to you my observations and the laws encompassing the entire issue.

Pardon me if I don't get it. Just put the things on and surrender. This is not to criticise the approach of others (well, okay, some of it is) as much as to say that sometimes we live in our heads at the expense of experimenting with experience-that is, placing our hearts in the hands of something greater than ourselves and following what unfolds. (Of course, I am assuming a lot here. I am assuming an interest in, and struggle with, halacha, and a serious and essential connection to mitzvot as a way of life.)

Ironically, unlike tefillin, it took me an entire year after my conversion to feel worthy enough to wear a tallit. That, and my search for the tallit that I dreamed about, the tallit I finally found; it was bashert. My tallit has the most beautiful tzitzit, a Sephardic twist (early macrame, who knew?). Some may argue that it is a man's tallit, but for me it is the tallit of my dreams, one in which I envelop myself, it is a garment of light. The first time I put it on in shul, I knew I was home. Heck, it gave me warm fuzzies as well!

I did not consider tefillin. Tefillin were thrust upon me.

I was attending morning minyan almost every day. I happened upon a woman who was wearing tefillin. The temple has extra pairs and she indicated to the rabbi that I was willing. I was not willing! I had no idea!

Yet, I found the the rabbi explaining to me the ins and outs of tefillin, outside the beit midrash (house of study)while morning prayers had commenced. He had to change the knots to accommodate my left-handedness. He recited the blessings. And I entered wearing tefillin.

When the rabbi placed the shel rosh (the box that sits on the head) on my head, I went into another world. It is hard to describe. I knew I was meant to wear tefillin. It changed everything. Yes, you rationalists and skeptics and halachic purists out there, it did change everything. I was home. I was amazed. Oh my, it felt like a coronet. I felt noble. It is another world of nobility, not this world, but G-d's world. It confers dignity.

I remember a tussle I had with the gabbai a while into wearing tefillin. I stopped wearing a kippah when I wore tefillin. Why? Because I felt that it was overkill (and I also knew halacha). When you are wearing the coronet, it is enough. I have no idea of what it is like for guys, but for me as a woman, the shel rosh confers dignity.

The rabbi did his mara d'atra (teacher of the community) thing and ruled that according to the Conservative movement, women do not have to wear headcovering/kippah (and he gave an eye-opening history of kippah use). The gabbai's opening salvo was that if you want to "be like a man" then you have to adhere to the rules. I was getting into a huge, nasty argument with him (oh, puleeze, like I ever thought about the "man" thing, yeah some of us don't) given after that statement when the rabbi intervened. Somehow, tznius entered into the mix. I recall saying that I am modest and that modesty was not a question! The result was that I do not wear a kippah while wearing tefillin. Yes, even on the bimah, but that just may be tolerance on the part of everyone else. Still, I love them for it.

I was also bound on my arm. Oh my! If you want psychological analysis, go to it! The binding made me nuts! I felt so freaking bound, and it was so agitating, I can't begin to tell you. For me, the head part was not a matter of will, but the arm part was. I was beside myself. Wanting to align myself with G-d, yet at the same time, questioning, agitating, basically pitting my will against G-d's. Truly. I bound my arm, the box was directed at my heart, but I chafed bigtime at it. Chafed and chafed and chafed.

It took another year.

Now, the arm binding is intimate. I get it.

I have been privileged to wear tefillin throughout the day, while studying. I have been privileged to wear tefillin.

In the end, tefillin, for me, are a spiritual transformer. I remember a lovely older woman who came to say kaddish at morning minyan. She said, "Tefillin is for men. Why do you wear them?" I answered that they helped me to focus (and she accepted it); when you are brought out of yourself to answer, you don't have time to dissemble. For me, tefillin act as a transformer, like the mishkan. They help one directly and intensely connect with G-d; they magnify and sanctify prayer and connection. At the very least, they can provide focus; that is their service. And, just as importantly, they can confer dignity- they elevate your being and your soul. And their elaboration and weight are given witness by a roomful of people wearing tefillin, a testament to G-d's wisdom and love. Even though some people may feel like clowns wearing this stuff- the connection is there, binding us up in the bond of eternal Life, in something greater than ourselves. It's not really more complicated than that.

Far more than an obligation, tefillin are an explicit gift from G-d, via the Torah. A total and amazing gift, a way to directly connect with Him and with each other. I can't imagine my life without them. And I can't imagine not being able to lay tefillin, even when I am alone, in a room, with no access to my fellow Jews and feeling terribly disconnected and lonely; it is a comfort because I can still connect with something greater than myself. I would do it in my dreams, given the power.

How To Lay Tefillin (Video)

Chosen

2005-03-21T11:23:00.000-08:00

Here is a thought that I keep with me always. I don't know where I read this so I have no attribution:

G-d does not choose the qualified;
G-d qualifies the chosen.

I wonder what that says about our lives, personally. And what does that say about us as Jews?

All You Need Is Love?

2005-03-17T18:00:00.000-08:00

Yehoshua Karsh, in his thoughtful blog, raises an interesting question (among many):

Imagine that you believe G-d doesn't love you. What would prayer be like? What if you believe He loves you, but doesn't like you, or He's not happy with you, what would you feel when you enter a synagogue?

First of all, the question was not asked about whether you love G-d or not. I think it matters. Without a positive response, the other answers are not particularly relevant. In my case, I do love G-d. 'Nuff said, and the Shema resonates for me, bigtime.

Having established the parameters, I neither believe G-d loves me or does not love me- I simply have no idea. I would like to think that He does but perhaps that is wishful thinking. In fact, for me, the question of love rarely arises, because somehow, I don't think that love is the answer.

Yet, when the question does arise, sometimes, I do imagine that I have been abandoned by G-d. What would prayer be like? It is important to stress that I would, first of all, continue to pray (as I do). What would it be like? It would be like it always has been, but with a lot of cursing (and has been).

If I felt that He loved me but at that point He didn't like me, well, then I would challenge Him and feel rather vexed.

If I felt that He loved me but that He was not happy with me, then I would be irked and wanting to know more, and hoping to get on His good side.

If I believed that G-d loved me, but He was in some manner disappointed in me- how would I feel when I enter a synagogue? I would feel remorse, I would do teshuva, I would try harder, I would be grateful for sanctuary. I would feel close. I would feel reverence. I would have hope. Whoa, this sounds like the answer!

On the other hand, if I thought that the Covenant gave me the right to challenge G-d, love doesn't have whole lot to do with it, which is probably where I stand.

Why does all this matter? It matters because belief and decision are the basis for all behaviour. It also matters because those Jews who are just trying to survive and don't have the luxury of asking these questions, simply live the answers.

Israel: Jewish Delight

2005-03-14T09:47:00.000-08:00

It seems so naive and simplistic, but when I arose from the mikvah the whole world opened for me. I remember feeling, the last barriers between me and all Jews and Judaism simply.... melted, simply ceased to exist. And I was standing in line waiting for the festive conclusion of a truly amazing day, at the Skirball Museum cafe, and realising...

That from now on the whole world was open to me. That wherever I went, there would be a Jewish home. That all cemeteries and Jewish buildings and Jewish land and Jewish communities were mine. I could wander wherever in the Diaspora and there would be Jews and home. And there is no doubt of my love for it all.

And one of my dreams, which I thought would never happen, is to roam the world and to visit all the ancient and not so ancient synagogues. Land me in any synagogue and I will be hard pressed to not fall in love. So here is my dream come true. And in Eretz Yisrael, of all places! So absolutely sweet!

Talmudic Times, Qasrin

Ari Shul, Tzfat (Safed)

Ner Tamid

Abuhav Synagogue, Tzfat

Tunisian Synagogue, Acco

Caro Shul, Birthplace of Shulchan Aruch

Covenantal Blues

2005-03-13T12:20:00.000-08:00

I am the very model of a modern gerish Jewish girl
I've information agadah, halacha, and mustache twirl
I know chazal and who's gedol, and I quote avot historical
From stumbling blocks to floating skulls, in order most methodical.

I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters problematical,
I understand invasions, both vexing and emphatical.
About K'lal Israel, read- Jews, I'm teeming with a lot o' news
With many cheerful facts about brit-covenantal blues.

With many cheerful facts about brit-covenantal blues...

~~Stolen~~ Adapted from the Pirates of Penzance

I am walking to the library, through a tall stand of evergreens. The earth undulates and cushions my feet- aaaah. The silence is G-d speaking. Oh, I love the silence! Small daisies carpet the ground. They hold the fragrance of meadows.

I wander by a small creek, so clear and therefore so fascinating. It reminds me of my childhood, playing by the river bank, in the light, in the warmth, in the wondering.

Well, I think about G-d all the time and my purpose in this life. I have a very unsettled life, materially and emotionally (unlike some bloggers who have the luxury of delving into minutiae, oh I wish!). So, I was thinking about the Covenant. I was thinking about tikkun olam (repairing the world). I was thinking about what we agree to when we become partners in the Covenant. It is not enough to be born into it, IMO, because if you don't know what you've agreed to, then how can you live your life accordingly? And tradition does not cut it, it's a lazy answer.

When I converted I took on the "yoke" of Torah (though I sometimes think the 'yoke' is not Torah, but Jews). But I also entered the Brit (Covenant). I know, as much as it is humanly possible for me to know, what I agreed to. Being a "light unto the nations", following G-d's laws, loving G-d as stated in the Shema, striving to be "humanly holy", living a Jewish life and Jewish ideals. For me, Judaism is not part of my life, but my entire life; my life and behaviour, however imperfect, are dictated by the Hebrew calendar, the festivals, Jewish living, the complete embrace of Shabbat and always, always, the desire, the waiting for, the preparing for, the longing for, Shabbat.

So, Shabbat scooped up and enveloped the day, and it was a perfect and most beautiful day where beauty surprised me wherever my eyes alit; it was as if seeing things for the very first time. I said the bracha (blessing) for encountering Beauty, though I don't know the Hebrew ending of it, so I say it half in Hebrew and half in English, while my next step is to learn the Hebrew. It's interesting that I say this bracha so often. I think it is because I so love beauty. I imagine someone else may often say brachot for veggies, or trees or rainbows, or cake (rabbinic origin). It's a mindfulness, but you really don't have to know that- you just need to find the blessing that gets you going. And mine is Beauty. I thank G-d for beauty!

And I was wondering, this Shabbat- I know a little of how I approach the Covenant, I made a deal, I swore, I feel responsible for my part in it. And I was wondering...heck, what is G-d's part in it? Like, what is He doing, what is He moving towards, why do we need a Brit, what's in it for us with Him as partner? I know what I am doing, and He knows what I am doing, but I don't know at all what He is doing. If the Brit requires faith and trust, what is the object? I realise, I really don't know. All I know is that I am, as humanly possible, trying to do my bit.

And so, unpuzzle me this- in this day and age, what is G-d's participation and share in the Brit? What is the point?

Israel: Brokenness and Beauty

2005-02-23T20:00:00.000-08:00

Updated March 14

I love loveliness and Israel offered very much loveliness as well as so much brokenness. This is my favourite picture. And so are the rest that follow.

Light on Curtains, Ari's Shul, Tzfat (Safed)

* Click on picture, to enlarge.

Brokenness and Beauty Mines and Thorns

Life In Tzfat Life in Jerusalem
From the Heights

Where the Ark Stood, Qasrin

On the Road Ravaged

Cold Comfort Young Ezra on the Heights

Dancing Trees

Serenity View From Tzfat

Illumination, Caro Shul

More to come...

Israel: Rambam and Those Wacky Rabbonim

2005-02-23T19:21:00.001-08:00

*Click to enlarge

I actually thought this was a guide to the restrooms.

Naaah, they were directions for the mechitza, intersecting the Rambam's (Maimonides) Grave.

What? Are they all taking crazy pills??????

I wonder if running a massive fence across the length of his itty bitty grave has left a lot of people, including the Rambam's ghost, rather perplexed.

Judaism Is Jews

2005-02-23T15:56:00.000-08:00

Updated: Comments have been activated.

I notice that, online, people identify their "Judaism" with a laundry list of things they do (or say they do, or say that others should do). It validates them as Jews, or perhaps more correctly, real Jews, I suppose.

I also notice a growing trend amongst bloggers who are not O and take their Judaism seriously, to trot out laundry lists of what they do in order to justify their existence and validate their religious life as authentic. Recent posts by some non O bloggers suggest that the problem is not with O who will always be exclusive and triumphalist, but with the fact that there are those of us who actually care about what O thinks. And I mean the people, not the Torah or halacha or G-d.

I normally don't comment on other people's posts but this issue is close to my heart. Naomi Chana of Baraita gives reasons for not choosing Orthodoxy. And she doesn't understand why Jews other than O are still kowtowing to Orthodoxy as if it were the summit of the Jewish religion. I totally agree with her nice and reasonable observations and would like to add a few of my own, less measured though they are :

I think this hypervigilant consciousness of Orthodoxy is partially due to good PR. Just start a blog and if you, as a Jew, are remotely interested in O "observance", many will descend upon it to help you get over that "conversion" hump. If you are looking to convert, they will also descend and happen to forget to inform that Judaism encompasses more than just Orthodoxy. That plus the fact that if something is repeated a gazillion times, you too will believe. Then add to that the real PR juggernaut of outreach groups (I was sucked in by them at first), and a certain ideology gets a stranglehold and begins to dominate. It's enough to destabilise or disorient someone who may not be too sure of their choices or has just gone along with the way they were raised. Even if what they are being fed is not true!

This always reminds me of evangelicals preying on elderly, sick, lonely, uneducated and vulnerable Jews. Like the evangelicals, they "love bomb". Most of us need to belong to a community, and often we feel alienated, possess a fragile sense of belonging; when someone offers you a close-knit community, and gives you lots of attention, why would your heart not flutter a little?

Intellectual intimidation is common. Most Jews have not gone to yeshiva, most Jews will never know the ins and outs of halacha, are not professors of Judaism, most Jews don't argue for the sake of argument, a la the Talmud. Most Jews have trouble not being intimidated by services when there is Hebrew present. So, given those factors, and when the message pounded into you by O at every turn is that O is the only authentic Judaism, it is very easy to push that agenda. That brand of Judaism, sold through this sort of intimidation or bullying (sometimes inadvertently) guarantees that the other will crumble before your eyes and give in or give up. Or at the very least, be gripped with uncertainty and a huge sense of inferiority. It's a destabilising tactic, nothing more, nothing less, whether it is conscious or not. It's like being hypnotised, and people succumb. It works.

And then there is the biggest weapon of all- if you do not have confidence in your choices then it is easy for O to bring out the ultimate Holy Laundry List- that checklist of outward behaviour that includes or excludes you- keeping Shabbat and kosher scrupulously. It then becomes no longer about the religion, but about the lifestyle. And that's when Judaism becomes about Jews and not Torah, or G-d. It elevates tradition and lifestyle to a religion, at the expense of Jewish unity, and at the expense of humanity and common human decency. Often, I find myself asking if everyone is taking crazy pills. Wow, this is not the religion I signed up for.

In rebuttal, Out of Step Jew, whose blog I highly respect, tries to bridge some of the gap by ascertaining, since nc seems so "special", that is, meets a lot of the requirements set out by the Holy Laundry List, that she be treated like an honourary member and well, like a religious Jew worthy of respect. Clearly she has what it takes in terms of whatever combination of factors that allow for that respect . Even if she is not Orthodox. Wow. What does it take? To me it comes across as a little bit condescending even though I know the writer's heart was in the right place. Heck, if I were nc I would definitely take him up on his invitation to visit! But to me it is a symptom of the very concrete gap in realities- huge cognitive differences. One person's graciousness is another person's condescension. From my view, it's a nice attempt at rapprochement but totally on the writer's terms.

Until we get beyond communicating and, therefore, relating in the language of "observance" and "holy laundry lists" there is no way to bridge that gap, because we respectively speak a different language altogether. It is definitely not the language of true respect for a fellow Jew who takes their Judaism seriously. It is a grammar of requirements, in which speaking (living) the language of faith and Torah and striving hold little sway if the requirements are not stringently met or pursued.

Observance neither necessarily makes one a serious Jew or "religious".

...just because one is observant and keeps all of the ritual laws, that doesn’t make one a religious human being. A religious person is one who observes both the ritual and moral laws. Ritual observance alone doesn’t make one a religious individual. R' Muskin, Jewish Journal

I have met a lot of Jews serious about their religion in all movements. So, like nc who doesn't get why Jews in streams other than orthodoxy think O is the cat's pajamas, I don't get how anyone can take seriously the idea that there are so few serious religious Jews who happen not to be Orthodox. Perhaps it is because no serious Jew judges another on their level of "observance" or realness? Perhaps it is because that kind of loshon hara is not prevalent in non-O synagogues and so there is no telling, no list? I would hope that all "religious Jews" would be defined in terms of their pursuit of the mitzvot, in both observance and morality, and not in terms of some spurious authenticity. And to take it one step further- to recognise that while one cannot be "religious" without striving in observance neither can one be "serious" without being moral. Now that is a complete language we can all understand.

Special Notice: Women in Tag Team Wrestling

2005-02-22T13:45:00.000-08:00

Both Z of JewView and Shira of On the Fringe have written a series on dealing with the consequences of having a disabled child. It is clear from their exchange in comments and from reading the posts, that though they come from differing perspectives, they complement each other. I think that the word "holiness" tends to trip off our tongues way too readily, but when I read about their struggle, I see holiness described.

We all get so involved in petty minutiae, whether it is ritual, or material, or politics (deserving of its own wacky planet)-the arguments are so gratifying that we tend to forget what really matters, what really is a Kiddush Hashem. Their stories really brought me down to earth and also bring heaven down to earth. I am just blown away by their love and their strength.

I think that you need to read them both to get the whole picture. As far as I know, this is the first account of a tag team wrestling with G-d in the style of Yaakov/Jacob that has been reported since Biblical times!

Israel: A Great Exodus

2005-02-20T19:32:00.000-08:00

Acco Prison- Courtesy of my tour group- Israel Tour Connection, aka, Israel Torture Connection.

I did not want to do the political/war tour. I was on a pilgrimage. I ended up there, nevertheless. Don't use Israel Tour Connection as your tour organisers. Using them resulted in major unpleasantness, anger and frustration. The tour guide was clueless. And I am left with memories of wars above all else. (For more information, email me.)

Acco prison is the place where some brave Irgun resistors died. Their statements in court are beyond eloquent. Their escape was dramatically revived in the film, Exodus.

More Here

Israel: Herod's Showplace

2005-02-20T17:58:00.000-08:00

Frankly, all I care about is the Mediterranean. I am so ignorant that I had to ask my rabbi if it was, indeed, the Mediterranean. He was kind.

Nevertheless, the Mediterranean rules! Oh my, it was ....well, I am without words. Oh, and Herod built his showplace here. A port, a resort, the place to be.

More Here

Israel: Security Fence

2005-02-20T16:05:00.000-08:00

Alongside Syria....and more power to Israel!

Israel: Preparing For Shabbat at the Kotel (Wall)

2005-02-20T14:31:00.000-08:00

Davenning Afterglow?

More Here

Israel: Jerusalem's Arab Quarter

2005-02-20T10:15:00.000-08:00

More Here

Israel: Jerusalem Kiss

2005-02-17T15:42:00.000-08:00

aka, Shrine of the Book

The first time my gaze lit upon The Shrine of the Book, I went, "Huh?!"* Yet it stands in quiet and striking contrast to the terraced boxes of the Israel Museum about which I have written earlier. The museum's interior offers, among other things, a sumptuous panoply of Jewish artefacts on the walls, on the floor and under glass. For people like myself, starved of such abundance gathered under one roof, it is gratifying to both the mind and the senses. Meanwhile, entering the hushed and softly lit interior of the room housing the central showcase of the Shrine is like entering the Sanctuary, spare with offerings, bits of parchment cobbled together in the cases round about.

But ooooh, those offerings! The room is like one great big Ark! I suppose this is as spiritually and historically close as we can get to the Holy of Holies for the time being (though this Gate in the Tunnels may lead to it:)

It is not just the one long parchment that girds the walls of the central casing (disappointingly it was meant to be from the book of Isaiah, but had been removed and replaced with a copy) that is breathtakingly affecting. It is also all the little bits of religious living in found objects such as amulets and tefillin. It is in the greatness of devotion by the scribes. It is in the wondrous penmanship by one such scribe whose letters were shaped with such clarity and spare elegance, that it surprises and amazes- and this, all on a scrap of scroll from some impossibly tiny tefillin.

We took this side trip with our rabbi, who was able to answer our questions and fill in the gaps. My huge discovery was in learning about and seeing, in the skin, a book, circa early 10th century, called The Aleppo Codex:

The Aleppo Codex is the earliest known Hebrew manuscript comprising the full text of the Bible. It is also the most authoritative, accurate, and sacred source document, both for the biblical text and for its vocalization, cantillation and Massorah.

For me it was like discovering the Rosetta Stone, only infinitely more exciting. As I understand it, previous to this time there is no known codification of vowels and of cantillation. I learned that the codification came much, much later, long after the Torah was written down. This is A Big One.

I was also pleasantly surprised to discover that the jars which held the scrolls found at Qumran were quite pleasing in shape, spare yet elegant and smooth surfaced. I always imagine ancient clay artefacts to be without grace. I stand corrected.

Torah suffuses the atmosphere, alive. The Shrine of the Book satiates the soul. Like a kiss, it is most gratifying. And all its ways are pleasant. And all its paths are peace. Indeed, there is peace in Jerusalem.

* I was also quite grateful that the Shrine was not designed à la Derek Zoolander's Center for Kids Who Can't Read Good. Heh.

Israel: Yad Vashem

2005-02-16T16:54:00.001-08:00

I don't want to write about Yad Vashem. While I was standing there, emotionally obliterated by some trees, others tried to soothe me by telling me the memorials at Auschwitz or Washington were worse. And all I could think, was, 'dearest G-d, can it get any worse'?????"

I have always been an emotional coward about memorials to the Shoah. It took me forever to watch "Schindler's List". When I did, I burst into tears at the instance when the chidren's children walked past the graves of the survivors. I found it all insupportable.

Throughout my history growing up I had heard stories, from my grandmother(obm) especially, of my great uncles, her brothers, who had been Polish partisans. I had heard stories, so matter-of-factly told, of my mother and father who had respectively ended up in Siberia and the Gulag as children, in the Russian labour camps. My father and granny and grandfather and other relatives had sojourned in Arkhangelsk. I could not watch a simple film such as "Dr. Zhivago" without noting the cattle cars, and the boiled potatoes, straight out of my granny's remembering. I could barely watch it. And my mother had told me about being transported to Siberia in the cars, and of the people who died in them, the events, and she spoke of it just once. I remember that she played barefoot in the snow.

My family lived in Poland and the Russians came in the night and took everything, their farmland and possessions and animals away from them. I have never known most of my family because they died, either through battles, or through the tragedy of being in the wrong place at the wrong time or for simply being, inconvenient. I have always thought that that was even more humiliating than being targetted as a Jew- to be so insignificant and disposable, to die only for convenience's sake. Just, in the way. To not matter. They became DPs- Displaced Persons.

My granny used to talk of "the war" (WWII). Once in a while, she would speak of her brothers, my great uncles. A younger brother, a partisan. The older brother, who was so bitter because often no one would listen to him, i.e., the Jews- during that terrible time. He was a partisan leader,and my family lived close to Treblinka. They were peasants, they were farmers, they knew the lay of forest and land.

Understand. In my family, rescuing Jews was a footnote in the family history. It was always spoken of casually. And I took it that way- casually. No big deal.

I remember stories from my family about the early days- it was a given that growing up you would stone the houses of Jews and you would harrass; it was a way of life. A given. Yet when it came to rescuing Jews from Treblinka, my great-uncles' answer was: they are human beings.

I heard from my granny that her eldest brother, back in Poland, remained bitter (till the day he died). Remained bitter because there were so many Jews that they tried to rescue before Treblinka who did not believe the partisans. They rescued some but it could never be enough. There is no documentation but I know it to be true, because I grew up with stories way before there was documentation, and even now, my parents don't know about legitimising it, and in a way, why would they want to?

I entered Yad Vashem, the "Avenue of Rightous Gentiles" and I lost it. I looked down at a plaque beneath a fresh tree and dissolved into tears. I could not go farther and did not though I made it into the building, remarked the wall-sized photos of Jews on their hands and knees scrubbing a street while everyone else looked on. I took pictures, waited for the others, and listened to their experience of the Children's Memorial and broke down anew. I don't understand how anyone can bear it. I know that the 'Avenue of Righteous Gentiles' reminded me of the denouement of my family's life, of my great-uncles' stand, of my great-uncles' bravery and bitterness. Of my history.

When Yizkhor comes around, I remember it all. But especially, I am convinced that it is due to the merit of my great-uncles, whom I never knew, that I became a Jew, me who had always felt displaced. I was rescued also. It is a fact.

More Here

Israel: Jerusalem Standing

2005-02-14T16:37:00.000-08:00

More: Here
* Click on pictures

Israel: Jerusalem Rising

2005-02-12T20:16:00.000-08:00

More: Here

Israel: Behind the Mechitza

2005-01-26T13:00:00.000-08:00

Did you ever sit behind the mechitza? Did you ever think about the separation, and your feelings about it? Has it ever occurred to you that the mechitza can be....well....kinda sexy?

I first encountered a mechitza when I davenned at Chabad. It was a gorgeous dusky rose lace, stretched between women and men. On the one side, there were the men in their white and black striped tallitot, looking like angels; on the other were the women trickling in, heavy with perfume and makeup and gossip, whose chatter infused prayer with a rather profane abandon. In proximity to the mechitza, a few younger women davenned quietly and modestly and earnestly.

I found the men in their tallitot most appealing. I wanted to inhale and embrace that atmosphere, to enter the spiritual plane which they seemed to inhabit. And, I guess, I am attracted to angels.

Before services, the women's entrance was locked, forcing the women to pass through the men's section. The women were roundly inspected for availability and attractiveness. It was akin to running the shidduch gauntlet. Not pretty.

In Jerusalem, we toured the Israel Museum. Majorly cool. When we reached the Judaica section, inside I was jumping around with glee. How often do you get to see that much historical Judaica in one convenient spot? It was a cornucopia that went far to satisfy my curiousity, and my senses, and my cultural hunger.

For me, specifically Jewish artifacts, or those attributed to Jews, hold an unspeakable fascination. I am fascinated by the fact that there is no readily identifiable style of art or artisanship or decoration that you could recognise as "Jewish" unless the usual motifs apply- the magen David, the menorah, and commonplace religious ritual objects. I imagine it stems from the interdiction about graven images and our dispersion to the 4 corners of the world. It makes me think, wow, what a nomadic, eminently adaptable, tough and mysterious people, to continue and to thrive without benefit of the usual cultural trappings and consistency of identity. Without a discernible visual style.

The Israel Museum boasts several synagogue interiors, lovingly reassembled within its rooms. To enter any one of them, and they are all so different- from barn-like rural to exotically middle eastern- is to enter not only the experience of an era, but to stand and worship with Jews long past, and to be reminded of what it means to revere G-d. Each one of these had a mechitza. The one I recall (pix to follow) not only had a second floor balcony running the length of the sanctuary, but also a wooden lattice covering its face. I realised that the women were hidden while the men were on display for women's eyes, if they so chose to look. Instinctively, I found that particular mechitza most offputting, barring the most potent and effective invisible mechitza proferred in words and deed at the Tunisian Synagogue, where women were totally shut out.

On Shabbat morning in Jerusalem, we, along with so many others, walked to services. It is such a joy to have synagogues on almost every corner. It is such a joy to have the world slow down, for traffic to dwindle, for silence to descend, and to meet and pass others on the way to something other than work and shopping. We davenned at Kehillat Shira Hadasha, in a hall, nothing fancy. Shira Hadasha is a relatively young and Orthodox congregation. And relatively different.

We happened upon it because another rabbi told my rabbi that it was worth a look. That it was an experience like no other. The place was crowded, and people were hanging from the rafters. Luckily we always carried our own siddurim, because they are either few in number, or printed in Hebrew alone.

Dividing the room was a breathtakingly beautiful, diaphanous mechitza made of gauzy white fabric, shot throughout with delicate white embroidery. It not only divided the room, but divided the bimah and lectern where the Torah reading took place in the centre of the room, and ran down to meet the Ark at the front, affording a view for each side.

The service was the most soulful I have ever experienced. The singing was Carlebachian style, something I have not truly encountered before. It was interspersed with the usual Saturday morning melodies. But this was so different- everyone sang; there were women's voices en masse and men's voices en masse, and the voices were loud and spirited and lifted past the rafters up into the sky: a celestial choir. Now I know what the phrase, "Kadosh kadosh kadosh Adonai tzeva'ot, m'lo khol ha'aretz kvodo." * really feels like- what if feels like to really inhabit it; now I know what it means when the angels get together, and sing to each other and inspire each other and cannnot help but praise and praise and praise:

In purity and sanctity they raise their voices in song and psalm....One to another they join to hallow their Creator with serenity, pure speech, and sacred song, in union chanting with reverence. (K'riat Sh'ma and its Berakhot: Siddur Sim Shalom, p 97)

And they say there is no heaven here on earth!

I had no idea until I began reading about this congregation that in the past, women used to read from the Torah and say blessings. It was only later that the tradition changed in order to preserve the "congregation's honour" (i.e., men's shameful illiteracy/lack of learning)) and women were removed from participation. At this service, women wore tallitot, led some of the prayers, acted as gabbaim, read from the Torah and said blessings, carried the Torah on the women's side and handed it to the men, and a woman delivered the d'var Torah (in Hebrew). During the d'var Torah, the mechitza was pulled aside. Wow.

I loved it.

The one argument for the mechitza which my friend who attends Chabad has posited is that it makes someone of single circumstance, like hers, feel less alone. She hangs out with a bunch of women without their husbands and sometimes, without their children; they have included and embraced her- something that she sadly never really found at my shul (she has an autistic adult daughter).

Yet, at my present shul, I notice that a lot of the men come without their wives and sit together, and a lot of women come without their husbands and sit together. Families also hang out all over the place, and sometimes those who are single hang out with families or with the other sex. Even at minyan some women and men tend to sit in their respective clusters. I feel kinda weird because being alone during services does not bother me; in fact I prefer it because people are often inclined to talk and I rarely do. And I never feel alone when I am davenning, anyway. I suspect that the sexes naturally gravitate towards their level of comfort while maintaining a sense of community that does not alienate. I, therefore, do not find her argument or some others particularly convincing.

But, yes, I loved the service, nevertheless! I didn't mind the mechitza as much as usual. Except for one thing that I must confess- I find the mechitza sexy. During my usual activities during egalitarian services at my C shul, I rarely notice what is going on around me or the faces in the congregation, until the Torah service begins. I rest my eyes a little and scan the room, and if there is a striking man or woman I may notice. Largely, I am not aware of the sexes, or especially the other sex. But the mechitza makes me notice, draws me towards "the dark side".

There is something mouthwatering about all that testosterone robed in white, ornamental fringes in flight, acting like angels, with a "kol ish" to die for. Until a mechitza goes up, I don't notice. The mechitza is like a beacon pointing to the other sex, rather like a gold wrapping round a Godiva chocolate or box of chocolates, especially when you are single.

When you can see through the mechitza, it is all the more enticing. When you can't see anyone, it is all the more alienating. To me, the mechitza, for all its delicacy, screams difference, and that you must ever keep that in mind, you must always be aware, you must always remain self-conscious. The mechitza brings sex into the sanctuary and all the baggage that goes with it. For all its allure and charm, I really have no longing to go behind it again, either as a way of life, or even this Shabbat.

*Holy holy holy, Adonai tzeva'ot, the whole world is filled with His Glory.

Israel: Women of the Wall

2005-01-18T16:40:00.000-08:00

* Updated links
** Clarification

I went to the Wall. This expression seems so fitting, now. I came, I saw, I overcame.

It was the first night of our arrival after a bloated set of speeches at a dinner most of us could barely swallow, which weighed us down even further, after suffering the beginnings of monster jetlag. Our tour bus fought through the darkened and narrow streets of Jerusalem, with traffic pressing on either side of us, to reach the golden lit walls of the golden city celebrated in fact, fiction and vision.

All I remember is this: after going through security, there was the Western Wall (Kotel, aka, The Wailing Wall), as I had viewed* it, and longed to touch it, ; I had watched the comings and goings of thousands of faithful and curious souls over the years and envied them all. And although many had been surprised by its immensity, especially its height, I was surprised by how diminished it appeared, so unlike all the images of it.

Standing there, in the Plaza, facing the women's section I was impelled towards the Wall.

The women really do wail. The women recite psalms, force warm and fervent notes against the challenging and cold cracks already weighted with wings of words and supplication, and wear away the stone with their hands and their tears. Each time that I attended, the ascent of crowded words and mourning remained the same. The murmurs, the weeping, the recitation, the anguished and earnest whispered intimacies. The stone has become a smooth and glossy set of veins and arteries of rock weathered by lament and hands and lips and breath. You can trace the history of every person with your finger tips and know them.

Meanwhile, I have only second-hand reports of the men's side. This much I do know: if you are in need of a minyan to say Kaddish for Yarzheit, it takes a man about 2 minutes to find a minyan. You just have to ask. A group is eager to gather around and affirm G-d's sovereignty. What else goes on, I do not know.

I remember most vividly being at the Wall on Friday, around noon time. The bustle to ready for Shabbat was charged with deadly earnestness. Military and police congregated in impressive mass and vehicles on the plaza floor. Worshippers well known at the security checkpoints, passed through without examination. The Chareidi, looking fastidiously dapper while selling red strings was really pushing it. Tourists passed through in managed streams to gaze at 'the Jews praying at the Wall'. It had been raining and I witnessed Chareidi looking damned elegant in their long black coats, yet with plastic rain hats or plastic shopping bags over their shtreimels, or black hats. One ventured into the sunlight after davenning and lit up. (pix to follow)

That Friday afternoon took my breath away. It was just past noon. I was in contemplation in the women's section. The bells from all the churches in the Old City began to ring, to peal, to sing. For the longest time. The mezzuin's voice soared across the air from a minaret. And I could hear the men davenning beyond the mechitza, voices raised in worship. All together. Such harmony. While a woman, there and there and there, down the truncated length of the Wall, murmured and muttered and recited and wailed.

We toured the tunnels below the Wall. I had not been able to find my best friend's note the previous day. I felt so distressed. Getting to Jerusalem has taken a lifetime; getting the note there seemed to take as long. And now it was gone. Beneath the upper world, the Wall continues deep down, unbroken, with notes scattered throughout, scrunched tightly within its joints. At one point we encountered another gate, solid, unexcavated, that faces the Holy of Holies. Well, I stood there looking up at that great and simple arch, in awe. Simply awed by the possibility. While searching for a piece of paper, I discovered my friend's note. I secured it amongst the stones of the gate. I consider this my finest moment in Israel.

I heard a story about the Wall. My rabbi told me how his wife-to-be and he had come to the Wall, and she was wearing a sleeveless dress and someone had spit on her. All for the glory of G-d, I guess. She burst into tears and has not been back since then.

While sojourning in Jerusalem the following events occurred:

The first morning the rabbi went off to an Orthodox shul to daven Shaharit; he returned deflated and annoyed because the service was mechanical and speedy.

I, hearing of this, was pissed and upset, because I assumed that we Conservative-affiliated types would get together for morning minyan. I was wrong. I had brought my tallit and tefillin and expected to daven. I was so wrong.

My rabbi, being the total mensch he is, found us a Conservative synagogue and I happily davenned there for a couple of days. As far as I know, he and I were the only ones who participated. I hope I am wrong. Perhaps there was a minyan going on out there, somewhere in a room in the hotel. A huge number of our group attended Friday night services.

Then one day we stopped to tour a Tunisian synagogue. Our bus was mixed with C and O. The guide announced that we would be stopping to daven Mincha-Maariv there before the tour of the premises. He said, that "men could daven, and...women could daven, or wait." Well, the women did not even have a mechitza to daven behind/beside (and I had accepted the idea of "when in Rome, etc."). While the sounds of Hebrew chant, of men's voices, floated around us, the women scurried up the stairs from one floor to another, searching for the women's section. We discovered that one floor was another sanctuary, and the top floor was locked. So, there was nowhere for women to daven alongside the men. But they could wait on the bench in the hallway outside the room where the men were ensconced and enrapt.

A couple of women davenned in the sanctuary, separately, and others, I noticed as I walked out, sat quietly on a bench and waited. I almost took a photograph, the scene was so striking. Several women sat on benches facing the room where the men davenned, and each woman's face showed patient resignation and acceptance of circumstances. I was stunned but did not take a picture because somehow I felt that the moment was too naked to take advantage of. I imagine it would not occur to any of them to question things or to desire more. Yet, heck, here I was, and I did!

When I approached the 'almost 18 year old' shaliach tzibur about making a women's minyan she was ill equipped to deal with such decisions at such a tender age. Instead, she offered me a song and dance elucidating the factors that would have made a women's prayer group, never mind a minyan, impossible. In distress I went back to the bus and waited. When I vented to some poor man from our congregation who was sitting beside me about having no outlet to daven with community, he tried to placate me by saying they were late and the davenning only took 4-5 minutes, no big deal.

A couple of days later, there was davenning in this amazing synagogue in Tzfat (Safed)- the men stayed out in solidarity with the women. I am still wondering how they got a clue.**

It is the 800th anniversary of the Rambam's death. We travelled to his grave in Tiberias. My rabbi was thrilled to be there since Maimonides is his hero; he also gave a unifying drash on a portion of The Guide for the Perplexed, by his fave sage. Recently they have placed a high wooden mechitza dividing the length of the tomb. When I got to the top of the stairs where his tomb resides, I saw a sign that said "ladies" to the left and "men" to the right. I was so grateful because I so needed to pee. I followed the sign and ended up in an area with more graves. I had no idea that the signs were meant to direct people to the respective regulated sides of the mechitza! We then bought arak with the purported picture of Maimonides on the label for our minyan back home. It has been affectionately distributed as "Rambam Rotgut".

The very first night, when I hit the Wall, I touched glassy, worn stone, so cold. I pressed my forehead against it and wept. I wept for 15 minutes, without words. I did not pray. I did not plead. I was speechless. And I left without saying a word.

I had come home and I knew it. This was it, the centre of the universe, the centre of all things. I did not think it, but I surely felt it. And peace was my gift, unasked for and unearned. Not stillness, not lack of turmoil, but peace. A sense of wholeness, completeness. Did it make my world better? No. But interiorly, in some way I am changed. Something has been added. I believe that G-d adds, and does not subtract.

And so, G-d has added this:

My 'almost 18 year old' roomie pointed out (without reckoning the implication, especially for her) that the women of the wall prayed alone, separately and never got together.

My Conservative allies, the men, when push-came-to-shove, took the path of least resistance- sometimes unwittingly, yet still mesmerised by Orthodox hegemony. I went into this thinking we were all in this together in the sense that it was unspoken about how we would behave- that we all knew what we stood for and would do it together. I was so wrong.

Having been nurtured under egalitarian auspices, encouraged to wear tallit and tefillin, to chant Torah and to lead prayers, it was a surprise to encounter this weird Orthodox/Conservative exclusion. I am so infuriated. I hate Orthodoxy and I am not too thrilled with some C types either. Hello??? I would have had to make a special case- if I needed a minyan. That is what it would have taken. A few minutes in a minyan? Not important? I beg to differ.

And at the Wall, a C man cannot ask for a mixed minyan. And a woman cannot ask for any sort of minyan. Nor can women depend on each other or gather together, cannot as a whole affirm G-d's sovereignty, or even bond, as men can. They can only wail, one by one. While men can look to depend on each other and wail together.

I have not described myself as a feminist, but I do know that the soul needs what it needs and that no man can interdict that. My sojourn in Israel has been such an awakening. I possess a crummy voice (I am such an opera freak and an afficionada of chazzanut) and I know little Hebrew but I am going to learn to lead daily prayers. And I vow, like Scarlett O'Hara, that I will never go hungry again. I think that the events speak for themselves. And as a woman, I learned exactly where I stand. And I aim to change that. For the sake of those women who hunger for something more; yet, more importantly and selfishly, for my sake- I have had the "egalitarian" stuffing knocked out of me and a sense of deprivation and injustice where it really matters and where it really hurts can make you take stock.

My Israel experience has also left me with this other legacy: I have come to despise Orthodoxy and its insistence on exclusivity. I used to be indifferent. I think I have regressed, emotionally. But that experience has surely been a spur to make things better. I have heard a bit, in the past, about the The Women> of the Wall*, who tried to worship at the Wall in a group and who were reviled and physically assaulted. Now I know exactly what they are fighting for and I am with them. They are beyond brave. So many people think the fight is about form, and that may be partially so. For me, the assertion is about soul. All women of the Wall have so little religious freedom . It is so self-evident. You have to have been there to experience the inequity. To experience the repression of religious expression. To experience your delight in things unabashedly spiritual, and a longing for holiness, casually dismissed. There, at the heart of all things. It is disappointingly real.

**I have since learned that the men were herded like sheep into the room, not realising that the women had no place to go. By the time they noticed it would have been too embarrassing for all concerned, and disruptive, to leave. The rabbis complained, and the tour rep and guide, both apologised. To the men! And if I hadn't complained about it now, I would never have known.

Israel: A Palace In Time

2005-01-14T09:57:00.000-08:00

Abraham Joshua Heschel characterised Shabbat as a "palace in time, a delight" . He was not wrong, in my estimation. So, take that description and multiply it exponentially - apply it to Israel, and to Jerusalem, and you have understood the heart of all things Jewish, the Jewish longing, the Jewish ideal, the Jewish reality, concretised, and how it was for me when I sojourned there. Even if you find Shabbat merely tiresome, that extra dimension of Israel still enthralls millions of visitors of many faiths who may not be able to put a finger on the uniqueness of this place or how they feel or experience it. I can't imagine that anyone, in leaving Israel, would be left without anything but words.

Before I made the ascent, everyone who had visited, raved about Israel. Some had spent time on a kibbutz, others had family and/or visited several times and kept going back when they could manage it financially. A close, secular friend of mine who had gone from a wrenching divorce in the US to a year of healing in Israel when she was younger, in safer times, described the power, the pull of the land, of all that it means and all that it promises. She brought out a golden stone. She also described an intense engagement with Life. I remembered all these things, and yet I wondered....

A venerable fellow davenner in minyan described the touch of Israel most succinctly- alighting there gives one a "cozy, warm feeling". It gives you a sense of belonging. The experience is unlike anything you expect. It is a surprise. Novel.

For me, this also meant that I felt no fear. No fear! No feeling, no twitch, jab or ping. Even though we all discussed the circumstances casually all the time. It is as if G-d had parted the Red Sea and in the midst of much chaos and turmoil His people were able to "peacefully pass over".

I was vigilant, for sure. In Jerusalem, when our tour bus would stop beside a public bus, I prayed for the other bus to move well away from ours. In walking the streets of Jerusalem, one is ever mindful of puffy clothing and accessories and, in my case, of staying away from situations that leave me vulnerable to assault not only from strangers, but from Arabs (the Muslim Quarter in the Old City was a revelation). When you pass by Sbarro, on Ben Yehuda Street, it is as if nothing had ever happened there but it did happen and everyone carries the remembrance and it is weighty- it makes a difference.

If there is one gift that was not predictable, that I never would imagine, that is hard to describe, that Jerusalem especially, and Israel, conferred on me, it would be the gift of peace- more than shalom, it is rooted in, shalem- wholeness. I remember thinking that all Jews in the Diaspora needed to come to Israel so that they could be forever changed, that they would know what it means to be whole as a Jew. It seems to me that in the Diaspora we have a limb missing, or perhaps that extra measure of soul that is conferred on us on Shabbat. I do know this much- that without experiencing Israel, we are lacking something. And in Israel, you rest. In Israel you stop wandering. In Israel you are everything that G-d meant you to be, easily. And vividly and purely. Oh so easily!

I now understand what my friend meant about the power of the place..... all things spiritual seem to come more easily. When you pray at the Wall (Kotel), it feels like a direct line to G-d and the benefits are immediate. Peace. You don't need words. You just have to say, "Hineni", "Here I am". Silence is even better. Just be.

In a palace, we are nobility. That is our tradition regarding the keeping of Shabbat- that the day can confer grace upon us. Imagine how it feels to traverse all of Israel and to live that experience from the moment you set foot. The moment you really come home. In Israel you don't have to scramble to be or do anything as a Jew. You just are. The gift of peace is yours for the taking. And so is dignity. You are elevated. The ascent is real.

Oh the land! Nothing as I ever imagined! The people? Better, and as I imagined, and that includes the brusqueness, bluntness, rudeness, etc. In Israel, there is Life! The military are unobtrusively woven into every aspect of life so that it becomes second nature for you to accept the exigencies of a state besieged by terrorists. This is so unlike Cuba, where I landed several years ago, and where the military force dominated and intimidated at the moment of touchdown.

At minyan, several days ago, someone mentioned that they had a friend who was living in Israel and who cynically observed that you need to live in Israel a couple of years to really know what it's like. Well, yeah, he may be right. But then, he may be wrong. Some people find "peace in Jerusalem" and Israel, and others don't. This much I do know- that the psalm was correct.

There is a passage from the Talmud that describes Jerusalem as the eye of the universe:

The world is like a human eyeball
The white of the eye is the ocean surrounding the world
The iris is this continent
The pupil is Jerusalem
And the image in the pupil is the Holy Temple.
(Talmud - Derech Eretz Zuta 9)

I would venture to add that the eye is G-d and that the image is your purest, best self. And though you can meet your holy self in other mitzvot, it is only in Israel, and in Jerusalem in particular, that you can consolidate that image, that you will know the cornerstone that was rejected. You will know it because you will know wholeness and peace. You will know delight. You will know what G-d meant for us to be when He gave us the Torah and you will know it was a gift of total love. And you will know what it takes, in the Diaspora, to keep and remember it.

Israel: Flotsam and Jetsam

2005-01-06T06:36:00.000-08:00

Updated

December 15, 2004 In a few days I am off to LA and then in a few more days I am off to Eretz Yisrael for the first (and maybe last) time in my life.

I don't feel particularly inspired to post but I wanted to record something before I leave. Maybe I'll update this every day beforehand.

~~ I have returned with overwhelming jetlag, and a reaaaally bad cold thanks to young gorgeous guy with an Iranian J father and a Norwegian J mother who was planted beside me.

* I fret about the weather. I want it to be warm to hot hot hot, which is the way I have always envisioned experiencing Israel; I was willing to faint at the Wall from the heat in a diaphanous yet modest dress. I love the desert and I love long dresses. Yet here the cold, cloudy days and rainfall rise up to me in the forecast. Feh, I see jeans in my future.

~~ I wore jeans, except for Shabbat services on Saturday. The first day the sun shone on all our efforts. It even shone on Friday. noon, after I had traipsed across half of Jerusalem, made it to the Jaffa Gate in the Old City in the midst of a heavy rainstorm. I daven at the Wall (Kotel) and as I leave the sun burns through my clothes and dries the deluge.

* I hate the details of packing. I want a lackey.

~~ I still want a lackey.

* There is nothing cooler or more heartwarming than to be travelling with people you consider bashert or, at the very least, 'family".

~~ Oooooookay. This did not turn out as expected......

* I couldn't change my money to shekels at my local credit union. Don't they know I am going to Eretz Yisrael????

~~ I changed money at hotels. I hear the sucking sound of usury. I did not find alternative avenues, but then, I had little time. Next time I would do it so much differently.

* Single women are singled out at borders because they think we are all, the rest of female humanity, every single last one of us, stupid enough to fall for terrorists in disguise. It only took one woman to make the difference, as it only took one guy with nuclear capable shoes to force me to go barefoot, i.e., with totally naked tootsies, and grace the floor of a million cooties. This happened to me while recently going through LAX. Ewwww.

~~ Well, that happened to me on a US flight- major upper body checking by a woman, in full view of other passengers. It was done well and I did not feel too humiliated. I figured it primed me for further worries, which turned out to be fruitless. Indeed, my rabbi was singled out on the way back.

* If anyone does a body search I plan on describing it in total detail on this blog because I know it's because I am single and I am outraged and I hope that they all die slow humiliating deaths for putting me through this because of one gullible woman who is NOT ME.

~~ Alas, it did not happen. There is nothing to describe. YIPPEEEEEEE!

* Because I am travelling as a single, I am rooming with the 16 year old daughter of people known to me. But then the rabbi's son who is her bud is coming along as well. Which leaves the exceptionally chatty 12 year old younger sister. Guess who is gonna get stuck with her? And I want the window seat for everything- they are young they will have opportunities to go back as for moi I am not so sure. How am I going to pull off a mature image when I'm backhanding a kid out of my way?

~~ It happened. I got the almost 18 year old (not 16- how time flies!) for one bus ride but she changed to the back. The babe was with me at the beginning and made my Wall life less than perfect but she found a bud to hang out with for most of the trip so I was saaaaaved!

* On the upside, I am rooming with a seasoned shaliach tzibur (prayer leader). She could come in handy.

~~ She did not. A whole other story that turns out to be life-changing for me.

* Another upside: all erstwhile travellers, all of us, will have a mass aliyah this coming Shabbat. To receive the blessings for travellers to the Holy Land...how often does this happen to any of us in a lifetime? Does it get any better than this?

~~ It doesn't get any better than this, in my opinion. That moment lives.

* Can't we just stay at the Wall for the entire time???? There should be a tour to the Wall which includes room and board on the plaza.

~~ I still wish it. I imagine it takes mucho bucks to land on "Wall/Kotel Place".

* The hotel is many stars but without a lot of character. Whine whine whine. I hope the view is good. I demand a good view! I live and die by the view.

~~ Eh! It was totally without character, but it had a view. Well, the rabbi got the view of the Old City. We got the view of the ugliest apartment building in the modern city. And a rather spacious view of Jerusalem nevertheless (pix to follow). Internally, I whined. Sue me.

* I bought a digital camera for the trip because it would cost me less overall than film and processing and would make life easier. I still haven't learned to use it. The guide is a million pages.

~~ I learned to use it on the plane. I still haven't really learned to use it. But digital cameras RULE!

* I don't wanna know that they take down the prayers reverently placed between the stones every day. Did you want to know? Well, now you know and you can suffer with me.

~~ I placed several prayers there over time. I no longer care about their removal.

* Recently a thought, G-d forbid, has occurred to me- what if I hate it, or am indifferent? What if the entire trip is just plain awful? Oy!

~~ I did not have a load of fun. It was not perfect. The tour company made it hell. Other issues arose. I was furious the last 3 days.

Yet, to describe the trip? I cried at the thought of leaving.

For me, experiencing Israel was profound. That's the bottom line- it was profound. Life-affirming. A revelation. More to follow.

As for what follows I will have comments turned off. That was part of my awakening. Sojourning in Eretz Yisrael can really clear the mind.