Religion – Page 14 – Don't Gel Too Soon

HATS OFF (???)

What is it about hats? When I was a young lefty-hippie I ran around in a big orange straw hat with a floppy brim. You can see me here with the late, amazing Spalding Gray.

Somehow though, when I entered the world of Orthodox Judaism, the hat seemed a surrender to authority and to what I saw as a kind of lower status. Men cover their heads to remind them of God. Women are mandated to cover their hair for reasons relating to the Orthodox concept of “modesty.”

Our “beit midrash” – a group of women who study Jewish concepts, ideas and texts together every Tuesday, has just spent several sessions talking about hair covering and its origins and interpretations.

The teacher for this topic, Laura Shaw Frank, is an effective,inspiring and gifted teacher. A long-time corporate lawyer, she left her practice to become a Jewish educator. Whatever sacrifices that has involved, it has been a gift to the communities of women (and often men AND women) who have benefited from her teaching.

What we learned, basically, is that 1] Women and the temptation they offer men are perceived as terribly dangerous. Our hair is seen by many sages as so erotic and stimulating that it must be covered to protect both men and women. Therefore modesty becomes our responsibility, to guarantee the virtue of our people. 2] In most parts of Orthodox Judaism only married women must cover their hair. I’m still confused about why it isn’t more dangerous for young, single girls to be “exposed” than old married ladies like me, but there your are. 3] WHEN women must cover their hair depends on where they happen to be. At home, with only family around, no need. The farther we get out into the world, the more rigid is the requirement to “cover up.”

Of course, Orthodox women observe this obligation in different ways. Some wear wigs that cover every hair; some scarves and hats that do the same. Some cover only the top portions of their hair – as this photo of Laura Frank illustrates. Others wear head covering only in Synagogue.

THIS IS ME, NOT LAURA FRANK: In any interpretation it’s discriminatory; we’re covering our heads to protect men. Clearly there’s considerable argument about why this has to happen at all, although almost no disagreement that it has to happen in some form. It’s another acceptance of discipline, but unlike many that I’ve written about here, this one is, to me, a manifestation of a deep distrust of women and the power we wield. I have believed for some time that it is our power to create life, to bring forth new human people, that led men to view us as dangerous and subversive; that somehow it’s based on a jealousy that they do not have this ultimate privilege that rests with us.

ALL those reasons and many many more discussed over these past weeks made me really reluctant to buy into the hat-wearing thing. Then I started thinking about touring Europe and carrying scarves to put over my head in cathedrals. I was willing to cover my head in the cathedrals but not in my own congregation! I decided that was disrespectful. I began wearing scarves tied around my head. They looked kind of cool – and I felt more appropriate.

I wore the scarves for over a year and then I got sick of having them slide around and cram my bangs against my face. I solved the problem. I bought a hat. A red hat. I felt a little bit like I was playing dress-up but it’s become easier.

Last week, at the last class taught by Ms. Frank, we had a hat sale. THAT was really like playing dress-up with your girlfriends! I bought a really pretty one. And although I wear hats whenever I’m in the sanctuary at the Synagogue, I am still bothered by the discrimination implied by the rules and definitions surrounding head coverings.

As we heard in class though, if you’re going to engage in the rules of head covering and modesty, at least know where they came from. I know now, and I’ll cover my head in shul even though I’m not happy with the reasons behind it. In my heart, I still believe that much of the behavior prescribed for women in the Torah emerges from a deep anxiety about the powers and mysteries that surround us — powers that offer us the privilege of pregnancy and birth, of an inviolate connection to our children and of wisdom shared — for centuries — among us. Fortunately, no hat is going to cover that!

GOD, VIDEO GAMES AND THE END OF THE WORLD

Today on AlterNet – a wonderful aggregator of things political, there appeared the rather remarkable tale behind production of the video game Left Behind. Based on the phenomenally best-selling series of books set during the arrival of the End Times and the Rapture, it sounds like it’s pretty violent for a religious game.

I guess though that the entire story of the End Times is pretty grim. I remember thinking that back when I first heard of these books. It was around 7 years ago, when the first one came out. I wandered back to the galley on a cross country flight and found the flight attendant transfixed, deeply involved in the story. We spoke of it for some time; it meant a great deal to her.

I have always found apocalyptic stories riveting. Maybe it’s growing up in the "duck and cover" era but the idea of the world ending in fire seemed so plausible in those times* I was deeply affected by it, I think. If you had to go under your desk in 2nd or 3rd grade and put your crossed hands over your neck, you’d be scared too.

In addition to our air raid drills, there were books and movies like Alas, Babylon, On the Beach, and dozens of other nuclear disaster tales. They were full of small, horrible moments. I was pretty young but I remember, from Alas Babylon, mobs storming drugstores and looting them for medicine. Even now it is probably the image of nuclear war that sits most viscerally in my mind. My father had high blood pressure – and was lost without his hearing aid – and I remember fearing that a war would take away his medication and the hearing aid batteries that connected him to us.

The bombs always came from countries back then. Now of course all it takes is a suitcase and some under-funded port security to empower someone bent on destruction. It probably is no accident that the Left Behind books are so popular — there’s so much uncertainty and so much that’s frightening. Which brings us back to the game. Somehow it seems less acceptable to insert violence into a religious game, but as I become accustomed to the weekly reading of Torah portions I realize the bloody violence in the Bible itself. Even God was not immune – his anger was swift and deadly. The understanding of that somehow seems, at least partially, to justify the violence of apocalyptic literature.

So. No conclusions — just a riff for a Wednesday night. And the thought that if violence emerges so often in sacred works it’s an acknowledgment of those things in our natures that challenge us most… to keep our own rage, envy and hatred from popping out and contributing to chaos — in real life, on the pages of a book, or on an XBOX 360.

DEEP IN A DREAM: THE RED TENT

While I was in Jerusalem I went several times to Pardes Institute, a remarkable school to study the Bible, Talmud and commentaries. My husband and I love to study while we’re visiting places; it all seems so much more real – and sinks in more, too. We were there during the week that the story of the rape of Dinah is read on Shabbat. It’s pretty profound and provocative and a wonderful teacher named Rabbi Reuven Grodner taught the class. We were transfixed: the story of the vengeful brothers and their far from vengeful father Jacob is troubling to anyone – but particularly to women.

I remembered that The Red Tent was written in Dinah’s voice, so I decided to read it. I had tried once before but it seemed too overwrought and almost overwritten then. Now though, I find myself more interested in the stories in the Torah — the universality of Bible stories and all they represent — so I stuck it in my suitcase — and once we’d studied the Genesis story of Dinah I pulled it out.

It’s really quite an experience — almost a fever, like The Virgin Suicides. The sisterhood and love among women, the pain of childbirth, the rivalry and particularly the remarkable power author Anita Diamant provides to each of the main characters — is thrilling.

There’s a kind of Biblical interpretation called a Midrash and those that I, as a beginner, have read, are all pretty male-oriented. This book is one big women’s perspective/Midrash full of love, passion, pain, loss, love, birth, death, misery, joy and poetry. Much of it does NOT appear in the Bible but that’s true of the old Midrashim as well. I can’t stop thinking about the women of this book, their lives and stories. I came to love them and their stories — so very very different from the ones the conventional Bible stories tell.

JERUSALEM DIARY – ALMOST THE END

It’s Saturday night – Shabbat in Jerusalem is over. Last night we went to amazing services at the Wall- mobs of men on their side and women on ours praying, singing and dancing. Some of it is really awesome –standing watching a circle of young women in uniform – Israeli soldiers – dancing as they pray. Other women soldiers in uniform praying with their guns over their shoulders. Little girls praying with fierce concentration – other little girls running, laughing, dancing with the women. The men equally intense and in far greater numbers. ALL to welcome the Sabbath and the peace that it brings.

We returned to the hotel for an ENORMOUS dinner and lots of songs. And laughter. There were several large parties in a huge dining room — and many were singing — tables picked up one another’s tunes and serial singing ensued. Lots of kids running around; enormous families celebrating together. I’m so sorry I can’t show you pictures but I can’t use a camera on Shabbat — you just have to use your imagination.

Today we went to services at a school where the gym is used by a congregation on Saturdays. From there we took a long walk, had lunch with our entire group and a crew of our Rabbi’s family – his sister, her husband and four kids and his cousin, her husband and 6 kids. They are lovely, interesting people – two professors, a therapist and an Alzheimer’s Center director. There were lots of others too – 35 in all – and it was a great time with speeches and arguments and laughter.

Yesterday we met for two hours with a particularly sage rabbi with a spectacular reputation that he more than lives up to. It was quite exciting.
His name is Adin Steinsaltz and he has created schools and study centers all over Israel and in other countries. He looks like a sweet rabinical elf and evokes great emotion – it’s difficult to explain why. Like a jazz musician he riffed for two hours and gathered all that he spoke of together into a remarkable synthesis at the end. I’m going to try to write more about it but just want to get this account down since the ridiculous internet arrangements at this hotel have made posting difficult.

We’re just about at the end of this trip – so busy that my posts have of necessity been short — and it’s been a remarkable journey. I’m hoping to write in more detail when I can. Goodnight for now.

Something there is that doesn’t….

We had a lovely day. It began at the Kotel (Wailing Wall) at 7:30. The guys prayed on their side of the Wall and Lea, the rabbi’s daughter, and I prayed on the women’s side. She’s 7 and knows all the prayers cold – helped me as I’m the newbie and still learning. I don’t want to post her picture for kid privacy reasons but here’s what the scene looked like.

The Men’s Side

The Women’s Side

Then we went wandering. Where?

Sign inside Uri’s Pizza – a tiny hole-in-the-wall that our friend took us to to get caramel jelly donuts (don’t ask!)

We also had a lovely dinner – the whole group — and crashed early. Yeah- lots to talk about about the separation of women and men. Later though. G’nite.

PIX

This has been a great day but I may be too tired to tell you about it.

So here are some photos of

A soup kitchen warehouse where volunteers organize food to feed 5000 families and prepare 300 meals a day

Their kitchen

A funny picture of Jack Abramoff

that he isn’t in.

And some pretty flowers on the edge of the wall overlooking Old City excavations.

More tomorrow.

THE WEST WING AND THE MIDDLE EAST

They carry West Wing re-runs in Israel. I’m sitting here on a break between a day of walking through this holy city and dinner watching and crying. Can’t believe it. It’s the one where Mrs. Lanningham dies – a sad one, yes – but as my husband just said to me – “It’s a television show.” He’s right of course – but not exactly.

Since the end of the Clinton administration, the West Wing hour was the only hour I felt like I had a president I could count on. Seeing it here so long after the show ended and Bravo stopped running it was a real ambush moment. Just reminded me how much I grieve for all I’ve thought should be… and how very much I feel we’ve failed. Talking with our Israeli friends about not so hard; their own sense of despair over the state of this country brought it all back. I’ll get over it…

Before my weeping incident it was a lovely day today. Early morning at the Kotel – me and the rabbi’s 7-year-old daughter on the women’s side and all the guys on the men’s. It was sunny and cool and the city glows in the morning. Of course it’s unsettling to pass through metal detectors to pray but once you’re there, it’s quite an experience.

We had a great breakfast back at the hotel, then went walking with our friend Asher. We spent a couple of hours exploring the Mehane Yehuda market – crammed with vegetables and spices; meat, cheese, sneakers and clogs, sweaters, hats, nuts, loose tea, bottled water and almost anything else you’d want to buy. Asher took us from there to his old neighborhood Nachlaot, historic old houses off narrow streets.. strands of flowers hanging off some of the roofs and historic plaques decorating the walls.

So there it is – another day in Israel — the ridiculous, the sublime and the inevitable intrusion of the political longings that even a great adventure can’t stave off forever.

THE HARD PARTS

This picture, pulled from an image file because my camera battery died, is of a sign that appears all over the Jerusalem neighborhood called Mea Shearim. The article I linked to here calls it a “living museum” but somehow to me it’s always been oppressive. I go to an Orthodox synagogue and am accustomed to some painful facts about the role of women in Orthodox Judaism but this is different. To me it feels so joyless and heavy – I feel it sitting on my chest. No one smiles. No one will exchange a nod or even a glance as you pass them on the street – not the men who technically aren’t allowed to look at women not their wives, not the women – I’m not sure why — or even the kids. They are as closed off from us as if we were on two sides of a glass.

Sure you can buy things but that’s it. And it seems so strange to me that their stores are tangles of goods — no displays, no efforts to make things attractive – just piles and jumbles. I keep telling myself that it’s because the material world is so irrelevant to them. Their lives – every moment – belong to God. And to many I know that’s laudable. In some ways it is… but — and I’m thinking out loud here — in my view God gave us the rest of the world — why shouldn’t we enjoy it, too?

I guess I’ll just have to continue to struggle. I never could stand not being able to connect with people. Maybe I just want the connection that I have no right to expect. My husband says that I’m looking at THEIR lives through MY eyes and I have to open my mind to the acceptable differences between us. But they transmit such disapproval and so clearly feel none of the commonality that I want to feel with others who choose to practice Judaism that it’s tough. I’m thinking as I’m typing that it’s my bad – that I have to simply accept without comment the lives of others and stop wanting them to love me. Wow. Maybe that’s the whole thing — that and what I feel about the women and their very constrained lives. More to come on this I suspect.

Spent the rest of the day wandering around Jerusalem. In the morning we took a two hour class on the story of the Rape of Dina in Genesis. Because it was particularly important to me to read, particularly as a woman, it was quite exciting to spend two hours on it and the views of the sages about it. I love the intellectual activity that is part of Jewish study. Questions — then answers… but always more than one — shared observations, shared theories and opinions. To me the idea that Judaism is not a destination but a journey informed by shared study is wonderful and among the best aspects of it. Just the opposite of what seems to be going on in Mea Shearim. Gotta keep thinking… but right now I’m just going to sleep. Signing off from the City of Gold.

SILENCE IS NOT GOLDEN

Here we are in what is supposed to be the best hotel in Jerusalem and the Internet can not get from the wall to my laptop. I’m down here in the business center just touching base but will post more when I have true access to the web, my camera etc. Sleep well everyone – Jerusalem is a huge intellectual, emotional and spiritual provocation. Will tell more later. Gnite for now. I cant’ find the apostrophe on this Israeli keyboard.

ART AND POLITICS

Just to the left is a famous mosaic of Tel Aviv scenes that’s stood in the middle of town since the early 70s. We went with our friends Joel and Nurith to the Nahum Gutman Museum and saw photos of the work, which I loved. Naturally, Joel immediately decided that we had to go see it. And we did. It’s a dear. lovely, loving and evocative work of the three columns you see here, surrounded by a ring of more scenes that serves as a kind of frame — really lovely.

The museum currently features a retrospective of the work of Duda Geva, an Israeli cartoonist who died recently, quite young. His work was kind of disconcerting; much of it joking about the absence of God. He appeared prominently in Israeli newspapers — and the tiny museum was jammed. It’s so fascinating, in a Jewish country, that this very secular man had such a wide following. Typical of the enigmatic nature of Israel in the 21st century – battling between the disproportionately powerful 15% who are super-orthodox and the rest of the country and of the frightful battle for the soul of the country between militant, militaristic right and the progressives. There is such pain and despair — on both sides. I’m going to try to write about it some here in future posts — after two years in progressive and highly secular Tel Aviv we go to Jerusalem tomorrow where religion and more conservative politics rule.