Religion – Page 9 – Don't Gel Too Soon

FOLLOWING OUR MOTHER RUTH: THE STORY OF A CONVERSION

We had a party Saturday. Ice cream cake, fruit, songs and verses. It wasn’t exactly a birthday party, but kind of. It’s very tough to convert to Orthodox Judaism. Rabbis ask you over and over if you’re serious. You have to study. You have to read out loud in Hebrew. You have to answer questions to a board of 3 (male) rabbis. Then, you have to immerse yourself in a Mikvah. It’s the culmination of several years of study and soul-searching.

So we had a party today. To celebrate a young woman who had navigated the process and, just this past week, emerged from the waters – Jewish. As she spoke to the assembled women she told us not just about her own journey, but, in a way, about our own. Unable to begin without tears, she decided first to read the passage that seemed to her to describe where she’d been – and where she’s landed. (Another convert friend of mine told me she’s clung to the same verses — they have particular meaning to those who choose to become Jewish and "go where we go.") Standing at one end of a table covered with ice cream cake and fruit
and surrounded by many of the women of our congregation gathered in her
honor, she began to read.

Mother-in-law Naomi is
trying to convince her widowed daughter-in-law Ruth to go back to her own
nation and not suffer with her.

But
Ruth answered, “Don’t ask me to leave you! Let me go with you. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live,
I will live. Your people will be my
people, and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I will die, and that is
where I will be buried. May the LORD’s
worst punishment come upon me if I let anything but death separate me from you!”

The story represents much of what she feels about her new life. Her choice: to meet the very demanding requirements of conversion and join the tribe that I was born into and, for much of my life, lived within – accepting my identity as a Jew but very little else.

In many ways, I have made the same choices she did. Compared to the way I live now, the Judaism I knew then was an identity easily moved aside when inconvenient. Now, after four years of increasingly observant life, my identity is so tangled with my Judaism that there’s no way to pretend it isn’t there, isn’t affecting all I see and every choice I make. They call it "the yoke of heaven" — acceptance of the rules handed down so long ago. It looks so weird from the outside, so whether you’re my young friend choosing to become a Jew, or me, choosing to actually live like one, you’re somewhat set apart by your decisions. Keep kosher – you can’t eat in most restaurants or even at your old friends’ homes. Observe the Sabbath, you can’t go see Great Big Sea or Bruce Springsteen or a good friend’s 40th birthday party because they’re on Friday night. Honor the holidays and you may antagonize clients and risk losing business. And sometimes, friends, and even family, look askance, withdraw or just shake their heads.

Even so, what my friend has chosen — what my husband and I have chosen — what the community of friends we love has chosen – is a life rife with meaning and commitment, with tangible goals to be better, more honorable, more committed beings with an informing value system and sense of purpose. After a lifetime that was pretty successful and often seemed glamorous and highly visible, this is a choice of which I am very proud. Different from before, but at least as demanding intellectually, ethicially and emotionally as any other stop on my life’s journey. In many ways, it has allowed me to rediscover the person I used to think I was, and liked – as a writer, a thinker, a wife and mother and friend. I am grateful that I have found it, and so very glad that this generous and articulate young woman reminded me, through the moving and exquisite reflections on her own choice, just why I made mine.

IN JERUSALEM: A CHILD AT THE WALL AND OTHERS IN SCHOOL

We leave Jerusalem for the airport in two hours and I don’t even know if it’s worth going to sleep. It’s almost midnight here and and cab is coming at 2 AM. So much has happened that I’ve been too tired to write most of it down. I guess I’d better chronicle it somehow though.

This was one of my favorite moments of our trip. It’s almost dawn at the Kotel (Western Wall of the old Temple) and a young boy and his father prepare for morning prayers. This day is the first that he will "lay tefillin "– wear the special prayer objects on his arm and forehead to follow the commandments by placing reminders on the arm and "between thine eyes" – on his forehead. They’ve chosen to celebrate this very significant pre-Bar Mitzvah moment in the early morning – a sunrise service where the Amidah – a critical prayer – is recited just as the dawn arrives. A loving and very impressive family of four girls, two boys and two remarkable parents, they all joined to offer moral support and presence to someone they love as he takes this first step to what I guess you’d call "religious adulthood."

I know the photo is blurry but I don’t like to show faces of other people’s families — they deserve their privacy. I just want you to know how lovely it was. An animated and intelligent young man, his father at his side – his sisters, mom, cousins, friend – and a couple of us — watching him make his way. I told his mom, whom I very much admire, that it was a privilege to be there. Probably sounds like hogwash but it isn’t – watching all this take place as the sun rose to illuminate us all was a true blessing.

Of course we couldn’t watch everything because much of the ceremony took place on the "men’s side" of the mehitza (divider between men and women) where we weren’t allowed to be. We peeked through fence dividers though, so we did get to see a bit. I’ve been living a fairly observant, Orthodox life for a couple of years now, moving forward month by month, holiday by holiday, and I continue to be amazed at the levels of intolerance I manifested before I learned about observant life from the inside. Days like this one remind me of how much of the world we can’t judge without living it – or at least being willing to come along as others do. This day was a perfect example of that.

That same day, a cousin of the family at the Kotel invited me to visit the school her kids attend – K-8 – near the town of Efrat, on the grounds of a kibbutz called Rosh Tzurim.
Founded by an amazing woman named Noah Mandelbaum, it began as an effort to accommodate a single Downs child by mainstreaming him, along with a special teacher, in a "regular" classroom. It was so successful that within months she had 4, then 6, then finally, so many kids that she launched a school where such mainstreaming would be policy. This photo shows the school in action. There are many classrooms for Downs, autistic and other developmentally affected kids study alongside the rest of the class. I didn’t want to take photos there and distract them. In this nursery class is another phase of the program. The young woman whose back is to us is fairly seriously compromised but she is permanent staff in the classroom and is learning to be a preschool aide able to get a job and work outside the school. That smiling girl in the blue sweater is today’s "guest" – another child with serious developmental issues who will work in the classroom for the day. The program helps these young people find a place of their own in the world – and teach all the kids at Reshit School the value of every human person.

This is Noah, the school’s founder. Surrounding her is part of the farm where every child – "normal" and otherwise, works each day – together. You can see the colors, the free-form murals – all the stuff that reminds me of schools we all dreamed of in the 60s. In many ways the tone of this school is similar – but this is a real "put your money where your mouth is" environment. Parents have to believe that the things their kids learn here are more important than super-competitive environments where the only standard is how far their children are from the next step on the ladder. Learning to be moral, caring human beings is an actual mission here.

The kids are pretty free (it’s kind of Summerhillish), across ability spectrum, and the curriculum is designed to allow each to learn in her own style at her own speed. When I asked Noah about kids like mine, who had needed and appreciated structure, knowing what was going to come next, her reply was startling in its good sense. Basically – and I’m paraphrasing here – the idea is that "for some kids, especially more intelligent ones, that may be true. But for kids with less ability it is especially important that they learn to live without an institutional structure every minute because the world doesn’t have that kind of structure – and the world is where they will have to live." By the way, after years of fighting with the educational establishment, Reshit has been designated a model and its efforts to mainstream all kinds of kids will be emulated in schools throughout the country.

I have more to write – about exploring ancient tunnels under old Jerusalem and more – but this is enough for now. I’ll try to have the rest in a day or two.

SHABBAT IN JERUSALEM – HATS – AND SHABBAT SHALOM

These two lovelies, Ruthie (R) and Naomi (L), run a wonderful hat shop on King George St. in Jerusalem (#14 if you want to stop by…) I met them last year and loved both the hats (if you live an observant life you wear a hat to services and many women wear them all or almost all the time) and the two of them. A women-owned, sister-run company, their shop is my favorite – partly because Ruthie works on the hats right there in front of us – but also because they are such a great story.

What better day than Shabbat to think about two wonderful women making us happy to wear our hats to shul? I took two friends with me when I went there this time and among us I think we bought five hats! Here’s mine:

A little stardust never hurt anyone, right? I really love it and am now going to have to demonstrate enormous discipline by waiting until spring to wear it. Let’s hear it for the girls, right? And Shabbat Shalom.

NOTE: this post was created Thursday night and set to be posted on Saturday morning. NO WORK on it was done on Shabbat.

AN ARTISTS’ COLONY, THE ORIGINAL HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL, THE CRAZY JERUSALEM MARKET AND 7 MILES ON MY PEDOMETER

This was a remarkable day. In the first place, according to my pedometer we’ve walked seven miles! Even more importantly, of course, was where we walked. Our first stop was an accident – wandering toward the Old City from our apartment we ended up in the lovely old neighborhood of Yemen Moshe. Symbolized by the windmill at the top of the hill upon which this old neighborhood is built, it has long been highly desirable and glamorous place to live – full of artists and intellectuals. Now there are also dozens of galleries and shops – but we just strolled around en route to the oldest parts of the city.
From there, we went into Old Jerusalem through the Zion Gate – a way we’d never been before, and explored the area around an old Armenian church, when suddenly we came upon this sign

At first we weren’t even sure it was for real — we’d certainly never heard of it and both of us are pretty well-schooled in Holocaust lore. As we drew closer, we were shocked to find a small entrance to an equally small courtyard offering the gateway to “The Chamber of the Holocaust” and this sign:

From there we moved into a small, cave-like room whose walls were covered with stone tablets, much like grave stones, dedicated to lost towns in the countries of the Shoah. Three rooms and an outdoor courtyard were covered with the “headstones” and all the rest of the exhibits were, old, faded, primitive and clearly created with love, outrage and very little money. Somehow, the very “scotch tape and cutouts” quality of the exhibits magnified the grief and determination of those who had created them. It was a remarkable moment in our day. Here are a couple more photos:

The “cave” with the headstones to lost cities and towns.

One of several walls of photo- graphs of lost souls. There are more, but this is enough. Lots of other things happened today but this is where I want to leave things. I’ll try one more post before Shabbat but if I don’t make it, I’ll catch us up on Saturday night.

Here’s just one preview though – of Jerusalem’s favorite market – Machene Yehuda. Good night for now.

JERUSALEM, THE WALL, AND THE SEPARATION OF WOMEN AND MEN

Early this morning, in a gray, chilly rain, around ten of us went to the Western Wall (the Kotel) to say morning prayers. It’s always very moving (and sometimes upsetting) to go to the Kotel. I’ve been there in summer and fall, alone, with our kids and with groups, to a bar mitzvah and a paratrooper regiment induction (all Israeli military take their oaths there), when I was first pregnant 30+ years ago, and placed a prayer for our new child’s health into one of the cracks, and countless other times. One thing remains true. There’s the
really big men’s side….

and the really small and usually (though not today) ridiculously crowded women’s side. Surprisingly, the separation, like that in the synagogue, doesn’t bother me. If I were a young mother whose sons and husband were sitting together while I sat alone, I might feel differently but for some reason I like being with my "sisters" on the women’s side, not worrying about the spiritual condition of anyone but myself. It’s peaceful.

Of course, in all parts of observant Judaism there’s an undertone of the perplexing – why must women and men be apart for so many of life’s critical moments? Some of the rules, however they are justified, are difficult and I’m struggling to be available to understand them. The toughest right now, because we’ve just been learning it, are the Laws of Family Purity and the physical separation of husband and wife any time there is a presence, or recent presence, of menstrual blood. It’s confusing enough dealing with periods, and the "clean" days after one’s period ends, which must pass before any kind of physical contact (not just sex) is permitted. Of course rules like these are observed to different degrees by different couples. Some make token acknowledgment of the requirements. Some sleep in separate beds. Some don’t sit on the same couch if there is only one cushion. SOME won’t even pass a bottle of milk from one hand to the other but place the bottle on the table for the other to retrieve. OK. That’s a choice – it all comes from brief mentions in the Torah, this is how it’s been interpreted and it’s so private that each couple finds its own way of living within the law. Women also find their own ways of dealing with what could seem a real stigma. One of my favorite teachers says it’s a time to "reclaim one’s body for oneself" and further, that the physical restrictions cause couples to deal more openly in verbal terms with many of life’s issues, because physical contact isn’t part of the equation. I just listen and work to be open-minded – I have learned that much about this world into which I’ve moved becomes intelligible over time – and not to condemn that which I haven’t had a chance to absorb.

Even more confusing and the hardest of all, for me, are the rules of childbirth and miscarriage. Because we bleed after childbirth, once we are free of birth pains and no longer in distress, in many families the husband does not touch his wife again after that initial support during birth, until the bleeding stops. One rabbi’s rule: "Help physically as much as you need to during labor – but the minute the baby is born – no more." Others say that a post-partum woman is still "sick" so deserving of as much love and affection as she requires. The same divisions exist after a miscarriage. The bleeding preempts physical contact once the initial trauma is over. This is tough stuff. (There’s also lots to say about the Mikvah – a ritual bath married women visit before resuming sexual relations after periods or childbirth. I learned an enormous amount about that today from a generous young, newly-married friend who’s also on this trip. But I think it’s another post altogether. I acknowledge that here so you don’t think I’ve omitted it altogether.)

I have waited over a week since our class about this before I posted, in order to allow myself time to think about it. I’ve brought myself to a position of tolerance and acceptance; those who believe that this is the way God wants us to live, or believe that these are God’s laws which cannot be broken no matter how we feel — these loving souls should "live and be well" within the life’s rules they’ve chosen. I’m through with condemnations of everything I don’t agree with. I used to think so many things — things that this life has taught me were just ONE WAY of seeing the world. I’m working on reaching that attitude toward these rules of "family purity."

They arise today because of this trip to the Kotel – just one more separation — that placed this new family information in sharp relief. I’ve been troubled by it – probably always will be. But I consider it real growth that I’m working to understand, not deride, these ideas. What better place to do that than in this holy city?

CITY OF GOLD? NOT TODAY – A NEW WAY TO SEE JERUSALEM

Usually when I write about visits to Jerusalem it’s to a city that looks like this — night over an illuminated, golden old city

Or this- sunset over the windmill of Yemen Moshe.

Not today though. Today, outside the lovely apartment we’re staying in this week – there was

SNOW!!! not a lot of snow by the time we arrived – but enough to leave little piles along the curb, to color gardens and car windshields white and to make it cold, wet and windy. Too wet to even take many photos – but this will give you an idea.

It’s been an eventful day. We had a snowy, foggy ride from Tel Aviv and arrived in Jerusalem to see kids building snowmen with the soggy remains of the storm, people bundled up and damp and, for those who usually visit in prime weather months, a city that was almost unrecognizable.

We spent the afternoon wandering around in the slush, buying groceries and even taking a cozy nap with the storm ranting outside. We had a crazy dinner with our synagogue group in a great kosher Chinese restaurant and now, as soon as I post this, we’ll go to sleep so we can get up and go early to the Western Wall in the morning. I’ll have more to report then.

LEAVIN’ ON A JET PLANE – ISRAEL AGAIN

Tomorrow – Sunday afternoon – we leave again for Israel. I’m amazed that we’re returning so soon and will be curious to see how it feels to be with a group instead of just the two of us. Last time was so perfect; that always makes me nervous – it’s not good to try to recreate perfection so we have to just allow this trip to evolve as its own.

We’re staying in a beautiful apartment in a great neighborhood and have great plans – I promise to keep you posted here.

JEWISH SEX, HONOR AND HOLINESS

Sex and religion have always seemed at odds. Stories of sexual impulsivity have been with us forever – King David and Batsheva , Anna Karenina, , Atonement , Prince Charles, presidents, senators, preachers and ball players. So it’s not surprising that human beings struggle to maintain heavy sexual controls within the rules of faith. Any faith.

In a class this week though, we studied the unique textual perspective toward sex within Judaism. The great teacher Laura Shaw Frank, about whom I’ve written before, returned for four weeks to teach the Orthodox "Laws of Family Purity" — an unfortunate term since, for me at least, the first association I make when I hear "family purity" is "racial purity." But never mind, that’s another
conversation.

There are complicated laws concerning marital relations, menstruation and other issues within the intimacies of marriage and we will study them for the next three weeks. Last night though, we began at the beginning. What do Jewish texts tell us about the place of sex in a Jewish life?

The premise: that sex, within Jewish life, is part of the holiness of families, and serves to hold families, and traditions, together. "How can we say the "evil inclination" (sex drive) is very good? It is to teach us that if there were no evil inclination, a man would not build a home for himself, and wouldn’t marry a woman and wouldn’t beget children.*" The bottom line appears to be that honor, decency and institutional preservation depend upon sexual desire – which in turn, in those working to control it within themselves, leads to the creation of and adherence to civilization, marriage and family.

Beyond that, these connections must work on three levels — the interpersonal, between man and woman (or man/man or woman/woman, but not then), the cosmic – with God – and historic – with all of the Jewish people. Always, sex is meant to allow us to honor one another and therefore honor God. Throughout the class I kept thinking of this — it seems to sum it all up. A young soldier, leaving for war, trying to explain his departure to his beloved. It’s going to be interesting to see how all of this supports some of the more unusual Orthodox rules of physical intimacy. Stay tuned.

To Lucasta, Going off to the Wars
Richard Lovelace
(1618-1658)

Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind,
That from the nunnery
Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind
To war and arms I fly.
True, a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such
As thou too shalt adore;
I could not love thee, Dear, so much,
Loved I not Honour more.

*Kohelet Rabba 3:16

ASTOUNDING JEWISH WOMEN: THE JEWISH ORTHODOX FEMINIST ALLIANCE

A little over ten years ago some remarkable women, all Orthodox Jews, decided that the only way to have an impact on the role that women play in worship and governance in the Orthodox world was to organize. Under the leadership of the legendary Blu Greenberg, JOFA ( Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance) was born.

From the beginning of my involvement in the Orthodox community, just three and a half years ago, I’ve been urged to be part of this group. For a long time, and still, I feel a bit under-equipped. I can argue for change and believe in it, but I can’t cite the texts that support either current or possible future perspectives, and in Orthodoxy the texts are a big part of every Halachic (religious rules) argument. I study quite frequently now, but compared to those who grew up in the parallel universe of Jewish day schools and have such a head start, I don’t know if I’ll ever feel confident in my knowledge. Even so, I have spent much of this weekend at a JOFA conference here in Washington, and it has been thrilling. And disturbing. But thrilling.

There was a film — Mekudeshet — about the Agunah – women whose husbands refuse to grant them a Jewish divorce. Orthodox women, without this Jewish divorce, or "get," can’t remarry. Any children they may bear are illegitimate and may only marry other "children of the get." Clearly, as in any other form of spousal abuse, it’s a control issue. Abusive husbands, men living with new women and even with new children, can leave their wives in limbo forever. This is one of the areas JOFA works to change.

More universal were the panels. One, on gender roles in K-12 education, was very provocative. In many Jewish day schools study of religious texts moves from coed to single-sex after somewhere around the 5th grade. Of course when we do that by choice, and call it women’s education (I went to Smith and found it enormously liberating) we appreciate the freedom to be ourselves and not be cowed by louder, deeper voices. The difference is that in Jewish education, when genders are separated, it’s more often for holiness, the perceived gender difference in roles and the presumed "danger" women bring to distract men than it is to empower young women to learn more completely. It’s an interesting question. When we choose it, many of us love- and are grateful for – single-sex education. Quite correctly, I believe, resent it bitterly when we are "banished" to the girls classes, leaving the boys behind. Is it possible to truly assimilate what is useful for girls in studying only with one another if there’s no other choice? Or is it always going to re-enforce the frequent sense of gender inferiority that this conference works to remove?

My choice for the second panel was one dealing with women and text – and all the factors of interpretation that emerge as more and more women become fluent in religious texts. You aren’t going to believe this but for a long time, women were not allowed to study many of the interpretive works, and held in a kind of limbo as far as religious learning was concerned. Change is coming in this arena though – from the co-ed Maimonides Jewish Day School, founded in Brookline, MA in 1937 and emerging as the institution that broke the stranglehold on single-sex text Talmud study, to all the new institutions like Drisha to deeply educate women in text and religious rulings (Halacha.) Now it’s common for women to study these works. I go to class every Tuesday night – but it’s still considered "progressive" to offer girls (and women) equal access to all learning.

I always find it empowering, even inspiring, to attend conferences of women. Every year my days at BlogHer are treasures that sustain me all year. WAM!, the Woman and Media conference, has the same effect. This one, though, was especially moving. Brainy, funny, lively and open, these Orthodox women are working to change more than a government, an attitude or a movement. Sustained by and committed to a faith more than 5,767 years old, observant in the laws of Kashrut and family law, they work to ensure that Jewish life will be even more meaningful, and equal, for their daughters (and sons) than it has been for them.

GOOD NEWS ABOUT A VA HOSPITAL. NO, REALLY

Since I married a doctor while he was still a med student rotating from specialty to specialty, I’ve been in plenty of hospitals. Among them, VA hospitals. Most of those are enormously sad; dark, often smelly and grim, especially compared to private institutions. And we all read those terrible stories about Walter Reed Medical Center.

So, much as I love our friend, (we’ll call him Fred here) I dreaded my visit to him yesterday; dreaded entering the kind of public hospital environment I knew from our years in New York. Boy was I wrong. The DC VA seems to be sunny, with lots of windows, very nice people, well-informed volunteers and committed and apparently knowledgeable medical staff. Even the guards were nice. Granted, Fred is so lovable, well into his 70s, that it would be tough to be mean, or even impatient, with him, but believe me, harried hospital staff can be, well, brusque. Not here.

I didn’t do an expose, go examine day rooms or rehab floors, food services or ICUs but from my limited exploration, and the karma in the lobby and the halls, reception by volunteers, charge nurses, orderlies, other patients and even the doctors, it was, for a hospital, a pretty good place to be. No big news bulletins, but when there’s so much bad news out there about how our veterans are treated, this is just a little bit of the better.