**If you have not already, please read the previous two posts before this one. It will make much more sense if you do.**
Since that first Shabbos at the Moshav I have continued to go back for more. I now know a great number of the people who live there, and more than a handful of people have asked me if I myself have moved in. The Moshav has, in effect, become my second home. I travel between two worlds of Orthodox Judaism, both reading the same Torah, but one so indescribably different from the other that I get culture shock every time I leave one for the other. And although the singing is truly transcendent at the Moshav, now that I have basically mainstreamed myself into the community, the holy glow of the first Shabbos has focused itself into a more realistic perspective. And the more time I spent at the Moshav, I realized how the singing is not the real issue here. My being able to sing is just a manifestation of a greater tension in myself. My voice, the one I use to speak and sing and express myself, how do I want to use it? How will all of these tensions between what my heart wants and what God wants come to meet? A million questions spring from here.
I spent the week before Sukkot, almost all of Sukkot, and Simchat Torah at the Moshav (Jewish holidays which you should feel free to research---they are both incredibly joyous and full of rich potential for understanding the Jew’s relationship with God), and in that time I really got to know a lot of people who live there, seeing them both in their religious capacity as well as in the day to day. And that’s when I first started to see what was really different. At the Moshav I could see the ‘religious’ side of a person and the ‘secular’ side. In Har Nof I haven’t seen so much of that dichotomy. It’s all Judaism all the time. Wake up in the morning, pray, eat, play, go to work or go study Torah or go to school to study Torah, pray, eat, pray, eat, pray, study, pray, sleep, pray, start again. In Har Nof, life is dedicated to God in a very physical way, in time and in space. There is so much ritual and so much learning going on all the time, it is a world in which Judaism plays itself out minute by minute. It’s an amazing thing to watch. At the Moshav, Judaism isn’t so….obvious on weekdays. The men pray in the morning and evening, but other than that life goes along as normal with people going to school and doing their jobs. It’s not so obviously Jewish. I’m not saying this is bad or good, it’s just a very different lifestyle. A different Judaism.
For a lot of the adults who started the Moshav, there is a continuity of character, but with their children I can see a divergence, a dissonance. Their children are very much a part of a different world. They drink and smoke and party and a number of them don’t observe the Sabbath. The ones I know are absolutely wonderful people, please don’t get me wrong. But the dissonance for me was deafening when, right after Sabbath ended and I was still buzzing from my religious high, there were people dancing to loud rap music and drinking, enveloping themselves in the opposite energy and purpose of the entire day before. It just didn’t add up.
To be realistic, these are teenagers and young twenty-something and they were acting the same, if not better than, most people their age. But something was still off. There was some sort of rebellion going on. These kids love the music of the rabbi that their parents connected with so deeply, and many of them are deep and beautiful people, but there are also a lot of lost souls on that Moshav. One of the parents and I were talking about it and I was asking him about Kol Isha, women singing in front of men, and he told me that Carlebach had let them ‘stretch the rules’ a little bit. And there it was. I live in one world that was rigid, where rules guide your every movement and are never broken. I live in another world of stretching rules, of tweaking and bending, of flexibility and the paths are more…personalized. And both places are imperfect. Neither interpretation of Judaism suits me. I am, as always, somewhere betwixt and between.
You see, I got to discover Judaism for myself. None of its rules and regulations were imposed on me as a child, and although I went to Hebrew school and learned a bit here and there, everything I took on was my choice. This was the same for the first generation of people on the Moshav. They all wanted to be there, they had all found Judaism and chose it. Their children then grew up in an environment full of beautiful philosophy and music, but they did not have a rigid or ingrained structure to follow and replicate. They were given the freedom to walk their own paths, some of them choosing to believe in God and all of the values their parents spoke of and lived, while some got lost and confused along the way. And which is better? Is it best to create a culture, like in Har Nof, where praying in the morning, afternoon, and evening is the norm and people do it just as naturally as brushing their teeth? Judaism can be mechanical, meaningless for these people, but they keep doing because everyone else does and continue the lineage, whether with faith and belief or not. Or is it better to take that chance and give your children more freedom to decide on their own and possibly end up with no connection, sending your children into the world with no set path of rules or morality, like at the Moshav?
I have been grappling with this whole situation furiously since first stepping foot on the Moshav. It has brought up questions upon questions upon questions and I have been running myself in philosophical circles trying to ‘figure out’ what kind of Jew I want to be, what kind of parent I want to be, where I will live, and whether or not I should sing in front of men. And each time I start thinking about this, as the wheels begin to spin faster and faster towards a brick wall of impossibility, I remember that there is a brick wall in Judaism. Actually, it’s made of stone. It’s called the Western Wall, the Kotel. And this wall holds all of the possibility in the world. It has been standing for more than 2,000 years despite the best efforts of the Romans, the Crusaders, the Inquisitors, and the Nazis. It is a wall I am running not against, but towards. It represents the utter impossibility of a people lasting, yet rising victorious over the most evil of tyrants, the most hopeless of situations. And the wall still stands. We still stand. And so as I remember this I begin to breathe once again and remember that God does everything for a reason. I am flopping (or flying?) between Har Nof and the Moshav for a reason. I love to sing for a reason. I have a reason in this world. But I don’t know the reasons yet. All I can do is keep learning, keep breathing, and keep on searching for my true voice within, letting it rise and fall, hum softly, and crescendo, until the day it finds its true pitch and harmonizes with God's.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Monday, November 3, 2008
And Then The Bubble Burst ~Part 2~
**If you have not read the blog below this one, please read it first. This one will make much more sense if you do. **
I was doing really well. I wasn’t talking to men, I was going to classes, I was believing everything they were telling me, I was thinking that my teachers had all the answers, that my life would magically be figured out in this small corner of the Jewish world. But every Shabbat I stayed in Har Nof I sat silently at the Shabbos table and listened to the men sing. As much as I loved the food and the company and the conversation, I couldn’t sing.
I had heard about this place called ‘The Moshav’ from some friends. It’s a kibbutz-like commune of old school hippies who were brought back to Judaism by a charismatic rabbi, Shlomo Carlebach, who connected to uninterested Jews through his ability to take Torah and Jewish philosophy and make them accessible and relevant. One of his major additions to contemporary Jewish life in general was his music. He was an amazing musician and took the daily and other prayers and put them to music that made the normally 'boring' or 'dry' experience a much more meaningful one. I heard that the women there could sing, and it was still religiously 'kosher.' So at the end of September, just before Rosh Hashana, I stepped foot on the Moshav for the first time.
Stepping onto the Moshav, especially after all of my time in Har Nof, was quite a culture shock. Har Nof can be friendly, but the Moshav is much more so. Women AND men (gasp!) say hello as they walk by, women wear short sleeves, color abounds. Especially purple. The Moshav in itself is placed over a few hundred acres of forest and rolling hills. The houses are a bit run down, but there is no absence of character. One especially animated front yard has a ‘bathtub garden’ with old bathtubs with plants growing out of them all over the lawn. In the same yard there is an archway with blown glass orbs dangling down over those entering, and there’s even a wooden Jewish star on a nearby tree. The older members are all basically religious hippies. The women wear flowing dresses and skirts, beautiful scarves cover their hair instead of the stiff wigs of the Har Nof women. The men wear flowing linen or cotton pants, loose tunics, and white kippas (circular head coverings that men wear). Gone are the men in black suits I had grown used to. The temple (what we call ‘shul’) has been hand painted by one of the Moshav residents with beautiful pictures of Jewish scenes and the women’s section is lined with the names of all of the powerful women in Torah interwoven with painted flowers and leaves.
I was actually completely confused when I got to the Moshav. My free flowing side was beyond pleased, the unkempt look of the place showed that real people lived there, but my newly 'religious seminary girl' self was a bit uncomfortable with this self-proclaimed Orthodox community and its free flowing relationships between men and women. Men of all ages came up to me to talk to me. Wierd. I know I sound like a crazy conservative, but that’s the world I’ve been living in for the past few months. It’s just not done. But on the Moshav, it’s…different.
I actually caught myself judging the people in the first few hours I spent there. The girls didn’t dress right, this was off, that was off, and then the sun began to set and we all went into shul to welcome the Sabbath. And it all melted away. The praying, the singing that happens in that place is…transcendent. We started to pray and the men and women's voices melded into one, neither one paying attention to or being (at least visibly) concerned by the other. As the minutes went by, I felt my heart soar with joy and for one of the first times since being here I could focus on the words I was saying, and even more, I could feel them. We welcomed the Sabbath (Shabbat is likened to a bride and at the time when the sun sets and it begins, we literally turn around, bow, and turn back to face front as if ushering a queen through a door). The whole reason I began observing the Sabbath was because I realized how important it was to take a day off. I was doing it for me, for my mental growth, to be able to put down my phone and computer for a day and just be. But bowing to greet the Sabbath that first night, it almost took my breath away. I was welcoming something so pure and beautiful into the world, into the room, into my life.
We recited the verse where it all began,
“And the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to make the Sabbath an eternal covenant for their generations. Between me and the Children of Israel it is a sign forever that in six days God made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.” (Exodus 31: 16-17)
And I got it. This was one Friday night in an unending string of hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of Friday nights where this time was kept sacred. It is what Heschel calls a “cathedral in time.” Through the destruction of two temples, the Inquisition, the Crusades, the Enlightenment, the Holocaust, everything the Jews have been through, this day has been kept by Jews, many times at the danger or even cost of death. It is about this God who created the world and created and continues to create this special time for peace and prayer so that the generations before me, myself, and my children and all the generations after can have a break and be. Not just be, but be with God. I don’t expect you to understand this experience exactly, but maybe to help, think of the three most meaningful and joyous times in your life. They are undoubtedly times of connection, of union. If not with God, with yourself, with one person, or with a group. But whatever that amazing moment or day, it was the connection. Seeing more than just you. Absolute joy. And that’s what I felt. Full to bursting. And, best of all, in the Moshav I could sing. I sang loudly and completely, breaking into a huge smile as I sang, knowing that this was me and I needed to sing. I needed to sing to and for God, and for the Sabbath, and for all of the other blessings in my life. And that is when the bubble burst.
I was doing really well. I wasn’t talking to men, I was going to classes, I was believing everything they were telling me, I was thinking that my teachers had all the answers, that my life would magically be figured out in this small corner of the Jewish world. But every Shabbat I stayed in Har Nof I sat silently at the Shabbos table and listened to the men sing. As much as I loved the food and the company and the conversation, I couldn’t sing.
I had heard about this place called ‘The Moshav’ from some friends. It’s a kibbutz-like commune of old school hippies who were brought back to Judaism by a charismatic rabbi, Shlomo Carlebach, who connected to uninterested Jews through his ability to take Torah and Jewish philosophy and make them accessible and relevant. One of his major additions to contemporary Jewish life in general was his music. He was an amazing musician and took the daily and other prayers and put them to music that made the normally 'boring' or 'dry' experience a much more meaningful one. I heard that the women there could sing, and it was still religiously 'kosher.' So at the end of September, just before Rosh Hashana, I stepped foot on the Moshav for the first time.
Stepping onto the Moshav, especially after all of my time in Har Nof, was quite a culture shock. Har Nof can be friendly, but the Moshav is much more so. Women AND men (gasp!) say hello as they walk by, women wear short sleeves, color abounds. Especially purple. The Moshav in itself is placed over a few hundred acres of forest and rolling hills. The houses are a bit run down, but there is no absence of character. One especially animated front yard has a ‘bathtub garden’ with old bathtubs with plants growing out of them all over the lawn. In the same yard there is an archway with blown glass orbs dangling down over those entering, and there’s even a wooden Jewish star on a nearby tree. The older members are all basically religious hippies. The women wear flowing dresses and skirts, beautiful scarves cover their hair instead of the stiff wigs of the Har Nof women. The men wear flowing linen or cotton pants, loose tunics, and white kippas (circular head coverings that men wear). Gone are the men in black suits I had grown used to. The temple (what we call ‘shul’) has been hand painted by one of the Moshav residents with beautiful pictures of Jewish scenes and the women’s section is lined with the names of all of the powerful women in Torah interwoven with painted flowers and leaves.
I was actually completely confused when I got to the Moshav. My free flowing side was beyond pleased, the unkempt look of the place showed that real people lived there, but my newly 'religious seminary girl' self was a bit uncomfortable with this self-proclaimed Orthodox community and its free flowing relationships between men and women. Men of all ages came up to me to talk to me. Wierd. I know I sound like a crazy conservative, but that’s the world I’ve been living in for the past few months. It’s just not done. But on the Moshav, it’s…different.
I actually caught myself judging the people in the first few hours I spent there. The girls didn’t dress right, this was off, that was off, and then the sun began to set and we all went into shul to welcome the Sabbath. And it all melted away. The praying, the singing that happens in that place is…transcendent. We started to pray and the men and women's voices melded into one, neither one paying attention to or being (at least visibly) concerned by the other. As the minutes went by, I felt my heart soar with joy and for one of the first times since being here I could focus on the words I was saying, and even more, I could feel them. We welcomed the Sabbath (Shabbat is likened to a bride and at the time when the sun sets and it begins, we literally turn around, bow, and turn back to face front as if ushering a queen through a door). The whole reason I began observing the Sabbath was because I realized how important it was to take a day off. I was doing it for me, for my mental growth, to be able to put down my phone and computer for a day and just be. But bowing to greet the Sabbath that first night, it almost took my breath away. I was welcoming something so pure and beautiful into the world, into the room, into my life.
We recited the verse where it all began,
“And the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to make the Sabbath an eternal covenant for their generations. Between me and the Children of Israel it is a sign forever that in six days God made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.” (Exodus 31: 16-17)
And I got it. This was one Friday night in an unending string of hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of Friday nights where this time was kept sacred. It is what Heschel calls a “cathedral in time.” Through the destruction of two temples, the Inquisition, the Crusades, the Enlightenment, the Holocaust, everything the Jews have been through, this day has been kept by Jews, many times at the danger or even cost of death. It is about this God who created the world and created and continues to create this special time for peace and prayer so that the generations before me, myself, and my children and all the generations after can have a break and be. Not just be, but be with God. I don’t expect you to understand this experience exactly, but maybe to help, think of the three most meaningful and joyous times in your life. They are undoubtedly times of connection, of union. If not with God, with yourself, with one person, or with a group. But whatever that amazing moment or day, it was the connection. Seeing more than just you. Absolute joy. And that’s what I felt. Full to bursting. And, best of all, in the Moshav I could sing. I sang loudly and completely, breaking into a huge smile as I sang, knowing that this was me and I needed to sing. I needed to sing to and for God, and for the Sabbath, and for all of the other blessings in my life. And that is when the bubble burst.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out (Or Don't?) ~Part 1~
As my father so studiously pointed out, I haven’t written on my blog for quite some time. I know that not all of you are as enthralled or invested in my life as my father is, but I figure that you all deserve some catch up.
I wrote part of this in my journal in mid-October. I’ve embellished a bit to give you a better understanding of where I’m coming from….
Let me first preface this by explaining how much I love to sing. Most of you who know me know that I sing all the time. I sing while walking, in the shower, I’ve sung in choruses, in school plays, and I even sing instead of talking sometimes. It’s kind of a big thing for me. Before coming to Israel, my most powerful religious experience was singing to patients in a hospital in the Dominican Republic. It was almost four years ago, but I remember so clearly the feeling of complete joy and openness, and…God that washed over me as I sang, not for myself, but for these people and for them to be healed. I connected so deeply by using my voice for something higher and greater than I was. It was the closest I’ve ever felt to transcendence.
And it’s also something that according to Jewish law, I’m not allowed to do in front of men. It’s called ‘kol isha’ (woman’s voice). Basically, a woman’s voice is said to be alluring to men and keeps them from concentrating, and therefore women shouldn’t sing in front of men. There are also interpretations about women’s voices being something to be shared among women, etc. but for the most part it’s basically for the sake of men. This, of all of my issues with Jewish law, is probably the most difficult for me to deal with.
In many ways it is the epitome of my biggest problem with religion. Faithfulness. In Hebrew, it is called Emunah. First, I worry about what it is exactly that I’m trusting and putting faith in. As an academic, I’ve read a lot of historical analyses of what ‘actually’ happened and I’ve read a lot of theory about the social, cultural, and anthropological reasons why the Rabbis decided to create certain laws around women. So basically, learning from a completely religious perspective is using the opposite side of my brain. Actually, I don’t even know if it’s my brain that I’m supposed to be using here. And that’s the hardest, although also the greatest part.
In terms of where this ‘kol isha’ law came into being, it is never explicitly said in the Written Law, the Torah, that women should not sing in front of men, but there is a whole other part of Jewish law, called the Oral Law in which the most holy and intelligent Rabbis grapple with issues that are not made clear in the Written Law. Basically, to my best knowledge this idea that women shouldn’t sing in front of men stems from the Biblical passage where Miriam leads the women in song after the Jews cross the Dead Sea. From here the Rabbis say that a woman is not allowed to sing certain songs in front of men, then in order to ‘build a fence around the Torah’ (protect it and make sure that it is not lost, basically) five of nine rabbis decide that women should not sing anything in front of men. So basically if one Rabbi had a wife who nagged him to let women sing around 2,000 years ago, I wouldn’t be having this problem.
This is what I’m supposed to have faith in. This….is hard.
To be fair, that is a very dry interpretation of the process, but because I’m relatively opposed to it, that is my fairly biased explanation. In actuality, these men were not only complete and utter geniuses, but apparently all of this information came directly from Sinai and there are countless other vital judgments that these men made that are responsible for the foundational day-to-day continuation of Judaism and Jewish philosophy.
And leaving the academic stuff and the rabbis, I myself have actually learning a lot through dealing with this whole singing conundrum. I have begun to watch myself as I sing, seeing that there is in fact a lot of ego involved in my singing, in having a nice voice and singing loudly and with...gumption. So, I must ask myself, is the singing good for me all the time anyway? Is it just another way for me to get love and attention? Or am I really doing it for Hashem? And if I am, can I sing for Hashem softly so as to be able to praise God AND not fluster men at the same time? Or should I say, screw what the rabbis said and just sing my heart out? Is there a middle ground?
Basically, I could talk about this forever and I’m struggling with it and asking lots of questions and will be sure to keep you all updated if I ever do ‘figure it out.’ But that, believe it or not, was not supposed to be the theme of this post. This post is supposed to be about how my happy, innocent, gender-separated, modest dressing Har Nof bubble was popped.
That, my dear friends, is coming soon....(bli neder*)
*Since my time in Israel I have acquired some helpful new phrases. One is 'bli neder' which basically means "without taking a vow".....so basically no promises, but I do expect that part 2 will be coming soon. :)
Other excellent really religious phrases include:
Has va-shalom (God forbid)
Has va-haleela (An even cooler way to say God forbid)
Baruch Hashem (Thank God)
Meertz Hashem (With the help of God)
Although I definitely say a lot of these things in jest much of the time, it's actually really interesting to talk about God so much during the day. It makes lifes little dramas seem....diminished in many ways. More on this later as well.
I wrote part of this in my journal in mid-October. I’ve embellished a bit to give you a better understanding of where I’m coming from….
Let me first preface this by explaining how much I love to sing. Most of you who know me know that I sing all the time. I sing while walking, in the shower, I’ve sung in choruses, in school plays, and I even sing instead of talking sometimes. It’s kind of a big thing for me. Before coming to Israel, my most powerful religious experience was singing to patients in a hospital in the Dominican Republic. It was almost four years ago, but I remember so clearly the feeling of complete joy and openness, and…God that washed over me as I sang, not for myself, but for these people and for them to be healed. I connected so deeply by using my voice for something higher and greater than I was. It was the closest I’ve ever felt to transcendence.
And it’s also something that according to Jewish law, I’m not allowed to do in front of men. It’s called ‘kol isha’ (woman’s voice). Basically, a woman’s voice is said to be alluring to men and keeps them from concentrating, and therefore women shouldn’t sing in front of men. There are also interpretations about women’s voices being something to be shared among women, etc. but for the most part it’s basically for the sake of men. This, of all of my issues with Jewish law, is probably the most difficult for me to deal with.
In many ways it is the epitome of my biggest problem with religion. Faithfulness. In Hebrew, it is called Emunah. First, I worry about what it is exactly that I’m trusting and putting faith in. As an academic, I’ve read a lot of historical analyses of what ‘actually’ happened and I’ve read a lot of theory about the social, cultural, and anthropological reasons why the Rabbis decided to create certain laws around women. So basically, learning from a completely religious perspective is using the opposite side of my brain. Actually, I don’t even know if it’s my brain that I’m supposed to be using here. And that’s the hardest, although also the greatest part.
In terms of where this ‘kol isha’ law came into being, it is never explicitly said in the Written Law, the Torah, that women should not sing in front of men, but there is a whole other part of Jewish law, called the Oral Law in which the most holy and intelligent Rabbis grapple with issues that are not made clear in the Written Law. Basically, to my best knowledge this idea that women shouldn’t sing in front of men stems from the Biblical passage where Miriam leads the women in song after the Jews cross the Dead Sea. From here the Rabbis say that a woman is not allowed to sing certain songs in front of men, then in order to ‘build a fence around the Torah’ (protect it and make sure that it is not lost, basically) five of nine rabbis decide that women should not sing anything in front of men. So basically if one Rabbi had a wife who nagged him to let women sing around 2,000 years ago, I wouldn’t be having this problem.
This is what I’m supposed to have faith in. This….is hard.
To be fair, that is a very dry interpretation of the process, but because I’m relatively opposed to it, that is my fairly biased explanation. In actuality, these men were not only complete and utter geniuses, but apparently all of this information came directly from Sinai and there are countless other vital judgments that these men made that are responsible for the foundational day-to-day continuation of Judaism and Jewish philosophy.
And leaving the academic stuff and the rabbis, I myself have actually learning a lot through dealing with this whole singing conundrum. I have begun to watch myself as I sing, seeing that there is in fact a lot of ego involved in my singing, in having a nice voice and singing loudly and with...gumption. So, I must ask myself, is the singing good for me all the time anyway? Is it just another way for me to get love and attention? Or am I really doing it for Hashem? And if I am, can I sing for Hashem softly so as to be able to praise God AND not fluster men at the same time? Or should I say, screw what the rabbis said and just sing my heart out? Is there a middle ground?
Basically, I could talk about this forever and I’m struggling with it and asking lots of questions and will be sure to keep you all updated if I ever do ‘figure it out.’ But that, believe it or not, was not supposed to be the theme of this post. This post is supposed to be about how my happy, innocent, gender-separated, modest dressing Har Nof bubble was popped.
That, my dear friends, is coming soon....(bli neder*)
*Since my time in Israel I have acquired some helpful new phrases. One is 'bli neder' which basically means "without taking a vow".....so basically no promises, but I do expect that part 2 will be coming soon. :)
Other excellent really religious phrases include:
Has va-shalom (God forbid)
Has va-haleela (An even cooler way to say God forbid)
Baruch Hashem (Thank God)
Meertz Hashem (With the help of God)
Although I definitely say a lot of these things in jest much of the time, it's actually really interesting to talk about God so much during the day. It makes lifes little dramas seem....diminished in many ways. More on this later as well.
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