Tag Archives: mechitza

The Reason that my Tallit Belongs at the Kotel

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Reflections on Rosh Hodesh Sivan with Women of the Wall, 5773 – 2013

Throughout the year I have studied here in Jerusalem, I have learned that the Wall has its own identity crisis. It is part of a larger structure that was built and carried, lost, built again and then destroyed, and built again, and built over again and destroyed again. There are more stages in between of deeper and deeper details. The figurative symbol of complete purity, it was more often an embodiment of utter corruption. The man who inspired the design of the particular Wall before which we stand today was a gifted, paranoid maniac, maddened by grief and riches and conflicting loyalties. The Temple itself, and the Wall it became, changed owners and took on ideologies of shocking variance over the centuries. And yet here it still stands, a testament to physical stability, containing all of its tumultuous history behind the serenity of its stones.

On the first Shabbat I was in Jerusalem, I walked with a group of very new friends into the Old City for the first time. I knew nothing about it except that it was the last of the Temple, a remnant of a Judaism from long ago, one with which I had trouble relating, but that it was “supposed to”, maybe, inspire a surge of feeling within me. Perhaps a feeling of closeness to the Divine? Perhaps an intense unification with the Jewish people? Perhaps bafflement or even, perhaps nothing? I was curious, and determined not to judge whatever feeling arose. Continue reading →

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Rosh Chodesh Sivan at the Kotel

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From my blog:
Watch the actual video: here.

Watch the actual video: here.

Friday morning was a blur. A scary blur. I didn’t wake up until 6:24 AM when my roommate screamed, “WIESE.” And I jumped out of bed, how could this happen, on a day that was so important to me? Never mind…we jumped in a taxi and I ran down to the women’s section with my bag. I couldn’t even get to the regular spot because there was a sea of light blue shirts of seminary girls from all over Israel. I quickly realized that they had been bussed in for the exact opposite reason I was there. I ran into my dear friend, and later saviour, Melissa. She was also lost. We didn’t know where “Women of the Wall” (WOW) was praying because there wasn’t space where they normally gather. (Smart thinking ultra-orthodox girls…if there isn’t space, maybe they can’t pray at the Kotel. Makes sense.) We went down together into the sea of blue, maybe they were there somewhere. They weren’t. But it was time to daven, so Melissa started pezukei dezimra (the “warm up” blessings, as I like to call them,) while I started to put on my tefillin. It was worse than the paparazzi that normally come to women of the wall. The girls thought they were seeing an alien or the devil…it was true what their rabbi told them, there are women who put on tefillin! They started taking pictures of my and then scuttled away, they didn’t want to be too close, maybe I could contaminate them. Many were already tisking at the action. But then, I pulled out my tallit (I know I should put on my tallit first and then tefillin, but there isn’t a lot of space and it’s difficult, so I reverse the order,) it was like poison. The girls backed away like if touching it would burn them, or something worse. They started making this hissing noise, I have never heard such a frightening/bizarre noise in my life. No one wanted to talk to me, it was too shocking to them. And I was there alone with my tallit and tefillin. I still didn’t know where the other women were. Melissa had finished pezukei dezimra and she looked at me, we knew we had to get out of there. It wasn’t safe. I was already flustered. Melissa, calm and cool, Continue reading →

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a new struggle i didn’t see coming

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From my blog:

“An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.”

I know this sounds naive, but I really didn’t see this one coming.

aw

Just some clarifications before I start. I love being Jewish. I love not using electricity on Shabbat, I love keeping mitzvot, I love davening, I LOVE Torah. I choose to believe Torah is from Sinai. I like dressing conservatively, although I don’t always wear skirts. I often think about being orthodox and marrying an orthodox man.

I grew up in a place that I didn’t have anyone to raise me Jewish, to answer my questions, or help me become the Jew I wanted to be.  I grew up in a predominantly farming community in Indiana, where there weren’t any other Jews. My dad is Catholic. My Jewish education is also about survival. At this point in my life, I wouldn’t choose to raise my family there, because I want to them grow up more Jewishly observant, but I did grow up there, and there weren’t people who could teach me. Continue reading →

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Community Davening at Pardes

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A high-five across the mechitza when the tenth woman walks in.

Women’s liberation and Orthodox Judaism together, to some of my friends, sound like an oxymoron. Some argue that a legal system that doesn’t count women for thrice-daily prayer is inherently unequal. Others argue that to compromise an incredibly sustainable tradition that has weathered three thousand years for the sake of the trends of the last fifty years wounds the integrity and future of Judaism. How do we balance amidst this tension?

A high-five when the tenth woman walks in – really, whan any woman walks in – is a scene I have never seen in a traditional Orthodox minyan. I was walking by a synagogue just the other week and was asked to join a minyan for kaddish. That’s because I am a man, so I count. But the room holding its breath, waiting for one more woman – I had never seen that happen before in Orthodox space. I am proud that we have been able to create just such a space at Pardes where it does.

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Week 37: The Practical Dictionary of the Pardes Lexicon

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(X-posted from my home blog, Yinzer in Yerushalayim)

One of the unadvertised perks of Pardes is that after studying holy texts in their original in the Beit Midrash for a whole year, no matter how advanced your Hebrew level, you come away with a black-belt in using dictionaries. Yet I have noticed that for all the dictionaries we have for Jewish religious language, there is, incongruously, not a dictionary of “Pardesian,” that unique jargon you learn upon entering the Orchard. Until now. As a gift to any incoming students who may be reading this and as a memento to those who are leaving, I present this necessarily abridged first edition of The Practical Dictionary of the Pardes Lexicon, heretofore to be known as “The Kwait.” You’re welcome.

Avoda Zara – Idol worship, literally “foreign service.” This is an all-encompassing term used to describe worship of foreign deities and/or the self, and commonly used around the Pardes Beit Midrash to describe any “Jewish” subject that does not involve learning Gemara and/or Halakha. There is a Makhloket about the Tanakh.

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A Shabbat in Hevron

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About a month and a half ago, I went to Hevron for Shabbat with a few Pardesniks to visit a fellow student’s wife’s family. His wife actually grew up in Hevron; and her parents still live there today. I was very grateful for the family’s generosity and hospitality, and for the chance they gave me to experience Hevron via something other than a quick tour. The following is my account of some of the moments that stood out for me about the weekend.

On Friday evening, we went to kabbalat Shabbat services at what they call “the Me’arah” (otherwise known as the Cave of Machpelah). It’s not really much of a cave – more of a big shrine sort of building with “graves” of matriarchs/patriarchs labeled. There are like 4 simultaneous kabbalat Shabbat minyanim there, but the one we attended seemed to be the largest and was held in this big, cavernous, freezing cold space. It was a mechitza minyan, of course – I’ve gotten used to that by now – but unlike the orthodox minyanim I tend to frequent in Jerusalem, Continue reading →

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Week 25: Topsy-Turvy

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(X-posted from my home blog, Yinzer in Yerushalayim)

There is a Jewish saying that when the month of Adar enters, joy increases, and another that when Adar comes, the world stands on its head. Officially, Rosh Chodesh Adar was Thursday, but the preceding week gave it a running start.

 

The first day of Women and Mitzvot class, our teacher, Rahel Berkovits, told us how when her daughter was born, she thought she would never see her read from the Torah on her Bat-Mitzvah in a traditional minyan in her lifetime. Her granddaughter or great-granddaughter, perhaps, but her daughter, impossible.

Last Saturday, for her Bat-Mitzvah, Rahel’s daughter beautifully and flawlessly layned all of Parashat Mishpatim and the haftarah before at least 100 people at Shira Hadasha, the revolutionary Orthodox shul her mother is a founding member of. Bizarre as it feels in a shul with a mechitza, seeing women layn and get aliyot isn’t all that odd to me since I grew up with it. I don’t think I could have fully appreciated the significance of this moment had I not seen my teacher’s face as she spoke before her daughter gave a d’var Torah. Every parent kvells when their child becomes a B’nai Mitzvah, but there was something special here, the bewildered look of pride and triumph only known to those who know what it’s like to have been laughed at then live to see their dream accomplished. This look was reflected in the faces of many others in attendance who similarly knew and inspired it in those of us who did not.

This amazing simcha was followed by a kiddush worthy of the occasion that featured hot Yerushalmi kugel, peanut butter-chocolate-coconut squares I doubt that I’ll ever be able to fully get over, and a guy who looked just like Larry David only taller.

 

Monday in Self, Soul, and Text a surprise guest-speaker came in to talk about transforming anger. She began the presentation by asking who had ever experienced anger. Every student save one raised their hand. She then started going one-by-one around the room having people name a life circumstance that can cause feelings of anger. After four or five responses, she took a sudden break from this to lead us in some Hebrew chants. After this, she started talking about something else until she noticed people getting antsy and let us take a 10-minute break. Once the break had ended and she resumed talking about our anger, a student—the one who did not raise her hand when the presenter asked who had ever experienced anger—raised her hand and told the presenter how her lecturing, unorganized style, made her angry. Others agreed, and told her how anger has actually been a positive factor in their lives, motivating them to fight wrong. Our presenter calmly responded by saying anger is caused by not understanding others’ value-judgments. Someone else answered that she does not care about the value-judgments of those who traffic women and children. Our presenter responded that it might be difficult but we need to. This angered more people. By the time class was over and we wheedled out of our presenter how she believes in neither punishment nor right and wrong, the class was divided between those who were mad at her for her radical views and unsatisfying answers, and those who were mad at the class for not just letting her speak. Except for me. I left that class feeling neither anger nor frustration, but rather grave disappointment—how was it possible that I was seemingly the only one who just wanted to relish in the wonderful irony of the whole situation?

 

Tuesday night two friends and I made dinner together then watched a performance of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons at The Jerusalem Theater. No flipped expectations here, it was pure joy.

 

By the time Thursday came, I had never been more prepared for a new month. Our community Shira Hadasha-style morning service was riotous with singing and dancing, and the breakfast afterward featured a staff presentation that, while hysterical if you were there, you can’t really write about and do it justice. Afterwards the morning classes swapped teachers, so we learned slightly differently than how we are used to. It was out of control.

 

Adar makes its entrance easy to rejoice in when it brings us presents like warmer weather. Last weekend was the worst of the year, with rain, hail, heavy wind, and a laughably pathetic amount of snow (last Friday night when conditions were at their worst, my friend from Miami, wearing more insulation than Ernest Shackleton, was shocked when I told him this was still the mildest winter of my life). This week was completely different—while mornings and nights were still chilly, most of the day saw clear blue skies, the kind of sun that makes it feel like your eyeballs will explode if you look up, and warm weather. This can only mean one thing: Passover will be here before you can blink.

 

Quote of the Week: “It’s like in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Perplexed.” – Rav Elisha

 

Hebrew Word of the Week: הפוך (“hafookh”) – flipped

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The Kotel

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My relationship with the Kotel is in constant flux. To be honest, I struggle with connecting to the Kotel a lot, and have done so ever since I first came to Israel when I was 13 years old. Despite this struggle, every time I come to Israel, I make a point of visiting the Kotel. Two weeks after I arrived to spend the year in Jerusalem, I went to the Kotel on erev Tisha Ba’av. Walking through the Old City with hundreds of other Jews on my way there, I was excited. I felt like with every step I was taking, I was walking on the foundation of my history. And then I arrived at the Kotel. That feeling disappeared. I wandered around the Kotel plaza for over an hour, sitting in different spots (some closer to the Kotel, some further away), watching different people and I felt no feeling of connection. I was very much observing my fellow Jews and their relationship to our holiest site.

This past week, on Rosh Hodesh Cheshvan (the celebration of the new month of Cheshvan), I decided to go to the Kotel to participate in the Women of the Wall’s monthly gathering. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, I mostly went to support a group who I believe has a right to pray at the Kotel without harassment. As I approached the Kotel with my male roommate, I said to him (half-jokingly) that this is the first time ever that he will be behind the mehitza. The Women of the Wall gather to pray in the back corner of the women’s section at the Kotel and the men who participate stand behind the partition at the back of the section. Participating in this service was the first time that I can remember having a positive spiritual experience at the Kotel. Even though I am sure that I would have some ideological differences with other people who were there, this was the first time that I had been at the Kotel with a like-minded community. We were all there promoting the same values. For me, it brought kavanah into the space.

It was a particularly interesting experience because we were the only group of women who were praying aloud and the police were filming the entire service. Apparently, they have been doing so since Anat Hoffman (Chairwoman of Women of the Wall and Executive Director of the Israel Religious Action Center) was arrested last year. Aside from the police filming, there were other people taking pictures and footage as well. I felt a tension between a deeply personal prayer experience and in a sense putting myself on display at the same time.

Prayer is not something that comes easily to me, and it is not often that I have a deeply meaningful prayer experience. I particularly struggle with breaks in the service. Every time I am having a meaningful experience and there is a break (for whatever reason), the meaning in my prayer disappears. At the Women of the Wall’s Rosh Hodesh service, just before the Torah service, the group moves to Robinson’s Arch located around the corner, out of sight and earshot of the Kotel. This is because under the current Kotel administration, it is forbidden for women to have a Torah scroll at the Wall. Even though I was still with the same group of people, having to move completely destroyed all of the kavanah that I had been building during the service. It was then that all of the issues of the administration of the Kotel became a lot more personal; I felt robbed of the rest of my prayer experience. I previously understood these issues theoretically and had experienced them personally in a limited way, but in the course of an hour and a half, while participating in Women of the Wall, I felt this issues come to light in a deeply personal manner.

Like with many experiences in Israel, a country full of strong, often polarizing, emotions, my deeply positive experience was also deeply troubling. Why, as a strongly connected Jew, is my connection to the Kotel dictated by another group of strongly connected Jews? Is there no way that we can come to a compromise so that we can both feel comfortable and also have access to the same holy site? This experience is now sketched in my mind forever. On the one hand, it will always be the first time in my recent consciousness (if not ever) that I felt meaning at the holiest Jewish site. And on the other hand, it will always be the time that the way in which the Kotel is administered brought this meaningful experience to an abrupt end.

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Promises, Promises

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Prior to coming to Israel, my mother tried made me promise her three things:

  1. I won’t date an Israeli
  2. I won’t move to Israel/want to make aliyah
  3. I won’t become orthodox

While somehow I believed that there was no reason for my mom to be concerned (1) Israelis are difficult, 2) I liked living in America, 3) I liked wearing pants), something in me knew the proper response was that I couldn’t promise her anything.

Good thing I said that, because all three of those promises would have been broken at some point or another.

Ok, so I didn’t quite date an Israeli, at least not the kind to which my mother was referring, which was a Sabra (a natural born Israel).  However, I did date an American oleh (an American who emigrated to Israel) for a little bit and for the real reason my mom was telling me not to date an Israeli, this was basically the same thing.

And ok, I’m not moving to Israel…at least not right now.  But, considering I came to Israel with my “I’ll NEVER make aliyah” attitude and have since eased off of that, going as far as even considering it and making [half-jokes] with my friend Ben that we will be on the same aliyah flight, I’d consider that going against promise number two.

And ok, I didn’t become orthodox…not even close. However, over the course of this year, I became more comfortable with mehitzot (separation between men and women sections of a shul) and grew more convinced that leading a more observant life would be rewarding and the right thing to do….Admittedly, it’s just not yet (to channel the great Franz Rosenzweig,…my Jewish thought teacher DLK would be proud).

Despite having the foresight that there was a possibility the promises my mom wanted me to make couldn’t be kept,  I was overall naïve with the effect that this year would have on me.  I came to Israel with a plan for the next two years.  I would come to Israel, spend my year at Pardes doing Pardes things. I would then go back to NY, finish my degree at the Jewish Theological Seminary, graduate and move on to the next leg of my life journey.  Essentially, I expected to clip myself out of my life in NY, do what I wanted to do in Israel and when that was over, neatly place myself back into the space I left behind, almost as if this year never happened.

Have you ever worked on a puzzle, and one piece got wet?  The cardboard expands and warps.  While the piece still resembles that of its original form, it no longer fits with its adjacent pieces the way that it was intended.

From the moment I arrived in August, I was not the same person as the one who left New York. Though, it strangely took several months for me to really accept that my year in Israel complicated my “plan” more than I intended.

I came to Israel excited and feeling even a little smug that I knew what I was doing after Pardes ended, that I didn’t have to think about it, unlike many of my peers and fellow students. While I am ultimately looking forward to carrying out this plan, part of me feels envious of those who came as free spirits, not knowing what was coming next, leaving themselves room to accommodate the growth they would experience in Israel.

I am leaving Israel tomorrow morning and I cannot quite comprehend that I will not be waking up and walking the 15 minutes from my beautiful apartment on Mishmar Ha’am, to the space in which Pardes operates, unassuming and humbly on top of a Mazda Dealership….

  • …that I will not be returning to Yakov Maimon, an Ethiopian absorption center in Mivaseret Tzion, to spend time with my “adopted” Ethiopian children, Kalkidan and Biruk.
  • …that I will not have to think in multiple languages
  • …that I can’t just decide to go to Emek Refaim and get a kosher hamburger or chicken salad (not that I really eat chicken salads…)
  • …that later this week I will not be joining the Pardes community for their end of the year Shabbaton in the Galil.
  • …that I will be 5,000+ miles away from the people who became my family this year
  • …that I have to say farewell to some of the greatest teachers I have ever had and the relationships that I built with them and, in some cases ,their families.
  • …that I will no longer be part of majority, but just another Jew in the Diaspora
  • …that I no longer will be surrounded by, living in and helping make history that so significantly affects my and my people’s existence and identity

My chest feels tight. My heart beats fast.  I am short of breath.

A friend of mine recently checked in to see how I was feeling over my quickly approaching departure.  He said “It’s a good thing if it’s hard to leave Israel.”

I’ve never had an easy time leaving Israel but I know this time will be much more difficult.

Farewell Israel.  I will miss you, but I’ll be back.

I promise.

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Kol Rina

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Last Shabbat I had the pleasure of trying out a new synagogue in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Nachlaot called Kol Rina. Kol Rina meets in a miklat (bomb shelter), and you could easily miss it. Once inside, it appears as if this is a full service synagogue, with a newsletter, committees, a library, events, a rabbi, all of the markers of an established community, so I quickly overcame my shock when I noticed that the sanitary white walls of the miklat had been made to look more heimish.

On to the davening. Plastic chairs seem to be the norm. Thankfully fans lined the walls, allowing for plenty of air circulation. The mechitza was in a front-back arrangement, which is not my preference, but the amud (leader’s table) was centrally located. Those assembled were primarily in their 20′s and early 30′s, some with children, and a few older folks.

Davening was nusach Sfard, with a Carlebach style. It took a bit of time for the energy to get going, but then it was hard to contain. Dancing broke out sporadically and repeatedly throughout the evening. There was a sense of just losing oneself in the melodies, forgetting about any of the concerns of the week preceding or following. About the dancing, one of my roommates said it best, “At Kol Rina, you don’t dance, you get danced.” Which turned out to ring quite true. I must admit that the latter portion of davening dragged a bit, as a few of the men were not willing to conclude their singing and move on to their respective meals. Aside from that, I highly recommend Kol Rina.

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