Women of the Wall

Sunday, May 31, 2009

These last Shabbatot are proving to be more and more special, if you can consider the amount that I cry and how easily I well up with emotion to be a barometer for that. I sang with Nava Tehila for the last time last Friday. We were working with the Song of Songs and unity, and Rabbi Ruth was talking about meaning and union (I think--it was in Hebrew), and our always striving to connect and interconnect with love. It was so nice to be able to sit next to a violinist and hear our parts weave in and out of each other. We had dinner with one of Ben's friend's family later that evening, a real family Kiddush. I really missed it, we've been hosting so often, and it was so nice to relax at someone's house with children playing. We laughed and told stories as they grappled with the fact that their 14 year old daughter was going to a late night party for the first time. I told her I was going to change my name to Aliza--all the Israelis ask me if this is how I pronounce my name (it means happy in Hebrew), but Nomi said definitely not to change it--it's an OLD name--like Martha in the US. Well that settled that, a 14 year old's pop-culture stance on things out-weighs my own.

The next morning we went to HUC for a final Shabbat morning service, Eli was leading and Nancy and Sara were singing too. I heard  pieces that day that I had heard for the first time here at HUC and reminisced at how quickly this year went and how much I've learned.  Gingy asked me to read the prayer for the IDF, which almost was the end of me. At least I was able to read this in English, but I was so overcome with where we were and what we were talking about. There were visitors there who I am sure thought that I had some relationship with someone in the IDF. What can I say, it's been a great year.

Sunday was Rosh Chodesh Sivan, I had been putting off joining the Women of the Wall, and here it is my last chance to join this renegade band of women--just some women who feel it is important to pray together as women at the holy site of the Kotel, sing Hallel with each other, and read the Rosh Chodesh parsha. Life should only be so simple. After 11 months, this was the first experience I've had where I have been involved in being criticized for religious observance, or told to stop doing something. Just 10 of us--a minyan--gathered near each other at the back of the women's section at the Kotel, quietly doing morning prayers at 7am. Some women wore tallitot, which made the one of the women who guard the modesty at the Kotel really very upset. So she was very confrontational, shouting at us, disturbing the other worshippers around us. I had packed up my siddur that I always carry last week, so picked up a strange one on the bookshelf at the wall, it was strange to me and I was lost in it... I couldn't find Birkat HaShachar, and the woman was shouting so loudly, all I could do was close my eyes and listen to the leader chant in her soft beautiful voice. The sun shone over the top of the wall and I knew this kind of thing was not the way it was intended. On the men's side I hear the dancing, whooping, and singing of Rosh Chodesh, and here on this side the women crouch and bend, all wrapped within themselves, alone. I see this in the very Orthodox shuls here as well, the men are a community, and the women are isolated from each other. This is not as it should be.

So, we quietly continued. The leader was brave, it was very threatening. And I wonder if all the indignancy of some of the students at HUC was from real anti-Reform experiences against them, or just anger and outrage at the concept of it in a religious country. We didn't say Kaddish. When we got to Hallel it got interesting all over again. Some women came by us and called "Kol HaKavod", and some of the religious girls exited the plaza leaning in to hear us quietly singing, they were curious, not horified, and you realize that they had never heard this before either and maybe were really very drawn to it. Needless to say the woman in charge of modesty, after screaming for the Israeli soldiers to come and 'supervise', finally got rid of us, and we hiked around through the Davidson Center to the side of the Western Wall that is under excavation and not considered holy. Though there are thousands of notes tucked in the cracks of the walls between the stones. There Dina, a JTS 3rd year Rabbinic student read the Torah Portion, and I had an aliyah-the fourth one. A woman was called for an aliyah that had never had one before, and yes she was crying and had no idea what to do. It was special, like a small sisterhood. It was a difficult year, and an amazing one; I wish I had joined the women of the wall earlier in the year, but am so glad I could be a part of this now.

One by one all the students are leaving. We're shipping boxes to our future campuses. I had an appointment with an eye doctor, my first doctor appointment in Israel, just to check that the scratched cornea healed properly--which is where I discovered that I have some allergy and he prescribed some eye drops.

I allowed myself a day to get lost in the old city. And I really did get lost, as I searched out the Via Delorosa and the Stations of the Cross--Jesus' walk to his crucifixion, I myself stumbled on interesting new areas: the birthplace of the Virgin Mary, several Christian sites that USY Pilgrimage to Israel doesn't take it's high-schoolers, and got mocked by 4 Arab teenage girls. Ahhh, it's good to feel like an idiot. I saw trees, tall trees, and couldn't image what it was, so I made a right turn down a long dark corrider, and at the checkpoint with an Arab guard and Israeli soldier, realized I was on the Temple Mount, and there just 100 meters away was the Dome of the Rock. At that very moment Phillip was going up to it on the Kotel side, where non-Moslems were permitted. I was stopped, of course, but there I was standing, right at the Temple Mount, thinking how incredibly on top of each other all these religions are. It really started my imagination cooking on where exactly the Mount stops and the rest of the temple began, and if one area is completely holy with the divine presence of God, if there is no wall of the Holy of Holies remaining, maybe I was standing on it.

I was surprised at what I could see, peering through the giant doorway, trees, children running, mothers walking with bags. It wasn't solemn, it was relaxed and vibrant and peaceful. But then again, I was watching in secret. Phillip on the other hand, was forced to buy a scarf to cover his legs when he entered with the rest of the non-Moslems. I was in a skirt, and alone, and was able to drift freely around the eastern side of the city walls. 

Doorways

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Either you will 

go through this door

or you will not go through.

If you go through

there is always the risk 

of remembering your name.

Things look at you doubly

and you must look back

and let them happen.

If you do not go through

it is possible

to live worthily

to maintain your attitudes

to hold your position

to die bravely.

but much will blind you,

much will evade you,

at what cost who knows?

The door itself

makes no promises.

It is only a door.

Beautiful poem, right? It's at the very beginning of the Mishkan Tefillah--the new prayerbook put out by the URJ. In my 4 month angst last spring that brought me here, I used to think alot about doors and hallways, and where would this lead. It is so ironic to see this poem here, at the first tefillah. And now someone read it aloud, at the very last student-lead tefillah last week. Somehow with teary and emotional goodbyes we got through the processing of the last week of school, finals week, turning in final projects, concerts, and also knowing that some of these hugs goodbye may be for a very long time, as we are dispersing to 3 different campuses.

My feelings about leaving Israel are so complicated. On the one hand, ready to move to the next step, as is Ben and Phillip; yet on the other, we are now really part of society here--mainly because of our having kids in the school system. Every time I go to Coby's gan, I leave crying because the teachers are so fantastic. Now Mayan, the head teacher is pregnant, and I watch her baby grow every day and wish I could be here to help her. And when I arrange a final day with Hadas, Ben's teacher, I leave with the same lump in my throat. Now Ben can't spell in Hebrew or English, but he can speak in both, and I really hope some of the family friends we've made at his school continue.

These next 2 weeks will fly by. We're making more and more arrangements for our return, Phillip is scheduling interviews, people are starting to make concrete plans with us. It's all very strange. I wonder how many more times I'll look out the living room window here at dusk and see the blue and white lights of the knesset glowing.

Around in circles to the right

Saturday, May 9, 2009

I guess even cats deserve a shabbos meal. All year long we've been seeing Jerusalem's cats skulking, jumping, creeping under cars, climbing up and falling out of--trees, even hearing them go at it during mating season...but now I've seen everything. Someone put a big plate of cholent out on the sidewalk near the garbage dumpster on our street for them. It went ignored all day until I was walking home from the Great Synagogue, and saw a cat making kiddush and indulging. It was hysterical, and a little gross looking. But I suppose that even cats deserve to eat something special.

I have heard that there is a group that meets before Shabbat on Friday afternoons at Liberty Bell Park to do Israeli dancing. On Tuesday evening, as we were leaving the school after our conference call with the New York campus and spent an hour finding out all about our curriculum and schedule for next year, I thought about how little time there is left, and what are the things that I had intended to do but didn't. Ah, I can't believe we haven't been dancing!  So there is this group that meets every Friday when it's summertime...so once again, I dragged Phillip and the kids, and figured that if they didn't want to dance, we were still at the park that they love and there was plenty to play on and  room to scooter and run around. 

I jumped in, choosing my favorite 'regulars' to follow and try to read their body language and anticipate which steps were coming next. For a folk dance with a small vocabulary of steps, it is fairly tricky. Every song seems to have a different choreography, to the right, sometimes you skip a beat, double a step, skip, reverse direction, turn, or not turn, but just go backwards. Congratulations to me for not stepping on anyone's toes, and to the women who wear those crazy plaid and checkered tights and make it so easy to watch their legs and follow along. Clearly they've been doing this for years. It was so much fun, and when I ran back on the grass to get Phillip I pointed back to the hundreds of people dancing, thinking it's funny because it doesn't really look that much fun, but it IS! 

Constantly moving, but simple steps, not very high off the ground, old people, young people, everyone can do it. By the time we left I felt like I had spent time on a kibbutz, oh so very communal in nature. But my right thigh was tired, and realized these crazy people don't ever reverse the general direction of the circle. It goes around in circles to the right. Only the right. So I'm a bit uneven right now, but it was so much fun. And it was so relaxed that Ben and Coby could just weave in and out of the circle to find me and jump on me while I skipped along.

I finally made Mayan happy by doing Kabbalat Shabbat with Coby's class at the Gan. After I dropped off Coby I skipped across the street to Yemim Moshe, a beautiful artsy community built on the hill opposite the old city--underneath the King David Hotel, before Sultan's Pool. I had my guitar with me, but it was too early to get into the library to prepare for our Practicum on Sunday. I brought my creaky old bones to a spot at the top of Yemim Moshe and stretched out doing some yoga facing the view of the Old City Walls, and practiced guitar for an hour. (Lag B'Omer celebrations for the schools are on Sunday evening, and I have to be ready to sing songs that I have never heard of and will not know in time) So sprawled out near a gazebo, thinking how original I am...I was not so original, and was the side show for 2 tourist groups that came nearby. Noone spoke to me, but I think I was in a few pictures of "wow, look at that girl playing guitar in Jerusalem!"

I went by myself to the Kabbalat Shabbat at the Great Synagogue. I was surprised to learn that it is a new synagogue, built in 1982, and when you look at the entrance, you see how it was modeled after THE temple--as in the holy of holies. The guard calls me out right away as an American and asks me to turn my cell phone off, and I explained to her I have children at home who may need me, but it is on silent. She didn't care about my reasons... I sat up in the women's gallery and listened to the new cantor that they are trying out, Naphtali Hershik has just retired, he had been there since the beginning, and their choir who is there every Shabbat and Chag. I mean it was beautiful, he had a gorgeous, trained, tenor voice. I loved watching the conductor bring the choir back together when their 'ooohhs' were going awray. I don't know, I left around 8pm, when they began Maariv, feeling a little sad. That was a quickie Kabbalat Shabbat, but it left me sort of empty. The choir was nice, but I don't really feel there is a place for the congregation in there. I think to pray there, you already need to have it all together and know what you are doing, because they don't wait for you to 'pray', they keep going. It made me really think about what the kahal thinks when a choir is singing their special pieces, and what is the balance between congregational music and special music for the choir or cantor. So tonight, where was there room for us? But if it is all us, then where is the opportunity for stretching us and challenging us with a more intricate piece?

I have to finish working through this one before I tackle interfaith marriages. Phillip felt that watching the Israeli dancing was kabbalat shabbat-like for him, much more so than something so formal as the Great Synagogue. I told him he was a kibbutz-nik, since during all the waves of Aliyot, that was their religion, and was what united them. But that actually was what satisfied them in a spiritual way as well, so perhaps my husband, the Israeli communist has a bit of the kibbutznik in him after all.