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.