For nearly four years, I have worked as a singer in the Catholic church.  I sought the job shortly after our financial reversal.  Despite emotional and spiritual misgivings, I stayed with it, greedily taking every opportunity on offer.  I started out as the alto section leader (yes, alto — they already had a soprano) and then was asked to sub as Cantor.  I did well, subbed some more, did some weddings and funerals, singlehandedly saved Good Friday one year.  This particular parish has two campuses, so there were many opportunities.  A lovely priest who comes to help out and study in the summertime saw me so often subbing that he called me “the cork in the bottle”.  Little by little, I became sort of a professional Christian.

Look, some of my best friends are Christians.  But standing in front of a congregation, leading their hymns, acclaiming their gospel, passing their peace — it was both sweet and bitter.  The people I encountered at both campuses were truly lovely and unfailingly kind about my singing and contribution.  I developed a particular fondness for the Vicar, Father Brian, who never missed an opportunity to wish me a happy Chanuka, Passover, you name it, or simply to say Shalom.  He is the one who wore the hat emblazoned with “Patriots” written in Hebrew letters on Super Bowl Sunday.  He is a mensch and I will miss him.

At the same time, the experience of standing by the lectern and singing every week of a theology I don’t hold became more and more untenable.  We read in the Psalms, “How can we sing a song of the Lord on alien soil?  If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither, let my tongue stick to my palate if I cease to think of you.”  As I sang, week after week, words that do not ring in my soul, my voice began to separate from my person.  In order to cope with being there, I thought about anything but the words I was singing.  When the congregation stood to recite a prayer, I mumbled the Sh’ma under my breath over and over.  And still, when I walked out the door, my earworms were hymns.

I was afraid to abandon a steady source of income, but finally decided that the psychic and spiritual cost of continuing was too high.  Yesterday was my last day, and lovely Father B acknowledged me and my Judaism from the pulpit in a thoroughly classy, “Those who understand, understand,” kind of way.  The congregation gave me a warm ovation, and I sang my last hymn.

I am grateful to have had the job.  As my mother-in-law said, it was there when I needed it.  Now I need something else to come, something that will enable me to help support my family and remain clear in my spiritual journey.

This evening I had the privilege of attending a dinner party at the home of some friends from JCDS.  It was a grown-up dinner, and the special guest was Rabbi Jeffrey Summit, who spoke on his work in ethnomusicology with the Abayudaya of Uganda, among other interesting topics.  The other guests were all somehow associated with the school as well, and the conversation was wonderful.

Toward the beginning of dinner, we had the opportunity to introduce ourselves individually around the table and say a little about our connection to JCDS.  When my turn came, I mentioned my sons and how I want them to have a Jewish education so that they can take ownership of their Jewish identities along the way to adulthood.  As I warmed to the topic, I realized that my choice of a Jewish education for them is aspirational.  I want them to have what I don’t: the background and education to live out their Jewish identities as they wish.  In my own life, I frequently feel hampered by my lack of Jewish education.  I feel that there are things about Judaism that don’t truly belong to me.

After dinner, the group began the Birkat haMazon (after-dinner prayer) and after the first paragraph, I had to drop out because I didn’t know the words and couldn’t fake the tune.  It went on for several pages like that, and as it did, the tears came to my eyes.  In a room full of my people, I felt lonely.

As the evening ended, Rabbi Summit approached me and encouraged me to regard the gaps in my Jewish education as remediable — and to get started remedying them.  He said there’s no reason to think of it as this big problem that can never be solved, and as he spoke, my eyes filled again.

I’ve said many times that I want to learn how to daven (pray Jewishly) — and yet something always stops me from following through in an organized fashion.  I might study every day for a few weeks, but then some other project takes precedence and I lose focus.  Yet we are taught that teshuva (return) is always available.  I think I will start on the Birkat haMazon.

When I was growing up, my family did not have much of a connection to a synagogue.  We were Jewish in our own way, but for a variety of reasons, we didn’t go to services much.  There were two non-Orthodox congregations in my home town, and we flip-flopped back and forth between them.  Neither one was a perfect fit — liked the music, didn’t like the music, loved the Rabbi, didn’t feel comfortable with the Rabbi, felt inauthentic here, there, and everywhere.  There was always something.  And with music being the family business, Shabbat was often a work day.  The simple truth is that we were twice-a-year Jews.  We went infrequently, and as a result we were strangers, even when we were dues-paying members.

My overriding feeling when going to synagogue in those days was one of alienation.  From lack of experience, I wasn’t familiar with the liturgy, and I was sure that everyone else knew just how to be.  But it wasn’t just about knowing when to stand up and sit down, when to mumble and when to be quiet — that I could fake pretty well — there was also a feeling that everyone else was having a holy experience and I wasn’t.  One time, while we were visiting friends in northern Michigan, we went to synagogue with them and although I was the same un-learned child there, I felt something.  I never forgot it.  It was this little clapboard synagogue, a small congregation with a passionate, soft-spoken Rabbi.  Something about it spoke my language.

Every now and then in my childhood, I’d overhear grownups talking about how they could go to Shabbat services anywhere in the world and feel like they were at home.  I longed for that experience.

I remember traveling in Europe during my college dropout months and visiting synagogues in various places, always with the same feeling:  This is not quite mine.

Eventually I found a Reform congregation that felt pretty good, and Bill and I joined.  This is the place where Bill converted, where our two sons were welcomed into the covenant, where our community of helpers was first grounded when we ran into financial trouble three years ago.  The clergy there is wonderful, the kindness of the people cannot be overstated, the programming is interesting.  And yet recently I have had some less-optimal experiences there.  Although I continue to adore the clergy, we’ve had some other personnel changes that have diminished the services for me, in particular the departure of an incredibly charismatic musician/youth educator a few years back.  The atmosphere in prayer is somewhat self-conscious: people don’t sing loudly, they don’t move around, they seem sometimes to be just trudging through the service as if by rote.  Also, I feel more and more that there is a mechitza between adults and children at this Temple.  I’ve been discouraged from attending certain things because I would have had my children along, even though I had arranged it such that they would be attended during the more “serious” bits and with me during the sit-around-and-sing bits.  I once got scolded by the custodian for allowing the boys to be in the library unattended, even though they were not doing anything wrong.

Meanwhile, with Akiva’s school, we’ve gone twice on retreat and found ourselves in the midst of a dynamic, musical, passionate Jewish life, the kind of Judaism that sings “yala lala la!” and breaks into spontaneous dancing.  I want more of that.

Today at Rosh Hashana services, I felt something I never expected to feel at my synagogue: an echo of my childhood alienation.  I wanted to experience Rosh Hashana as a day of searching and reflection but I didn’t.  The strongest part was doing Tashlich in the rain.  (Note to G-d: the sunshine just at the end was a nice touch.  Subtler than a rainbow, but still effective.)  The regular morning service carried with it a feeling of the dutiful.  I don’t want dutiful prayer anymore.  I want to sing out loud, and clap when the rhythm asks for it.  I want to move and be moved.

Time for some more purposeful shul shopping.

Who knows chametz?

The Passover tradition is to clean all chametz (leavened products) out of the kitchen, out of the house, out of the car, out of our lives. The time between Purim and Passover is spent fulfilling this commandment. Or procrastinating it. Or arguing with it. I’m mainly in the latter two clubs. Partly that’s because I didn’t grow up in a traditionally observant home, and I literally don’t know how to clean chametz. As with all things Jewish, there’s a way to do it — actually several — and they are all well-grounded in sacred texts and interpretations of sacred texts. It seems entirely possible to swim for so long in this ocean of text and argument that Shavuot comes before you’ve figured out what the hell you’re doing. Furthermore, there’s a whole raft of complicated points and counterpoints as to what exactly constitutes chametz. And if something isn’t chametz but could possibly be confused with chametz, some people clean it out so that they don’t accidentally make a mistake. (Although if you’ve cleaned out the proper chametz — according to your definition or tradition — what would there be to confuse it with?)

Why it might matter, though

The consequence of having chametz during Passover is not that G-d will exact punishment. Rather it is that the person who has chametz will be separated from the community. I interpret that to mean that the person who doesn’t clean out chametz might not be able to receive visitors, because the visitors would be uncomfortable in a chametzy house. It’s not actually an all-or-nothing, but rather that the intersection of two families’ differing practices can be a hard place to be. And worry about whether I’m kosher-enough-for-Passover can make me hesitant to invite the people I might want to invite. That, too, is a way of being separated from the community.

You are what you…have?

As I understand it, the law is about not eating chametz. The tradition is about not having chametz in one’s house. Some people symbolically sell their chametz for the duration of Passover, so that even though it might remain in their home, it is considered someone else’s property and therefore not to be touched. That’s all fine and good, but one year, my (non-Jewish) friend’s husband had surgery during Passover. I wanted to cook a meal for them, something comforting, and I settled on soup and bread. I didn’t eat the chametz but I was quite happy to prepare it for my friend, because I felt that was what would be most helpful in their situation. I chose the mitzvah of bikkur cholim over the mitzvah of keeping Pesach, and I’m glad I did.

Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav taught, “True devotion consists mainly of simplicity and sincerity. Pray much, study much Torah, do many good deeds, do not worry yourself with unnecessary restrictions. Just follow the way of our forefathers. ‘The Torah was not given to the ministering angels.'”

The conclusion, for now

It’s no secret I’m not much for housework. What I’m also realizing is that, at least for now, I’m more a spirit of the law kind of person than a letter of the law kind of person. Every time I contemplated cleaning for Pesach, I asked myself what G-d wanted in my cupboards.  The answers always came back metaphorical.  I think G-d wants me to clean out fear, self-doubt, voluntary loneliness, hardness.  I think G-d wants my cupboards filled with kindness and generosity, with the energy to do good in the world.

If there are crumbs in the car and cheerios under the radiator, and I assure you there are, perhaps G-d won’t mind, as long as I keep pointing my broom toward the meanness and fear that hold me back from reaching out to the world and being of use in it.

One of the sacrifices of this past two years that has hit me the hardest — one of the only ones that continues to hit me, in fact — is that Bill has been working on Saturdays in order to take advantage of the increased foot traffic in the store. This is particularly important since he is working on commission only; there is no salary to fall back on if he doesn’t make sales.  Shabbat is supposed to be a day of rest and reconnection with family.  In this new regime, it is neither.

Before all this went down, we went to synagogue on Saturday mornings as a family — with a babysitter — so that Bill and I could pray together .  The kids could go to the Temple library with the babysitter when they got squirmy.  We would reunite for the snack/Torah study and — again — when the kids needed to move around, the babysitter could take them out while Bill and I studied.  After lunch and a nap, we had the rest of the day to spend together as a family.

Neither the babysitter nor the family-themed day is on the menu anymore.  Instead, the usual trend is that I take the kids to synagogue alone, where they often behave appropriately and sometimes do not.  When they can do it, it’s a fair-to-middling solution.  Everyone thinks they’re cute, or pretends to.  I get to pray, sort of.  (When I’m not nursing, scrambling in the bag for crayons and paper, or racing matchbox cars.)  I get to study, sort of.  (When I’m not drawing trucks, fetching food, or reminding the boys to use their whispery voices.)  We go home for lunch and a nap, and spend the rest of the afternoon together, the three of us.  When, as today, they cannot behave well, it casts a pall on my already pallid Shabbat.

In the past, I have occasionally sent them to the Temple library alone, knowing that they are good kids and will look after each other and stick together.  The last time I did that, though, the custodian laid into me and said they were not allowed to be in the library unattended.

Today we arrived late to the service and they lasted for about ten minutes before they were so disruptive that I decided to take them home.  (The disruption occurred during silent prayer, naturally.)  The decision to go home brought forth a new round of arguments and weeping, which in turn prompted one of the more dour members of our Minyan to shush them.  It’s hard to say which hurt me more: the loss of the one opportunity this week to pray with my community, or the fact that someone from that community shushed them.  (The weeping, argument, and shushing, by the way, took place outside the chapel while I was desperately trying to get them into their jackets and herded out the door.)

In recent weeks, we have been exploring other congregations’ Saturday offerings.  One week I had a gig at a local independent Minyan, one week we got up too late for our usual but were well in time for the children’s service at a different place.  I really want us all to keep pushing and growing in our Judaism, and to be comfortable in any Jewish worship context, and I realize that the responsibility for that rests entirely on me.  The two other places we’ve gone had actual children’s programming, which my kids seemed to enjoy.  (By contrast, our regular Minyan is an adult service, at which my children are usually warmly welcomed but where there is nothing for them to do unless I provide it.)  Yet when I offered those other two options this morning, the boys both said they wanted to go to the usual.  Change is hard.

I keep thinking of that line from Fiddler on the Roof: “If I were rich I’d have the time that I lack, to sit in the synagogue and pray.  Maybe have a seat by the eastern wall?  And I’d discuss the holy books with the learned men, seven hours every day.  This would be the sweetest thing of all…”

It would.

This week’s Torah portion includes the Holiness Code, and our study session after Minyan centered on the Golden Rule: Love your neighbor as yourself.

The people that I daven and study with week in and week out give life to this adage, week in and week out.  I see it most clearly in the way they respond to my delightfully-human children.  Now sometimes my boys are positively angelic at Minyan.  But mostly they are slightly less than angelic.  They talk out loud, they lie down on the floor, they sing, they wander about.  Today, as we started with the Birchot Hashachar, Gideon announced that he wanted everyone to hush.

Yet my congregation loves these boys as if they were their own.  They smile indulgently (and sincerely) when there is an unexpected howl of dump trucks.  They giggle when the boys giggle.  They kvell when shy Akiva says, “Shabbat shalom.”  They kvell when boisterous Gideon approaches them to show whatever picture he’s made with his markers and scrap paper.  One friend has begun bringing toys for them to play with during Torah study, toys from her own children’s youth.  (Today it was stickers and markers for them to decorate the disposable tablecloths with — sheer genius!)

If everyone in the world cared about everyone else the way my congregation cares about my kids — with joy and patience and understanding — there would be peace.  I’m sure of it.