In which we move beyond the comfort zone

...and things get predictably awkward.

Shiska Girlfriend knew this was coming. I've been saying it for weeks. "We still have to visit the other Reform shul. I feel like you were short-changed by Temples Ol'Faithful and Touched by God. Besides, I need more blog fodder."

She isn't fooled, but she's a good sport.

So we headed off to Temple Raise the Roof.

Raise the Roof suffers from what can best be called, "macher envy." Whenever people start perusing the synagogue menu in town at the Reform end of the spectrum, the first place they look is invariably Temple Touched by God. It's bigger, more well-known, and this understandably pissed Raise the Roof off to no end. One way they cope is with a totally not-phallic mega-dome, a Wang upon a Hill, if you will. [SG- I disavow and take no responsibility for this remark.] Luckily, the sanctuary inside is actually very beautiful, more so, I would say, than Touched by God's.

I had actually been inside Raise the Roof a few times previously, for the sporadic Bat Mitzvah way back in Middle School. Raise the Roof was also the setting for my father's last showdown with organized religion, about more which another time (the long and short of it: things didn't go well, I never got Bar Mitzvahed, my father still occasionally fantasizes about running the now-retired rabbi down in his Toyota).

I'll say this for Raise the Roof- the people were pretty friendly. The first person to say hi, it turned out, was the rabbi, who introduced himself using only his first name (we didn't know who he was until the service started and he started telling everyone which page to turn to).

We settled into plush mahogany seats (no pews, thank you very much) and were met with a very pleasant surprise: Mishkan freaking Tefillah! More on this in a later post, but let me just say: very impressed, very jealous, and it made a very big difference in how the service went. With everything transliterated and translated, the entire congregation could actually follow along and participate like they knew what they were doing. On our way out, I spotted an old, forlorn copy of Gates of Prayer- as I suspected, every tran-s-litera-ation was sup-er hy-phen-a-ted, and large sections of the prayers, well, weren't. Miskhan Tefillah is a major improvement. Big plus.

Raise the Roof, like Touched by God, has a rotating Shabbos schedule. This week was "choir Shabbat." Just as another comparison between the two big-wig Reform shuls: when Touched by God had their musical Shabbat, they brought in a weird quartet with a violin, bongos, keyboard, and tambourine. At Raise the Roof, it was some guy on a borrowed giant piano, "the grade just below concert grand," he told us. So, still pretentious, but less out-and-out weird.

For the most part, the choir was fine. Some of the psalms and songs actually sounded quite beautiful when sung by a chorus (though it would be nicer if the cantor didn't feel required to let people sing just because they're the only ones that show up or volunteer for solos; willingness doesn't necessarily equal talent). Some things I could have done without, like the piano accompanist trilling up and down the scales like he was about to start scatting.

[Sidebar: this did, however, give me the seed for an entertaining daydream in which I whipped out a harmonica (that I suddenly learned how to play) and we jammed in a cool "Blues Shabbos":

Wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh! Woke up this morning,
Wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh! I went to shul.
Wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh! No one was there,
Wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh! I felt like a fool,
Yeah, I got those, "Jews don't go to shul on Sundays" blues!

...What can I say; I get bored.]

Also, once again I find myself disliking a cantor. SG says this is a widespread complaint of mine, which will be discussed at a later time. Long story short, I don't like bossy showoffs, which seems to be a lot of cantors' unofficial job descriptions these days (someone should check- did the cantor union sneak something into their new contracts?)

The rabbi was friendly and engaging, and we got another fun surprise- a drash! Yes, how I've missed the Friday night drashes since leaving college. The rabbi talked about the recent attack on Merkaz HaRav yeshiva in Jerusalem. I was pleased that he wasn't afraid of talking about important (and relevant) current events, but also was able to keep the talk from devolving into a major political discussion. On the other hand, I wouldn't have minded some Torah/textual commentary relating to the incident instead of a long bit of background about Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook and the yeshiva he founded.

Incidentally, the big thing that bothered me about the drash- and I wouldn't have noticed it if most of his focus hadn't been on Rav Kook- was that the Rabbi seemed to be sugarcoating/whitewashing the ideology of Merkaz HaRav and the Religious Zionist movement. A.I. Kook was indeed a wide consensus-builder, brilliant thinker, a political maverick, and, compared to a lot of his peers, fairly universalism-oriented. But his son, Tzvi Yehuda Kook, who really disseminated his teachings to the last several generations and was the primary ideologue of Religious Zionism and the settler movement as we know it today- wasn't.

T.Y. Kook was interested in Greater Israel and settling the land, and if his disciples are any indication, his approach towards non-Jews, especially Arabs, was probably mixed, at best. Religious Zionists know this. Everyone in Israel knows this. And the Palestinians know this, too. Merkaz HaRav is indeed a symbol, but that symbol and its reputation have a definite double-edge, and a lot of observers, especially in Israel have been theorizing that this may have been one reason the madman picked it as his target. So for the rabbi at Raise the Roof to portray M.H.R. and its founder as some Utopian universalist institution just seemed bizarre, somewhat along the lines of, "Al Qaeda attacked us because they hate our freedom." I'm sure most people didn't notice, but it made me feel like I was being talked-down to.

And now a lovely extended anecdote from Shiksa Girlfriend:

I agree with most of the above from the Friar (minus the unnecessary phallic comparison); the building is beautiful, the new book is sweet, the rabbi is nice, but kind of pushy.... bringing me to the part of the visit the Friar has yet to address.

As discussed by [every religious jew ever], there is an ongoing concern about the state of the youth in Jewish practice. You know, that whole rebellion/apathy thing that leads to the youth falling away into secular society. This is, as far as I can tell, sort of true. With the exception of the Evil Minion, the Friar and I are frequently the only members of our age bracket (20's) at services. I have detected before at Temple Beth Elderly a little bit of the "Ooo, a young couple! Maybe they'll come again! Maybe they'll stay!". Anyway, for a congregation that's top heavy on the 45 and over, and low on the youth, we look pretty desirable. Except. Except for that whole Shiksa Girlfriend thing. Now this has come up before in a number of situations like the Prof. of Jewish studies at Ye Old Private Collage who frequently mentioned that "intermarriage will destroy American Jewry *meaningful look at me*" or the Carlebachian Minyan where our friend counted the minyan of 10+me, or the time I "came out" to the gabbai at Temple Beth Elderly, or the time I scandalized the dinner guests at LOP's house. However, never before has anyone been so blunt as to actively offer to convert me.

After the kiddish, I notice that the 4ft challah still has a good 1.5 feet still to be eaten, so I go to grab some. The rabbi takes this opportunity to grab my elbow and extract some information.

Paraphrase from me: That's almost my name, thanks for trying. I've lived in the city for 8 months, since graduation. Yes, I'm from North Caro-Missi-bama by means of a large Northwest City. No, I don't have an accent. At this point, he counters with the Jewish-Geography tactic (which was a good attempt, considering his knowledge of the Jewish scene in the South can't be all that much). "Hey, that other woman over there is from Atlanta, and her family is from Mobile! Maybe you've got a connection though the hive-mind of various Southern synagogues!"

I've faced this before, like at LOP's house, and I usually put it off by demurring that "my family didn't really participate in the community (ie. because they were going to church!)". However, this isn't going to work with him, so I skip the side-step and admit my X-tian heritage. He wants to know if I had been "studying" in college.

I'm momentarily puzzled. Um, yes, I studied and wrote about some esoteric books by morbid, gay, 18th century Englishmen but I don't think he cares about that. Oh, he means studying for conversion. No. I haven't made it there yet. So, he issues an open invitation that I can come talk to him about this anytime. Thanks, Rabbi, now I do feel like I'm back home. In the South. Facing the friendly but determined followers of Christ. Thanks for that.

Well, that may be a little harsh. But really, did he have to offer me that within 15 minutes of meeting me? I just feel like he was basing this offer on the idea that a Young Couple=years of membership dues, kids for bar/bat mitzvahs, energy for projects, etc. The fact that I'm a SG is a easily-solved problem, from his perspective, but the reality is obviously more complicated.

I'm not put off forever, but I am a little cynical about any other interest he deigns to show in me. I guess I just don't like being pegged as either a liability or an asset to someone else's conception of Judaism in America.

Raise the Roof's custom for Mishiberach is to have congregants speak the name of people who need healing aloud while the rabbi walks among them, repeating the names through his Borg-style mic (a practice I'm not a huge fan, of, btw). While this was going on, I happened to hear a name I knew. I turned around. Ye Gods! Some familiar faces! Specifically, parents of an old classmate of mine, a couple I'll call the Noseybergs. After the Kiddush, I came up to them (I waited until I could remember their first names), staring at Mrs. Noseyberg until she recognized me. This wasn't very hard, considering I look like a shorter version of Abbot Yid.

The Noseybergs were very pleasant, and it was fun doing the whole catch-up thing. I did think it was strange that the first thing they did after hearing that we were shul-hopping was ask for my phone number so they could give it to the chair of the membership committee. (A, no matter how much it is, I can't afford it. B- isn't it customary to ask us if we want her number?)

Also, and this was hilarious, Mrs. Noseyberg proceeded to give us a whirl-wind 2 minute summary of their experiences 20 years ago back when they were looking for a temple. I have faithfully reproduced her comments below, arranged in limerick form for my own amusement:

Conservative would just make us nod,
And they're such snobs at Touched by God,
Temple GLBT
Was too gay, you see,
And B'Nei Hippy was simply too odd.

Another cool development- an old man complimented me on my super-awesome Bukharian kippa- the one my mother says makes me look like "a Muslim terrorist." When I told her about this, her response was, "You wore that there?"

"...Where else would I wear it?"

All in all, it was a little strange, certainly very different, but I'd go back again. If only to hear another few drashes and ogle Mishkan Tefillah.

Just Saying

Dear Temple GLBT,

I like that you guys wrote your own prayerbook. I'm not crazy about the fact that it's about half the size of a phonebook, but that's ok. I think it's cool you have tons of songs in there I've never heard of (even if you never seem to sing most of them). And I like that you include alternate versions of some prayers (even though ten different forms of the Amidah seems a little much to me).

But there's one thing that you did last week that kind of bugged me. Well, aside from the rabbi's drash which seemed to go on forever- I don't know what they told you, but when you talk about something quasi-mystical or intangible you are not required offer four or five synonyms for your first word- you are a rabbi, not a thesaurus. Also, please stop cribbing from Heschel's Cathedral in Time shtick from The Sabbath. Just because you both want us to be mindful of "Holy Time" and of experiencing the "pure, perfect nowness of Shabbos" doesn't mean I want my Time Cathedral being bulldozed by drawn-out and painful abuses of the English language.

Anyway, I understand that being gender inclusive is your "shtick," and I'm not trying to step on anyone's toes...

But switching around the pronouns in Veshamru seems weird to me.

It's not just that "b'nei Yisrael" (V'nei in this link) means "children of Israel" and is classically understood as gender-neutral.

It's also because the rest of the prayer goes on to say, "keep the Sabbath as my covenant for all time."

Don't get me wrong. I like Reform. If I had to identify as something, it would probably be somewhere between Reconstructionist and Reform.

But God dammit, why the hell are you bothering to change the pronoun on a prayer that goes on to talk about freaking Sabbath observance? When it comes to Shabbat (which, I'm sorry, Reformies by and large do NOT observe in the same way as it has traditionally been understood), you seem to be just fine with keeping the traditional text in and letting people interpret/ignore/struggle with it however the heck they want. But at the sight of any gender stuff, it seems like the first instinct is to switch it out.

It just seems silly, that's all.

(Now for Hinei Ma Tov, you might actually have a point...)

Belated Updates Galore

Long time no see, blog. Sorry if you feel neglected.

Despite being busy and sick for the past several months, Shiska Girlfriend and I have managed to make it to a few more Friday night services. Below you will find my best attempts to synthesize them into something that halfway makes sense.

1- We've now been to Evil Minion about six or seven times (including the first two I mentioned before). Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's crowded. Sometimes we recognize people we like (shout-out to Oyster and Chutzpaleh), sometimes it's people we wish we didn't (SG has had more run-ins with Prof. Ihateyou, and every time it reminds her that yes, she really, really does). We went two weeks ago and everything clicked quite nicely- just enough people, we found seats, and actually we got there ON TIME for a change (who knew that people adjust their davening times accordingly for winter? Not me apparently). The singing was awesome, (I like the improvised drumming on any available wooden surface, it takes me back to my first-grader days back when I used to brag that I could "play the bookshelf") and I'm slowly gaining davening speed, something that will hopefully improve should that damn Mishkan T'fillah ever get here. We still don't like talking to people. I still feel guilty for it. We will work on this. Incidentally, there are several interesting articles in Zeek about the rise of the independent minyan (sorry, minion) phenomenon. Check it out!

2- We've also spent a few more evenings at Temple GLBT. I also like these guys, though I don't quite feel like it's as much my "niche" area as some of the other shuls we've been to. But GLBT has been very nice to bring out-of-town guests to if they want a Shabbos experience, since it's big enough and user-friendly enough that no one ever feels awkward (and we get to pretend like it's all old hat for us). I will admit that the Giganto-siddur remains a little strange (though, as at Evil Minion, I often entertain thoughts of snagging/bribing myself a copy for at-home use. Curse you, CCAR press!). One night we brought my old friend Sam, who seemed to enjoy it. Highlights included a very strange monologue by a community artist that had painted a mural or wall hanging for the shul (possibly involving angels, I can't remember anymore). The guy went on a long tangent talking about how one day he discovered that "angels really are real," because he met an angel once. At this point we all thought he was going to say, "And his name is Ted," but it turned out he was serious. Wow. Then things started delving into transcendental meditation-retreat land and we got bored.

* * *
Shiksa Girlfriend adds this interlude:

No, the deal with "Secret Angel Man" was that he was a congregant invited to give a... what's that word? Not sermon- no it does not rhyme with smash... drash! And he started with what we thought was a metaphor about how Jacob wrestles with angels and how God works in mysterious ways and how we deal with angels all the time and how one time he woke up to a beautiful morning and saw an angel sitting at the foot of his bed. At this point we all thought he would say something like, "And he's the love of my life, and he's sitting in the front row," but then he kept going and talked about how he had seen angels lots of times, and then things got weird.

Another evening saw us bringing a relative I haven't seen in forever to it. She got a big kick out of it because it was "way more California" than anything she's used to at her Reform shul in Texas (where'd I put that Shalom y'all t-shirt?). She even called a friend of hers afterwards to brag about how she thought that some transgender folks there might have been giving her weird looks because she was giving off straight-girl vibes (hint: no, they weren't).

3- I do feel bad that we haven't gotten a chance to spend more time with the ancients at Beth Elderly, because they really are awesome. The last time was for Sukkot where we all had such fun losing feeling in our extremities.

4- We've also had fun times wandering around in a neighborhood full of Orthodox shuls, though we've yet to go to any for Shabbos (SG says she feels uncomfortable sitting in a woman's section by herself, so this will have to wait until I can befriend either an open-minded Orthodox girl to go with us, or a Gentile girl whose interests/sense of humor are as odd as SG's).

5- Oh, and there are a few more non-O shuls in town we keep meaning to invade (including one presently under renovation to turn itself into a Jewish version of, well, this).

We'll try to be more punctual with the write-ups in future.

Sincerely yours,

The Management

Come to me, my Evil Minion!

First, an explanation about the cryptic, vaguely cruel, in-joke in the title:

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Scene: Shiksa Girlfriend and me, and my dear anonymous roommate, at college about a year ago, discussing shul options.

Me: Yeah, the Reconstructionist Shul is ok, but I really like the once-a-month Carlebach Minyan.

Her: I know, I even wrote it down on the calendar so we wouldn't forget.

Roommate, inspecting the calendar: Um... you know you spelled "minyan" wrong, right?

Her: What?

Roommate: It has a y.

Me: And an a.

Her: This is bullshit! There's no y in "minion!" This is even dumber than the time you told me "baalchoova" has a t!

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So we went to the "Evil Minion" the other week. This a pretty lively, young-ish Carlebach/Shir Hadash style minyan in town that's pretty cool. I was initially semi-intimidated by some of their semi-halachic language regarding seating arangements: they basically have a pseudo-to-tri-chitza, depending on the crowd and mood of the organizers.

This was our second time there. The first time was really, really busy, and we wound up getting in late, about the time people were doing lecha dodi. It was standing room only. A quick glance of the room gave me the basic specs- mostly mixed sexes in the middle, single-sexes to the periphery, and a few hard-core folks against the sides of the room. (One guy in a Breslov kippa was out in front bonking his head into the wall, which I thought was a little weird, but hey, he's entitled.)

So, SG sees a few spots free on the closest wall and tugs me towards them. Only one problem- I have already identified this space as the women's area. Everybody's singing and we don't have time to confer, so I wave her away and deliberately stand closer to the clump-o-everybody. She gives me a look and leans against the wall.

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Brief mini-halachic explanation interlude:

I don't care about halacha. But I don't like making an issue for other people. In other words, I like to know and be deliberate about being an asshole (my roommate was very fond of yelling "rubber tires never break!" for the first line of the grace after meals), as opposed to inadvertently freaking people out, like the time SG scandalized some poor Orthodox girl into next week. For this crowd, it turned out I was probably being oversensitive- the Evil Minion is a far cry from Boro Park (which is good in just about every way except that it means much less facial hair).

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Finally, a few songs/psalms later, SG joins me in the mixed-gender-stew-seating. "Sorry I couldn't explain it," I whisper. "You were standing in the women's section." She shrugs. "I figured it was something like that, and not that I smelled." She squeezes my hand. As we continue with Kabbalat Shabbat, another latecomer pops in. He immediately makes a beeline for the women's wall and spends the rest of the service there, seemingly oblivious to some of the dirty looks he receives.

Other highlights included the prayer leader, a Mizrahi-looking-and-sounding guy, doing the fastest stacatto rendition of Maariv I've ever heard. It was kind of cool, if a little weird. It sort of reminded me of this guy. "Be dibarta-bam, biddy-bum-bum-bam."

This last time was pretty good as well. Evil Minion has its own transliterated prayerbook (big plus), and even better, not-every-word-has-two-or-three-hyp-hens. While the halacha thing isn't an issue for me, I like that they're billing themselves as big tent nondenominational (at some point I should blog about denominationalism, and the presumption that nondenominationalism can actually exist in practice, over at Friar Yid). And we even ran into some people we know- Oyster and Chutzpaleh from Oy Bay (they recognized my super cool yarmulke) and an irritating former professor for SG. SG's professor, Mr. Ihateyou, is on Sabbatical and apparently knows some of the Evil Minion's founders. SG then made a Jewish Geography joke which Prof Ihateyou didn't understand. Irritated to hell, she silently cursed him with the dreaded Pulsa de No Tenure and went off to find me.

There were only a few downsides with Evil Minion:

A- No drash. Apparently I have to get used to this because most of the Kab Shabs we've been to in town don't do Friday Night Drashes, which is too bad because I miss hearing them. (I know, I know, stop whining, wake up early and come on Saturday. You imaginary readers are so critical.)

B- The room is small and gets very, very hot, even when it isn't a mega-Shabbat. Also, by the time everything is done and you've gotten to kiddush and motzi, it's so loud and crowded it's damn hard to kibbitz decently. I'm not a big mingler to begin with, but with crowds, I really lose all interest and tend to run for the door as soon as I can. I know, I should work on it, and possibly get some body armor, mental or otherwise.

C- Again relating to mingling and meeting fellow shulies: The age group is just a bit ahead of mine, about 5 to 10 years, which shouldn't be that much of a deal, but at the moment is a little weird, if only because a lot of these folks seem to be in a different mental space regarding their lives right now. They seem to be more established regarding jobs and homes and I couldn't help noticing that a few of them seem to be in the early stages of parenting. (Though I have faith that they won't slip down the dark path of Bnei Hippy.) I'm also a little suspicious as to how many people at Evil Minion are there for the "kosher meat market," a-la the roving gangs of Jewish singles that seem to pop up at the monthly, "Please, for God's sake, marry Jewish!" Shabbat over at Temple Touched By God. For some reason the age gap doesn't seem to matter as much at Beth Elderly. I anticipiate that I will probably get over this if I go often enough.

So yes, we will be going back to the Evil Minion. Between Evil Minion, Beth Elderly, Temple GLBT and the one good Carlebachian Shabbat a month at Temple Ol' Faithful, we just might get ourselves into a semi-regular shul schedule.

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One last fun name-nugget. I was explaining the concept of Evil Minion to the Yidden at home, and they were less than enthusiastic.

Me: "It's based on a liberal, Modern Orthodox model, and they sort of have separate seating but not really.

Mother Superior Yid: Why does it have to be ORTHODOX? Why would you want to go somewhere ORTHODOX? That's so unfair to SG.

Abbot Yid: Yeah, and why a minyan? Why can't you ever do anything normal? Even if you're going to be Jewy, do you have to go a minyan? It's just so... ugh!

Me, very confused: whaa?

Later Mama Yid explained that "minyan" has a very specific (and not terribly complimentary, apparently) connotation for them (presumably involving emotionally scarring flashbacks to assorted angry old men). Good to know, I guess.

(Incidentally, this isn't the first time my folks' lack of knowledge about Jewish terminology has prevented them from having an opinion about it.)

Sukkot Silliness

First, let's get it out of the way. I think Sukkot is stupid.

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Don't get me wrong, I can see how it could be modified to be meaningful- a drash on how we should be thankful about having a roof over our heads, be kind to the homeless, etc, the kind of tikkun olam stuff I usually have very bad knee-jerk reactions to- but if I'm honest? I just don't really get it. Maybe it's because, like Purim, like Shimni Atzeret (can someone PLEASE explain that one to me?), it wasn't one of the Jewish holidays I grew up sort of attempting to emulate at home. Also, "Festival of Booths" sounds absolutely moronic, and half the time people either don't hear the "th" and think you says boobs or something, or they assume it's you and your friends reinacting your favorite scenes from the Phantom Tollbooth like the pathetic fanboys you are. At least on Lag B'Omer you get to burn things. (Incidentally, while Jewing out at college, I explained Sukkot to the clueless with the pithy, "It's the Shantytown Holiday", and people almost always understood fairly quickly. Let's face it, the sukkah looks a damn lot more like a shack than it does a "booth". Who do we talk to about changing this translation?)

My hatred of Sukkot is, more than anything, related to my absolute ineptitude when it comes to construction or, frankly, any real handyman-related activity. One year at college, it somehow fell to me to construct the entire sukkah myself. This was, of course, after a last-minute freakout from the frumer members of the not-Hillel (supposedly, we were like, way cooler than Hillel, and didn't need them! Also, they said we weren't big enough to have funding, so we refused to adopt the name just to spite them. I suggested "Shammai" at a bunch of meetings, but people didn't get the joke- or rather, refused to give me the satisfaction of saying it was funny) about whether or not our sukkah was kosher. You see, we bought it online and it turned out that one of the big-name sukkah vendors was holding out on giving his wife a get (that's a divorce for you there Gentiles). As a result, there were various bans put in place against him. To make matters even more complicated, just about every online sukkah vendor sounds exactly the same- SukkahWorld, SukkahMart, Heshy's Sukkah Emporium, House Sukkah o'Sukkahs, etc. I told them that if we had gone with my choice, CrapShack.com, this could have been avoided, but as usual, people told me to shut up. It turned out that our sukkah was kosher, but frankly, at that point, I wouldn't have given a crap. Worst came to worst, I would wait until after the holiday and then lug the crap back to NY and set up a protest tent sukkah outside the bastard's house.

Anyway, this thing was nice enough- canvas walls, steel pole frame, a ringed shower-curtain style door system, it even had a plastic window peephole with a flap to cover it (to keep Cossacks out, presumably). If it wasn't for such a stupid occaission, it could have been a fun fort.

The problems began when it came time to build the damn thing. As usual, everyone bailed, so me and a buddy, who I'll call well-meaning-but-spineless Joe, or Jello for short, got stuck with it. First we had to pick it up from the campus mailroom and lug the damn thing across the quad- easier said than done considering we were schlepping around a 14-foot long cardboard box filled with steel pipes. Out of my way, trustafarians!

That done, we unpacked and studied the directions. It was here that things turned into a major melt-down. The sukkah could only be assembled via a particularly fiendish device known as an Allen Wrench, or what I call Satan's screwdriver. Allen Wrenches are a pain in the ass, and this particular one was tiny and had to be grasped with the whole hand to turn. To make things even better, there was only one.

I spent the better part of a day building this piece of crap, on my own. Jello wanted to help, but since he didn't have a Satan Screwdriver, all he could do was hold the pipes and get me a chair when I had to connect high things. If it's true that you get bonus mitzvah points for doing crap on your own, then I'm riding this damn accomplishment for the next decade. We stuck left-over pine-tree leavings on the thing and called it a Sukkah. And even then, almost nobody went in the damn thing.

Next year: my roommate and I decide to build our own sukkah, as I'm boycotting the sukkah from Hell (also the not-Hillel was maybe going to use it, though this wound up not happening after I declared a mandatory 5-person minimum minyan for construction to occur and we only got 3- Jello, me, and the incoming student leader after the rest of us graduated). We decided to forgo steel or wood, and instead went to Home Depot to try to get PVC pipe.

Oh my God. Major mistake. First of all, those guys couldn't understand what the hell we wanted to do. "You want to make, like, a giant box?"

"Yeah."

"With PVC pipe?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Look, never mind. The question is, what do you recommend we use?"

"I'd recommend you don't do it."

And other fun misadventures. We needed to pick pipe widths, and lengths. We needed them to cut them. They didn't have the right joints; we had to come up with crazy-ass combination joints on the fly. Finally, we got all the crap we needed and came to the fun part: getting all this PVC into the 4-door-sedan (I sat behind my roommate, human-rubber-band style, holding onto dear life as the pipes, stuck diagonally through both front and rear windows, wobbled precariously on the 25-minute ride home. Also, at some point it started to rain. Again, major mitzvah points.

Once we got it home, assembly again proved to be a bitch, as not everything quite fit right on our patio, and of course since some of the PVC was pretty thin (1/4 inch?), it wobbled like crazy. Also, we had nothing to go around the frame, something SG thankfully fixed by stealing some spare fabric from the theater department and making us some cool curtain walls. And it rained most of the week, as it tends to in that part of the country at that part of the year, and so it was only very occasionally we got to spend any time in the thing, which, if I'm honest, I wasn't that broken up about (though I did feel cheated for not riding along to the Chabad to pick up the lulav and etrog).

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Long story short, I have very mixed feelings about this damn holiday. It is, IMO, one of the biggest pains-in-the-ass outside of Passover, and, like that illustrious holiday, I get very resentful of the subtle ways in which the spirits of long-dead rabbis start to seem like they're just making shit up to screw with you the longer the thing goes on. (I get mental pictures of Rashi saying to a scribe, "And then say they have to stand on their heads! And put their socks on their noses! And if they fall off, they have to eat them!")

So all of that is background to last Shabbos. Shiksa Girlfriend and I went to Beth Elderly for Friday Night, only barely remembering that it was Sukkot. When we got there, they had more folks than usual, which was nice, though we were still pretty much the only 20-somethings (hell, we were practically the only ones who still had pigment in our hair).

Services were nice enough, at this point we pretty much know how these guys operate. It's not quite as Carlebach as I like, but it's pretty good, definitely in our top three in the city. And afterwards we all file outside to the Sukkah.

Ok, this is where things get weird. First of all, these people are basically in a giant wind tunnel because they're pretty close to the Pacific, and second, their roof leaves a lot to be desired. Clearly the focus was on getting the kinderlach to show up and help, not on structural integrity. I'm not saying it's going to collapse on us, just that it's not much of a shelter. As we all stand outside and freeze our butts, the cantor announces that she and some other brave and hearty souls are going to spend the night out there, in the synagogue alley sukkah, in sleeping bags, and have a nice catered, hot breakfast the next morning.

I poke the GF. "If you ask me, they'd be better off skipping the breakfast and getting some space heaters."

We continue to discuss the matter as we shuffle back inside for the potluck. We sit next to an old man, who was singing very off-key during the kiddush but seems nice enough (he makes a point of telling us that the Two-Buck-Chuck won an award a few years ago, and we pretend he hasn't told us three times before), and two, later three, older yenta types.

One of them quickly annoys me. Overhearing us discussing the vegan options, she inquires as to our eating habits. I explain that I'm lactose-intolerant and the kind allowances SG has made for me in order to keep up with her love of cooking and baking.

"That's great," the woman says. "I don't eat dairy because of the cholesterol," she announces proudly.

Um... great?

Things get weirder. As she heard us discussing some of the Sukkot laws (the number of required sides, the issues with the roof, the potential loophole I'm sure other people have contemplated of building your sukkah underneath a skylight), she starts asking me, "So how do you know all this stuff?"

"Books."

She gives me a stare. Who ever heard of such a thing?

A few minutes later, she's asking me about kashrut. "So, is soy cheese, like, you know, cheese? Is it dairy?"

Uh, not as far as I know.

"It depends how you're counting," Shiska Girlfriend interjects. "Some things have a little bit of dairy that don't really affect their nutritional count, or the Friar's digestion, but would technically be considered dairy under kashrut."

I feel a little twinge of pride coming on. Or something.

The woman nods, impressed or maybe just comatose. "So, is soy milk... is that dairy?"

Sigh. We run through this again, culminating with my trump card, "And since soy ice cream is pareve..."

"Oh, yeah. You know, I never thought of that. But then again, I don't eat ice cream, because it's not good for you."

Uh huh. Have another guilt-free blintz and tell me more.

The woman turns back to me. "So, do you keep kosher?"

"No." I exchange a look with SG. That was bizarrely direct.

"Do you observe the Sabbath?"

What is this, a kiruv workshop? Or a National Geographic Special? And who calls it the Sabbath? Are you the freaking reincarnation of Cotton Mather?

Finally, the woman asks me about my education. I tell her I went to a private high school in the city. "Oh, yes, I've heard of it. Now tell me, is this, uh... Catholic?"

At this point my eyes leap out of my skull, run across the table, and kick her in the nose.

"Sorry, sorry, I meant... uh, what's the word... a yeshiva?"

"No. Not even close. Nondemoninational, private... I guess about 1/3 Jews. Very, very, Reform, Jews."

And with that we ran off, to get our bus.

Upon reflection, I'm thinking maybe the woman was reacting to my clothes- I was wearing gray slacks, a white button-down shirt, and a navy blue sports jacket. Plus my new, super-Ashkenazi-style yarmulke.(which SG was kind enough to modify for my tiny pinhead). Maybe this already demonstrably-not-very-sharp woman just got really confused and figured that anyone with a hat that tall had to be frum?

Whatever. The point is that I should probably only use my newfound Chabad impersonation powers for mischief and entertainment. Who's down for crashing a shiur?

Welcome to Bnei Hippy! I hope you like hugs!

I feel guilty about this one, I really do. From the time I was about thirteen or so and feeling guilty that I hadn't been Bar Mitzvahed, the one place that I thought might be a good match for me was the local Reconstructionist shul in town. Unfortunately, I was still too intimidated at that point to poke my nose in, and before I could get over my Jew-fright the shul wound up losing its lease and leaving for greener pastures when I was in high school, and I could never find where its new home was.

Recently, however, in my process of recording all the shuls in town and marking them up on Google Maps ("Brit HaMoshiach" has a Christmas tree), I managed to find the Recons. Hooray! For years I've been talking up Reconstructionism to my folks, especially Abbot Yid, who's not at all convinced by the God thing:

Me: "It's a Judaism without God, sort of."

Him: "Wait a minute, but how the hell can that work? Who do you pray to?"

Me: "You sort of pray in the moment. You pray for the experience of praying. If you want to pray to God that's fine, too, but it's focused on what you're getting out of it."

Him: "Hmmm... But I don't think I get anything out of it. That's why we send you off on the High Holidays to pray for all of us."

Needless to say, I was excited to check it out with Shiska Girlfriend. Only things didn't exactly go as planned (seasoned readers will note that this seems to be a trend with us).

First of all, the place was not Reconstructionist. It turned out it was Jewish Renewal. This isn't an issue, per se. I've heard the Recon/Renewal divide described as head versus heart (not unlike the Hasidim/Misnagdim feuds, come to think of it, except on the non-Orthodox, post-modern end of the spectrum). Anyway, I don't object to mysticism, though I think that when it boils down to it, I'm a little too cerebral to take that stuff too seriously. I'm much more interested in analyzing the phenomenon of mysticism than the actual practice. This was great in college but presents something of a challenge in dealing with people that claim to be bona fide mystics or pseudo-mystics.

Anyway, some of the issues I had with this place was that the Jewish content seemed rather low. Even worse, the Jewish stuff didn't seem to have been replaced by much of anything. At least the Jew-Bus have an interesting syncreticism going on. These people had... uh... hang on, let me check my notes...

Ah. got it. Hugging.

No, seriously. The whole thing was apparently one giant support group, led by the congregation's new Rabbi. Most of the "service" part of Kabbalat Shabbat consisted of butchering the psalms (nigguns are great, only including one or two lines of each psalm and then "lai-lai-lai-ing" the rest for a minute and a half is not). I did think that setting up a whole table full of small cup-candles and having everybody light one was an interesting way of including everyone there in candle-lighting, but that was about it as far as positive points.

Shiksa Girlfriend was so perturbed by the experience, it was enough to make her sit down and pound out a few lines herself:

Last week we crashed a parent’s social group masquerading as a congregation. Bnei Hippy meets in a large room rented from Temple Burning Bush normally used for large social events. Some of the round tables that fill the room are pushed to the side and the chairs are gathered in a loose circle around a low table topped with a tray containing two sets of candlesticks and about twenty votive candles.

As the congregation begins to filter in, I notice that they seat themselves in a pattern governed by the same rules as collage classes. The Friar and I had many “conference” classes at college where the professor and students sat in a circle and thus subverted the lecturer/listener dynamic. In theory. In practice, the students would seat themselves in order to create the division. As the seats filled, the two seats to either side of the professor would remain empty as long as space permitted, creating an effect similar to placing the professor at the head of the table.

So it was at Bnei Hippy, despite the absence of the bima, the congregants refused to collapse the divisions of rank and left the rabbi her own side of the circle, with only her drum for company. The drum was quite large, of the style inspired by African drums, with a hourglass shape and an irregular hide tightened by ropes. The sound was mellow enough to meld with the singing and I was not ungrateful for the rhythmic help during unfamiliar songs. At the same time, the use of an African drum as part of Kabbalat Shabbat carries, at least for me, a tinge of cultural imperialism.

But I’m being unfair, because, I would bet, that, for this crowd, that particular type of drum is more evocative of Woodstock, drum circles, and their own youth. I can say this with some authority because the congregation of Bnei Hippy seemed to be former hippies/counterculturalists who became professionals, started families, and now conceive of themselves primarily as parents.

This manifests not only in the song/poem written by a member concerning the joy of parenthood and the special bond between parents and children[ Note from the Friar: getting community involvement to write your own siddur is great. Writing your own specific family prayer which then gets inserted into every Friday night service by virtue of you being head of the siddur committee seems to verge on the masturbatory], but also in the many interludes of discussion that peppered the service. The Friar and I have not reached the stage where we use huge lengths of fabric to tie infants to ourselves, and the rabbi was kind enough to take this into consideration.

Rabbi (benevolent smile at the circle): "And now we need to take this moment of Shabbat to consider the events of past week. Take a moment to think about a time this week when you felt that there was something loving you wanted to say to your child, but --something-- held you back."

"Turn now to your children and share you love with each other."

(The rabbi pauses as her glance passes over us again) "…. or, ..uh…. take a moment to contemplate your love for your own parents?" (big smile).

[Note from the Friar: I actually gave the Rabbi a little more credit here. Maybe she was trying to emphasize that the family dynamic works, like, both ways, man. This way she can get all the adults to be mindful of the fact that they ignore their own parents. I also considered that this could have been her attempt to include the ten or so kids there who were similarly excluded from the "tell your child you love them" speech.]

This style continued throughout the rest of the pauses for discussion. The Rabbi went around the room asking the parents what challenges they had faced this week, and what they had learned from them. One father congratulated his kids for having gone to Shakespeare camp for the third year in a row, noting that "they don't really like it, but we think they're good at it, and they had their performance tonight and they were really great. We think that teaches them the importance of perseverance."

Next the Rabbi asked the kids what they learned this week. They turned to their Dad. "We learned we really don't like Shakespeare camp."

"Yeah. Can we please stop going?"

He looked embarrassed and the Rabbi gracefully took the opportunity to move on. Another parent patted himself on the back for bringing his kid to shul and in having made shul an interesting enough place that he felt compelled to bring along two friends from school. This would have been more convincing if all three fourteen-year-olds hadn't looked like they were about to fall asleep in their chairs. "I think this is teaching him about tolerance," the Dad beamed.

Another thing the Rabbi asked people was what they did that was fulfilling. This was where the group really shined, as they listed a bunch of inane hobbies. "I like gardening." "I like horseback riding." "I get a kick out of music." "Being here is nice." "Yeah, Shabbat is totally nice! And being with you guys, that's nice too!" The grand finale came from a Mom in her 40s: "Just being around my family and community, that keeps me going." Um, great, but... what does any of this have to do with anything?

When the drumming and child-flaunting were finally over the group migrated to the coffee and cake. While the Friar and I are usually happy to stick around for the kibitzing, the snatches of conversation that drifted over were not promising:

“The best thing! Just like Lunchables, but made from organic ingredients with no preservatives!”

“Soccer camp starts Tuesday, so she’ll be missing one of rehearsals for…”

“And it turns out it’s pinkeye! Again!”

So we fled. Just not the place for us.

Yeah, maybe in a few years. Hopefully never. Well, now we have two reasons to never go anywhere near Burning Bush again. Many thanks to the kind and patient (and easily badgered) Shiska Girlfriend for finally writing something down for the blog. More to come.

How Inclusive, really?

Last Friday, the SG and me were foiled by the usually competent public transportation system. The bus we were going to take to go to "Da Minyan" (more on that another time) blew a tire, and another one seemed a long time in coming. So we tried to walk to catch another bus to get to Beth Elderly. No luck, just as we got to the stop, the damn thing peeled off.

Great. So we decided we'd go to a new shul, one that I'd heard about but hadn't gotten a chance to visit yet: Temple GLBT, or, as a high school friend once called it (in whispered tones) "The Gay One." Of course, not knowing its exact address, we had to be assisted by Shiska Girlfriend's kid sister way back in another timezone. Let me tell you, there is nothing like yelling transliterated Hebrew into your cell phone in a crowded bus station to get attention from the old Chinese ladies.

So we hop on the next bus and head down. The architecture was very cool; the shul is a giant rectangle and the sanctuary is on the third floor, giving it a great vaulted ceiling and pretty cool windows. It was nice seeing the sun set as we went through Kabbalat Shabbat.

But, I admit it, I was kind of weirded out about going to "that shul," particularly as the GF and I are, as she puts it, "painfully straight."

Let me explain. I have gay godparents, I have bisexual and transgendered friends and acquaintances. Sure, for a while I was uncomfortable with my brother painting his toenails, but he grew out of it. So it's not an issue of not being ok with GLBT people having their own space or activities, it's a question of whether the shul is "GLBT-friendly", or specifically for GLBTs. Just like the term "Gay-Straight Alliance" can either mean exactly what it says, or can be a code for, "this is where the queer kids hang out, everybody else just beat it." Those were some of the anxieties running through my head as we headed inside.

For the most part, my fears were unfounded. There were same-sex couples there, but we weren't the only male-female pairing, either. We didn't get any dirty looks; in fact they were among the friendliest folks we've encountered so far. And I was very impressed with their prayerbook: giant Kinko's tomes with a ton of Shabbos songs in the back, a bunch of which I'd never heard of, and fascinating commentary on a lot of the liturgy from a GLBT perspective. Originally, I was sort of turned off by the (IMO) strange decision to offer three or four different versions of prayers (traditional, "mystical," gender neutral or alternative, etc...) which just seemed sort of confusing and reinforced the fact that everybody wasn't on the same page, literally, but about halfway into the service it stopped being so noticeable. I also appreciated that their custom is to not take out any traditional liturgy, only add new and optional stuff (with the possible exception of some gender stuff, I think). Particularly moving was mentioning AIDS in a Misheberach prayer, and a special prayer for "our GLBT brothers and sisters" that suffered in the Middle Ages, Holocaust and today, that gave a whole new spin on the concept of suffering and persecution in Jewish history. It was a real insight into how it must be for GLBT Jews to have their history and suffering not be acknowledged in liturgy or popular Jewish consciousness, and made me all the more appreciative of the fact that they had figured out a way to include this without getting dragged into the reverse; ignoring or excluding straight Jews because they didn't quite share in the same narrative.

Also, SG really liked that their siddur had Hebrew, transliteration, AND English translation, so that she had something to read while the rest of us were doing our thing.

What I like most about these guys was that they seemed to have achieved a nice balance between their gender or sexual orientation identities and a strong background in Jewish practice and tradition (at least in the context of the service). It wasn't so much, a "If you think about it, Moses was probably gay, man" thing as the congregation having their own particularistic bent on Judaism and Jewish history. And once you got past the initial liturgy weirdness, it was essentially a fairly traditional service, much more traditional than, say, Temple Touched by God's re-enactment of the Levites' serenade (plus a violin for that "Old Country" flavor).

The cantor's drash was pretty interesting. She spoke about health care (there was some tie-in to Isaiah I didn't quite catch) and how the shul was working, in concrete ways, to get affordable healthcare for every city resident. I was happy to hear about some actual Reform tikkun olam in practice, as opposed to say, Temple Touched by God, which mostly consisted of bitching about Republicans and then talking about how we could supposedly raise awareness about global warming by "checking out" some website.

Things that bugged me:

- Kabbalat Shabbat lasted, literally, all of fifteen minutes. Just a personal thing, but I think those psalms and melodies are really beautiful, and I was annoyed that they skipped most of them or excerpted the hell out of them. It left more time for Maariv, but the reality is, I strongly prefer K.S. to Maariv, for exactly the reasons given above.

- Having 10 different versions of the Amidah. I realize this verges on the hypocritical, given my usual liberal Judaism bias. Maybe it was just seeing them all together that did it. Anyway. I don't object on principle, it just seemed weird in practice. Not sure what the answer is there.

- The siddur having like, ten million eclectic and obscure Yiddish & Hebrew songs is somewhat undercut when the cantor picks one and then has to stop halfway through because she doesn't know the tune.

- This is the second drash in a Reform temple I've visited that's incorporated a popular movie. I know Sicko is in theaters, but that's not why I come to shul. I also, incidentally, didn't come so you could tell us about all the great work you guys do and how I need to come to your town hall meeting. This is a drash, not an announcements section of your newsletter. Less plugging, more Torah. Come on, guys, it's not like Jews don't have anything in the tradition about healing the sick.

To conclude, nice bunch of guys, I'd definitely check it out again, and I'm glad to see there are Reform shuls that aren't quite as "off" as Touched by God. But I don't think I'd make it my regular stomping-ground.

Next!

Coming Out

The big news of the previous Shabbat is that SG "came out" to the gabbai of Beth Elderly toward the end of the potluck. We had previously discussed how she wanted this to go. She originally wanted me to talk to the gabbai for her, but I wasn't entirely comfortable with this- not the least of which since I wasn't quite sure what his reaction would be. In some ways I figured that, if his response was less than positive, it might be better if he was just talking to random shiska rather than said shiksa flaunting the apple-cheeked bochur she was taking captive with her back to Babylon.

I played wingman for her by talking to a few of the elders so they weren't all swarming around her, since I figured that would make things even more stressful.

* * *

This isn't the first time SG has had to deal with the "passing" issue. In fact early on, when her parents heard that she was shul-hopping with me, one of their first questions was, "Do you pass?", to which she responded, "it's kind of hard not to." The general assumption tended to be that you were Jewish unless you mentioned otherwise, and unless there was a reason, she usually preferred to keep such information private. At our monthly Carlebachian minyan, she occasionally reminded the organizers that she wasn't Jewish, just to make sure that she wasn't causing a halachic problem for anyone.

In college, I had a Lovely Orthodox Professor who had become a baal teshuvah and married Super-Mussar Hubby. She regularly invited SG, myself, and my dear roommate to her house for Shabbos. LOP was great but SMH was sort of a jerk (and very right-wing), so we could always count on a fun time when going there.

For SG's first time, we came early and were a few of several guests, including a frum female high school student spending the weekend at LOP's house while checking out colleges.

The troubles started almost as soon as we arrived. LOP knew SG wasn't Jewish but we didn't know who she had told, and, not knowing their position on interdating, SG was eager to avoid problems. LOP's friends asked SG if she wanted to do candlelighting. SG looked at me. This was in the days before we had even bought a transliterated bencher. I could barely get through the brocha, much less SG. She politely declined. In the meantime, I wandered around the living room to give the women their space (I could give a hoot about kol isha, but there was no reason to make an issue of it. While doing this, I noticed that the high school student had gone down to the basement, presumably to be in her own "women's section." A little strange, but her prerogative.

SMH came home with a buddy from the local Chabad shul and we sat down to dinner. SG and I sat on the far end of the table, right next to the student. SG was wearing an outfit that wasn't entirely tznius (darn collarbones) and was absent-mindedly rubbing my arm. Things that, in our circles, would barely get noticed, but to the high school student, we might as well have been dry-humping on top of the challah. At one point, she asked SG, "How do you guys know each other?" SG replied, without really thinking, "Oh, he's my boyfriend." I couldn't tell if it was the dating thing itself or her unabashed candor that caused the poor girl to go into a fit of blushing.

Over dinner, SMH started picking on my friends a little. My roommate comes from a pretty serious Conservative family and really knows his shit- Hebrew, Talmud, he knows it all. And he consciously made a decision to go the route of the ritually observant but ideologically apikorosdik Jew, which tends to get him noticed by folks like SMH. Also, they both love to argue, in part because they both like to show off. I also suspected that my roommate enjoyed going to SMH's house because it gave him a chance to play the heretic, whereas in college he tended to be considered one of the most "religious" students on campus (ah, the folly of labelling!)

SMH and his buddy noticed that my roommate could say the brochas in a perfect accent and without even looking at the benchers. The buddy commented, "Did you used to be observant?" Not-so-hidden subtext: You know what you're doing but weren't at the only "real" shul in town, mine. What gives?

Roommate: "I was raised in a Conservative household."

Buddy: "Really? Where?"

Roommate: "X."

SMH: "X? Frum highschooler, isn't that where your family lives?"

FH: "Yup."

SMH: "Did you guys know each other?"

FH: "I don't think so. Did you go to Machmir Orthodox High? That's the only Jewish school there."

Roommate: "Um, actually, there are a bunch of other Jewish schools. I went to middle-of-the-road Conservative Day School."

FH looks like a deer in the headlights. My roommate decides to be kind and let it go.

Buddy: "Well, you should really drop by the shul sometime."

SMH: "Or the kollel. That goes for you, too, Friar Yid."

Me: "Oh, I'll definitely think about it."

SMH's attention then turned to poor SG. "So, I hear you're from the South."

SG: "Yup."

SMH: "Was it difficult living in [suburban Southern hellhole]?"

SG: "Well, it didn't have any of the benefits of a big city. We had to drive across state lines to see Fahrenheit 9/11, for instance."

SMH: *Clearly miffed at her movie choices.* "Yes, but, did your family find it challenging to stay involved with the community there?"

At the c-word, SG tenses up a little. Did LOP really not tell him? She decides to play along.

"No, we mostly kept to ourselves."

SMH: "Uh huh. Did you work in the summers?"

SG: "I worked for years at a barebecue restaurant."

Buddy: "Really? Beef?"

SG: *Confused* "Uh, no. Pork, mostly."

The whole table inhales. SG looks around, a little freaked out.

Buddy: "Um, was that an issue for you?"

SG: "Well, I was a vegetarian at the time."

Buddy: *Relieved* "That's good."

I forget what actually did it, but right as SMH was about to point-blank ask SG about her family's observance level, she cracked.

"I just have to be honest, I'm not actually Jewish."

Again, the table did a collective inhale. All eyes turned to SMH. He stood up and hit the table with his fist. "Why I never! And I can't believe nobody told me!..."

He trailed off and chuckled. LOP shot him a death-glare. The guests all had a belly laugh and tucked into the brisket. SMH leaned back in his seat and grinned at the oil print of the Chofetz Chaim on his wall like they had shared a private joke.

When we got home, SG said she didn't really mind. "It's not like I didn't know what I was getting into."

She took it a lot better than my parents. Mother Superior Yid said that people like SMH were an embarrassment to Jews everywhere. Abbot Yid told me I owed SG an apology and made me promise to never take her back there (which I broke within three weeks, if only because LOP was so nice and SMH was irresistible in his narishkeit comments).


* * *

With all this background, I was a little nervous for SG as she went up to talk to the gabbai. Even though Beth Elderly has a great reputation for welcoming everybody, who knows how the individual congregants feel, especially those who are old-school?

Apparently, I needn't have worried. SG thanked the gabbai for asking her up on the bimah. He grinned. "I have a tough job of keeping track of who goes up to the bimah and remembering who does and doesn't like it. I'm glad that you enjoyed it."

SG: "I just thought you should know that I'm not actually Jewish."

The gabbai chuckled at her behind his rimless glasses and said in a thick German accent, "Who knows? Maybe you'll convert someday. I don't really care." He walked off to get a cup of coffee, and she squeezed my hand. Another mini-milestone.

It's nice when the truth sets you free.

Fun Times and a Milestone at Beth Elderly

A few weeks ago Shiksa Girlfriend and I went to a very nice, but fairly small Conservative shul, largely populated by Holocaust survivors. Awesome history, but the median age there is something like 60. Our unofficial name for it is Beth Elderly.

Everyone was very nice to us (surprised, in fact, to see people they'd never met before), and were even impressed at our ability to "read" Hebrew (magic transliterations to the rescue). As it turned out, our visit coincided with a community potluck, which we particularly appreciated because I am a Jew and SG is a foodie and naturally, we love free food.

We went again last week, SG bringing a cake she had made. (Since I'm lactose intolerant, it was a vegan cake.)

So we show up, and again, people seem very surprised to see us. One old man stares at us. "It's not potluck tonight."

Oops.

Luckily, when it comes to cake, Beth Elderly isn't too picky. After services we had a fun nosh, which included comments from several folks on the leadership committee asking us pointed questions about how to attract "youth" like us.

A student who usually goes to the local Hillel opined, "I like text study, I've always enjoyed that." I nodded, thinking back to my college days studying the Zohar, or as I affectionately referred to it, "Judaism on Crack." I also endured an internal wince, as I thought back to a friend's critique of David Hartman- "He thinks text study will save the Jewish people. I've got news for him. It won't."

"We also like Carlebach singing," SG said. Someone shrugged. "You should try Minyan X." I noted the name and we refrained from giving any further suggestions.

Far more entertaining were the services themselves. First, the gabbai thanked us for showing up, commenting that it would "help us make a minyan quicker." At the m-word, SG shot me a look. I shrugged. During Kabbalat Shabbat, the gabbai popped up again, and in a thick accent, asked us if we'd open the ark. He handed SG a kippah that looked like it had been a napkin in a previous life. Again, invisible arrows stabbed me in the face. I squeezed her hand.

Finally, the gabbai motioned to us and we went up, opened the doors, then closed them and took our seats. Her face was a little flushed, but SG did just fine.

Afterwards, people were asking us a little about ourselves. SG told them she was from a particular Southern state, and lo and behold, one of them had actually visited that city before! "Were you involved with the community there?"

I can see the imaginary thought-bubble above SG's head. "SHIT."

"Uh, no, not really. I mean, there's a temple in town, but we mostly stuck to our own suburb."

"Hmm." The man seems a little sad he can't make more conversation out of their Jewish geography connection, but lets it go. It's sad but true; secular Jews are all too commonplace these days.

Before we left, we were talking with a young woman about our age, and SG let her secret out- "I'm not actually Jewish."

"Oh, that's cool," the woman said. "Neither is my Dad, and they still made my Mom President of the Shul."

We filed it away for later. Maybe on our next trip SG will come clean.

You look Familiar

A few weeks ago we went to a Conservative shul I'll call Temple Burning Bush, because I got the impression I could have spontaneously burst into flames and run screaming through the sanctuary and the 15-odd congregants wouldn't have blinked. The cantor was too deep and didn't sing so much as intone- loudly.

So the cantor is doing his thing (unassisted by the rabbi, I notice), and on the other side of the bimah there are two older gentlemen. One seems to very obviously be the rabbi- glasses, white beard, very Soloveitchik-looking. Behind him, in one of the "VIP seats" is some random guy that I assume is the synagogue President. The whole time the cantor is cantoring, these two guys won't stop whispering to each other. Shiska Girlfriend and I keep looking at each other. Exactly what issue could the Men's Club be having that is so urgent that they can't either keep quiet during the service or, god forbid, actually join in?

Cantor finishes, rabbi gives his drash. A damn good drash, actually. Even includes a joke about a rabbi, cantor, and synagogue president stranded on a desert island. (A different version is here. This rabbi's version was much hipper. It involved cannibals.) This further's my suspicion that the chatterbox is the President.

End of drash, end of service. The Rabbi comes up to us to introduce himself. Before he reaches us, the President shakes my hand.

"Good to see you again!"

Me: "Huh?"

"Yes, great to see you back here. I've forgotten your names, though."

Me: "Um... we've never been here before."

Nothing fazes this guy. In his best used car salesman voice, he says, "Well there are two people that look just like you and have been here before!"

Yeah. No thanks, we don't want any.

We excuse ourselves from annoying President-man and introduce ourselves to the Rabbi- who reveals that, he, in fact, is a visitor! A rabbi, to be sure, but not from this shul. The guy who just tried to pretend he knows us, it turns out, is the rabbi.

Slightly surprised, I compliment the other rabbi on his drash. He grins. "Actually, I didn't even know I was speaking tonight." Apparently the back and forth on the bimah was Rabbi 1 opting out of drash duty. Nice.

This reminded me of a story circulating around my college the first few weeks of school- a philosophy professor gave a brilliant lecture about Plato, and a student came up to him afterwards at the podium to ask him if he could have a copy of his notes. The professor shrugged. "I don't really have notes, he says."

The student looks down at the lectern and sees a small piece of paper. It says, "Talk About Plato."

Needless to say, Temple Burning Bush was a bust. The search continues.