New Year in a New Way

Here's the thing about breaking with Orthodoxy but still having respect for your heritage: every time a Jewish holiday comes along, you get to create your own way of celebrating it.

I took off for Rosh Hashanah this year as I did last year. However, while last year I attended an Orthodox shul and invited a friend over for a small apples/challah-and-honey meal, this year I decided to be a little more adventurous.

I had two Rosh Hashanah meals. The first was all Jews (all non-Orthodox) that incorporated guitars and absurd versions of Jewish songs I knew. The second was mostly non-Jews (along with a few non-practicing Jews) and involved cooking lots of traditional Jewish food -- the most fun I've had with cooking in a while.

But the crux of the holiday for me was actually -- believe it or not -- the service I went to. That is, I signed myself up for a seat at a Renewal service. This was a serious break for me. While I've gone to Renewal services once before, it was on a random Friday night, not Rosh Hashanah (the bigwig of Jewish holidays and thus something I used to feel -- whether or not I would've admitted it -- should be celebrated in an Orthodox context).

This service totally blew me out of the water. Really. I wasn't sure what to expect but I came out feeling like I'd had a real experience, like I was actually starting a new year. It was so, so different than anything Orthodox.

At a point in the service, the leader stopped to have everyone say "Shana tova" to each other and hug/shake hands. (This is similar to what I've seen in some church services I've been to and it's really nice -- why don't the Orthodox do it? There's no reason they couldn't.)

They incorporated really meaningful pieces from other traditions -- a Gaelic blessing, a Rumi poem, but still had some of the traditional aspects of RH services like shofar blowing. One prayer was accompanied by swaying/dancing and holding hands.

But for me the highlight of the night was a guided meditation. The leader had us all sit and close our eyes. She then told us to contemplate the last year of our lives, think about what we want to let go, and then send it off. Now as you know, the last year of my life has been fraught with particularly difficult changes and so for me, this was really overpowering and cathartic. I saw everything that had happened with my ex, all the emotional baggage that I'd been carrying, and I let myself let it go. At this point I was actually crying.

She then told us to imagine a hallway with a doorway at the end of it with light pouring through and that there were three words emblazoned on the top of the door, that we should take these words to heart and walk through the doorway into the coming year. The words that I saw were these: "I love you." And I realized that these were words from myself to myself, and that this finally was what I needed to carry through into the following year.

That in spite of the way everything fell apart with my ex, in spite of the fact that I am constantly feeling at risk of losing my parents'/siblings' love for breaking the tradition in too extreme a way (which I will go further into in a later post hopefully), I need to be able to love myself for where I am and who I am and what I have come to believe (or not believe). That I need also to let go of that judgmental twelve-year-old that lives inside me who judges me in a way that I would never dream of judging others.

The meditation culminated in a recitation of Shema, which felt really incredible to me -- not because I buy into what Shema means but because I could feel myself, the adult, repeating the words I'd said as a young child and feel those two pieces of who I am colliding into one.

This was the most powerful Rosh Hashanah experience I'd ever had in my life. Including when I was a believing, practicing Orthodox girl, including the Rosh Hashanah I spent in Israel. I mean I actually cried at a Rosh Hashanah service. Cried. And left feeling truly like I had a clearer understanding of myself and that I was starting anew and fresh -- which really is what the holiday is supposed to be about.

So on that note, happy new year, everyone.

(Some of) the People Who Go the Other Way

While I became less (read: not) Orthodox than I was raised to be, all of my siblings took the reverse course. I am the black sheep of my family.

That said, I am happy for my siblings. They seem happy, well-adjusted. And while, of course, the dictates of Ultra-Orthodox Judaism sometimes stress them out, overall they are mentally healthy, of sound mind. I really don't think they were pressured into Ultra-Orthodoxy; I think it made sense to them, that the customs were things that they enjoyed doing, and that they chose it willingly on their own - not because others were doing it. (This doesn't make me less concerned about the choices that my nieces and nephews will probably not have, but that's another story.)

Every once in a while though, I'll cross paths with someone who looks so miserable with the Ultra-Orthdoxy they've chosen, it just makes me want to cry for them.

I was once at a wedding where a girl I barely knew (she was probably about 22 at the time) literally cried to me for half an hour about how she hated wearing her sheitel (she said it pulled her hair out), how she felt like she'd thrown away her life, etc., etc..

More recently, though, on a trip back to my hometown, I bumped into a different girl two times. She didn't open up to me at all, but the misery was all over her face. She's about six years younger than me but looked years older. This was a girl who, in high school, was on every sports team the school offered, was full of energy and excitement about life, was always healthy, smart, tough and independently minded.

As she - I'll call her Rivky - stood before me in her snood, shlumpy clothing covering a slouching and unhealthy looking figure, telling me in a monotone voice about her kids and the yeshiva in which her husband is learning, I got this flashback I'd almost completely forgotten about.

About seven years ago, I was at my parents' house for Shabbat and Rivky's family came over for lunch. The topic inevitably turned to what Rivky would do after graduation.

"She's going to Israel, to [seminary renowned for turning out really, really frum girls]," said her sister, who (like my sisters) had attended said seminary.

"I'm not going to Israel," said Rivky, "I'm going to college! I don't want to get all frummy!"

Then she turned and looked at me.

"Actually, I want to turn out like you,*" she said, "Where'd you go to seminary?"

Well, my seminary no longer existed, but that was beside the point. In truth, my seminary had turned out as many frummy girls as [seminary x] of which her sister was so fond. It wasn't about what seminary you went to, I told her, it was about how much you understood what you wanted out of life and stuck to that. She looked at me doubtfully.

Well, in the end, Rivky went to [seminary x] like her sister said she should and she turned out exactly like her sister and my sisters, just with a lot less joy.

I don't know what will become of her and I hope she's able to feel fulfilled with the life she's chosen. I do hope she doesn't live the rest of her life out miserably because she thinks she has to.

And I do sometimes have a *little bit* of contempt for these seminaries / yeshivot that promote a singular path as the only authentic way to practice Judaism. I would never expect them to promote my version (or more liberal versions) of Judaism, but certainly there are other legitimate practices, there are ways to bend these traditions, so that people can be themselves and live there lives happily, instead of feeling forced into a mold.

*Note: At the time Rivky said this, I was more religious than I am now -- probably close to what would be called Modern Orthodox (but toward the more liberal side of that category).