Sneaking In to Sink In

Edited from a few weeks ago:

I tend to play by the rules. I cannot recall ever sneaking into a venue. I never did movies back to back at theatres or snuck into concerts.

I have many recollections of sneaking out though. Mostly from school lectures, davenning period and mandatory school events. This weekend may have been the first time I snuck into something.

Chabad does so many beautiful things I long to contribute to. I have this need to do my part in some way or maybe to feel connected. Maybe it is not a need as much as my mother's voice in my head stating "all tamin atmicha min hakal" which translates to not separating oneself from the group. Except if all your friends are jumping off the roof. In that case you probably should not cave in to peer pressure. Vague idioms can be hard to execute.

Yes, I know I could technically message one of these organizations asking to volunteer but that felt too awkward as I don't actually know anyone (note to self: buy a billboard to become known or become more outgoing and play up to the Chabad bureaucracy). Perhaps my ego is too big to handle the risk of rejection and I really need to work on my bitul. Basically, I was not going to cold call Chabad.

Hashgacha protis, I recalled a friend mentioning that she volunteers annually at the Chabad on Campus as her friend is on the team.  I risked vulnerability, and told her I wanted to be partake in "it" (Chabad shlichus movement? what is the it?). She was considering volunteering again and said she would love to volunteer with a buddy. Struck gold!

Friday afternoon consisted of me checking people in on a laptop and handing them information packets and wrist bands for entry to the Saturday night Mega Event (the words mega event must be capitalized to indicate the importance to this story. Now that you have duly noted the capitalization we may proceed).

Volunteering is really not at all glamorous but as my dream job would be a well paid greeter (seriously, I love welcoming people and making them feel comfortable), I had fun. I wish Walmart paid better cuz I would have a stellar career there.

Shabbat evening, after dinner at their hosts' homes, Chabad on campus participants come to the hall and choose sessions to participate in. My task was to assist the three bouncers with looking through a booklet of hundreds of names and ensure only those on this exclusive list came in.

So the question that should be on your mind is, why would there be a list? Why would someone not on the list want to come in and sit in on lectures? It's Friday night, your bed is calling.

Karmen, the Mulsim bouncer could not figure it out. He also was shocked that there were rabbis trying to get into this event- they should know better. Except, some were probably not rabbis but yeshivas students with beards, hats and jackets. Rabbis in this town is kind of a loose term- but that is a whole different topic.

So a guy/kid-person comes up and he's not on the list. He mentions his name and it sounds familiar as a Crown Heights name but that is irrelevant as he isn't on the list. So I refer him to the woman in charge, who is really a girl in her mid-twenties but it's time to acknowledge the woman in people my age. She turns him away. He gives a sheepish, disappointed grimace kind of smile and leaves.

The story is repeated by a dapper rabbi dressed in a blue suit. "I chaperoned a mayanot group and want to take a few people inside and meet up with a few people from the group." But he isn't on the list. He tells a bouncer he wants to speak to the person who made the rule. He challenges the woman in charge, who happens to be 5'2", but she stands her ground.

Another group of three girls, one who shares the name of the first offender, ask to be let in. They are, or claim they are, meeting a friend. The girl in charge allows them to wait in the foyer but tells the bouncer to keep an eye on them so they don't go in. Thus it continued.

"You're really not going to let me in?"

"What's the big deal? C'mon"

It was in these moments of rejection that something stuck me. This was the pedagogy for those who are not cookie cutter chassidish.

I speak from firsthand experience. Our schools do not, perhaps cannot, offer safe spaces for students to ask questions about topics that are sensitive. Even if schools did offer a safe space if they could, some students wouldn't feel comfortable asking the questions on their minds. Additionally, some students, aka me!, would not feel comfortable asking questions around certain classmates and teachers. Feelings of judgment would abound as high school wasn't a safe space to ask questions about belief in G-d, forget about intimacy.

In high school historia class, a classmate asked incredulously, "but how is that possible" in learning that Yoshke's mom gave birth to him without being married. When I was a kid, my mom told me two people get married and then Hashem gives them a baby in the mommy's tummy. I grew out of that Occam's razor style explanation before high school though I did not have the technicalities figured out. This girl obviously had not (I'm sure she's figured it out since then being she is a mom). Perhaps it for this blessed naiveté that are school is unable to cater to each student.  There is too broad a spectrum of students.

Fortune smiled on me and I was blessed with an incredibly wise mom who sent me to an Uncamp weekend. Where, for the first time, I heard a Chassidic rabbi talk about relationships and who also put me straight on my previous, extensive mis-education from friends, books and movies. It  helped to know there were answers to questions on faith, belief. Faith was a big topic that weekend as it was the day after the terror attacks in Mumbai. Though I was hesitate about discussing these topics, being with people who were able to ask questions freely answered a lot of my questions.

The reason this event and Uncamp are so significant is that they provide a safe space to address questions that cannot be asked in a typical Chassidic classroom. An added benefit of Uncamp is that it is marketed for non-religious girls so that participants aren't solely surrounded by peers. It creates an atmosphere of security. This is the allure of the Chabad on Campus event.

Beyond that, there is the marketing element.

I met a woman at Chabad on Campus and I asked her what her job title. Turns out, she did the marketing and branding for Chabad on Campus. Therein is the allure for these events. Chassidus taught at Chabad schools is raw and organic. It can also be incomprehensible to apply to modern life. These events aimed at those not raised with Chassidic thought are like clear cut Tedtalks and I love Tedtalks.

My friend became frum later in life and we talked about the differences in our religious education. For me, a lot of what I learnt is a mush of TaNaCh and chassidus. Whereas she comes to Judaism from a Chassidic viewpoint. She wasn't initiated into Jewish studies with history or halacha but chassidus. She is able to elucidate chassidus in a practical sense. This is not to say this is a societal phenomena, it can just be me :)

However, the clear approach she has of starting at letter A and then progressing is something I am a tad envious of (yes, yes. I know I can get there with some work. that really isn't the point). It takes learning about the functions of chachma, bina and daat and applying them to neuroscience to show with clear, relatable modern terminology what chassidus says about the process of thought. It is understanding the dating of the universe through kaballah and physics.

Putting chassidus in context to better understand chassidus. It's also way more informative than a typical class because, quite frankly, lots of educators don't have the best credentials. "Dinosaur fossils were placed to make the world look old" is not something I could go outside and say to college classmates. Rabbi Crispe, who gave a brilliant lecture at Chabad on Campus said as much before launching into a brilliant lecture on the dating of the world drawing on chassidus and physics. (Side note I can't wait to delve into his website).

Oh for secure learning environment and explicate lessons. So basic.

Why does Chabad on Campus have a policy of shrugging at the door and saying: it is really great they want to get in but "it's not for them"?

Where are the programs for them? Yes, somebody qualified should start a program (wish I were qualified) but in the meantime could the few willing to risk rejection be allowed in?  A joint program

I told this to a friend who said that even having a few people attend who have had a Chassidic education changes the tone of the weekend which is true. However, a lot of the sessions were Jewish pride focuses. Anyone can appreciate a talk on standing up to the BDS movement or an army chaplain talk about army life.

I got lucky. I volunteered, buddied up the bouncers (or rather my friend did) and was able to sit in on lectures Shabbos day. Then came the Mega Event. I did not have a wristband and even volunteers needed a wristband for this event. I did not have a particular interest in participating. I really had just wanted to drink the waters of clear, sweet chassidus.

My friend, who is an adventurer in action whereas I am one of imagination, wanted to know when I would ever have an in like this again. That got me because I have a policy to try things at least once (which is how I ended up on an army base in Israel but that's another story).

We approached the doors of the hall. I was full of trepidation. I was ridiculously petrified of receiving the same rejection I had meted out earlier to the brave souls who were willing to try. *To protect those who helped us gain entry, this part of the story is edited.

The concert was a blast though I was really nervous about getting kicked out the whole time.
Anxiety strikes again. Still, I was bemused that I snuck in for this concert. And why was everyone else here who came by more legitimate means but really had no place here? Such as my friend who used to work for a campus related organization but whose old boss scored her a wristband. What was she doing here?

The concert was over and my friend and I were discovered and put to work (which I was grateful for cuz my Jewish guilt was in overdrive). I was ready to head out when someone said there was a farbrengen and I thought that might be something to check out.

I was disappointed. The rabbi was taking a comedic position and roasting the crowd. Roasting is my social awkwardness nightmare. It never ends well for me and though I knew I would not be picked on, my anxiety for everyone else on the planet was skyrocketing.

Then the rabbi launches into a shpiel about how annoying college students are. "My wife has gone out to run an errand. I'm watching seven kids. I'm supposed to be watching eight but can't find one. Put the pasta to boil, start looking for the missing child, absentmindedly say yes to a child to have a play date, immediately take that back and enlist his help in finding his sister. In the meantime there's mayhem because someone took someone's toy and finally the child is found. Then, in the middle of all this, a college student calls.

""I hope I'm not bothering you Rabbi but would be able to answer a few questions for my paper. It's due tomorrow."

"Sure, sure. I have to clean the spaghetti off the walls but sure, sure.""

"However, that phone call is what we are here for.  Sometimes, you call for a mezuzah on your door. So my wife, who has just asked me to buy a much needed item for Shabbat dinner for you all, tells me to drop it in order to go to you. Your seemingly college inquiries and requests, even at our children's bedtime, is the reason we are on campus with you."

At this point the Rabbi is at last serious.

"Why are you here?" He asks some students. 

"I'll tell you why you came to Crown Heights which is a place you never heard of. It's not because your rabbi is kind of cool or smart, or that it is a trip to NYC- it's to be in the place of the Rebbe."
At this point I do not recall what he said but I recall what I needed to know. The answer to my question.

Why was I there? Why do I want to be involved in something? Why am I so eager to be part of this event?

Rebbe.

Change is good because it adds dimension to life. Even now, working with a non-profit for poverty, I read articles with a different lens. Travel or meeting people gives me a kaleidoscope view of the world. Going outside my viewpoint of my daled amos (four cubits) gave me a new perspective on the town where I grew up.

To call the neighborhood I grew up in a town would be a fallacy. Towns to me elicit white picket fences and grass. Not so in my section of Brooklyn.

There are demographics and then there is the insular community where I was cocooned. This area was, when I was growing up, either Jewish or Caribbean. Today's topic is the insular community I grew up in within this neighborhood of diversity. My synagogue, my school, the shopping street.

I know that I have been called out for not being tznuis but I don't remember the particular incident. I remember the frustration of the possibility of such an occurrence. The itch I would feel at the rules of the school and the community. The fact that my older sister once got fined $2 for being spotted in bobby socks on the main street. The feeling of not being able to break out.

I was blessed to live on the outskirts of the Jewish community area. A lovely block. Situated near a park, a synagogue, a library and, most importantly, the train which enabled me to skulk out of the area out of view of imaginary prying eyes. My own little world where no one with a prominent, traditional, stuffy community position lived. Where we were all quirky and totally judged each others' oddities but accepted them. Where I could lean outside in my pajamas to test the day's weather or look like an absolute slob while running around the park without the awkwardness of running into a teacher (though yes, I realize that nobody actually cares but I think I'll think people care until I'm seventy. Then I shall stop).

It was an oasis. I never felt quite at equilibrium with my community. Admittedly, some insecurity there of not being of the socioeconomic status of some of my peers or not possessing the frum-chassidish-ch graces some of them possessed.

It was a place I loved to hate and hated to love. Hated it for I felt at odds with it. Loved it for the fun my friends and I had there. The hyped of excitement and energy in the air. The small town claustrophobia that sometimes permeated city living.

You know that question people ask twins? What's it like to be a twin? And the twins are like, "well, what's it like to be a singleton?" Like, seriously. This is the life we know. We don't know how it's like not to be twins. It just is. Growing up in this town was like that. The norm.

At several points of the year, people from around the world would camp out on the floor of our schools. Normal. It was a welcome reprieve, and fairly common occurrence, when a teacher would stop class after hearing about a student's sibling's engagement and play a round of Jewish geography.  It was normal to have farbrengans hosted in classmate's homes. High school was full of camp spirit.

I wasn't part of it though. I knew all the auspicious dates on the Chassidic calendar because those were the days classes would be cancelled for special programs. Meaning that if I stayed in school until one, chatted up to several afternoon teachers, I could ditch and one of those teachers would remember speaking to me and mark me for attendance as there was no formal roll call on those days. I had my own form of liberation on the 19th of Kislev.

I was giving a friend a tour of the area who had always been curious about her Jewish neighbors (she is part of the gentrification of the time). We passed by an artist gallery but it was closed. I had really wanted to show her his work as he is featured worldwide. So we went to the museum and I asked the security guard if we could nip upstairs to the second floor for a quick look at the artist's mural. He acquiesced and my friend expressed surprise at the ease of entering a museum so casually. She herself works at a museum. Though, ease of entry doesn't always happen it makes sense for my community to be understanding and...brotherly. I was wearing a skirt. I seem hemiashe. The gentile security guard knows the look.

For most of America, schools do not include wedding halls. Communal social services are not all supported by the high school girls. Public schools don't offer their classrooms as a place to sleep except in dire emergency. Most grocery stores don't have credit for families. Museums don't have swarms of teenage tour guides.

My town is cutesy and adorable and very imperfect. It is an iconic space  in the chronicles of Jewish history. This town has a powerful impact on the world.

I could appreciate it now for its quirks. Maybe because I'm not in the educational system. The faults are still there. The lack of the community service for the little guy. The ill treatment of those without social status. The nepotism of the school and communal leaders.

Leaving helped me come back. I no longer feel that the school I studied in or the people here are the dictators of a chassidic lifestyle. I have the right and ability to study a Chassidic text off the shelf and own my chassidus. It took me being away from this place, but not from the Chassidic lifestyle, to unearth my own agency in my relationship with G-d.

Israel, My Conflated Heart

I was at an iconic (favorite word alert) Brooklyn pizza shop with a friend. A woman who I had last met at the Tisha B'av break-the-fast at the kotel walked in. I flagged her down to say how do you do but really to inquire if she had made any headway on her Aliyah dreams.

"Are you going?"

"I need to sort out a job and a place to live. Honestly, I don't want to go right now though I know I should go now to feel solidarity."

I was astonished.

In my delusional mind Israel is the safest place on earth. It is home.
Maybe not my current home. But a home like the parents' or grandparents' home where you are enveloped by coziness and warmth.
Homes are havens. The place where we can be ourselves.
I never realized terror could destroy the ambience of our dwelling to this extent.
Never before, not even during the intifada and the bus bombings, were the streets this emptied.
It is horrific. My heart breaks. Dear G-d, what is going on?

This is an ode to a land that enlivens me. To support Israel, I can attempt to express my esoteric love for the place, that may only be understood by those who have also meandered the land and drank from its spirit.

I had a golden summer. I traveled in Europe for three weeks and then lived in Israel for five glorious weeks. For the first time, I was in Israel to meander the land and not an a whirlwind tour. All travel enlightens you. Opens your minds to different ideas about living. Israel, due to its Jewish diversity allows people to explore the many paths to one of the most vital relationships you'll ever have: your relationship with G-d and thereby uncover yourself themselves. This makes Israel different than any other place. You can discover in Israel what no other country has to offer.

You go to Europe to find yourself. You go to Israel to finesse your relationship with G-d. In Israel, you search for a conduit for your life source. One has to tread these waters carefully.

I met my Birthright guide and her fiancé for dinner one day. I inquired about the Jewish demographic of the area and discovered the various stratas of reform or conservative don't exist in Israel.  Someone is either Dati, keeps halacha, or not.  Which rabbi or halachic standard they follow differs but all our Jewish.

On a bus, I emailed my mom:

"I just left the tomb of Rochel, our mother.  There were women with turbans, others with outfits that almost made them look too covered,  Williamsburg style and more.  But we are all Jewish.  Everyone sitting on this bus. Common ancestry,  common Torah, common beliefs.

I adore this land where I can say Shabbat shalom to the bus driver,  play Jewish geography with nearly anyone and eat at a diner at the central bus station.  I cannot do this with such ease anywhere else in the world."

My mom responded:

"You can see how after spending two years in seminary, right afterwards, I really wanted to live there."

However, it is not all starbursts and marble halls. I met a man who had moved to Israel from Chicago, where, though he was not religious, he would attend the modern orthodox synagogue to see friends and to be involved in Jewish life. Since making Aliyah, he does need to make an effort to feel Jewish as just living in the Holy Land and seeing people dressed up in costume on Purim does that for him. I asked him where G-d was in what he described.  He said I touched upon a discerning point. He has not yet found his pathway to consciously connect to G-d though he moved to the Holy Land and had previously attended an American shul.

This scenario plays out on so many levels in Israel. Everything goes. We are all Jewish. And it's beautiful and uplifting and psychedelic but it is also abstract. I can feel Jewish, spiritual, connections. I got caught up in the rush of Judaism without checking in with G-d. My (halachic) boundaries that construct my relationship with G-d in a way of active awareness. That it is not just about the enchantment of our majestic lifestyle but more than that. (Disclaimer: this is about me finding my path which is not to say other paths aren't valid).

Being in Israel, I had to remind myself that I believe in halacha because it can be easy not to on Ben Yehuda. I believe there is a place where one's intrinsic person must be refined within the glow with Hashem's desires and will.  This is not via conforming on matters that are not halacha but living within the palace of Jewish law and using it to decorate your life.

Thus is the uniqueness of Israel, defining the grey areas for you. All paths of serving G-d are valid. However, for me, keeping that extra standard is what makes a chossid (pious person) as defined in the Path of Our Fathers. Not just doing whatever was floating everyone else's boat but holding steadfast and reaffirming or discovering what my mojo is without losing sight of who I am or the best person me I could be. Actually keeping halacha though it is easy to feel kosher without law and order.
 
It was Israel's gift to me that I got to hash this out over the summer and have clarity over the life I want to live. It can be Israel's gift to you too.

Subtle Rebellion

I hate strongly dislike sending a shadchan the mandated photo.

It is not that I have anything to hide; aside for about 20 pounds.

I'm okay with the potential date seeing a picture of me if he wants to. In fact, I prefer it. This is me, take it or leave it. The trouble is that the picture isn't me. It's only a side of me. Me dolled up for a friend's l'chaim or, worse, me dolled up for the purpose of a shidduch picture.

Let's raise a glass to "putting your best foot forward."

Maybe it is my insecurity blaring that he will be disappointed when he sees the contrast from the flattering photo or it is my unease that I'm not being honest. That this is not the me I want to be portrayed. It is not the most me.

"Put your best foot forward"

So I sent a shadchan a collage of four pictures taken over these past months of summer.  Pictures of me in my ordinary, blessed, everyday element. Where I look happy and, yes, am wearing some makeup. She didn't like it. Nor did my mother who selected a picture of me dolled up for a friend's lchaim.

I'm okay with the superficiality that is necessary when it comes to dating. That yes, you have to be attracted to your date and some guys will want to see a picture before a date. Hey, I want to know that the guy is taller than me before the date. No judgments on that. 

I only wish this marketing campaign was not limited to being branded in one particular way.

While I seem to have hit a wall in my attempt to change the standard of how it's done, I did dig a small tunnel. I took the four picture collage that been rejected by the shadchan and posted it on my Facebook page. I rarely post pictures but if a guy really wants to see a picture, that's the first place he'll look. There he'll get a better sense of me in my fabulously blessed, ordinary element.