Sorry for the long hiatus, friends, and for those certain ones who have been emailing, concerned that I went down for the count again and was possibly hospitalized or seizuring or three-days-dead in my apartment, I really appreciate that you were looking for me. But it was a tumultuous week or two, and for a time, I couldn't even find the words to describe it.
It all started when I agreed to co-lead a Friday night Shabbat service on August 1. Yes, I know, many of you didn't realize this was happening, but I'll get to that in a moment. Normally, when I prep to lead a service, it takes a good month or so for me to get my thoughts in order, study the Torah portion with my co-leader, choose the music with some modicum of sensitivity to the larger Jewish calendar (i.e., if you're in a mourning period like we are now, don't pick the up-tempo stuff), and also, try to inject some semblance of creativity into the process - since summer is the time to play a little bit. Summer is great for this sort of thing - not only are you dealing with lay-leaders, but you have some latitude to be creative, try a new reading, or a poem, or a song that other people might not know, but might also come to appreciate.
Anyway...my co-leader was, shall we say, not exactly open to new ideas. And that's fine; I get it. She's a very smart, interesting, good person, but school has given her a strong sense that there are right and wrong ways of leading a service. And we've both been informed by habit: I'm used to the customs at my synagogue, and she's used to the customs she learned living in Israel and then being part of an intensive academic community where the students' ideas and innovations are always subject to judgement.
This combination of my free-spiritedness and her way-more-learnedness-than-me led to some pretty brutal conflict. Over a Shabbat service. Seriously. Not what I ever imagined myself fighting over. And let me tell you, the side effects were nasty.
All of this began because of the fact that we were due to co-lead an afternoon Shabbat service the same day in a local nursing home. She took offense at something I said, which was literally so innocuous that I still can't figure out what happened - but she perceived me as trying to "take over" and "push her out of the way" - at a nursing home??? What would that even mean? Why would anyone waste their time? It's not Emanu-El, people.
Luckily, the universe intervened and took me out of that scenario. But the damage was done for Friday night. Here's how it went down:
The week before the service, I suggested sending an evite for Fri night. Given that most of MY friends don't actually belong to our congregation, they had no other way of finding out about the service. This was dismissed as a cheesy marketing maneuver (sorry about my profession, but, whatever) - which was altogether tacky and inappropriate for a synagogue setting. Never mind that for every previous service I've done, I've sent one out. So, feeling stupid, I didn't send it. Which meant that I now didn't even feel comfortable sending an email to let my friends know it was coming up. I was hurt and embarrassed, so I invited no one.
Then I wanted to read a poem about peace in Israel that challenged the notion of G-d's role in the conflict between religions in the Holy Land. What I didn't expect was her reaction that was so completely offended that I would be called upon, in the middle of a workday, to defend my "faulty" theological viewpoint. On the phone. Before a meeting. Luckily, it was all summarily dismissed, since she decided that because I had never lived in Jerusalem, I didn't understand anything about G-d's presence there, and thus had no right to comment.
The next day, she called to say that she had been rethinking the evite: since, in her words, it must be very hard for me because unlike her, I do not have a Jewish family to support me. Her husband and parents and children would be there for her, she said, so she felt sorry for me and understood if I felt I needed to invite people, you know, since nobody from my family would be there. So, as if I wasn't feeling bad enough...now it was in my face that since I am a convert, I was someone to be pitied. The sages say that born Jews should never make a convert feel uncomfortable, should never remind people who choose Judaism that they are different - those sages knew something about good taste and tact. And so, in my congregation, I had never felt like a shamed convert, until that moment.
(Actually, my mom WAS planning to come, but after I told her about that last comment, she was so angry that I thought it would be better if she stayed home - she shouldn't get herself all worked up just because someone made a snotty comment about our family. My mom's reaction? "I'll show her the REAL meaning of a Jewish mother."
I'm all for revenge, but not in the sanctuary. Talk about inappropriate.)
Things went downhill pretty rapidly at that point. We met for a rehearsal two nights before the service, and after being told that A) my closing song was, again, inappropriate; B) the new piece of liturgical song I wanted to do didn't sound "ready" and C) that I needed to learn the difference between what was appropriate for a synagogue and what wasn't -- I just freaking lost it. It was a meltdown of epic proportions. We had to stop the rehearsal - I literally could not go on. I haven't cried so much in that sanctuary since my dad's first yahrzeit.
Sadly, I still couldn't find the words to defend myself.
But all was not hopeless. Friends, alerted to the situation, helped with the music. Family rallied and offered support. And other friends called and listened and offered advice and consolation and pure love. It helped a lot. Because the other thing I didn't mention is that this was all happening at a splendid, perfect time. The night of the rehearsal - the night I was crying so much - was actually the anniversary - the yahrzeit - of my being date-raped, 21 years ago. So - essentially - it wasn't a good time to be made to feel even more vulnerable than I was feeling. And it certainly wasn't a time to go kicking at the tires of my identity (Judaism, family, future spiritual leadership) to see if there were any soft spots.
The clincher came on Thursday night. She called to say she had been really upset about the meltdown, and she thought she understood why I was crying. She said she knew how hard it must be for me to be single, to be viewed by the congregation as being somehow incomplete, defective, unlike everyone else. And how resentful I must be of everyone who has a Jewish family and a husband and a real life.
At this point: whatever. How much more can you cry before it becomes laughable? And how can you prove to someone who thinks like that that you are actually pretty much OK with the life choices you've made?
End result: the service went pretty well. We managed to pull it off, tried to resolve our differences, and realized that when all was said and done, our communications styles just weren't compatible. (To say the absolute least.) I still don't exactly know what happened; I'm still shaky and sad and a little freaked out that someone in my community had such a hard time with me, to the point that she had to challenge me, not only on my theology and ideas, but on my family, identity, and future as well.
For now, it feels like I need a break from temple; I need my Friday nights, my Shabbats, for myself - not for her, not for them, not for the community that I love - but now the community that I have to wonder about - if it perceives me the way she does. She now wants to get together to "process" what went wrong, but I'm not ready yet. I have a feeling I will end up feeling just as stupid and damaged and vulnerable as I did for all the years when I blamed myself for what happened 21 years ago. It's not a good feeling, and it's sadly familiar to me.
Even when I take a step back, and I realize that all this was, ultimately, was a single Friday night, a night when a ton of people were out of town, and that no one who was present will remember it, I'm not consoled. Perhaps it is because it all is part of that Friday night all those years ago, when someone's parents were out of town, and that no one else who was there, at that party, even remembers it - even though that is where the whole story of the end of my world began. It's still there, after all this time -- and this week, it was like someone pushed the buttons on the time machine and sent me back.
When the Twin Towers came down, I remember asking myself that day, I wonder if there will ever come a time when I will realize that this was only about two buildings that were destroyed. In the scheme of larger things, like the Holocaust, this is barely a single heartbeat. But for some people the world ended that day, and I understand why. Something about this service - this yahrzeit - feels like it ended a world for me as well. Or at the very least, it was like another little world that I never want to go back to, ever again.
And that brings into question the whole decision about going to rabbinical school. Because it makes me wonder if this is what it is going to be like - getting smacked down, told off, and made to feel like my Judaism is inauthentic.
But that, fortunately, is another post for another day.
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