117. Red kipa

The woman next to me at services yesterday morning got up during the haftarah reading, and about a minute later F. came over and sat in her empty seat. I was surprised; F. spends most of the service circling the sanctuary, scooping up and positioning the honorees, and rarely stops moving. "You know what I like about this place?" he leaned over and whispered. "I get to see people I know outside of shul!" He was out of the seat and running up front before I could think of a response.

A few minutes later, as F. was herding together the people who would carry the Torah up and down the aisles, the rabbi grabbed him by the arm and pulled him over to the bima. This was highly unusual; the rabbi never interrupts the service, which would be a tirha d'tzibura--a "burden on the congregation," an annoyance--a principle my synagogue takes very seriously.

"I want you all to look at this," said the rabbi, with a grin. "F. is wearing a red kipa!" Today was parashat Hukkat, which opens with the story of the Red Heifer. F. pointed to his tie, also bright red. F. was, without a doubt, the most sartorially coordinated gabbai in all of New York, if not the world.

"Let's see if he wears a donkey next week! [parashat Balak, featuring Balaam and the ass]"! added the rabbi, before he let go of F.'s arm.

116. Subway

(Interrupting myself again.)

As if the universe knew I had just written about him and wanted to provide me with a little more material, I ran into F. on the train the other day. It was a bit jarring; he was in the wrong place, and I told him so. He smiled, and said he recognized me immediately because I was intent upon a PDA (he knows I look at a computer screen all day long). Once we both acknowledged that we lived in the real world, the conversation ground to a halt.

"Are you coming from work?" I asked, above screech of wheels.

"No, just going to the store to return this shirt." He held up a bag.

"Oh!" I said. We smiled. I stood there awkwardly, not knowing where to look, trying my hardest to think of topics of conversation.

"When are you reading again?" said F. as we pulled into the station. I laughed; that's what he asks every time I chant. I told him I didn't know, which is how I always answer, and he smiled again. We both stared at our shoes. The doors closed.

"I love hearing R. [the rabbi] read when someone doesn't show up, don't you?" he said suddenly.

"Yes!" I answered, relieved that we finally found a topic."It was amazing to hear him on Shavuot, and my favorite part of Simchat Torah is when he reads the last paragraph."

"I can't think of that holiday without hearing his voice!" said F., eyes bright with enthusiasm. He now looked like he was in the right place, even though we were still on the train. We got to my stop.

"See you tomorrow!"

"Yes, tomorrow!"

115. Crash course

(Note: I omitted someone in yesterday's post! I've amended it and added her.)

Our group of crash-course service leaders were invited to join the rabbis and cantor for three study sessions to explore what it meant to be a shaliach tzibur, and to hear their perspectives on questions like, "What right do I have to stand up in front of everyone when I have so much atoning to do, myself?" Our first meeting took place in the rabbi's office, where I sunk into the sofa and listened to the pop singer and the freshman analyze a passage about prayer and music from Sefer Chasidim, a twelfth-century work on the ethical implications of daily life. I felt like I had gained access to an inner sanctum, never having been in a rabbi's office before, and was so intimidated and distracted by this idea that I contributed little to the discussion. But I listened carefully, especially when the rabbi spoke about bringing whomever you are at the moment--happy, depressed, intimidated--to the bima, and not expecting to be perfect, because no one is.

(Interestingly, this meeting was exactly one year ago today.)

114. Recruits

(Resuming the story.)

Six of us had been recruited to help lead. There was a guy I knew from around the bonfire at retreats who could sing any pop song ever written; a girl about to start her freshman year at Yale and who, incredibly, had led part of last year's services; the principal of a Hebrew day school, an early civil rights activist who marched with Heschel and King; a young rabbi, the administrator of a Jewish educational program; a social worker, wife of another rabbi, with a newborn son; my Torah chanting teacher, who had sung Kol Nidre for the past fifteen years; and myself, a graphic designer with serious stage fright who knew the alto parts of a hundred choral masses but not very much when it came to praying on Yom Kippur.

Along with one cantor, four rabbis, a dozen instrumentalists, and a few score Torah readers and darshanim, and at a synagogue, a church, and a theater, we would help make the sounds to accompany 4,000 congregants as they stepped into next year.

113. Time traveler

F.'s grandfather was the cantor at my synagogue for 40 years, in the days when women wore white gloves to services and the congregation was Conservative in all senses of the word. His family stuck around when there was barely a minyan and through a sea change of ideas, rabbis, and thousands of new members. F. is in his 50s, neither old nor gray, and has a high-tech job, a wife, and a shy, brilliant teenage daughter. He's lived on the Upper West Side for decades, probably in the same apartment, but doesn't quite seem to belong here, today, in the 21st century. I imagine him as a time traveler, carrying our Torah scrolls with utmost care across a windswept, wobbling bridge that spans the era from then to now. He reminds me of the uncles I knew when I was a child, formal and yet always in good humor, most at ease in a world where people nod hello instead of hugging and where everyone, not just the hasids in deepest Brooklyn, reads Hebrew the Ashkenazi way. I've seen him rushing down the street, eyes averted, as if he couldn't wait to leave the alien land and get back to his own. Whenever I chant, he comes over afterwards and shakes my hand and says something so kind and witty about how well I did, how I read just like people used to--people who were men only, an idea from the past which, unlike his suits, he's long discarded--that I smile for hours afterwards.

112. Gabbai

(Interrupting the story yet again.)

This past Shabbat I chanted again, 23 long verses--the most I've ever done. I was fortunate to be able to iron out the mistakes, and there were many, at the minyan on Monday and Thursday mornings with F., the Shabbat gabbai, and M., a sweet, elderly man who's there every single day of the week, following along at the bima. They're the best possible guides for (as F. puts it) an "out-of-town tryout"--between them they've probably read every word in the Torah thousands of times, more even than the rabbis.

F.'s usual gabbai role on Shabbat is the other meaning of the word. He's the master choreographer who scours the pews for in-laws of the bride's cousins and other errant olim, making sure they have tallitot and sheparding them to the right spot on the bima so they can open the Ark or perform additional stress-inducing honors. In a suit that looks like the one my father bought off the rack at Alexander's in 1973, and a tie often coordinated, absent all irony, with the week's Torah portion (rainbows for parashat Noah), F. arrives at around 10 and escorts his mother to her usual seat on the left aisle. He then begins to prowl the sanctuary and gather up all the players so there will be no break in the morning's theater.

111. Something more

(Resuming the story from here. I may not be able to write very much during the next few weeks because of other commitments, but still aim to finish telling this story over the summer, before the next part begins--the next set of High Holidays.)

I then waited for something more to happen. It didn't. Weeks passed, and the cantor didn't mention it again. Maybe I misinterpreted, and his silence meant that I was on a list, most likely at the bottom, and I probably wouldn't be leading. Or maybe he changed his mind. Of course he changed his mind. I waited another few weeks and then, because the anticipation was starting to drive me crazy, approached him after services. I braced myself for a gentle dismissal.

"Yes, I'll be in touch about this very soon!" he said, and was cornered by a bar mitzvah parent before I could find out more. A few days later I got an email inviting me to a study session with the rabbis and the other few congregants who, like myself, would be leading for the first time.

I guess this meant I wasn't dreaming.

110. Mr. Hexter's head

Interrupting the story with, uncharacteristically, a photo. Last month I attended my synagogue's annual community retreat, and a friend captured this unique portrait of what I believe is a representation of Mr. Hexter's head as it presides over the lake from its permanent home next to a tree stump. Since I felt the need, for reasons I don't fully understand, to acknowledge the existence of this head in a previous post, it seemed appropriate to share the image with the rest of the world.

109. Drowning

I was afraid to talk about it, the baffling and exhilarating moment, the something that happened, for weeks and months afterwards. It was like falling into deep, clandestine love at first sight. During downtime at work, and deep into the night at home, I typed "Judaism" into search engines and ingested thousands of words. When the explanations and commentary became too dense, I kept the moment close by going back and re-reading old stuff. All I wanted to do, for a very long time, was drown in Jewish information.

108. Go

We got to the Torah service, and the two rabbis at the bima began to discuss the portion of the week--a lively debate with each other, right in front of the rest of us. It was Lech Lecha: "Go, you go!" or maybe "Go, go to yourself." God tells Abraham to leave home and travel to a new place, and the story begins. It hit me after a few minutes: this was about me. My journey had just started, and I had no idea where it might lead. I was embarrassed, even in my heightened state of amazement, to describe my discovery with the kind of overused phrase that begins badly written memoirs. I wouldn't dare utter it. But it was true.

107. Notes

The church was crowded, hundreds of people even at this hour of the morning, and I didn't see any of my new friends from the retreat. I sat in M.'s usual spot and tried to follow along. For three hours I listened as the congregation sang melodies that were, with few exceptions, completely unfamiliar, and quite complicated--and not a sheet of music in sight. I was impressed and jealous; it had been years since I tried to make any kind of sound without first staring at a bunch of notes. Then again, maybe I'd know this stuff, too, if not for that two-decade gap in synagogue attendance. Who knows. If not for the gap, I might also be a housewife in Monsey with 15 kids. I was glad to have to learn the music.

106. Bus

I had never before been so enthusiastic about waking up early on a Saturday. Wearing a skirt, this time, in which I could breathe, I began to walk the twenty blocks to the church and marveled at the strange sounds of a quiet, marginally awake city. I passed a deli, and remembered that services were three hours long and I'd forgotten to eat breakfast. I hesitated. I had spent the past twenty or so years ignoring all the requirements of Shabbat, aside from those moments a few weeks ago when I drowned in guilt about what to carry. I knew I'd have to think about this stuff again, particularly the rule about not spending money, if I wanted to be part of a Jewish community. I couldn't imagine how I would reconcile my ambivalence with my desire.

But making it through an entire service without fainting from hunger had to be my first priority. I decided to table the larger internal debate, and went into the deli and slapped a dollar on the counter. Then I looked at my watch and realized I was late, and grabbed my buttered roll and ran back out the door. Suddenly a bus pulled up to the curb. OK, I reasoned, it must be here for a reason. God wouldn't tempt me with illegal transportation if I wasn't supposed to use it. I hopped on.

105b. Something happened

Later that week I spoke to my friend M.

"So?" he asked.

"No, I didn't meet a I guy," I said, "but it was lots of fun. I really liked everyone. Something happened, something nice. Nothing in particular. I just had a great time." I didn't know how to go into any more detail. That's how I would characterize the experience to my friends, the few whom I knew wouldn't laugh at my newfound religious zeal, for months afterwards: something happened.

I told M. that I planned to go to services that Saturday. He was happy, and surprised, but had other plans. So I went by myself.

105a. Giddy

On Sunday afternoon we were all packed and waiting for the bus to arrive, standing around in knots of new friends and making plans to see each other again at services. The rabbi was there, too, moving from group to group as everyone tried to corner him and say goodbye. Having no idea how to talk to rabbis, I hadn't said a word to him all weekend. But he certainly seemed like an authentic and normal person, unlike the other rabbis I had known, so I took a deep breath, gulped, and walked over and extended my hand.

"Thank you," I stammered. "Thank you so much. This was great. Really, really great." I immediately wanted to swallow my words, which didn't even begin to explain how I suspected that my life had just changed, and that it was partly his fault. I sounded giddy. But I couldn't think of anything else to say.

"You're welcome," he answered, and smiled, just like when he played the drums on Friday evening.

104. Whoosh

Later that afternoon I walked over to a clearing behind the cabin and contemplated the trapeze-like device touted when we first arrived at camp. It looked terrifying. You climbed way, way up a wooden ladder to a little platform about thirty feet high. You were strapped into a harness that looked just like the one from your childhood swing set. Then a large man attached one end of a big hook to your harness, and the other to a ridiculously thin wire that stretched across the wide expanse of ground to a tall pole many yards away. Before you could come to your senses, the large man shoved you off the platform and you whooshed back and forth between the two poles for an eternity. It was supposed to be fun.

Normally I'd laugh at such a scenario, but my mind was still much further aloft than where this thing would take me. The world was new and I was invincible. I climbed up the pole, strapped myself in, and went sailing through the air, screaming at the top of my lungs.