Wisdom in a Chinese Diner

The night before our orientation to Rabbinical School in Jerusalem starts, I receive a fortune at one of Jerusalem’s finest mediocre Chinese restaurants which reads:

 כוח שדרוש לאתגרים הצפויים אבל בסופו של הדבר יבוא ימים  יפים"

 

 “Strength is needed to confront all that is difficult, but at the end, come beautiful days.”

(Yes Hebrew fortune cookies translate into broken English too). I can’t imagine a more appropriate or necessary phrase to internalize as I embark on this wild year of diving off the deep end into Jewish tradition, culture, worship and community here in Jerusalem.

I’ve kicked off orientation day with perhaps one of the most challenging, upsetting, and ultimately grounding experiences I’ve had yet here in Jerusalem:

 

 

Here’s the scene: I am awake at 5:50am to join a group of Reform rabbis, students, families, and community to join ‘Women of the Wall’ a growing movement of women and their supporters who conduct monthly Rosh Hodesh ceremonies at the Western Wall, or Kotel, one of Jerusalem’s holiest sites, traditionally gender segregated and under the authority of the ultra-Orthodoxy of Jerusalem.  Please check out the site for more information, I am by know means the authority on this group!

We board busses giddy and bleary. I am surrounded my new classmates and friends, and I am unprepared by what we will see.

5 minutes later our bus arrives at the security entrance to the Kotel. Immediately, blocking the entrance, we see a sea of men and boys with long black coats and black top hats gathered in protest of our decidedly un-Orthodox presence. Their jeers, screams, and whistles drown out our first prayer of Shacharit, the morning service.  The first real eye contact I make with one of these men sends me to tears, and I feel afraid. Their jeers continue through a hot and scattered prayer service, including a brief, moving Bat Mitzvah of a young woman who is the third generation of women in her family to read from the Torah. (One of the main protests the Ultra Orthodox have is with women reading from the Torah).  I am overwhelmed and I cannot connect to a single prayer. We end with HaTikva, the Israeli national anthem. There is still a huge well in my throat,  but at this point I know somehow I will be glad I’m here when I process it. Mostly, my heart is broken, to experience what it feels like for Jews to drown out,  protest and suppress, the prayers of other Jews.

Later…I am back in bed, my head aches, and yet, I’m coming to a better place, halfway between wake and dreams. I am trying to see past what felt like senseless hatred this morning, I know the issues surrounded the Kotel are more complicated than the surface demonstrations, and that considering how and where each side is coming from is critical.  I’m dreaming that some day I’ll be able to see this story as a way to connect to congregants, and others who’ve been hurt or alienated before by an experience with their religion, and that this experience is one of those “Teachable moments”.  Still I am filled with a bit of dread as I head out on my run that maybe this is the day I’ll be spit on, or maybe I’m really not welcome here, and I drown my thoughts in pop tunes that will make me forget I am in Jersualem. I hope someday this movement is seen as a turning point in Jerusalem's narrative about what prayer in public spaces can be, and a move towards a more accepting, pluralistic vision of worship.

Final Scene of the Day: It’s Orientation night-night 1 of Rabbinical school. I am sitting on the lawn outside the Jaffa gates of the old city, surrounded by 41 young, idealistic, genuine aspiring rabbinical students who have chosen to devote their lives and careers to serving a Jewish people we can only now imagine. We close our eyes, we hum, we listen to words of wisdom from past students and teachers. And then we walk home. And know that this is the beginning of always coming home, in the spiritual sense, that is.