Surreal Sukkot or Adventures in Diversity and Coexistence

Here's the story of my Sukkot - filled with my own assumptions, prejudices and learnings.

Yesterday at 3 pm I found myself at Terem Urgent Care in Beitar Illit, an ultra-Orthodox town over the Green Line about 10 minutes drive from my home. I do quite a bit of shopping and health care in Beitar, but I never go there on holidays or Shabbat. The urgent care opened about 3 hours before the holiday of Sukkot was about to begin. I was happy to be 4th in line, and although most of the clientele were ultra-Orthodox residents of the town, the third people in line were people I knew from Tzur Hadassah. Like a few of the people waiting, I had dressed early for synagogue because I didn't know how long I would be there.

All the staff were Arab men - and there were three of them - a nurse, a doctor and an x-ray technician. The nurse tells me he is from Jerusalem, from the Mt. of Olives.

The doctor tells me I have cellulitis, that he is giving me IV antibiotics and that I need to have an IV dose every 8 hours. He tells me to come back at 11 pm and that I will not be able to drive in, I have to go to the town gate and ride from there to the clinic with the security vehicle.

So after about 2 hours I came home, went to synagogue, had dinner in the Sukkah, took a short nap, and got in the car at about 10:50 to go to the clinic.

At the gate of Beitar, the guard speaks Arabic, everyone around (about 4-5 other men) is speaking Arabic and to tell you the truth, I don't feel particularly safe. I don't even drive the road to Beitar at this hour, certainly not any farther than Beitar where there have been stones thrown, car accidents, etc. It confuses me that this ultra-Orthodox town has put their security in the hands of Arabic speakers for the holiday, and that I am supposed to get in a car with a strange man in order to get to the clinic. By the time the vehicle comes to pick me up, I'm decidedly uncomfortable (not to mention tired and not feeling well). I can't get in the back seat because it's full with a mattress (later the driver tells me he is delivering it to some soldiers). 

I ask the driver where he is from and he tells me that he's from a village up near Tiberias. He is Druze. This starts to make a little more sense to me.

The streets are full of people walking around, mostly young people. The driver slows down to drive slowly through a crowd. A young guy approaches and says, "you don't smoke do you?" He wants the driver to light his cigarette (smoking is permitted on holidays by transferring a flame, but lighting a flame is not) but he can't ask directly. The driver knows this and lights his cigarette for him. Apparently this is more important than me getting to the clinic.

When I get to the clinic, I'm the only patient, but there are teenagers knocking on the door asking to use the bathroom. The nurse tells me they knock on the door all night, every Shabbat and holiday, groups of teens roaming around, not necessarily observant but since they live in the town they have nowhere to go and nothing to do.

Since I'm the only one there, the doctor also talks to me for awhile. He spent 7 years studying medicine overseas and married while he was there. I tell him about the paper I translated about Arab Israeli men with European wives who converted to Islam. He asks me about the findings in the paper - which were that the families tended to espouse liberal, universalist values (similar to a study of Canadian mixed families, different from studies in Belgium). I tell him the families in the study were from the Lod area - he tells me Jerusalem is different religiously. (They are about 30 miles apart.)

He tells me a bit about the challenges of working in Beitar - the patients don't necessarily listen to him or follow his instructions, the vaccination rate is not high enough, patients don't always have clear awareness of their children's symptoms. I'm trying to use the most positive terms possible here for what he was describing.

Going back I have the same driver. I get home around 12:45 pm to come back at 9 am for the next dose.

Driving to Beitar in the daylight things seem much easier, I'm less tense. As I get out of my car to go to the security car, a Hasidic man calls out to me "Giveret (ma'am), have you blessed the lulav (four plant species that are used for special blessing on this holiday)?" I'm impressed - not every orthodox person thinks women should bless the lulav. He asks where I am from, and when he hears Tzur Hadassah, mentions the name of the Chabad rabbi here. I tell him thank you, I have 4 species to bless when I get home, and that I appreciate it.

The same driver takes me to the clinic. I ask about his kids, would they like to attend Tel-Hai College (a place I work for that has many Druze students). He tells me his daughter an athlete, she's only interested in Wingate.

The clinic is dark when I go in - I'm not 100% comfortable. The nurse has slept there, a little - his shift is more than 24 hours. The doctor went home after midnight, when I left, and now arrives again at 9 am. A few other people come in. Once my IV is over they call for the security car to take me home. It's around 11 am by this time, I'm cranky, fed up for missing synagogue and waiting for the security car which seems to take a long time.

The car arrives and I go out to it. The doors are locked. The man driving says, "are you alone?" I say yes. "I can't take you," he says, "I'm dati (religious)". I'm in shock. Who is this guy? I say not very nicely, "this is how you treat sick people? This is dati?" He says he will get me another driver and drives away, I start crying. A woman on the street asks what's wrong. I say he can't take me, he's dati. "How can he be dati?" she asks, "he's driving." I explain he must be Muslim or Druze dati. I go back inside. The nurse and x-ray technician ask what happened. I explain. "Oh yes," they tell me. "He's a sheikh. He can't drive you, he's dati."

At this point I say, somewhat laughing but also somewhat loud, "I have a problem here - these religious people won't let me drive and these other religious people won't drive me." The x-ray technician says, not meanly, that I could go to Beit Shemesh (25 minute drive) or Jerusalem (30 minute drive). I explain I was coming here already, to this particular doctor who saw me yesterday.

The security driver who took me before comes back for me. "He really can't drive you" he explains to me. "He's dati." I get back to my car and go home, certain now that I have to write up this story.

I'm supposed to go back for a 4th dose after the holiday ends, but my wife convinces me to go a little early to beat the crowds. As a result, I am able to see an amazing moonrise. Driving to Beitar, it is as though the full Sukkot moon is directly in my path on the continuation of the road, large and yellow on the twilight horizon.

I get to the gate of Beitar, half-wondering if a rabbi will appear to conduct havdalah for the Druze security guards. The driver I've now ridden with 4 times is at the gate and welcomes me. I ask him when the gate will open. He opens his smartphone to google in Hebrew "time for end of Sukkot holiday." I'm thinking it doesn't get any more surreal than this.

We chat about his evening - he'll get off at 9 pm. There are 10 of them who have come down from the north in 2 cars - it is exactly a 2 hour drive. He works in Beitar every Shabbat and holiday. He also has a day job. The night grows darker, more than three stars come out. A few minutes after the time stated on google, the gate is opened for two motorcycles, my car and another car.

I drive through empty streets under the full moon. Quietly and carefully. There are still no cars out and I am not at ease. I find the clinic and park. I go in and it's empty. The nurse explains that it will soon fill up and sure enough, a few minutes after the first IV bottle starts going into my vein, multiple patients arrive, along with a new doctor and nurse and one of the original characters in the story I forgot to mention who was there yesterday, the movie- star-handsome receptionist, in a tight t-shirt over serious muscles and a backwards baseball cap.

So four antibiotic doses later, I'm home again, grateful for the team of Arab and Druze professionals - security and medical - who have kept me and many others healthy over this holiday, even a little grateful for the dati Sheikh, for the beautiful Sukkot moon, and for learning a little bit more about this surreal slice of the world I live in. 

Yotam Ottolenghi Turkey Zucchini Burgers and Zucchini pancakes

Sometimes you need a meat and veggie version you can make at the same time. Here's what you do.

Two big bowls.

1 large or 2 small grated zucchini, strained to remove most of the juice
2 tablespoons chopped mint
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
2 cloves chopped garlic
4 good sized scallions chopped
2 tsps cumin
2 tsps salt
1 tsp pepper
Mix this all together and put half in each bowl.

Turkey burgers-
Add 1 lb ground turkey and 1 egg - mix thoroughly.

Zucchini pancakes-
Add 1 cup flour, 1/2 cup rice milk, 1 egg, 1 tablespoon baking powder - mix thoroughly

Now get two frying pans, put in oil - the burgers need more oil. The burgers may have a kind of loose batter - I find they do better if I shape them and I keep them quite small. Fry burgers and pancakes separately. The burgers should be seared on each side and removed to a pan with greaseproof paper on it. The pancakes just put in a regular oven pan.

The burgers need another 10 minutes in a 400 degree oven. The pancakes just need to be kept warm.

Serve with salad and a starch if you eat that kind of stuff.

Both these items are a hit at our house. Both travel well as leftovers.

Shabbat leftover roasted vegetable gazpacho

This is an adaptation of the Fannie Farmer cookbook recipe:

6 ripe smallish tomatoes, peeled and chopped
3 Israeli cucumbers, peeled and chopped
1 spring onion - white and green parts chopped
Roasted pepper - about 8 strips
3-4 cloves roasted garlic
4 cups leftover Challah torn up without crusts
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon tomato paste
4 cups cold water
1 tsp. salt

Put everything in a big bowl and mix with a soup wand (immersion blender). Leave a few chunks. If you have time, cool it - but you might want to just eat/drink it. 

Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Spicy Carrot Cake

From Recipes for Success Girl Scouts Cookbook

2 cups grated carrots
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup butter or oil

Cook this for 5 minutes in a heavy saucepan, stirring often. Let it cool.

1 and 1/4 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp cinamon
3/8 tsp nutmeg
3/8 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda

Sift these together.

1 egg - beat until light yellow

Mix everything together until just mixed. Bake one hour at 350 in a loaf pan. She says the cake tastes better after 1 day - we wouldn't know about that.

A Poem About Synagogue Presidents and Lay Leaders

I don't know why I do it
If I don't someone else will have to
If no one does I can tell you what will happen
The snow won't get shoveled and the cleaner won't get paid
There won't be any toilet paper
The rabbi won't have a contract
There won't be teachers for the school.

The kids are screaming and my long-suffering spouse
Is giving me the look as I walk out the door again
to another meeting.
I'll go to bed late and have to get up too early
I don't really have what this needs me to give.

I am not sure if I used to pray in shul.
Now I go more and pray less.
I'm looking at the cobwebs on the ceiling,
wondering when the roof will leak again.

But then I stood on the bimah as the ark opened
And the light streamed through the window
And the Torah glowed.
In that moment I was at Sinai.

Later someone came up to me to say
Thanks for coming to the shiva
And bringing the chairs and the prayerbooks
And I said you're welcome,
and remembered why I do it.

dedicated to the memory of Paul E. Policow z"l. 

Synagogue life

I had so many responses to Elana Sztokman's article "Why are women dropping out of synagogue life" that I decided to put them in a (lately rare) blog post.

I'm not dropping out of synagogue life, and it's not because I have not felt alienated at synagogue. I perhaps have a unique perspective having been a congregational rabbi, the wife of a synagogue president, and (if such a thing is possible for an ordained rabbi) lately a regular "Jew in the pew". I've regularly davenned at Reconstructionist, Reform, Conservative, modern Orthodox and lately Partnership minyanim, and felt alienated in every one of those spaces at different times. I completely understand the concerns of the women written about in the article.

I'm fortunate that my parents early on encouraged synagogue attendance and shopped around to find the shuls in which they (and by extension we, their children) had the best chance of feeling comfortable. I'm fortunate that my father set the stage for my synagogue life when he was a young man in the Navy and would visit local synagogues wherever he was stationed. I'm fortunate that the people at those synagogues welcomed him enough that he kept up the habit, and that on one of those overseas synagogue visits he met my mom at West London Synagogue. And I'm fortunate that they have lived a long time and I have had the opportunity to see the long term benefits that synagogue attendance has made in their lives.

When I was a congregational rabbi, I would often hear people tell me some version of "I had a bad experience in a synagogue and I stopped going." My (usually internal) response was this: I have bad experiences in supermarkets if not once a week, then definitely once a month. It has never stopped me from going to supermarkets.

Alienation is part of synagogue life because community is imperfect, because people inadvertently (and sometimes intentionally) hurt one another, but more than anything, alienation is part of synagogue life because it is part of spiritual life. Whether we call it hester panim or the dark night of the soul, feeling disconnected is part of spiritual life. So is feeling connected. When we have the disconnected feeling, we can easily blame it on community, on individuals within the community, on some way in which there is a lack of fit between where we are spiritually and the community. I choose, when it happens, and it happens frequently, to understand it as "where I am today".

The only book I ever read on economics was Exit, Voice and Loyalty a treatise written by Albert O. Hirschman. The idea was that when as consumers we are dissatisfied with a product, we have two choices, Exit or Voice, and that our choice is governed by Loyalty. I totally understand women and others who choose to exit synagogue rather than use their voices to make change, especially Orthodox women who (IMO) have been systematically silenced in many communities. But the question about loyalty or perhaps more the nature of our commitments is raised. What am I loyal to? What am I committed to?

Do I think my children will be Jewish if I stop going to synagogue? For many orthodox women whose children are in day schools, the answer may be yes. Those women may not see their synagogue attendance as having a bearing on their children's future observance, and they may be correct, though I would wager they are more correct regarding their sons than their daughters. For my kids this is not necessarily the case. They go to secular schools. If I stop going to synagogue, they will too. They may anyway, but certainly when they were younger, and even now, my example makes a difference.

Will my spirituality be impacted if I stop going to synagogue? What is synagogue about for me anyway? I long ago found spirituality in davenning, and made synagogue attendance part of my regular spiritual practice. Over the years of moving to Israel and moving to a community that most Shabbat mornings has no egalitarian minyan, I've had to ask myself what do I go to synagogue for? And I have decided that I go to shul to talk to G-d, not to talk to Jane (or Joe). I'm part of a religion that says talking to G-d is done best in community, and that by going I am giving and getting something, as I understand it. So I keep going, and I keep trying to talk to G-d, and I also talk to Yael (and Yossi). I go when it feels good, and when it doesn't feel good. I go when I feel alienated and when I feel connected, when it's easy and when it isn't. Some days I excuse myself from kiddush talk, but most days I make the effort, even when it's hard, which it usually is. I keep in mind a saying that I think is in the Reconstructionist prayerbook - that no sincere prayer leaves us where we began. I try to be someplace different when I leave shul than when I walk in.

I hope my sisters will keep coming. I know I will not abdicate. I know my order of preference in our town: egalitarian (Reform) - I go whenever there are services; partnership (I go whenever there are services and there are no Reform services); and last orthodox, in which women play virtually no liturgical role (occasional gomel blessing being the exception). I pray no one mistakes me for supporting that system, which I don't, but I go because the cost of staying away is higher for me than the cost of being there, and because I still believe in achdut am yisrael and in the value of prayer in community. In that space, without exit, I have a voice, the voice of one person, speaking my truth that is pretty different from that of others (both my background and my ideals) "quietly and clearly, and listening to others." That's what I can do.

Orange Chicken or Tofu

This is adapted from a recipe in the Diane Mott Davidson culinary mystery, the Grilling Season.  I served this with mashed potatoes.  It's a really good way to serve parve mashed potatoes with a creamy, sweet orangy sauce.

1 orange
1 cup orange juice
vinegar (anything but balsamic)
mustard
olive oil
flour
sugar
cumin
salt & pepper

1 pack tofu or 8 pieces of chicken shnitzel (that's flattened breasts cut in pieces for you overseas folks).

Marinade:

2 tbsp. vinegar
1/3 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp. mustard
grated zest of orange
juice of the orange
pinch of cumin
salt & pepper

Mix the marinade and marinate the chicken or tofu in a flat pan for 30 mins to an hour.

Sauce:

heat 2 tbsp. oil and add 2 tbsp. flour.  mix over a flame.  add 1 tbsp sugar, 2 tbsp. vinegar, 1/2 tsp. mustard and mix well.  Add 1 cup orange juice and 1/2 cup water, salt and pepper.  Whisk until smooth, heat until thickened, turn down heat and put a lid on to keep it warm.

While you are cooking the sauce, fry the chicken or tofu in a large pan, 4 pieces at a time.  Fry chicken well on each side.  You won't need oil because of the marinade, you can put a spoonful of the marinade on top of each chicken piece.

Put the chicken or tofu in the oven for 5-10 more minutes while you get your other stuff finished.