For weeks now, a few of my orthodox Jewish friends here have disappeared on Friday afternoons, spiriting themselves away before the sun goes down to some unknown location for Shabbat. This week, they invited the less Jewish (Reform kids) and the non-Jewish (atheists and agnostics, mostly) to come along, and–never one to miss a religious experience–I did.
Like any evening, this one began with a ride from Boogie Steve, the jovial cab driver whom most of us have programmed into our phones. He dropped us off at a walled compound in Milnerton, where we were greeted by barking dogs (including a puppy named Chutzpah and a black lab named Cushi–HMMM) of the and a few smiling, yarmulke-d young men who welcomed us into an expansive home that betrayed none of the chaos of the busy street outside. Family portraits blanketed surfaces around the living room and dining room, with a long and elegantly set table in the middle. A blown-up photograph of the Lubavitcher Rebbe Rabbi Schneerson glowered from over the fireplace. Did Boogie Steve teleport us to Westchester? I wondered.
Seth explained that the head of this Jewish community center that doubles as a home had broken off from one of the more traditional synagogues in Sea Point, forming a more vibrant new congregation that welcomes all those interested in the faith and the community. In the process, though, they didn’t dilute the Judaism–with only about 20,000 Jews in the city, there aren’t as many shades of gray between denominations, so anyone who considers themselves traditional in any way will stick to Orthodoxy. As Rachie warned me on the way over, “It might feel more patriarchal than it really is.”
I saw what she meant as we filed into the synagogue. Upon following the boys into the front section and finding myself the only female there, I quickly remembered the rules and scuttled behind the screen into the back. So this is how it works, I thought. For the rest of the hour and a half service, we sat, stood, sat, stood, with over-made-up women on both sides of us whispering among themselves and reading Jewish Life. I halfway envied the boys in the front, singing lustily and parading around a table in a conga line in almost palpable brotherhood. Theirs seems to be a more active faith.
Rachie has come to terms with the contradictions of feminism and orthodoxy. And the American Jew from Queens who had come to Milnerton via Jerusalem took pains to clarify that the theology was “not degrading to women at all.” I understand the benefits of a community to which you belong no matter where you are in the world, and this one certainly felt kind and welcoming. I decided to concentrate on that, and the food, which made up for the feeling of Otherness.
The significance of this picture? Every doorway in the house had a mezuzah.
