Inside Out

July 15, 2008. My mother told me a few days ago that, while I was a bright child—reading at age three and loving school from the very first day—I have always been anxious about academic transitions. On the first day of first grade, my mother reports, I said worriedly, “But I don’t know that grade.”

Orientation begins tonight, and intensive Hebrew class (Ulpan) begins Sunday. I don’t know this grade, either, but my academic style has changed much since the age of six. I love school and I am confident in my academic ability. But this is a different kind of schooling, one that asks not only for intellectual mastery and growth but for spiritual exploration and personal development, for an expansion of head and heart.

In Hebrew, mind and heart are conveyed by one word, “lev.” A perpetual student like me needs to be reminded that the mind cannot guide the body alone; the heart must be deeply involved in any endeavor, and it is particularly necessary on the path to becoming a compassionate, effective,and knowledgeable rabbi. How do we locate the place of “lev,” of heart and mind together?

This past Erev Shabbat (Friday night, the Eve of the Sabbath), the incoming HUC students gathered in the Jerusalem residence of the College President, Rabbi David Ellenson. He shared with us some words of Jewish philosopher Franz Rosenzweig. Rosenzweig called for “[a] learning that no longer starts from the Torah and leads into life, but the other way round: from life, from a world that knows nothing of the Law, or pretends to know nothing, back to the Torah” – a path “[f]rom the periphery back to the center; from the outside, in.”

Who is an outsider? For Rosenzweig, the outsider is the Jew in the modern world, and what is required of that Jew is “a new sort of learning. A learning for which—in these days—he is the most apt who brings with him the maximum of what is alien. That is to say, not the man specializing in Jewish matters; or, if he happens to be such a specialist, he will succeed, not in the capacity of a specialist, but only as one who, too, is alienated, as one who is groping his way home.”

Groping my way through the crowded alleyways and covered markets of the Old City of Jerusalem, I entered the Church of the Holy Sepulchure, arguably the holiest site in Christianity, the place of the crucifixion and burial of Jesus. In the back of my mind, I had always known about this place, and considered the possibility of coming here one day. I never imagined the manner of my visit, the reason for my presence in Jerusalem.

It was strange, I admit, to look at the oil lamps, the crucifixes, the altars, and the intricate mosaics, as an observer, decidedly not a pilgrim. I respected the sanctity of the Church for Christians, stepping as quietly as possible and taking photographs only where permitted. My inside and my outside turned around on themselves like a Mobius strip: the inside of childhood piety now the outsider status of the convert; the outside appearing like a casual tourist mixed with the “inside” knowledge gained from Catholic school; the feeling inside of wanting to share this experience with my faithfully Catholic family and the feeling inside of contentment at being a Jew in Jerusalem.

Rabbi Ellenson in part offered us Rosenzweig’s words to warn us against measuring ourselves only against an academic set of standards, against worrying that those students with “Jewish degrees” somehow have an advantage over the rest of us, against assuming that an ivy-league degree and strong academic ability will be all HUC requires of us. The learning I am about to engage in is the learning of the “lev,” the heart-mind—the kind of learning that requires us each, whether raised Catholic or Jewish, whether perpetually constant in our faith or spiritual seekers, to approach the study of Judaism, Jewish history, Jewish religious law, and Jewish practice from the outside.

Learning from the outside cannot be the disinterested, dispassionate, cold observation of the scientist, but must be, as Rosenzweig urges, a “groping [our] way home.” Home: Jerusalem, Israel, the Diaspora, North America, Judaism, the synagogue, the Jewish people, Jewish text, tradition-based Jewish knowledge, compassion, open-mindedness (and open ears), and the family, too.

Shehecheyanu

I’m not a mystical person, but I definitely expected my entrance into Jerusalem to be moving. If I cry watching commercials, shouldn’t I cry as I enter one of the world’s most ancient—and yet still vibrant—cities, the holiest place of several major world religions, including the religion of my childhood and the religion not only of my present and future but of my future life’s work and calling?

We got off the plane in Tel Aviv at 5:30 in the morning. No one sang when the plane landed. Waiting in line to pass through customs, pushing our way into a shared-ride taxi to Jerusalem, and chatting with the young Orthodox woman next to me (37 years old, 11 children, and a very narrow idea of how one can, must, be Jewish) didn’t exactly stir my soul.

And then it was several days of climate problems: dehydration, loss of appetite, resulting hunger. I felt uncomfortable and out of place. My physical sensations led me to think I shouldn’t be here, I don’t belong, I am not ready for this.

I drank more bottles of water than I can count. I started to feel better. I put up some familiar objects in my new bedroom. I ate. I explored the shuk (outdoor market) in the safety of a group of students and our very able interns. Things started to look up. Shabbat services at Hebrew Union College and an engaging lecture by Dean Rabbi Michael Marmer and President Rabbi David Ellenson reminded me why I am here, and the amazing privilege I have to be studying here, with these people and at this instution.

But today was the first day I felt moved to really pray in thanksgiving and awe—and I mean that in the literal sense of the word—at being here, at this time, in this place: Jerusalem, 2008, nearly a year from my (adult) bat mitzvah and just four years after taking the Torah scroll in my arms and receiving my Hebrew name.

I stood at the Western Wall, surrounded by women, divided from the men by a barrier (mechitza) I thought would dominate my thoughts and interrupt my experience. The plaza is broad and expansive, with smooth light stones. The sun beat down on us, still hot at 4:30 in the afternoon. A few bookshelves lined with prayerbooks stood at the edges; some women sat in chairs, praying quietly near the wall or waiting for friends and family.

Many women approached the wall with fervor, davening (praying) with the traditional swaying motion or pressing their foreheads to the warm stones. Others backed away from the wall when they were finished, refusing to turn their faces on the Presence, the manifestation of God that some believe exists here.

As I approached the pocked stones, I was not overcome by a wave of mystical emotion. I didn’t have any visions. I’m not sure I even felt what these other women sensed as the Presence.

But I was stirred.

Here, between stones rubbed by countless hands for thousands of years, the sincerest prayers were deposited, written on scraps of paper, folded or rolled and tucked carefully into the cracks between the stones. This place marks an interface between the human and the Divine. Some of the prayers may be mundane, but whatever their content, I saw them today as the hopefullness of humans, the potential for religion to act not as a mechitza but as a way to relate: to one another and to the divine. The wall motivates a literal and a spiritual reaching out, as pilgrims hold out their arms to the stones, contemplate their own lives and histories, or pray in the words of their traditions.

I put my hands to the stones, thinking about all the others who had been here before me, praying in thanksgiving or in anguish, making supplications or simply standing in a crucial site in history. I forgot about the mechitza and instead found myself in tears: not fearful tears or sad tears or homesick tears, but tears of real gratitude, in the words of the traditional blessing, for having been enlivened, sustained, and enabled to reach this very moment.

I stood in front of the holiest earthly site for the Jewish people as one individual among many, not standing out, yet I brought with me my entire history. In this place, all prayers are accepted into the cracks between the stones, including the prayers of a grateful convert/future rabbi.