someone else's ritual

Friday night, a doctor friend of mine who is dating an Israeli man invited me to shabbas dinner. When was the last time I went to a shabbas dinner? Um... surely sometime since college, but I'm only coming up with Seders, so maybe not.

So, having been given you some indication of the seriousness with which I take this particular ritual, you might be wondering why I went. One reason is probably the fact that I spent most of March wandering around with Seder melodies in my head that I never got to use. (I didn't do any work at all either to get myself invited to a Seder or to organise one myself. I actually have dreams - big dreams - of organising a Seder someday, but I get very nervous about the idea because I don't think I would actually know what I was doing.)

Another reason is that I have very fond memories of shabbas dinners at MHC. This was back in the day when religious life on campus took place mainly in the basement of a fabulous (if impossible to heat properly) 60's-style-architecture cement block overlooking Lower Lake called Eliot House. The basement of Eliot was also home to the the Grind, the student-run coffee house, and was thus one of my regular haunts.

But I got into shabbas dinners at MHC through the back door of the Kosher/Halal Kitchen, which served dinner on Wednesday evenings, sometimes followed by a lecture or activity of some sort. The KHK served the tastiest food on campus by far -- and the activities weren't bad, either, in their attempt to bring together Jewish and Muslim students and find some common ground. The food for shabbas dinners also came out of the KHK in Eliot House. Was I there for the food? In part, yes... the food, the melodies, and the -- for lack of a word that doesn't conjure up LOTR -- fellowship.

Shabbas as I knew it at MHC was a pretty eclectic thing, I realize now -- though at the time, I had nothing else against which to compare it, and it seemed perfectly normal. People's views on what was appropriate ritual behaviour for women, and whether and how openly queer Jews ought to be included, varied. But the fact remained that women led everything, conversations about the relationship between Judaism and feminism were ongoing, and the only rabbi with whom I've ever had anything approaching a personal relationship is an out lesbian and ordained (I think) under Reconstructionism.

Anyway, so what was my heretical, half-Jew (depending on your view of things) ass doing Friday night? Mostly keeping my mouth shut. My doctor-friend gave me a run-down of the ritual on the drive there, so I knew that only the men would be praying, that the conversation would be primarily in Hebrew, that there might be some strong opinions offered. According to my friend, her boyfriend's brother thought Reform Judaism was heretical. No oranges on the Seder plates here. Eat your heart out, Judith Plaskow...

In attendance were my friend, her boyfriend, the boyfriend's younger brother, their mother (who doesn't speak much English), and me. Another Israeli man who I had met while brunching with my doctor-friend arrived a little later, after the prayers that come before the meal had been said. There was some brief back-and-forth establishing: a) that my mother was Jewish; b) that my father's family was from Eastern Europe but were not Jewish; c) that my mother's family were Ashkenazim; d) whether my mother's family observed; e) how Jewish I looked.

Hearing the prayers again was a strange experience, in part because I'm used to a different pronunciation, but also because I'm not used to hearing them chanted. Shabbas at MHC involved a lot of singing, which was a major draw for me, and when I woke up today, I found I had some of those shabbat melodies rattling around in my head. Instead, the prayers were intoned in a style I found more reminiscent of the Muslim call to prayer: somewhat nasal and droning, though not unpleasantly, and rather sonorous. (Someone is probably going to letter-bomb me for that comparison, but whatever.)

We went through the blessing of the wine: the cup passed among the men by seniority and then the women, also by seniority), and the bread. (I had my ears out for these blessings, since they're among the few I really remember.) I had a strange moment of not knowing how this blessing would be done, because at MHC, the bread was blessed with everyone at shabbat either touching the bread or touching someone who was touching the bread. In this instance, the younger brother blessed it, and then broke it for the rest of us.

(I totally missed the washing of the hands, by the way. It came up before I realized it. My doctor-friend said to me that I could go wash my hands, if I liked. But the other people doing so, my friend not among them, were already halfway back to the table by the time I figured out what was going on.)

The meal itself was lovely, but the conversation was almost entirely in Hebrew, so my friend and I didn't have much to contribute. We eventually finished the meal, and then finished the shabbas prayers. And that was that.

I have to say, I really missed singing along. I think I've known for a long time I'm not cut out for this 'observant' stuff. I don't see myself ever really engaging in any religious ritual on a regular basis for non-ethnographic reasons. I have too many qualms built up about religious practice generally for me to participate without freaking out a bit, regardless of what kind of arguments can be made about who I might be and how entitled I might be to participate. That said, should I find myself at shabbat, I want it to be a shabbat where I get to participate in the parts I like best.