Last night I went to Hillel for Shabbat services (Shabbas? I’ve heard it be called that too, I wonder if there is a difference). Despite my first Passover Seder last year, my constant questioning of Ari regarding Judaism, and my plunge in to the fascinating world of the JCC and the Israeli munchkins, I had never been to a Shabbat service. Now I know what I’ve been missing.
Not only does Ari work at Hillel (and she in charge of chair-running on Friday nights), but last night she gave the sermon, called the D’var Torah. It was a service to recognize Purim, and as Ari put it, “the ultimate Jewish coming out party.” Her sermon was about why it is important to her and to the world in general to express who you are, and what it means to be gay and Jewish.
Purim is the story of a heroine, a powerful king, the building of a new temple, and how the Jews were not destroyed through the courage of Queen Esther. The King’s prime minister, Haman is a huge jerk and he convinces the King to issue an edict under which all the Jews in the land will be killed. Little does the King know that Esther is a Jew, the cousin of Mordechai.
Esther appears before the King without being summoned by him (which is an act punishable by death in itself!) and reveals her own Jewish identity to the King and recounts Haman’s evil plans. The King is outraged at Haman, and he issues a decree to make Haman the victim of his own infamous plot. Haman and his sons are killed, and the Jews are saved. Phew!
Ari’s D’var Torah was fantastic, and I think her ability to speak in lamens terms while still driving home some essential life lessons is what made it so fantastic. The lesson in the story itself is one of great courage, and the parallels that she drew to living an openly gay life were only natural. So, aside from this great event, what really hit me during the service were the songs, the music, and the Hebrew language.
I love singing, so naturally I wanted to take part in the folky renditions of Jewish prayer. But despite my ability to follow the Hebrew words (written in the english alphabet), I felt a need to understand what I was singing. Luckily, there were English translations under each of the prayers. Sometimes I followed the English, and didn’t sing but other times I just read through the English and then sang in Hebrew, so I had some idea of what I was actually saying.
For a long time I’ve tried to understand why I was so deterred from the Catholic faith and felt such a strong pull to participate in Jewish tradition. I know that a lot of has to do with the more cultural connotations of Judaism. There is less blind faith it seems, and also a more positive and progressive tone to the beliefs as a whole. When I made the decision to not attend Catholic masses with my family anymore (still attending the holidays, out of respect for my loved ones), it was in fact because of cultural differences. The Catholic faith has beautiful undertones in some places, namely the Bible and the stories that it recounts. The story of struggle, sacrifice, and survival is a beautiful thing in any right. But the cultural associations that the church connects itself to are just not my cup of tea; abortion, homosexuality, Heaven and Hell, and this emphatic obsession with sinning. These are not beliefs that I can connect myself to, or even say that I can agree with in any form.
But last night at services, I started feeling really emotional during the mourning prayer. This was in part because I was thinking of the loved ones in my family who have passed away, and prayed for them during the prayer. But it was also this strange religious experience in which I felt connected to the words that we were saying. Without being presumptuous, I thought that there were many similarities in the prayers to the ones that I recited for many years in church. Thanking God for what we have, asking him to provide us with peace, life, and solace. I suppose these are the base factors in many religions that so many humans connect to. So, what is the difference?
Well, yes there are many technical differences in the actual belief system but for me the difference came in a simpler form. This understanding was only reinforced when Rabbi Jeff Summit sat at our table during dinner and talked about the belief that words don’t have a lot of meaning unless they are accompanied by a tune or even by music. I’ll never forget the first anxiety attack I had in church. I was 12 years old and the mass was well underway. We were getting ready to receive communion. I don’t recall the exact lines anymore, but there is a point during this prayer service when the Priest does a Q & A with the church-goers. He says something to degree of “Let us give him thanks and praise.” The audience responds, “It is right to give him thanks and praise.” This continues for a couple more lines, with this robotic response. One that day in church, it was almost as if I stepped outside of myself. I heard these words as I had never heard them before and I got too weirded out. Then when everyone started to recite the “Our Father”, I just lost it. I felt like I was in a cult, and it was soon after that that I told my parents that I just can’t go to church anymore.
At services last night, it was the harmony that really got inside of me. Not just the harmony of the congregation singing, but the harmony in the words, the exotic sounds of the Hebrew language, and the eye contact that took place during much of the service. I felt it, and it felt so good. Here is a song brought to my attention from a certain Rabbi who traveled to Uganda to learn, listen, and record the beautiful prayers of the Ugandan Jews. They are called, Abuyadaba.