A few weeks ago, a few of my classmates and I decided to take a road trip to the city of Sfat. We rented a car from Hertz and piled into the car; five girls gabbing and jamming the whole way there. I was excited. It was such a great chance to escape the big city, the sometimes oppressive nature of Jerusalem, and to explore such a spiritual city like Sfat. A bit of background information might be helpful. So, Sfat is a northern city that is often associated with Kabbalah, or mystical Judaism. It's a very spiritual and peaceful place. During the matzav, it was a great place to go to escape the sirens and the terrors of the world.
After a three hour drive, we found a parking spot and decided to explore the city. What better way to explore the city than to go shopping? After a few purchases and a wonderful vegetarian meal, we made our way to our home stay, where we met the lovely couple we were to be staying with, Gila and Dan. It was to be a glorified shabbat slumber party; there were matresses on the floor. We hung around the house for a while before getting ready and heading to House of Love and Prayer (a synagogue associated with Carlebach). There we had a lovely experience doing Kabbalat shabbat, singing Carlebach tunes, and dancing under the stars (For more information on Carlebach see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shlomo_Carlebach_%28musician%29).
From there our group split up. Sasha and I went to one dinner, and Jen, Shira, and Rae went to another. First of all, I must begin this part of my post by saying our meals during this trip were by far the most thought provoking and challenging dinners I have ever attended, however I am sure they will not be my last. At this dinner in particular, Sasha and I met a lovely couple and their children. The family was Lubuvitch-warm, kind, and very focused on the coming of the messiah. We were greeted by the wife first and immediately asked about our Hebrew names. For the rest of the dinner we were to go by our Hebrew names. Also, as per usual, my name (Bailey Romano) became a major point of dinner conversation. "Is your family Sephardic? Why "Bailey"?" I just nodded my head, and tried to avoid mentioning that I was a convert or a future female rabbi in the reform movement. I think under different circumstances I would have been more than forthcoming, but this just wasn’t the place. Sometimes you just pick your battles.
Because of the matzav, there was a lot of discussion of politics at the table, but it was a very different kind of discussion filled with inferences to miracles and the coming of the messiah. I wasn't sure where I fit into this discussion. Surely my perspective on a messianic age in a reform context would not be welcomed or at least would be dismissed. In all honesty, I wasn't even sure if in that moment that I could coherently express my views on the messiah in Reform Judaism or even my own take on it for that matter. Despite my interactions with Modern Orthodox and Orthodox families, I didn't know where to position myself in these conversations. I left the meal with a head filled with overwhelming questions about Judaism and my own spirituality. The five of us met up at our home stay and did a bit of a debrief before passing out, exhausted from a day of traveling and big meals.
For Shabbat lunch we had plans to attend a meal with a large family who were followers of the Breslov rebbe. The husband grew up as a Reform Jew in Philadelphia, but the couple had become Baal Teshuvah (became more religious) before they married and made aliyah three years before. They had five children who were very entertaining and who we really enjoyed getting to know and playing with, but the general lunch discussion was again a big challenge. The wife kept using Muslims (extremist) and Arabs interchangeably, and telling us not to trust “them.” Furthermore, if we become friends with “them" we would intermarry. Much more startling to me and my friends was her view that if we met a Muslim they would more than likely kidnap or blow us up. Racism was an ever present aspect of the conversation, one of which my friends and I tried desperately to counter. At the same time, we could not get over how this couple had made just a drastic transition from progressive to ultra orthodox Judaism. As much as we tried to understand them, we just couldn’t grasp their world, as I’m sure they couldn’t entirely understand ours.
During the afternoon, we returned home for naps. I was woken up from my nap by loud voices in the kitchen, and went to discover what was the matter. As it turned out, Shira and Dan (the man whose house we were staying at) were having a fiery debate about women's place on the bimah, egalitarianism and how and when a woman's voice should be heard. In the end the conversation turned to the possibility that a woman could be just as enamored with a man's voice as a man could be with a woman's. Although the conversation was tense and really challenged each of us to defend our decisions to become rabbis and Jewish educators, it was also very productive and resulted in the promise of future dialogues on this subject and more. Hopefully, Dan and Gila will come for a visit to Jerusalem and we can continue our discussions. We truly loved staying with them and the deep and thought provoking conversations we had with them. They are truly generous, kind, and loving people, and I really hope we see them again during our year here.
Our very last event of the weekend was our final meal with a friend of Jen's. The dinner was lovely. I couldn't get over the contrast between this dinner and our previous two meals. The couple’s whose home we ate at was modern orthodox and followed a specific rabbi, but they were very open to understanding our context and getting to know us. Even though the wife was Baal Teshuva, and had grown up Reform, she was overwhelmingly accepting of us and our future vocations as female rabbis and educators. Not only that, but their children were a blast. Jen's friend from college and his wife were great conversationalists, and we felt truly welcome and a part of a greater productive conversation of living as Jews in a broader context. All of this is to say that conversations about the messiah and muslims were kept to a minimum.
On our drive back, we all struggled to make sense of our collective and individual experiences from the weekend. I wondered how could I take what I had experienced and bring it back to Jerusalem and well as into future dialogues I will have in my rabbinate. I also couldn’t escape how these events had challenged and strengthened my identity as a Reform Jew. As difficult as that weekend was, it provided me with a new voice with which to discuss my decision to be a rabbi in the Reform movement today, and why it is important to have female rabbis and leaders in Jewish communities of all types. I also could not have chosen a better group of women with whom to have such deep discussions and to accompany me on this journey; a journey to Sfat and our respective journeys as future rabbis.
