by Janice Levine Hamann (Brooklyn, NY)
When the pandemic was waning, I went to a High Holiday service in a tent in Brooklyn and was suddenly transported. “Shema Yisroel, Adonai Elohaynu, Adonai Echad” was chanted, filling Prospect Park with the soul touching vibrations of Hebrew. The Rabbi and Cantor harmonized, as my tears flowed. The Hebrew words flooded my soul as I realized that Judaism lived deeply inside of me. In an act of bad-ass, 70-something rebellion, defying the Orthodox rule forbidding women from reading the Torah, I decided to become an adult B Mitzvah. Other than opposing my upbringing, I really can’t say what exactly motivated me.
Perhaps this was my rebellion against constant taunts and put downs, my chubby body, a life driven by rules that I could never follow, always feeling wrong, alone.
The small Formica table in the kitchen of our apartment in a 2-family house was the hub of our lives in the 1950’s and 60’s. Strict Kosher rules were observed, as meat and dairy, and any implement involved with their preparation, were always separated. Mom did all the cooking and housework. We ate fish cakes with spaghetti and ketchup every Thursday. On Friday, Shabbat, we moved to the dining room for the formal meal, usually chicken and kugel. Candles were lit, kiddush and blessings chanted. Saturday was leftovers, and Sunday brought a trip to the Kosher Deli in Far Rockaway for corned beef on rye. Every meal included thanks to God for our food and drink. Daddy donned his tallit, t’fillin and kippah each dawn for his prayers.
The routine was routinely shattered when Daddy and my brother Steven got into violent altercations. As my parents grappled with how to deal with the challenge of an oppositional son, he was rewarded with tickets to baseball games, with a bicycle, with a stereo, and I watched, ignored for trying to follow the path, unrewarded.
Saturday morning was time to go to Shul.
A small burnt orange synagogue by the ocean in Rockaway; foggy, salty air, deep wailing, a tinge of mildew, cracked linoleum, faded paint. I sat alone on a creaky oak bench in a balcony, looking down, watching closely as men stood above the Torah, chanting, praying. A scene emerges under a haze, a ghostlike group of men draped in white tallit, heads covered, swaying as they took turns reading. It was distant, voyeuristic, forbidden to women. A rainbow of color, sparkling, bestowing holy light above the bimah where the men stood, shining through the stained-glass windows into the stale, pungent air of the chapel. They sang in Hebrew, tearfully bellowing, creating the soundtrack of my childhood, the vibrations of this biblical language forming my psyche. The man with huge hands and ears, Daddy, who’s voice was always the loudest, shook the building’s foundation as he chanted the prayers.
I was forced to attend services as my mother stayed at home, cooking, cleaning, or talking on the phone, (forbidden on Shabbat). Taking attendance, Daddy made me stick my round freckled face into the room of men when I arrived, after attending Junior Congregation services at the nearby Conservative Synagogue. Daddy sat with my brother, among other fathers and sons; a respectable gathering, hiding the disfunction that lived outside the shul’s walls.
As a teenager, my cheerleader outfit was hidden beneath an Orthodox Jewish uniform. I showed my face, then bolted out and onto a bus to cheer during Far Rockaway High School football games. I jumped out of my bedroom window on Friday nights to meet friends. I was punished for trying to find a life in the non-sectarian world where I lived. Smacked with a belt buckle, grounded, I learned to sneak around.
Perhaps this arrangement didn’t settle well inside…. My feelings were rarely in synch with my actions.
Perhaps it was a seed waiting for hormones, ready to grow into a creeping rebellion.
Perhaps this story is about patriarchy, about being left out, about not being able to find a place between my father and my brother studying Torah together to prepare for Bar Mitzvah, as I begged for recognition.
*****
In the early 1930’s, Daddy, a young man in his twenties with the Great Depression devastating America, set off on his adventure to Palestine. He lived on a Kibbutz in the desert for a few years, under deep blue skies, working to create irrigation, farming, watching children play as they were raised communally, dreaming of the possibility of the state of Israel, a democracy filled with Kibbutzim, of spending his life in this idyllic world. The call of his Orthodox family brought him back to Brooklyn to resume his role as the only son with 5 sisters.
In 1948, after the once unimaginable Holocaust, his dream came true; the State of Israel was born. I felt none of his enchantment. Each summer Daddy offered me a trip to his beloved Israel. And every time, I refused.
The restrictions of Orthodox Judaism made no sense to me. Why couldn’t I tear toilet paper on Shabbat? Why was driving on the Sabbath considered work when walking was much more difficult? Why was switching on an electric light forbidden on holy days? Why did my neighbors, Holocaust survivors, make their living as slum lords? Why Judaism? Why Israel? A million “Whys.” Children seek meaning and truth which were not obvious to me.
Orthodox Judaism didn’t save my brother from lifelong struggles with school and addiction.
Orthodox Judaism didn’t save my mother from cancer. It didn’t save me from becoming her caregiver, from feeling that my role in life was to serve others.
Perhaps I always felt less than, an outcast in a chubby body, despite my screaming and kicking, not being allowed to be a Bat Mitzvah.
Perhaps I hated my childhood in a family that was filled with contradictions, always fighting, favoring my brother who was constantly in trouble.
Perhaps the demon seed planted in the burnt orange synagogue was taking root, the vibrations of Hebrew fading from my brain, a butterfly waiting to be set free from the cocoon of Judaism.
*****
In high school, I continued to hide behind the façade of niceness, the good girl from Belle Harbor who had a boyfriend, who was going to live the right life. A traditional Jewish wedding of high school sweethearts, Janice and Binky, me in a Mexican lace gown, him in a rented brown tuxedo, was held at Levine’s Washington Hotel by the sea. Barely out of our teens, we blindly followed the roadmap that we were born to. In the end, unable to walk on the path that was expected, yielding to the allure of others, of freedom, of young life, the façade crumbled. The “Get,” or Jewish divorce, happened within a year.
Perhaps, by becoming a young Jewish bride I didn’t take ownership of my future. No soul searching, smug, doing it ‘right,’ blindly following, walking the path, the blueprint, eyes wide shut.
After college and early annulment, the vibrations of the burnt orange synagogue by the ocean deeply embedded within, I rejected any hint of the faith I was born to in my newly single household. I wandered away from Jewish ritual, abandoning my nightly chanting of the sacred “Shema Yisrael, Adonai Elohaynu, Adonai Echad, Here oh Israel, the lord our God, the lord is one,” no longer observed Shabbat, ate non-Kosher food, ignored Jewish holidays, erected a Christmas tree. I still can’t exactly say why.
Perhaps I was discarding the patriarchy of my religion, my family, remembering Daddy screaming orders at Mom, a housewife, expected to survive and persevere, happiness never considered.
Perhaps the vibrations still living inside pushed me to try another Jewish marriage, to a young man similarly skeptical of Judaism.
Still in my early 20’s, Murray, my second husband, appeared in my life, trying to be a pianist, a lover of music, handsome, funny. He had no interest in pursuing anything related to Judaism except for some excellent brisket, a little corned beef, and bagels with lox and cream cheese. I believed that with this marriage, I was doing something different than what was expected of this Orthodox young woman.
A fully Jewish female was born of this union. Before her second birthday things fell apart, yielding to the allure of independence, freedom, attraction to others.
Perhaps I was trying to define my blooming womanhood, free of restrictions. A butterfly struggling to escape, but stuck, wings unable to spread.
Perhaps I was unable to fully free myself, still trying to please Daddy. I couldn’t see that I was still on the train, trying to follow the path, moving in circles.
I still needed to be married, as my upbringing had defined womanhood for me. The third attempt was to Brad, a Lutheran young man, an artist. This time, two daughters were born, technically Jewish, as the lineage is passed through the mother. I continued to live in the role that I knew best; be the caregiver, trying to fully manage the household, to work, to be a good wife and mother. I could not fathom the idea of my three daughters not learning about their heritage.
Perhaps this marriage fell apart because of the cultural divide between Judaism and Christianity.
Perhaps I was still trying to jump back on the train, to patch up my life, to find my place on the roadmap.
*****
Many decades into womanhood, returning to Judaism as a mother, I dutifully enrolled each of my girls in Hebrew School, and was required to attend weekly Shabbat services. Seated on a softly upholstered bench, surrounded by men and women in the antique Park Slope synagogue, I felt the music emerging from a deep place. Enveloped in shimmering light that evoked images of the burnt orange synagogue in Rockaway, the vibrations of Hebrew surrounded me and touched my soul. The congregation harmonized as these familiar tunes appeared. I knew the playlist, when to lower my head, when to rise. I anticipated each prayer, knowing how they signaled the pace of the service. I teared up when the ark was opened and the Torah appeared. I sang in harmony with the prayers to end the Torah service, almost hearing Daddy’s booming voice. On cue, my stomach gurgled with hunger pangs as the final praises to God were chanted.
Perhaps I was starting to feel like I belonged to this faith; the seeds sowed in the burnt orange synagogue by the ocean had deep roots.
Two of my daughters were Bat Mitzvahed, as I never was; consigned to watch from above, not close enough to smell the parchment, see the handwritten letters, to touch, to lift the holy scrolls, confer with the Rabbi, be part of the important people. I was relieved to see these young women being initiated into an egalitarian Jewish practice, meeting the Rabbi’s eyes, looking straight ahead, not down, feeling equal in thought and prayer, the sparkling rainbow of light shining directly on them.
Perhaps the seeds planted in them will grow into satisfaction with the power of Jewish womanhood. Their spirits can soar in any direction, free of the struggles that I endured.
A relationship with the Torah began for me. Omniscient, mysterious, spiritual, powerful, these scrolls symbolize the collective stories of an entire civilization, the heritage that I had only witnessed from above.
I thought that chanting from the Torah would be as simple as reading a few words in Hebrew. I would be healed, saved, complete; escaped from the lonely top floor of the burnt orange synagogue, allowed to participate with the important people, alongside the men. No problem. I signed up for my adult B Mitzvah; January 20, 2024.
What did I get myself into? This was a real commitment. I talked about my B Mitzvah constantly and must have invited about two hundred people to witness my rebirth as a Jewish woman.
*****
I needed to find a tutor to guide me through this monumental task. Names were collected. I spoke with one young lady who seemed like a fit. She lived out West but was visiting her Chabad family in Brooklyn at the time, so we decided to meet up. I parked the car and realized that I was now in the heart of the Chasidic community of Crown Heights. Would she be wearing the long dark uniform of the Chabad women, showing no skin, an aura of holiness? Would her head be covered? What kind of café did she choose for our meeting?
In the sticky summer air of Brooklyn, full of dread, walking along the sidewalks lined with limestone houses, I found the meeting spot; a small glass fronted luncheonette. Inside, there were four tables. A tall man stood in front of a wide mirror cleaning silverware and folding napkins, never wavering from his ritualistic task. A young, gorgeous woman sat at the counter of this Judeo-hip café where the tattooed owner blasted a playlist of vintage Rock n Roll music.
Dark hair flowed from my tutor’s uncovered head. Her shorts and sleeveless shirt revealed forbidden skin. She is the age of my youngest daughter. Seated at the counter, reflections emanating from the large mirror shining light on us, the vibrations of our bond filled the air. Somehow, I knew that we would learn from one other. Her story paralleled mine. As a child, and then a younger woman, she reacted to the many rules and restrictions imposed by her Jewish community. She was raised in a world surrounded by Hebrew texts, no outside media, an isolated family of 14 in total, in a community filled with like-minded people. She needed to explore, to find spirituality, to feel how her nerve endings connected to Hebrew, Prayer, Torah, Shabbat, Feminism. She needed to experience life apart from Judaism. At 18, she left the sect; alone and very brave. In a different world, in another century, I had had similar feelings. A match was made, a teacher was found.
Perhaps she embodied the Jewish feminism that I aspired to; escaped, freed. She was braver than I ever could be, boldly confronting her feelings and acting on them, unafraid of being alone.
Our weekly Zoom sessions began with big, small talk…. where to purchase Sea Moss, questions of how to live, how to love, our family, our hurt, our betrayal. Our age gap was minuscule as we shared thoughts about the soul, nature, parenting, acceptance, leaving her sect, feeling alone.
At first, the studying was painful, I struggled, queasiness in my stomach, my brain frying, legs unstable, overwhelming exhaustion conquering all. The tropes, the Hebrew words, somehow embedded in my psyche, began to come to life. As I opened the Chumash that Daddy had given to me decades earlier, and read the words of my parsha, I entered into a meditative state. As I began to chant, the vibrations of Hebrew transported me. Suddenly, I was back in the desert, thousands of years ago. Through repetition of the tunes, imagining the sand and sky, being stripped to basics, away from the 21st century, calmness descended. I suddenly began to understand what the men in the burnt orange synagogue were feeling as they bellowed and swayed, my father’s voice the loudest in the group. Meetings with the Rabbi illuminated deeper meaning, how Pharoah was blind to the beauty of the world around him.
*****
Will I wear a tallit? My association with this fringed prayer shawl has been about the men, wearing, kissing, folding, praying; another forbidden holy object and ritual denied to women. I believed that to wear a tallit one must be male, B mitzvah, married; none of which defined me. The rebellious seed that was planted in the burnt orange synagogue was in full bloom. Donning a tallit, once forbidden, looked like a definite check for my check list. The question now is what tallit will I choose? My father’s? A new one, feminine, to be passed to my granddaughter? Avoid the inevitable fight over who will ultimately gain custodianship of this sacred object/memory?
The tallit struggle began. I asked my brother, who lives in California, the holder of the sacred cloth, if I could borrow Daddy’s tallit for my B Mitzvah. As the only son, he had inherited it with all ceremonial objects; the silver kiddush cup, and the menorah from Belarus, continuing the patriarchal balance of power and ownership of our lineage.
Perhaps I was looking to overthrow the patriarchy, to show my brother that I am important, to declare myself as an equal in prayer, no longer the chubby girl who was afraid to speak up.
*****
At a recent service I observed carefully. Something had shifted since the years that I sat apart, above, away, in the burnt orange synagogue near the ocean. The space was on one level, no looking down. I sat close to the bimah where it was all happening. There was a sea of tallitot around me, worn over the shoulders of men and women alike. Each wearer had a distinct movement, folding, draping, twitching, hugging, tented, protected, sheltering the fragile soul that lie within the wearer. As the people of the tallit swayed, stepped three feet forward, then three feet back, bowing, rising in silence, then song, a calm descended on the room. The vibrations of Hebrew were now surrounding me. I was part of the action for the first time in my life. Images of the men in the burnt orange synagogue by the sea surrounded me as I sat in an ocean of fabric, swaying in waves.
Perhaps a matriarch was struggling to be born, worthy of being the leader of the clan..
Consciousness was transforming. As I listened to Torah study class, I heard the archetypal dilemmas that were, and will always be, present… the wife of Lot looked back at horrors and was turned to salt. I must look forward, not get stuck in the past. Each word that I study is important. Letters have crowns. Sounds are music and vibration. I was comforted by my work in using these teachings to create an internal compass, guiding, leading to light, shedding the shackles of the burnt orange synagogue by the sea.
Why have I never understood the service until my senior years? Alone, apart, and tiny, my childhood and adolescence of attending services in the burnt orange synagogue had isolated me from the prayers, from the Torah. I practiced my Parsha and learned the words that told the story of Moses and how he defied Pharaoh (with help from God). As I repeated the chants, my mind wandered to the desert, to Egypt, to Israel. The vibrations calmed me when I was anxious, gave me faith, God grew inside of me. When troubled, I now evoke images of my people fearlessly fleeing slavery, knowing that I can face my demons and leave them behind, that God lives within.
*****
A warning alarm buzzed in my brain as I looked at the 10-day forecast, worried about Saturday, January 20, 2024, the day I would read from the Torah. The worst week of winter weather in the past two years was predicted, adding to the stress about my upcoming adult/geriatric B mitzvah. Snow and ice were coming just as people needed to travel from near and far; a great excuse for those who were looking for one. It snowed on Tuesday, with temperatures down in the teens. Treacherous slippery patches were everywhere, hiding like land mines, death threats to the boomer generation. Is the weather forecast an omen? Will I seem foolish? Will I forget my chants? Will I fumble my Torah talk? Will I slip and fall in front of everyone?
“I really want to be with you on your special day, but I don’t think it’s safe for me to travel due to the winter storms.” said the text from my brother, the one person who shared the torture of our religious upbringing, the only one who could fully understand what this meant for me. There were no storms predicted for Thursday, his travel day, only slight snow flurries, no accumulation expected. Disappointing.
Electrical currents buzzed beneath my newly enlightened exterior. I was supposed to be forgiving, moving to a new part of my life, leaving the desert of slights, belittling insults, put downs dished out by him, behind. I fight the urge to scream, to yell about how many times I abandoned my life to rescue him and our parents during the last 50 years. I don’t ever feel like talking to my brother again. Jacob and Esau, Cain and Abel. Sixty years earlier, a 12-year-old girl tantrumed and screamed for a Bat Mitzvah like the boys, to be celebrated, loved. No one listened.
Perhaps I was merely settling a score?
Fast forward, my geriatric B Mitzvah Day arrived. Standing on the bema, watching my grandchildren play as I sang, I knew that the world had changed. I was equal.
My three daughters stood with me as I said the prayer to wrap myself in the ancient tallit; the same prayer shawl that my father wore since he was 13, the same one that covered and protected each of my girls during their wedding ceremonies. The same one that my brother was territorial about. The same one that will never see the sun of California again. Now, tired and frayed, the tallit continues to protect my family, to help me be a matriarch, to give me strength.
“ Lcha Adona ha gevulah v haticheret” the cantor sang as the drums and guitar supplied the heartbeat. A frenzy of joy broke out in the book-lined chapel as my sons-in-law held the Torah and circled the room. The Rabbi, Cantor and I huddled around the Torah, as flashes of the men in my childhood synagogue came to me. I now shared their awe, finally a partner in prayer, no longer the small child looking down onto the bema, shocking myself as I fearlessly held the pointer and read from the holy scriptures. My daughters performed the honors, reciting the prayers before and after the Torah reading, as their husbands played with the children. My eight-year-old granddaughter opened the arc and remained on the bema, closing the circle that began when my eight-year-old self-sat alone, apart from the men who led.
Shock waves pulsed through my body the moment my chanting began. Something changed. I now felt equal, a woman capable of leading, of disrupting the patriarchy. I showed the world that I could read in Hebrew, chant, think independently.
Months later, my brother showed up in Brooklyn, claimed the tallit, and whisked it away to sit in a drawer. “I would like to keep it. I actually use it, wrap myself in it as I pray, it’s life continued.” “You promised to give it back! You are not keeping your word! Shut up!!” “Don’t tell me to Shut Up!” Daddy’s tallit, in it’s blue velvet bag, was thrown across the room. “Here, you can have your damn tallis.”
.
With my eyes closed, I was transported back to Rockaway, to my childhood of repression, to Daddy’s bellowing shouts, to my brother wresting me to the ground, to a lifetime of struggle to evolve.
Perhaps he isn’t able to change, to see Daddy’s holy object being used by a woman, patriarchy buried deep inside.
Perhaps I am now the true matriarch of my clan, able to speak up to my brother,
Perhaps I now feel the self-esteem that was strangled during my childhood.
Having touched the Torah, there’s a shift, I feel enabled, confident in my role. And now, I am equal in prayer, equal in my voice, empowered to speak, sing, pray. I remind myself that I have left the Egypt of my mind, left the bondage and servitude, once forced into Jewish obedience, of following the patriarchy. I am entering a new feminist land, the desert of bravery, looking forward, leaving the patriarchy, able to feel God.
Janice Levine Hamann is a late middle aged woman living in a multigenerational setting in Brooklyn. Two years ago, after a long career in Education, she began to write creative nonfictional essays that hopefully will become a book one day. If you’d like to read more of her work, visit Oldster Magazine: https://oldster.substack.com/p/hitting-replay-on-my-first-memory and check out her Substack page: @janiceglevine
The Jewish Writing Project 