I feel caught between worlds.
In Israel, Jewish life is not segmented into convenient boxes, dominated by one synagogue over another. Your yiddishkeit, your Jewishness, is not bound to one place, to one rabbi, or to one way of life. Things blend together here, religious life exists on a spectrum of expression. In America, my orthodoxy was so visible; here, I am just another man with a kippah in the crowd. Religious people are everywhere. They are not hidden, shuttling back and forth between the synagogue, the office, the kosher supermarket, and back home. Here, the janitor is a religious Jew, and so is the soldier, the beggar, the artist, the woman at the checkout lane, as well as the doctor and the lawyer.
Oh, how these Jews express themselves! They are trendy, they are hippies, they are classic, and they are so very fresh. They wear black suits and hats, skinny jeans, short sleeves and slacks, shorts and tee shirts, and biker jackets and boots. They are infinite in their variety, and conspicuous in how much they belong. It is impossible to define them, and impossible to contain their world to a ghetto.
It’s honestly beautiful, how something so holy and different can be so immersed and meshed with daily life here. Jewish holidays are my days off, I would be hard pressed to find a situation where I couldn’t get kosher food at almost anytime, and there are literally four synagogues within a ten minute walk of where I live (I really should go more often). The fact is, it is impossibly easy to live a religious life here, but that is where my dilemma lies.
In America, my observance defined me, it marked me as different, it stood me out on its own. Here, I must struggle to define myself within the melange of life here. With Judaism so wild and unrestricted, I’m struggling to find my true north. When I was back in the states, I shed many of the things that made me Chabad, although I always stayed sheltered in its world and never gave up the halachic restrictions that world gave me. One of the first things my wife and I did when we got to this new country was go before the beit din, a Jewish court headed by our local rav, and performed hatarat nedarim, the annulment of vows and restrictions, to free ourselves so that we could start fresh in our new community. Gone were the welcoming chains of the old world, and all that was that left was the uncertainty of freedom and free will. We chose customs and standards that fit our community, wanting to blend in and bind ourselves to some kind of shared social base. I went to a new synagogue, built on its variety of parishioners, and I stuck to what my fellow Anglos did. In my desperate attempt to navigate my new Jewish Israeli identity, I clung to whatever was around me.
But it left me feeling incomplete.
When I was with Chabad, and it still happens whenever I go back to a Chabad synagogue, I knew who and what I was. I may have taken off my kapota and shaved my beard, but I was still Chabad in my head. I am still a Lubavitcher in my mind, the rebbe is never far away, and his teachings and lessons are like a warm blanket on this cold journey.
When I was in the mental health hospital, I was in a really low place, lost in my mind and my soul. For the first couple of weeks, I couldn’t pray, I couldn’t hear the calling within me, I couldn’t feel G-d’s presence like I once did. When my wife brought me my tallit and tefillin, she brought me my Chabad siddur, my prayer book, as well. This prayer book was special because it was given to me by my rabbi on the day of my conversion, and the pages are stained by my fingertips from years of repeated prayer. In the recreation room of the hospital, I found my faith again, the one life raft I could cling to in the sea of mental anguish. I found myself rediscovering the words with new eyes, the longing and calling for healing found bee resonance in my heart. When King David cried I cried along with him, my tears staining the pages. The tightness of the tefillin straps kept me bound to reality, the weight of my tallit on my shoulders grounded me to this world while connecting me to the hidden world around me. So much of my life was dominated by confusion, prayer and meditation kept me tied to the truth.
Now, I am out again in the free world, but I don’t know where to turn to. Even with so many synagogues within my grasp, I pray at home rather than deal with my spiritual identity crisis. Am I Chabad? Am I Modern Orthodox? Am I dati leumi? Do I check the “other” box? Who do I turn to when I have questions beyond whether I just made a spoon not kosher? Where do I look to for inspiration? There is so much more to observance than mitzvot, there is an entire culture wrapped up in every label; and I often do not understand or feel comfortable with any of the labels?
Maybe that is the solution, to live between the lines. I had a meeting with the rabbi of one of the local synagogues, one that caters to Anglos, and he told me that I don’t have to limit myself. That I can take from each of these worlds the beautiful, the meaningful, what works for me. Maybe that’s the real test, to see how I swim in this vast ocean, building myself an edifice from the mass of materials around me. Each of us here is such a unique soul, maybe this whole place only works if it all blends together.
Part of what makes galut, exile, so harsh is the regimentation. While we were initially put into ghettoes, we internalized them and put ourselves into boxes. We had to act this way, or look this way, pray this way, eat this level of kosher, do what this rabbi said. The beauty of this new state, of this new plane of existence for Jewish consciousness is that we are building it ourselves, sometimes making up the plan as we go along. That’s why we live for today, that’s why say that it will be ok, and to take things slowly. It is a marvelous thing to build a new Jew here, combining elements from Jewish practice and tradition from around the world and through centuries of different experiences.
So maybe I can be ok in my jean shorts, tzitzit down past my knees, and a Rick and Morty tee shirt. Maybe I can still have 770 on my tallit bag even though I eat rabbanut. Maybe Hashem is just happy that I’m here trying my best, or at least maybe He’s happy that I’m happy that I’m trying my best. I always have room to grown, and thank G-d, there is so much holy space here to grow in and so much holiness to fertilize that growth. I can be me, and that’s enough. I may live between worlds, but all of the worlds are holy, so I can’t go wrong. It may be uneasy, but I will find my way here.
