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MANY YEARS AGO, my husband and I went to a family wedding at a Conservative synagogue. It was the congregation that my husband had belonged to in his childhood.
Before going to the wedding, both of us carefully picked out our outfits and
checked over how we looked before we drove to the synagogue. We didn't
realize what we had forgotten until a man stopped my husband as he walked into
the sanctuary.
"Are you Jewish?" he asked.
"Of course, " my husband responded.
"Then why aren't you wearing a yarmulke? And what about a tallis (prayer shawl)?" he asked.
My husband looked surprised but sheepishly picked up one in the lobby, and
then entered the sanctuary.
We talked about the incident afterwards. At that time, we were members of a
Reform congregation where men usually wore no talliseisim or yarmulkes, although we
both had been brought up in traditionally conservative synagogues. After a
number of years, we simply forgot that this was a normal part of congregation
attire.
"This place is so traditional that it is practically Orthodox," my husband
told me after the wedding. I nodded in agreement, noticing the number of
yarmulkes and tallises and the Hebrew in the wedding service.
Sixteen years later, we went back to the same synagogue for a family Bar
Mitzvah. We sat in the back, feeling out of place in a congregation without a
mechitzah, the separating of the sexes for concentration reason, and with microphones on Shabbes and with women who had no head covering. We stood for the Kaddish prayer and for the Torah blessings.
We were the only ones who did so.
An older man came over to my husband. He leaned over to say something. My
husband later told me that he said, "It is so nice to see people who have the
respect to stand for the Torah."
My husband and I recognized the man. He was the same man who had
approached my husband 16 years earlier to remind him to put a yarmulke on his
head.
The man had forgotten the incident but we remembered. The irony was that
sixteen years ago we had been the least observant in that congregation and now
we were the most religious.
The rabbi of the congregation came up to us after the service. "Oh, so you
are the religious Brooklyn cousins," he told us.
"I guess you could call us that," I responded. I looked at my husband and we
both laughed.
Moving from one place to another has given us a certain perspective about the
past. The life that I lived before is hard to remember, yet it continues to be
a part of me.
Another incident reminded me as well of these changes. The other day in the
main office of my Yeshiva, we celebrated one of our secretary's birthdays with
Chinese food ordered from a nearby kosher restaurant. As we all stood around
eating, a rabbi asked, "Has anyone here ever eaten non-kosher?" I looked around.
Most people shook their heads no. What an opposite situation from Muncie,
Indiana, from where we recently moved, a place where the average person never met someone who had always been
kosher.
I nodded in response to the question and then more questions came. "So what
does ham and shrimp taste like? Was it really awful? Is that why you became
kosher?"
As I looked around at my new life, it was hard to recall the days that I ate
veal cordon bleu, fast food hamburgers or Shrimp Creole. So why did I give it
up? The office staff was looking at me expectantly. I told them the truth.
"The food tasted great. That wasn't why I gave it up. I gave up non-kosher
food because I wanted to be observant."
"Where did you eat out then?"
I told them that there were no kosher restaurants where I lived so I didn't
eat out.
"Wow," said one. "I'm not sure I could have given up something I liked."
It is hard to explain why I became observant in a Mid-western town where no
observant community existed. All I can say is that I felt an enormous inner
drive which had little to do with the practicality of living where I was.
Often, there was a lack of support for what I was doing. At times, there was
opposition.
What helped me through was the outreach I felt from the Orthodox community.
At first, I made contacts through the Internet and later, with the an observant group
known for their warmth. While accepting us where we were, they
encouraged further learning and observance. Then we had the good fortune to
join a wonderful congregation, which proved to be the perfect niche for us.
This journey towards observance took me 15 years. I thought that coming to
Brooklyn was the end of that journey but I find that the journey continues.
One final comment.
The man who spoke to my husband regarding his observance had one additional
comment. My husband told the man that he and his daughter had been good
friends during high school over 30 years ago. The man, an elderly Holocaust
survivor, looked thoughtfully at my husband. "Oh yes, Neil Weintrob, the
violinist. I remember now. Isn't it funny how I saw a man standing out of
respect for the Torah and I wanted to say how good I felt when I saw it. I
come over to that man and I find an old friend. G-d works in wondrous ways."
I had to agree with
Jewish World Review Dec. 28, 1998 / 9 Teves, 5759
Brooklyn Cousins
By Susan R. Weintrob
JWR contributor Susan R. Weintrob is the Principal of the Yeshiva of Manhattan Beach in
Brooklyn, NY.
12/04/98: A birthday in Brooklyn