Negative Space

Negative Space

I had been entertaining vague notions of 'researching' Judaism while I was in Europe and now that I am here, in Galicia, for a shortened mere month more, I have dove headfirst into as much Judaism as I can find. I currently have stake in all of the library books about Jews in Spain, which is to say two. I am excited to find out things. I have also been reading more bible than normal, which is to say more than the parsha. Now I am reading it just for fun. Trying to get my kicks in. I might be addicted to Judaism.

It strikes me as odd, that this summer (graduating plus moving to a warmer clime means that summer has not ended), I have crossed the Atlantic Ocean twice. One trip was to a hardworking Jew-filled place and the other, well, they take a nap in the middle of the day and I am the first Jew they have ever met. EVER MET.

So the librarian knows what things I am into because she sees what I read—the power of the library and the books it holds. Tonight she was explaining to me that the library closes early because of the book club. Then her eyes light up. They are about to discuss Adress Unknown; it has an American Jew in it. I was invited to stay and practice my Spanish. She is a sweetheart, really.

They get to discussing, already the older man looks like he dislikes me because I do not speak the regional dialect, gallego/Galician, and the group feels compelled to include me by speaking Spanish. I also have read the book and their accents are thick. For a while it sounded like he was defending Hitler because Germany was poor and the Jews had all the money. He was not justifying genocide but simply explaining the rational connection of Hitler's success and it is true that the poverty of post WWI Germany was a huge contributing factor to the rise of Hitler's Third Reich. Then the woman next to me nodded in agreement about how the Jews always have money. [I would have some money, to eat and pay rent if this stupid government would pay me like they promised...]

They continued to discuss gender roles and WWII and Hitler and neo-Nazism and some of the guilt and vengeance roles in the book which I now have a copy of. The mother, so defined because she brought her daughter with her, talked about how horrific and unbelievable it was that young Spanish men walk around with swastika armbands and how could people not have learned. Horrific both at hate and at the fact that those misinformed young White Supremacists, were not in fact, Aryan in any way.

Then they each went around and said if they liked the book. Then we had a rousing session of “Ask the Jew”. My verbal skills are way below my reading and writing skills in Spanish and that was with my Native English Speaking (NES) teachers. The first question: “How do Jews justify the treatment of Palestinians in Israel?” Really? What does this have to do with your book, sir. And you can guess which sir it is too. The old guy, who seemed pained to have to ask me this in Spanish. I explained that some Jews justify it based on a need to have someplace after every other place in the world has beaten us to pulp...including Spain, several times. I may taken a little tangent to explain the Napoleonic-era change in citizenship status because it was central to the desire for a Jewish nation but he did not understand that and thought I was evading his question.

Eventually I clarified that some Jews think we should kill all the Palestinians and some Jews think we should give up Israel entirely and that Palestinians of the era that really began all this territorial madness included the Jews. When the biblical forefathers kill all the Canaanites off, that's genocide for conquest (which I think he justified in the name of the Spanish South American colonies), when the British abandon the desert and just drop the keys and the guns where they lie...that's Israel. Yes, some conquest happened and yes, sometimes it seems like the IDF are overzealous to a parallelism of early Third Reich....or of Spain from the year 100 common era until 1492 with the exception of about three hundred years of Muslim rule in the middle.

After the new book was passed around and we were leaving, the old guy explained to me that he was not attacking me or my people but that apparently the Spanish press is VERY biased and in the opposite manner of the US media. All he ever sees is Israelis taking land and killing innocent Palestinians. I explained that I have to put Israel in the context of me and how I justify it because I am a Jew. If you ask me what Jews think about Israel, you ask me what I think about Israel.

So as I search out Judaism, partly to try and compensate for the lack of it in my life and partly because I am an addict, I find myself like the painter, more intrigued with the negative space than the positive space. Spain has produced a few of the finest Jewish poets and philosophers and preserved Judaism when the Ashkenazim were bumbling idiots trapped in antiquated Middle Age Europe. Much like the Jews have been different throughout history so has Spain. Not quite part of Europe but not part of Africa. Spain was too fascist for WWII. Franco would have had to give up siesta to join the Third Reich and Spain did not have Jews anyway.

I watched 12 Galician (would I dare to call them Spaniards?) adults argue over Americans and Jews and Nazism. And the only one of those they have any contact with on any frequency is America and that remains the thing they discussed the least! To me, their discussion sounded so distant and theoretical especially when for me, these things are so close and so real. It also strikes me that most of this conversation would have happened anyway, regardless of my presence. This distance is why that mother has seen the jovenes with the Nazi regalia. She asked me why I would ever consider being a rabbi (after we got over the whole Reform, yes I am a woman, yes there are girl rabbis debacle). I told her I was enamored with the way that Jews argue, which looks exactly like the discussion I saw tonight: concomitant voices, tables being pounded, pages being quoted, general disagreement.

This place and its old, stone walls are covered in graffiti. I have seen swastikas, many of which had half-hearted NO circles through them, to complement a couple of stars of David with much more stark NO circles through them. I asked the principle of my school the first day and she assured me that they have no antisemitism nor neo-Nazism here. Some of the graffiti in question is on the school.

I would not say that what is happening here is antisemitism; the old guy seemed very concerned with our treatment of our Semitic, Palestinian brothers. I think what is happening here is worse and that is the distance and ignorance which leads to much worse things than a few misinformed young men who will realize someday that they are not white enough to dress that way and do not really like Germany and are completely indifferent to Jews.

I am extremely glad I decided to stay there and let them gauntlet me. Now they HAVE met a Jew. My Spanish was not great nor local but I was polite and moderately informative. This is what Judaism needs. To be out in the world (Derekh ha-eretz), because the Holocaust did not happen because of the Jews or whether or not they had money but because no one knew the Jews as people sharing human life with them.

Inclusive Language

I continue on my series of lonely Shabbatot and as I pray, I wonder whether or not I should switch the language from “we” to “I”. While my Hebrew skillz are not quite up to this challenge yet, I am fortunate to be a Reform Jew and my English skills for such prayers as I wish are up to task. As I try this from time to time, I often hit the stumbling block of 'Israel'. Where I do wish these things for “all your people Israel"
"My promise, my vow even, to sing every song I knew and read all the extra readings that I can, has been broken, much like my soul broke a little when I tried to sing Hinei Ma Tov. It IS good when brothers and sisters gather...I also avoid any extra readings with community basis or familial, Jewish joy.

It is not as if I live in a shtetl. I certainly don't go to shul every week, nor even every week that it is offered. Sometimes I have other things to do. But even if I spend the day with my gentile friends watching zombie movies or something, it feels more Jewish. As the result of my epic derekh ha-eretz, most of my friends express themselves almost as righteous gentiles in my life. They have their own Judaism. For many of them this is limited to an increase in use of the word “schlep” and the vague sensation that they had an awesome time at Purim, but that remains a connection between my life, my heart, and Judaism. Here, when I say “rabina” they think I don't speak Spanish. I never thought I would crave the cultural diversity of Marquette, or even Mayville. Aside from the two black kids (I'm pretty sure they're brothers) and the one second grader who might be Asian, everyone here is pretty much the same. I've never been somewhere so homogenous. And as I try to bury my various forms of loneliness in study and research, I loose the world I'm supposed to engage in. What good is study if it only stews within my mind?

I'm going to continue to skip the passages centered around how good moments of togetherness are and quickly move on after skipping Hinei Ma Tov in order to avoid tainting Shabbos with sadness. However, the royal 'we' shall return to my prayers because Israel is a we, even if I can only feel the lonely me. That's the beauty of Judaism.

Although I was sad when I realized that Jerusalem is not the magnet I though it was. It is really exciting to turn in a different direction to pray; I now turn South-East. And I remember how magical it felt to be in Jerusalem and know that everyone who was praying was facing toward where I was. Fuckin' time zones ruined everything. It's still a magical shared point, but I now realized that even if I get my daven on two hours earlier AT sunset like a good Jew, I'm only sharing that moment with like half of observant Jewry instead of all of it. Sure, maybe someone is doing their morning prayers while I'm Kabbalat Shabbating, but it's like when Santa Clause became a metaphor for people sucking less mid-winter. Magical, yeah, but still not a guy flying around the world with real magic, spreading joy. Although, I once theorized as a wee-lass that time zones would help him make the trip in one night.

I guess the point of this religious ramble was that the we language is central to Judaism, not to remind me that I'm in the least-Jewish, non-Arab nation in the world, but to remind me that because I am a Jew, no matter how alone I am, I am never alone. It does not really make me feel better, but maybe I'll stop trying to fuck with the liturgy for a bit.

Stamps

I'm going to write something a little happier while I'm not manically homesick—which means that I need to hurry before it comes back!

Friday, at the Comisaría de Policía, while they were calling my repatriation place, I had brief moments when I was alone in the office. I had become intrigued with the magical stamp—because she had stamped my paper...did that mean she'd accepted it, despite my misforms and my lack of fotocopias and my general sketchiness? All of this for a stamp! So, when no one was looking I stamped some of my random scrap papers for fun. Take that system.

Then today, after a gloom and some agoraphobic gloom, I eventually left. I decided to walk around like I do. I can't express the hills with my shitty pictures and junk but I seriously climbed up some streets today. These folks trust their brakes (frenos....is actually a word I just have in my Spanish vocab). I managed to get high enough to find the place where there are trees and no houses. Some of the roads, twisty and narrow, are actually driveways. I never know if I'm trespassing. So I walked out da woods and asked a girl I bumped into what this was—was it a park? “es un monte”. Well, yes, dear, I did realize that I had climbed quite a ways (so high my ears popped a little). But yes, it's land that I'm allowed to walk in. On the way home I found an unopened pack of peanuts...but they felt squishy so I left 'em. And what I thought was an old pipe..but wait!

It's a stamp. Once I clean the bitch up and have ink...I can put the letter “E” on all kinds of stuff.

Later, I was having hot cocoa at a cafetería and some man started talking to me. I'm not sure if he was speaking Gallego...I don't think he was. He tried to talk to me in French a lot. I spoke to him in Spanish. He spoke to me in what I believe was a combination of French and Portugués and Spanish, which just sounded like Gallego but wasn't. He was very nice, I tried to neither reject nor encourage him. I rejected his offers of coffee and pastry but continued to talk to him. He's a caretaker who's lived in Canada. And something about the rain.

And the cable here is not good. Because of the wind, the reception is shittier than the sound quality on my videos. But I realized I can watch my favorite Spanish show online. It's called 21 días. It's like 30 days, but with a pretty girl who speaks Spanish. It's pretty much the only show I've really watched. I watched a bunch of American shows, EXCELLENTLY dubbed in Spanish. And then just flat our our shit online. Thanks to a forum, I've found a website that doesn't block be for being in a foreign region. I even tried explaining to Todou that I'm closer to China. Cockblocked.

Stamps, creeps and TV. That's about it.

Just an Update

Just an Update

Firstly, I've been manically homesick. I could come home at any moment. I miss everyone and everything, not just Marquette and it's beauty and it's liberal island-ocity of the UP. I also just miss the United States in general. Some of this is just culture shock, but some of it is just me growing. I used to love a theoretical USA in my head, then it didn't live up to my expectations, but now is synthesis and acceptance; I just wish it hadn't happened right before I decided to move away. And I keep having dreams where I come home.

Today was okay though, I guess. Despite my potential to leave at any moment, I've been continuing with my paperwork and junk here as if I were staying. And yesterday, as many of you have heard, was a DISASTER. I went to submit my paperwork for my foreigner social security type number. I had even more forms with me than Xunta (regional government) had told us to bring. But they'd given us the wrong application and some shitty paperwork. The woman yelled at me and RIPPED UP my application. Aside from the fact that I was applying for the wrong thing, our “repatración” insurance did not have our names on it. This says that someone will send our bodies back if we die here. My principal called Xunta for me after the morning of fail. I received an e-mail saying that today, today things would be different. I was promised that the paperwork would be accepted without my name on it and that someone would be there who spoke English. Just to help us in the program. WHAT LIES!

There was no English this morning. After waiting for like 2.5 hours, it was my turn to go into the office. I hadn't had time to make all the copies, because I didn't think I was going back today. Xunta had called, but our paperwork still wasn't good. I explained that they'd bought a group policy and that I was told all of these lies. It was a different woman today and a man. He spent like 30 minutes on the phone with the Sending My Corpse Back company....I'm pretty sure they still shouldn't have accepted my paperwork. It was sketch, but I won't give my number back. So now I have a number. On the Thursday coming, I go to a bank, I give them 26 euro. The bank will pay the police for me and my paperwork. Then I e-mail all of this shit to Xunta and hopefully they pay me.

Despite all of this..and partially because a teacher picked me up off the street in Vigo...I got back in time to teach my last hour of class. It was...I believe, 5^th graders. I did a small group. We described ourselves and each other. Tall, short, old, young, long straight hair, etc. It was fun. Hopefully the little bastards learned something. Well something in addition to the fact that we lied to them about my Spanish. I don't think they buy the fact that I learned Spanish since Monday.

Also, the principle has started looking for apartments for me in Chapela. Staying or going, it would be cheaper to get an apartment. Then I can afford to fly home someday.

Your People Would Be My People En El Subjuntivo

Your People Would Be My People En El Subjuntivo

Aside from the history of Spain emotionally destroying any trust Am Yisroel could have for a country, it's just not a good place to be a Jew. Judaism is a communal religion and I am fairly certain that I'm the only Jew for maybe three or four-hundred miles (which will remain an unspecified amount of kilometers). There's a (1) guy in A Coruña who is jewing up there. There are also Jews in Madrid and a few other cities. There's a whole network of orthodox Jews in Spain. Anyway, today was the first day I ate real foodz at a non-vegetarian restaurant. I've been cafeteria-ing and buying my own food, but today I couldn't find a market, open or closed. After explaining that I both don't eat ''carne'' and that I am a vegetarian. I still had to tell the server twice that I really wouldn't like ham. The tuna felt like the devil after reading my National Geographic (which is slightly different than the Spanish version: but theirs came with extra booklets about the universe...), but she wouldn't let me away without protein and she shouldn't've because all the hiking and carrying I did today burned up muscles I don't have, let alone feed appropriately.

Yesterday was my first Shabbat in what will be a series of lonely Shabbatot. I did every song and prayer and reading I've ever done to combat the [irrational] fear that I'm going to forget how to daven while I'm here. The V'ahavta struck some cords.

You shall love Adonai your God with all your heart,

with all your soul, and with all your might.

Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day.

Impress them upon your children.

Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away,

when you lie down and when you get up.

Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead;

inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Thus you shall remember to observe all My commandments

and to be holy to your God.

I am Adonai, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God:

I am Adonai your God. Mishkan T'filah for Travelers, A Reform Siddur. CCAR. NYC, NY. 2009

One of my love affairs with Mishkan T'filah is the fluffy interpretations on the left side. This one is closer than some, based on the words in addition to the ideas. Some of the spins are : “Love your God...with every conscious act....Teach them [the words I commanded] to your children, talk about them at work: whether you are tired or you are rested...Keep them at the forefront of your vision. Do not leave them at the doorway of your house,...”.

I don't remember which phrase exactly triggered me, but I was feeling like I was moving backwards. I did not bring my mezuzah when I moved to a country that my people swore never to return to. For a potential, future, rabbinical student candidate---well, it felt counterproductive.

HOW DARE I DISRESPECT JUDAISM SO?

I've been maintaining the flexibility and durability and pluralism of Judaism for years. I converted in a shack for G-d's sake! Did I leave Judaism in Michigan? Sitting there, tearing and waving me goodbye? NO. (My conception of) Orthodoxy keeps making a mistake. Yes, I think that sometimes doing the actions will bring the intentions and that we should continue the tradition of crazy, possibly pointless, Jewish crap. However, let us not forget which way the goal is. I have no mezuzot, no tefillin, nor idea about what I'm looking for when I 'check/inspect' my tzit-tzit on my tallis. The knots continue to be there...

I love G-d with all my soul, heart and mind. And I am capable, maybe even more so, of awareness of G-d and Judaism and Mitzvot: even without a box falling off my head. It might just be me, but leather is usually more of a distraction, but I do love G-d. So, I'm Jewish and Judaism is Jewish l'olam vaed: when I'm at TBS or alone, when I'm in Israel or even in Spain. When I have a mezuzah and when I don't even have a doorway. I did bring my proof of conversion, a piece of paper in my bag, as a symbol of a commitment that not even an ocean can brake.