It's clearly been too long since I've written about tefillin. There are really only so many (okay plenty) opportunities for me to reference bondage in seminary.
Perjury, mysandry ad moon-worship
“one who says Shema without Tefillin
is like one who has given false testimony” BT
Brachot 14b
Today I did just that. Despite having
checked the Halakha both in my gibberish list G-d Bondage and also with some
more flushed out sources. You DO wrap tefillin on Rosh Chodesh but in
some traditions, you take it off for Hallel. Unfortunately for me, I
am a punctual person living in a place where times are lax. I let the
fact that no one else had started wrapping, while knowing full well
that most of the tefilliners weren't there yet, talk me out of
fulfilling my mitzvah.
What IS a holiday?
The reason we might not wrap tefillin
during Hallel is because its like a holiday....well sort of. For Rosh
Chodesh, it could be more of a holiday because obviously, I'd like to
highlight the moon-worshipping parts of my religion. The holiday justification for my internal failure worked for
like five minutes. The problem was that the things I find important
and moving about the New Moon are the same for biting into my flesh
with leather....for G-d. They're primal, illogical...euphemistic.
Since I'm already perjuring myself, I
will formally waive the 5th Amendment rights of my native
country, much as I wave my sense to many rights. See thanks to my
tradition, joining it late in the game, and my vagina, I don't feel
like I can just experiment with things like tefillin. What if I make
a mistake? What if I am not ready when everyone else starts taking
off their tefillin? As an observer, the men in my program do not seem
to share these qualms. I see poorly wrapped G-d bondage every week.
See, my gender makes my life harder. If
I display any religiosity, especially in the Holy Land, I must be
ready for a battle. I have to worry about my clothing, what street I
am on. Meanwhile if a male expresses religiosity, more doors
literally open up. They get empowered while I get torn down.
And just when I thought I was getting a
break, we were talking about moon festivals and how their a lady
thing: what with the bleeding and having nothing else. So naturally
when women want to have one nugget of empowerment, dudes—white cys
dudes from socio-economically safe backgrounds—want in. Why can't
there be men moon things? Many queerer folks laughed when they asked.
And at the first sign of derision, they became offended. I lost class
time I wanted to use to learn liturgy and Halaka, in order to explain
them why their mysandry was funny. Because it's not that they can't
have their own space but because the second they saw that women had
something, they wanted that too.
It's like it all intersects.
It's been another month since my false
testimony. In that month a Rabbi politely offered some tefillin tips
to many in the congregation, as he noticed some errors. Sexism
continues, but prayer halts. Ironically, I'm working on some stuff
about how the man-centric, patriarchal language of the long passed
High Holy days is important and for class, I've stopped praying for
the moment. Everything is chaos and darkness at this time. But the
light is coming.
