Prologue

I mentioned last time that A LOT has been going on during my sabbatical from writing. One of those things is a reconnection and reaffiliation with my Jewish faith. Expect more writing to come on Jewish themes, but in the meantime, I wanted to post something I wrote about 15 years ago. It is an essay inspired by an experience at a Shabbat morning service and it was published in the quarterly magazine of the US Conservative Judaism movement. It is by far my most read piece since that magazine went out to about a quarter of a million homes. Since it is no longer available on the USCJ’s website, I wanted to repost here (and a few of you have asked me to do so over the years). Without further ado, then, the essay exactly as written, with a short epilogue:

The Holiness of Barbie

I have a confession. I sometimes feel as if I am faking it as a Jew.

Born into a Jewish family, I feel inferior to converted Jews. They know so much more about being Jewish than I do! Why didn’t I study more? Why don’t I study more now? Have I questioned enough? Am I just going through the motions and habits from childhood? These questions have been dogging me for the last three years. Then, one Shabbat morning a few months ago, a little girl and her Barbie doll taught me a lesson I’ll never forget about what it really means to be born and raised Jewish.

To understand my uncertainty, you need to understand my personal Jewish history. I was raised in a traditional Jewish home (somewhere between Conservative and Orthodox) and had a bat mitzvah at 13. Along with most of my classmates, I drifted slowly away from my formal Jewish upbringing when I went off to college. I never stopped identifying as Jewish but my observance of the traditions faded as I moved away from home and started my life as an independent adult. In another entirely unremarkable twist, I began drifting back toward religious observance in my mid-40s when I began to attend open high holiday services with the local Reconstructionist congregation. It accelerated when I broke up with my longtime Christian partner. I like to think that I suddenly felt free to explore my spirituality, but that’s not fair. The reality was that as I struck out on my own again, I needed a sense of community.

I rationalize my lack of Jewish knowledge by looking at chronology. Coming of age in a traditional shul as a girl in the late 1960s/early 1970s, I wasn’t given the same training as my male counterparts. At least, that’s what I tell myself. My bat mitzvah was a Friday night service and my role was limited to a few key prayers, a lot of responsive English reading, and chanting the haftarah. I remember the boys studying and studying for their bar mitzvahs. Their Shabbat morning event involved a lot more than just chanting the haftarah. They led every aspect of the service, including reading from the Torah. I remember that mixture of relief (that I didn’t have to learn so much) mixed with a bit of jealousy (that I didn’t get to learn so much). I have a distinct memory of one of my male friends whispering every word of the Amidah as he prayed next to me one Shabbat morning. I only pretended to read while I waited for everyone to start sitting down so I could sit, too. What I really wanted, though, was to know every word like he did.

My return to shul began when a colleague from work died and I attended the memorial service. Something just felt right about the place. A few years later, when the congregation moved to a beautiful new building on my side of the valley, I took that as a sign. “If Beth El was the right place for my friend, it just might be the right place for me.” I started going to Shabbat services at the beginning of the summer and paid up my membership in time to get a ticket for the high holidays. I soaked in the sense of community from day one. The feel of the sanctuary was overwhelming. I felt hugged and loved by the familiarity of the ritual of the service. It was probably a year before I could get through a service without crying at some point. Most of the time it was the Shema that got me. (It still does.) Often, it’s Etz Hayim, particularly when I’m up at the ark, standing so close to the Torah and surrounded by the congregation’s voice echoing in prayer.

I found, though, that it had been so long since I had prayed at Shabbat services that I had forgotten the flow of the service. As I began to attend services regularly, I realized that I never had known what the service really meant. Oh, the prayers were familiar. The tunes were pretty much the same. I remembered the basic sections of the service. But I didn’t understand it. When I was a kid, I didn’t really care, but as an adult, it didn’t feel right to just be there.

I began to question how I was able to identify so strongly as a Jew if I never lived in or kept a kosher home, never was shomer shabbos, and didn’t even know the prayers! How could I consider myself a real Jew when all I did was follow along, sing familiar tunes, and know when to stand up and when to sit down? I was embarrassed at my lack of scholarship and understanding; I felt like a fraud. Even now, do I mimic more than I understand? I began to read the commentary and translations; I began to think about the flow of the service; I began to understand what the prayers meant and why we said them. But as I learned more, my discomfort grew. Did I learn this as a child and just forget it? Or was I just never taught this?

Enter that little girl and her Barbie doll. I’ve been a member of the synagogue for almost three years now and I am a regular on Shabbat. Services were in the chapel that morning. Services were a little more crowded than usual as the winter weather was giving way to early spring and the prospect of getting up and out to services became more palatable. I was asked to carry the Torah that morning, my favorite honor. I can’t help but hug the Torah while I sing the Shema. I always walk slowly through the congregation, making sure everyone has the chance to approach the Torah, to honor and bless it. I had rounded the corner at the back of the chapel, carrying the Torah back to the ark, and was slowly running the gantlet down the center aisle. With the full house, the pathway quickly narrowed as people crowded into the aisle. The smiling faces closed in. I turned to the left, turned to the right. I waited as the outstretched hands, shielded by tallitot and prayer books, reached out to connect with the Torah.

About halfway down the aisle, I saw her. She was no more than three years old and had been coming to services ever since she was an infant. She stood slightly behind her father’s leg, one hand clutching his pants behind the knee, the other clutching Barbie. As her father stepped into the aisle to make room for others to reach the Torah, she stepped with him and was almost directly in front of me. There were people all around us, so many that it felt like it was just the two of us. I looked down at her from around the Torah’s mantle. She looked up at me, clear blue eyes through brown curls. She first looked back and forth between me and the Torah. We were surrounded by song as the cantor and congregation chanted. Then she looked up at her father, then at the others all leaning in around us before she caught my eyes again. They were all reaching to the Torah’s mantle. She wasn’t wearing a tallis. She wasn’t carrying a prayer book. So she reached up with her doll, touched Barbie to the Torah’s mantle, and then kissed Barbie’s head. Everyone smiled.

And right then, right at that very moment, as we laughed and my heart just flooded with that absolute joy I felt with the Torah in my arms and surrounded by this community. Right then, I understood the incredible blessings of my Jewish childhood. This little child understood something very simple: That beautiful object that woman is carrying, it is holy and special. I shouldn’t touch it directly. But I have to bless it. I’ll use Barbie. That was all she knew, yet that is all we ever need to know. The purity of holiness, the safety of community, the blessed nature of the Shabbat service. The scholarship will come later, just as it has for me. I look forward the day a decade from now when I will watch that little girl be called to the Torah as a bat mitzvah. I will follow her as she leads the service and listen as she reads from the Torah and chants the haftarah. But she learned what she really needed to know those Shabbat mornings, clinging to her father’s leg and blessing the Torah with Barbie.

I learned those lessons, too, even though I don’t remember them. They are within the tears that well up still when I close my eyes and recite the Shema. They are there when I walk into the shul on Shabbat, take a deep breath, and feel peace. What a gift, those lessons from my Jewish childhood! What a gift, the holiness of Barbie.

Epilogue

I did, indeed, attend this young girl’s Bat Mitzvah. I had long since moved to the Philly suburbs and the Rabbi reached out, asking if he could use the essay in his comments to her that day. I decided to drive up and attend. Imagine my surprise when the Rabbi read almost the entire essay to her as the majority of his remarks! I listened through tears as he read the essay exactly as I heard it in my head as I was writing—same emphasis, same intonation. I have never felt so heard nor so validated. I am still extremely proud of this piece of work. This “little girl” is now spending a gap year in Israel before she matriculates to college. Tempus fugit.