Hatam Soferet

Well, that was fun.

I sewed a paper plate and cup, and plastic cutlery, to a tablemat, and pinned it to a waistcoat. That is, I went as the Shulhan Arukh (the major law code whose title means Set Table).

I went to CSAIR in the evening - that's the local Conservative shul. I'd thought about going into the city, to Hadar's reading, but CSAIR's my community at the moment, and that won out, overall. There was a lot of noise, so it probably wasn't a very kosher reading for someone sitting at the back, but I was being one of the checkers, which means standing right next to the reader anyway, so I heard the whole thing. Some jolly good readers, two of whom are tiny wee things - one of them looks as though she's about ten years old, but she's presumably older than that; she was very good. Pizza bagels afterwards, yay.

Morning, got up at stupid o'clock to read at CSAIR's early reading. Only hardcore people get up for stupid o'clock readings, so this one was much more kosher. Also some jolly good readers. I like leyning, but I also like listening to leyning done well; it's like when people read foreign poetry, it just sounds nice. One doesn't hear it very often - too often people who can read well also read self-importantly. Competent but modest readers are rare gems. So anyway, there was one reader like that at the early reading, which was very much a treat.

Then zooming to the subway and downtown to Drisha's reading, since they're my community too. Also with one reader in particular who combines competence with modesty, exceedingly pleasant to listen to. And a couple of first-time readers, who are generally entirely precious, and all in all a very nice reading.

And I got to use my regel, yay, and we read from the megillah I wrote four years ago, and I read the bit about Esther writing. Esther's the only named woman in the Bible who writes, and when I wrote my first Torah I added Esther to my Hebrew name, feeling some sort of resonance with that. So it was particularly pleasing to read ve-tikhtov Esther.

Yummy food afterwards, and passing out fortune hamentaschen (i.e. fortune cookies, but with Yiddish proverbs and rabbinic aphorisms inside, and folded into the triangular Purim-cookie shape instead of the Chinese fortune-cookie shape), which were a smash hit, hurrah. Worth the fiddliness of making them for the fun of sharing them.

I went to hear R' Professor Jonathan Magonet talking about the new (UK) Reform siddur.What he said is pretty much what he's written on this site, so you can go and read it in his words and not my rendition of same.

Here are some of the things which impressed me.

( The layout. )( The )piloting in the community(  and the ) thoughtful self-assessment, and a ( striking and intelligent )willingness to see the community in its present state(  with examples, and finally, this point: )

He said that the existing siddur had a function of giving the movement a point of unification, as previously there hadn't been a proper Reform Movement Siddur. Now the movement has matured and solidified somewhat, the unification can be taken more or less for granted, and the diversity can be accommodated, so the new siddur is to function less as a means of expressing unification and more as a tool which everyone can use, but which can be used in many different ways.

I often get asked "Do you think women should wear tefillin?"

Let's contextualise. Do I think all women should wear tefillin? No. For starters, I certainly don't think non-Jewish women should be required to wear tefillin.

All Jewish women? No. Tefillin are traditionally a men's thing; there are plenty of communities where gender roles are still rigidly defined and those communities are quite happy that way. Expecting these women to wear tefillin would be an alien cultural imposition. It would be like saying that Europeans should observe Thanksgiving - absolutely, ridiculously, acontextual.

All Jewish women in communities where gender roles are not so rigidly defined? Likewise no. There are plenty of egalitarian communities where the language of "should" is inappropriate. Any community which does not define itself as bound by the halakhic system will view the wearing of tefillin as optional. Expecting women or men in these communities to wear tefillin is akin to saying that Americans should celebrate Hallowe'en - clearly an inappropriate expectation since Hallowe'en is optional. It's not your place or mine to pass comment on whether someone should dress up and pass out candy, and likewise it's not our place to comment on whether someone who doesn't see himself as bound by commandments should be observing this particular aspect of ritual commandment. Whether he does or whether he doesn't, his choice is legitimate and deserves respect.

In communities which are professedly egalitarian and bound by halakha? Yes, I think women in these communities should be expected to wear tefillin.

The present practice of having egalitarian prayer but only expecting men to wear tefillin is shameful. The message is either that tefillin do not matter, which in a professedly halakhic community is resoundingly inappropriate, or that egalitarianism has different requirements for men and for women, which devalues egalitarianism.

So yes, in communities which accept halakha - including as it does the commandment to wear tefillin - as binding, and which aspire to accord equal rights and responsibilities to men and to women, I think that women should wear tefillin. The alternative is an egalitarianism which not only devalues egalitarianism but devalues Judaism, by demonstrating that egalitarianism is not much more than a feeble sop to women's feelings, and a sop, at that, obtained by discarding ritual structure.

By tacitly exempting women from wearing tefillin, these communities admit that the women do not really have the same communal status as men, since all rights come with attendant responsibilities, and in any community responsibility is what is significant in the long term. If we exempt women but wish everyone to be equal, everyone must be exempt, which says that tefillin - and by extension all commandments, which form the underlying structure of this community's Judaism - can be dispensed with. Egalitarianism is at best a fundamental development which elevates women to the same societal plane as men. This egalitarianism produces only the illusion of elevation, or levels the planes by razing the structure.

I happen to fall in the segment of the Jewish world which wants to retain halakhic structure, but wishes to see men and women as comparable elements of that structure, which is to say having comparable responsibilities and rights. Whom we expect to wear tefillin is illustrative of how we are choosing to value the one against the other. If we expect women to wear tefillin, and apply a similar attitude to other aspects of both egalitarianism and halakha, we will be further towards creating a strong halakhic structure through which both men and women may move freely. This is the context in which I think women should wear tefillin.

Poor, poor Mussaf.

I won't describe what they did to the poor reader's repetition, but it's akin to inviting someone for tea and pouring scalding water into their crotch, bashing them over the head with the cake stand, poking a teaspoon into their eye, and then asking them if they want milk or lemon in their tea.

Following the departure of our cantor, I'm now the person who's responsible for making sure all the Torahs in our shul are rolled to the right places at the right times. This morning, rolling for tomorrow's readings, I found that two of the Torahs had broken seams right in the middle of the readings. So, being the resourceful soferet that I am, I whipped out my Torah thread and sewed them up. How good is that? :)

I'm also learning a bit of the reading for the second day. There's a special tune for the High Holy days, which I learned last year teaching my student Sarah (may-she-rest-in-peace). It is much more ponderous and almost-mournful than the regular tune, and it's very odd: no matter how high in my range I place it, the heavy nature of the melody is giving me a headache. This fits the solemn nature of the day.

Relatedly, insofar as the season's theme is healing and repentance, cleaning is proving cathartic, and I think it delightfully symbolic that my first acquisition as a single woman should be a stepladder.

At this time of year, one is also supposed to attempt to mend breeches breaches with one's fellows. I expect I have some breaches I ought to be working on, but honestly right now I'm having enough trouble stabilising all my internal breaches; in order to hold together, most of the available energy for repentance and forgiveness is directed within. I hope that if anyone has any burning issues with me, they'll compromise enough to let me know about it, because this is the time for cooling issues but this year I haven't much energy over for identifying them.

Yes, a soferet is like a swordfish.

If I work on a Torah for someone, it's as if I cooked swordfish in their kitchen. They can no longer share resources with Orthodox or non-egalitarian Conservative groups. If I cook swordfish* and I'm hosting Orthodox guests, it is an appalling desecration of trust not to tell them about it. If I repair a Torah and then let Orthodox congregations use it, it is likewise an appalling desecration of trust. If we want respect, as Jews or as human beings, we have to give respect, and part of that is accepting that other Jews' rule systems are valid despite being different from ours.

Before I work with any client, I make sure they're aware of this. People must know that if they hire me to work on their Torahs, it's like making swordfish in their kitchen. If they want to hold open the option of sharing their food, or their Torahs, with people who are more traditional, they must not cook swordfish and they must not employ me to work on their Torahs.

All non-traditional scribes have this responsibility. We MUST make sure our clients know what they're getting into. That their Torahs will be considered pasul by the traditional end of the Jewish spectrum, and that giving those people such a Torah to use for Torah reading is a terrible, terrible thing to do, just as it's a terrible thing to sneak pork to Jews who don't eat pork. Our clients may choose to support us and so forfeit sharing resources with those who don't agree, just like they do with their kitchens, but we must ensure that they are making an informed decision.

In my experience, even really learned people don't necessarily know that a soferet is like a swordfish. We cannot ever assume that our clients have already made their decision just because they are talking to us, even if they are learned. We must not ever assume it. We must be explicit, each and every time. I am like unto a swordfish, said the soferet.

Rabbi Yishmael said to Rabbi Meir that as a sofer he had the potential to destroy the entire world. We have the potential to destroy trust, and the responsibility not to. In this, a soferet is considerably more dangerous than a swordfish.

* Not that I do cook swordfish. But if I did.

Rabbi Avi Weiss is a man who loves Jews. I mean he really, really loves Jews. He is TEH JEW LOVE MAN, in fact.

This past Friday night, R' Weiss led davening,* and during the part where the congregation recites together "You shall love the Lord your GOD with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might,"** he scooped up a child who had wandered up onto the bima,*** and stood there leading davening with one hand and cuddling this random child with the other. Cos R' Weiss loves Jews. I think that is what it is for him to love God.

And you'd think that would be horribly cheesy, wouldn't you? For the prayer leader to cuddle a small child whilst leading this prayer about love? But it isn't when it's R' Weiss. That is one of the things which makes him special.



* services. At the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, his home patch.
** in Hebrew, though.
*** pulpit, more or less

I made it through Yom Kippur without fainting, throwing up, or falling over!!!

I think the consumption of a large bag of crisps (salt content) and a lot of water, and weaning off caffeine beforehand helped.

We davened at Tehillah, in Boston, which was very nice on the whole. Yom Kippur baffles me somewhat; the concept of sins between man and God is a complicated one if you have problems with the idea that God keeps score. It really seems awfully petty that God would keep score. No good solution just now, I'm afraid. Other fish to fry. You should see the results here soonish :)

And in other news, on Wednesday I read the Song of the Sea,* and it was super-fun. You know how sometimes you're doing something performancy, and you just have the feeling it's going well? Like that. I'd forgotten that everyone stands for that bit, so when I paused just prior to launching into the grand parts, I saw everyone getting to their feet, and sort of thought 'gosh, look...this had better be good hadn't it...'

( TMI )

* which, unlike for instance the Ten Commandments, doesn't play a huge part in Christian-based cultural traditions, so if you were wondering - we take it a bit more seriously. F'r instance, we stand up when it's read, like we do for the Ten Biggies.

We got to the Shabbat Destination six minutes before sunset. Not by plan; we calculated a generous journey time, added fifteen minutes just in case, and still managed to get onto the slowest 7 train ever. So Will fought off the congregants so that he could daven mincha,* and I raced around the rabbi's private room getting the food onto the hotplate, the timers onto the lights, davening mincha and lighting candles. With time to spare, I may add.

They do have a wonderful stock of trashy novels there. Shabbat at the self-help is the time I treat myself to rubbishy murder mysteries, and now the clock's changed, there's time for a good long nap AND a couple of lurid thrillers. So that was nice.



* He couldn't stay in the corridor to daven, because there was a congregant out there who wanted him to say a prayer for her daughter, and you can't daven mincha while someone's telling you all about their children.