bounced as he spoke. Then he positioned himself squarely in front of the men. Soon the men started reciting the Hebrew prayers out loud and very fast, not at all together, sometimes breaking out into joyous deep-voiced song.
I knew enough of the Hebrew alphabet to know that reading it is phonetic. One can sound out the words without understanding anything. Still, I was surprised that so many of the men could participate so fluently. “Wow,” I whispered to Ana. “They are really going fast.”
“You think anyone understands what they’re saying?” Ana said.
“At that speed?” I said. “I wouldn’t even understand if it were in English.”
The male cacophony fell over us like a startling rain. We were not to mix our voices in prayer with the men, not to raise our voices. A few of the women read from their prayer books. The rest of us sat quietly and waited for the service to end.
I was becoming restless. There were two Hassidic women in the row in front of us. I knew they were Hassidic because they were wearing wigs in addition to their modest clothing. In those wigs it seemed almost as if they were in a play, in costumes filling the roles of being women. One was older, in a blonde nylon wig. The other had a sleepy thumb-sucking toddler glued to her lap. Both sat up with a self-conscious propriety that I took as elitist. They, too, whispered their prayers. Around us, whistling streams of air from more whispered prayers became audible in tiny moments between the men’s songs.
I put the prayer book down on the seat next to me and shifted in my chair, tugging at my skirt. I was bored, disconnected from the prayer service, and because of this disconnect the old sense of feeling myself an outsider loomed again. I got up. I told myself I wasn’t rejecting anything, that it was just as if I’d been browsing the booths at a fair and wanted to move on and see more. Ana was still enjoying the old melodies when I slipped out.
L ATER, AT DINNER , the men and women sat on opposite sides of the room. The tables were covered in white and laden with enormous trays of kugels and salads, dishes of eggplant, carrots, eggs, pickles, and thick hand-cut slices of challah. There was a head table across the front connecting the two sides where Rabbi Geller and others of his group were assembling into a line of black coats, beards, and black hats.
The image of Rabbi Geller and his friends was starting to make sense. Maybe it was the repetition, each of them the same, the message projected again and again. Outside of this room, the Vietnam War was grinding on. Every night there were men on television looking purposeful and serious in identical uniforms.
“Look at those guys at the front,” I said to Ana.
She rolled her eyes. “Fashion statement,” she said.
But now their Hassidic garb spelled out a statement of mission to me. They were God’s elite corps. “It’s not about fashion,” I said to Ana. “And it’s not a costume.”
“No?” she said.
“It’s a uniform,” I said. “They are soldiers for God.”
Ana’s eyes laughed.
But the self-assuredness that comes with internalizing clearrules, and the nobility of purpose that comes with a sense of mission, were just beginning to take form inside of me. Besides the uniforms’ clear message, the Hassidic rules were defined, even written down—so unlike what I had encountered up until now. And their rules seemed to promise an almost maternal Godly love. Sitting there at the table, I didn’t think this as much as feel it: Unlike with my mother, and unlike in school, where I didn’t know how to be what other girls called a “woman,” here maybe I could get the rules right. I was excited by the newness of it all, by the possibilities.
R ABBI G ELLER STOOD UP holding a silver goblet of wine and began to sing the Sabbath kiddush wine prayer. I recognized the tune, even though I knew it from my tone-deaf father, who remembered it from his Brooklyn childhood. When
I knew enough of the Hebrew alphabet to know that reading it is phonetic. One can sound out the words without understanding anything. Still, I was surprised that so many of the men could participate so fluently. “Wow,” I whispered to Ana. “They are really going fast.”
“You think anyone understands what they’re saying?” Ana said.
“At that speed?” I said. “I wouldn’t even understand if it were in English.”
The male cacophony fell over us like a startling rain. We were not to mix our voices in prayer with the men, not to raise our voices. A few of the women read from their prayer books. The rest of us sat quietly and waited for the service to end.
I was becoming restless. There were two Hassidic women in the row in front of us. I knew they were Hassidic because they were wearing wigs in addition to their modest clothing. In those wigs it seemed almost as if they were in a play, in costumes filling the roles of being women. One was older, in a blonde nylon wig. The other had a sleepy thumb-sucking toddler glued to her lap. Both sat up with a self-conscious propriety that I took as elitist. They, too, whispered their prayers. Around us, whistling streams of air from more whispered prayers became audible in tiny moments between the men’s songs.
I put the prayer book down on the seat next to me and shifted in my chair, tugging at my skirt. I was bored, disconnected from the prayer service, and because of this disconnect the old sense of feeling myself an outsider loomed again. I got up. I told myself I wasn’t rejecting anything, that it was just as if I’d been browsing the booths at a fair and wanted to move on and see more. Ana was still enjoying the old melodies when I slipped out.
L ATER, AT DINNER , the men and women sat on opposite sides of the room. The tables were covered in white and laden with enormous trays of kugels and salads, dishes of eggplant, carrots, eggs, pickles, and thick hand-cut slices of challah. There was a head table across the front connecting the two sides where Rabbi Geller and others of his group were assembling into a line of black coats, beards, and black hats.
The image of Rabbi Geller and his friends was starting to make sense. Maybe it was the repetition, each of them the same, the message projected again and again. Outside of this room, the Vietnam War was grinding on. Every night there were men on television looking purposeful and serious in identical uniforms.
“Look at those guys at the front,” I said to Ana.
She rolled her eyes. “Fashion statement,” she said.
But now their Hassidic garb spelled out a statement of mission to me. They were God’s elite corps. “It’s not about fashion,” I said to Ana. “And it’s not a costume.”
“No?” she said.
“It’s a uniform,” I said. “They are soldiers for God.”
Ana’s eyes laughed.
But the self-assuredness that comes with internalizing clearrules, and the nobility of purpose that comes with a sense of mission, were just beginning to take form inside of me. Besides the uniforms’ clear message, the Hassidic rules were defined, even written down—so unlike what I had encountered up until now. And their rules seemed to promise an almost maternal Godly love. Sitting there at the table, I didn’t think this as much as feel it: Unlike with my mother, and unlike in school, where I didn’t know how to be what other girls called a “woman,” here maybe I could get the rules right. I was excited by the newness of it all, by the possibilities.
R ABBI G ELLER STOOD UP holding a silver goblet of wine and began to sing the Sabbath kiddush wine prayer. I recognized the tune, even though I knew it from my tone-deaf father, who remembered it from his Brooklyn childhood. When
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