Pen-Elayne on the Web

Purimatriarchs

Jonny did a swell job this morning, but I was really taken aback - as I usually am when I set foot in a synagogue - by how many varying emotions tend to blaze through me at a gathering like this, a product of my upbringing and the decisions I've made and the people I love and the heritage I can neither shake nor wish to deny. It probably started when I walked into the shul's sanctuary and saw my grandparents' names on the yahrzeit (memorial) wall; I was named for my mom's dad, and Nyack is the closest I will ever come to an "ancestral spawning ground." But it also had a lot to do with my affinity for ritual, as I was writing about yesterday. As my aunt later noted, "You never forget it, it always comes back to you." Some of the melodies are slightly different than I remember, and it drives me crazy that these folks pronounce that "s" like it's a "t", but for most of the prayers I barely needed to glance at the siddur and Eitz Chaim Hi, probably my favorite piece of Jewish liturgical music, still sends chills up my spine (especially when the congregation harmonizes on it).

My comfort level at being among my extended family was increased by the service itself; the cantor is female and, although it's a Conservative shul rather than Reformed, the Amidah includes the Matriarchs. I couldn't help but feel that if I'd had this sense of inclusion when I was a kid, my path might have turned out quite differently. I notice these things more keenly during this time of year, what with celebrating International Women's Month and with Purim coming up - always my favorite holiday as a kid, not just because of its Halloween-like appeal to children but because it celebrates the courage of a female protagonist. (Although as I've gotten older I've also come to appreciate Vashti more, and view the tale as actually having two strong female protagonists.) The rabbi reminded the congregation that this year the Fast of Esther takes place this coming Monday, the deadline many people are talking about as when we go on Spring Break get drunk on green beer will probably invade Iraq. I might be tempted to observe this fast were it not for its meaning having been retroactively co-opted to become "the Fast observed by Israel on the day of their mobilization for war against the enemies." These days it's just too easy to ascribe Hamanistic tendencies to any country that We don't happen to like (and God forbid We ever admit those tendencies in ourselves!) as an excuse to claim God is on our side when we prepare to slaughter them like Israel did to the Amalekites. I prefer to think of Esther's fast as she must have considered it, a time of spiritual purification in preparation to save her people, not destroy another.