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Sight and Sound
Shabbat services last night put a lump in my throat that made it hard to sing, but in a welcome way. Pat got there at 5:30 pm to ensure good seats for us. The sanctuary became packed, the way our new friends told us India would feel; it was practically impossible not to bump against the people next to us during prayer.
I'm reminded of one of my Indian friend's reactions when she came to services with us during a U.S. business trip more than a year ago: "It seemed like the Shakers, the way I saw people swaying during prayer," and, "There was nothing in the liturgy that I didn't agree with." She's among the two percent of India's Christians -- she's Catholic.
It's so automatic to shuckel (sway slightly forward and back) while davening (praying) that I don't even notice I'm doing it until it's pointed out. It is how I was taught to pray, by example, during my eight-year, Modern Orthodox, Jewish day-school education.
And explicitly, whether boys or girls, we were taught always to stand with our feet together, to show modesty and ultimate respect to God while in prayer...and always to look at the Hebrew text while praying, rather than singing from memory; our rabbis/teachers did not want us to give the appearance of showing off our knowledge of the lengthy liturgy, or to become detached from it by singing with the prayerbook shut and cavalierly held in one hand.
These practices are tacit knowledge for me at this point. It takes a visitor to the congregation to remind me that they are not native to everyone.
Circa 1950
Driving home from shul (synagogue) last night -- obviously, I have come to pick and choose what matters to me ritually, since driving on Shabbat is strictly forbidden by Orthodox Judaism, and my family and I, growing up, never were Orthodox, but that's another story -- I phoned my mother (also asur/forbidden).
During the conversation, my mom told me that when she studied in Israel in 1950, there was a Jewish Theological Seminary student from Karachi; "Esther was 10 or 15 years older than the rest of us."
"And she wasn't married?"
"No."
"Straight?"
"I don't know."
"No, I was just asking Pat if I needed to go straight, to pick up her car on Park Street [since she took the bus into NYC to meet me at services, where I had come to from Armonk with another car]...but from what I've read, that *is* pretty unusual, for an Indian woman in her 30s or early 40s not to be married."
"Maybe she was a lesbian. I'm not sure. After classes were done, she took us all over Israel, and we stayed with her students. It was wonderful."
The idea of Esther captured my imagination as we drove up Alexander to Park Street in Montclair.
What would it mean, in 1950, to be a fervently Jewish, Pakistani lesbian, studying in the United States and Israel under the auspices of the world's preeminent Jewish seminary?
If her family were wealthy enough to sponsor her studies abroad, they must have been wealthy enough to provide a dowry for her....Or was she randomly ascetic?
Or was she a lesbian, sublimating her desires and channeling her passion into her other key identity? Or am I projecting, and she used her education simply to avoid an arranged marriage? After all, "Pru u'rivu" ("Be fruitful and multiply") is commanded only of Jewish men, since historically, only men had the power to marry women, and since women could not choose their spouses similarly, there could not be such an obligation required of us.
How did the rest of Esther's life go? Did she return to Karachi?
Pat and I determined that in terms of our lesbian identity, by going to India, we could feel sometimes as though we are living in the United States in 1950, since lesbianism here was mostly underground and deeply taboo then. Several friends have told me that while of course homsexuality is part of the human condition universally, India at large doesn't yet have the words for it.
Self-respect, Not Disrespect for Others
Even as I write all of this, I am so conscious of not wanting to offend any member of Indian society, who might chance on this blog. I am also conscious of the personal sacrifice that Pat and I are making, willingly, to learn about another culture. In order to be respectful of our host culture's norms, we have chosen to identify ourselves as just friends beyond the walls of IBM, where we are welcome by IBM's global policies of inclusion.
At services last night, a friend mentioned that she had been at a political fundraiser earlier in the week, where Ann Bannon was among the guests. Our friend enjoyed imagining an Ann Bannon novel set in India!
Fortunately, I met some extraordinary lesbian women and transmen during my prior business trip to India in 2005. A greater IBM colleague introduced us electronically, and we met twice for dinner. Meeting them made me feel even more at home among people with whom I already felt an affinity.
After Pat and I return from visiting my mother and getting our hair cut -- also asur on Shabbat -- I will write Part II, and writing is also asurtoday....Whether getting our hair cut, or writing or being a couple, we mean no disrespect to others, but rather, feel privileged to be able to respect and act on our own choices. It is a precious freedom that we do not take for granted....
For which freedoms are you grateful today?
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