Friday night, and I had two more thank-you-for-this-ridiculous-peek-into-the-inner-recesses-of-Orthodox-Judaism moments.
The first, imagine Fenway Park, packed with streimel-laden payas-swinging Chasidic men, all looking down onto the infield, where the dignitary Chasids are arranged on the basepaths, watching the Chief Rebbe eating his Sabbath meal on the pitcher's mound.
This is more or less what I saw after dinner this past Shabbas. I walked with my friend and spritual mentor/TORmentor Yerachmiel back through the city, looking for tisches, which are, from what I gather, big Jewish sing-a-longs with beer and brachas (blessings) and desserts. I'd been to one smalltime tisch already, which was very fun, but rumor has it that the ultra-Orthodox experience is quite a bit more intense.
So Yerachmiel and I walk into the Belz, which is this gigantic diamond money synagogue perched atop a hill in North Jerusalem that looks like the Beit-HaMikdash, Solomon's epic temple of old. It is a site to behold. The sanctuary is only open for a minute on Shabbas eve, so its like a huge secret what it looks like on the inside, but I've heard its unbelievable. Anyways we walk down to a smaller but still huge chapel, where we find 400 hundred odd Chasids standing in grandstands 20 feet high, packed in tight and staring down from all sides on a long table with more men watching, murmuring, sleeping, as the Chief Rebbe at the head of the table munches on his Sabbath meal. A few lackies are on hand to announce the proceedings and shush the audience. Eventually there are a couple songs, and the group is remarkably in tune, united, and such a youthful voice. I have pushed my way through to the top of one riser and am standing there, totally out of place, a buoy in a sea of black hats the size I had never witnessed before.
Number two: We continue on our slow meander towards home, and come upon a Reform-looking shul in Meah She'arim (Reform shul in Meah She'arim is like the ultimate paradox, mind you). After finding our way through the maze of hallways to the basement, where the sound of singing is coming from, we enter into an unlit cavern of an underground cafeteria, again with hundreds of Chasidic men, young and old, sitting at the tables, rocking back and forth as is their custom, and singing, or rather moaning, a wordless, seemingly improvisational song, in unison. The melody is not really a melody. The notes slide up and down in half-steps, in eery dissonance. I take a seat and join in for a bit before attempting to meditate in the fashion I was taught by my friend, with marginal success. This place is less like a baseball game and more like a cult ceremony. Kind of like a ritual from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
I shouldn't judge; I'm sure the participants around me knew what they were doing, and felt closer to God in doing it. But it was a very different experience from the framework and viewing point I was coming from.
This is perhaps the biggest problem I am having here. Being at the yeshiva makes me think it impossible to reconcile Western society with Orthodox Judaism. I can't be happy at the Yeshiva as a Westerner. I have to step into the religion fully in order to be happy. But once I step into the new Orthodox framework, it seems like I can't go back. The door is locked behind me. So what I want to do is view the two societies objectively. But that's impossible. I can't view Orthodox Judaism without using my subjective liberalism as a guide.
This is what I mean by the title. A kleepah is a shell, and I've been told that there's a shell to everything, including man. Accordingly, Western man worships the shell; the physical, the material. So I jokingly say, I am waaaay deep in the kleepah. I have no family in Israel; I'm a bleeding liberal, the opposite of the Orthodox Jew; and I'm happy where I am.
Next up: figure out where I am going next. Maybe Tel Aviv. I'll tell you soon, or perhaps at the last possible moment when I make a decision.
Despite setbacks to my Jewish development, I am practicing the Yiddish/Ashkenazi pronunciations of Hebrew, and the rocking back and forth during prayer. I'll show you when I get home.
And my Hebrew speaking is so money.
