The Song of My Elders

13 Adar II

Yes, it’s true. As a forty something woman I am one of the youngest people in the room for Torah Study every Saturday morning at my temple. Not always - but usually. And surprisingly (at least for me) I am at peace with that. Actually it is more than that, actually. Most Saturday mornings I am actually left a little awed.
Now I may not know how they act outside of temple but I do know Life has teeth and some days can bite down hard, especially for the elderly. But in that room these women and men are fearless in their discussion/debate of Torah. From my back corner seat I watch in no small admiration as they get right in the face of the conundrums found within the mysteries. There is rarely any hesitation as they answer the rabbi’s questions, sometimes with deep insightful and sometimes to humorous effect.

This being my first official go-around with the Torah on the dance floor, I feel like I am still trying to learn the rhythm of the music and all the intricate steps. As I have written before, I come from two spiritual backgrounds that never encouraged this kind of spiritual questioning. Speaking only from my own experience, I found Roman Catholicism never encouraged this sort of spiritual searching. You were taught the ‘New Testament’ early on with the expectation that you will memorize the psalms, could recite them for tests and live them without question. Space was never made for examination. Raising your hand in class was a sure way to court trouble. We were led to believe that someone else (I always imagined some lonely priest locked in the highest room of a tower of a far removed kingdom) was doing the hard thinking for you. All you had to do as a good Christian was follow his God-inspired tenets. Or, in other words, obey.

Modern Paganism is different in that its books are highly individualized journals of micro and macro examinations of one’s relationship with the more mystical realms of the cosmos. These Books of Shadows are highly personalized diaries so there was very little group discussion going on. There was very little reliance on any foundational texts for obvious reasons - lack of centralized resources, lack of authenticity, lack of any historical models. Many of the texts used were either written in the last one hundred years or so years or are being written now even as you read this. If not destroyed by the dominant culture might they one day be synthesized and used and debated and discussed? I’d like to think so. Like the Jews, many Pagans don’t shy from entering the misty veils of spirituality. Being the underground spiritual rebels they, they rarely have a problem questioning the answers.

When I started coming to Torah Study I felt duly unprepared. Not only had it been decades since I last cracked open a Bible (let alone the first five books of it) but I felt inexperienced in challenging what I had been taught to leave unchallenged. So it is refreshing, if not a little inspiring, to listen and watch these Saturday morning folks take on the Torah. (It is a loving battle they wage. Hmm - comparisons to fighting don’t quite work here. I don’t think any of us come to Torah too win or lose but rather to listen, to learn, to laugh and yes, even love.) And while I am educated to the Pentateuch I am also learning about the spaces Judaism makes for our queries and ideas, and how secure a religious belief it must be to allow that.
And in this process I am also gifted with something else just as, if not more so, precious: their stories. Some of these women and men have grown up under Temple Israel’s roof, moved to this address a long time ago or converted and stayed here. So deep are their wells of memory that they are rich repositories of experience. Listen carefully and you’ll catch some of this in their shares before study begins, talking of generations passed, the progress the synagogue had made over the years, and hey, remember this rabbi or that lay-person or remember when?

I watch as they chat, seeing smiles slowly overcome the wrinkles and eyes that had perhaps seen too much in their days glow anew with an inner light. For a few blessed minutes the walls softly reverberate with their wise voices singing this animated song of my elders. As a spiritual seeker, I couldn’t have requested a better tune.