A sea of blackness
I see only hats
Giuseppe Borsalino is smiling from his grave
over 200 bucks each!
and the imitation piety
as the boys and men
shokl and sway in their self-righteousness
muttering the talmudic arguments and its Babylonian rhetoric
in demonstration of erudition but also
dancing on the head of a pin.
But soon revulsion gives way to jealousy,
as I acknowledge their serenity
of having arrived at the “truth”
with no apparent struggle
no disconnect between faith and piety.
I had always felt I could not afford
the “luxury” of such religious demonstration and academic fervor,
following my father, for example,
I never put the tallis over the head
(although lately I do catch him doing it for Mussaf!)
remember him telling me that in Vienna
“only the truly pious and learned” would
have the chutzpa to imitate the Rov in this angelic posture.
For in my spiritual landscape
all is not well.
Faith is constantly being tested
as I continue to surrender to the flesh
as it were (Diabetes notwithstanding!)
so my guilt and remorse conspire
with my old friend apikorsus
to make me feel even more worthless in this city
of black piety,
this “Fakewood”.
This uniquely American provinciality
home grown piety, feelig so comfortable in the new Malchus shel Chessed
with its surface glaze of Torah tidbits
intellectual lightweight scholarship
fear of innovation or chidushim
settling for imitation piety.
Dressed, of course, in designer frumkeit-
Borsalino hattery, now
an industry all of its own!
Even the bookstore here is polished
nothing under $18!
the book covers with their imitation leather
and the Artscroll-approved or
Feldheim-published
Rabbinically supervised thoughtsnothing
naughty gets in here.
apikorsus rein!
An inflation of halachic minutiae
a new Wall Street bubble this town
waiting to burst when parents and in-laws can no longer to afford
supporting scholars-in-residence with many children.
Why did the Litvishe world ignore the Gaonʼs nistar
his brilliant analysis of the hidden world behind the Torah?
why are we subject to the imitation of Torah?
the surface monocular monochromatic visual landscape.
At the same time and once again simultaneously overawed
by the sheer mastery of texts
a nephew having reviewed the Talmud 18 times
venerated for his encyclopedic knowledge
or maybe his sheer memory.
Toddlers fluent in Bible
8 year olds knowing Mishnah by heart
wow, what was the emotional cost?
what happened to imagination?
So my life as outsider this shabbat
comes back into focus
as usual when “on the road”
Dadʼs Vienna comes to mind...
his fatherʼs choice to live outside the Ghetto of the 2nd district
(die tzveite Bezirke)
his choice to live in Finchley, NOT Golders Green!
my choice to live in “modern Orthodox” neighborhoods
of Philadelphia, Boston and Jerusalem.
Raising children in the complexity of that schizofrumkeit!
Now watching my daughter raise her kids differently
as they attend cheder and learn in Yiddish,
I too yearn for authenticity even at the expense
of a life lived in existential tension
of thinking truth as primal;
putting away theology and philosophy
for connection with those living in naivete of faith
and free of inner conflict and turmoil
in dialogue with the divine
bathing in the divine
certain of the divinity of texts
(despite their mangled history)
with no doubts to plague them
no sense of impending damnation
no dread
no hint of the insanity of the social network
that is right wing frumkeit today,
just relief and refuge in communal joy and warmth hymns
to the drowning.
If only I could overcome this resistance
having seen the darker side of even Hassidus
where to go?
the struggle gives me no respite
and so I return once more to my city of sojourn
to the battlefield that is everyday my hallmark
starting out the morning freshness and dawning sky
with the unique combination of the Holy waters
of the baptismal mikvah
with the grind of the Daf Yomi
and then leaving my ghetto
(for yes now I live within)
plunging into the secular world that is
both free of the blackness
yet also lightened by the lack of transcendence.
To fight my demons
my powerlessness over emotions and rage
carbohydrates and the flesh.
This daily struggle to live up to ancient inherited ideals
the sheer weight of the rabbinic tradition
the page after page of black ink
and super commentaries on commentaries
the fathers and grandfathers who arose
in the frosty European winter mornings
to pray- look down on me like patriarchs framed
in old New England portraits
adjuring me live up to the failed resolutions of my own past.
The cyclical shape that my voyage takes
documented over decades
that peculiar sine wave of the spiritual highs and lows
the crests and troughs
of the oceans that toss and turn my soul at will
as I look on powerless.
I have returned to the familiar
my resentments and failures are old friends
as I face this sea of black perfection
standing before indicting prosecutors.
