I sometimes find it amusing to document the differences between the various Orthodox Jewish sects, many of which are obvious, and well known. This one, I think, is not.
I grew up in the unquestionably frum middle, in a shul that wasn't modern, yeshivish, or Hasidic. We were just Jews. Our Rav was an old school alumni of a place like the Mir who was equally impatiant with fads and shtick. He wore a hat, but no beard. He was an open, unabashed supporter of Israel who permitted a prayer for the state, but allowed no adjustments to the liturgy for Yom Haatzmaut. We sang v'ayihee b'nishoah haaron and mee chamocha with the traditional Western European tune, but it wasn't unusual to hear Lecho Dodi or High Holiday piyutim set to Hasidic melodies and we skipped anim zmiros. We said hakafot on Shmini Atzeres and Yotzros on the holidays, but our nusach was ashkenaz, and though many of our mispallaim wore hats and gartels many more wore knitted kippot. It was, I now see, the best of all worlds.
After my mother gave birth to my youngest sister, she thought it might be nice to bentch gomel on the shabbos she returned to shul. The Rav said no, and I thought nothing of it. The ruling seemed perfectly in keeping with the practices of our shul, and I accepted it as normative Judaism. Years later, when I started having children of my own, I discovered it was common in places like Teanek for post-partum women to approach the mechitzah and say this blessing aloud. I confess to not having quite gotten over my surprise.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the chasm, another surprise awaited. Several years ago, when my last child arrived, the shul gabbai volunteered to bring a minyan to my wife's hospital room. I was nearly thirty, FFB, and had spent my life in Orthodox congregations, but still completely unacquainted with the custom he was trying to accommodate. "She needs to say borchu with a minyan before going out in public," he explained. Really? I'd never heard of such a thing, and even now the idea of it remains as strange to me as the image of a women reciting a blessing out loud in shul. [Author's note: I'm not saying its wrong. I'm saying I find it strange. I'd welcome the chance to review some source material on it.]
I've been a round the block a few times since that conversation with the shul gabbai. I've met many Orthodox Jews, and been to many Orthodox Jewish shuls, and my hunch is that today most of us belong to the sect that permits women to bentch gomel, or to the sect that requires post partum women to respond to a minyan before they are allowed to venture outdoors by themselves. I'm not sure there is a third postion on this question. The pox-on-both-your-houses middle, the sect that said "no" to shtick and "no" to fad, "no" to fasion, and "no" to excessive, anacronistic piety, seems, like my childhood shul, to have disapeared.
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