HELP!

Wow! So the past four days have given me a lot to think about. From Thursday to Sunday night I traveled with a group of around 15 Jewish high school students from Cape Town along the southern coast of the country to different, small, Jewish communities. A friend of mine who works for an informal Jewish education organization connected to the Jewish school system invited me and another friend along for the road trip, and it seemed like a perfect opportunity to continue my sociological analysis of the Cape Town Jewish community. What I was left with after four days was a sociological study of religious communities in general and how an individual functions within it.

The first day we spent driving to the site that is occupied by the B’nei Akiva camp of South Africa during the summer month of December. While in America, observant Jewish teens have the luxury of deciding from a variety of different camps in different locations, this is the only option for observant Jewish South African teens. For the three weeks in December, it is occupied by around 1000 people in total who collectively make up the only observant, summer youth community in the country. A lot of the kids on the road trip spent there time reminiscing about their camp experiences which very much reflected the value placed on the environment the camp offers. It has become clear to me that in Cape Town, it is often necessary to sacrifice certain things that seem so standard and set within one’s life, to be observant. For example, because the amount of kids who are is so small, it seems that social opportunities are limited in many cases. But this camp creates a community that seems to make kids content with their observance, because it is the common denominator that brings them all together and allows them to feel connected to each other and their surroundings.

I have been fortunate enough to never feel like I have had to give anything up to be the type of Jew I wanted to be. My family, my friends, my school, my camp, everything, always seemed to not only accommodate the choices I made religiously but encouraged me to keep struggling with my identity. I have never had to be something at the expense of something else and for that I am so thankful. But it seems to me, that to be observant in Cape Town, forces young people to make sacrifices. I suppose that this is just one of the many realities of being a committed member of a small community.

This became glaringly clear as we traveled for the next few days to other various communities. On Friday, we found ourselves in a beautiful vacation area called Plettenberg Bay. I had actually been here once before a few months ago when traveling along the Garden Route, but found myself there this time in much different circumstances. We davened shacharit and ate breakfast with the small community of Plet in their new shul that is still in the process of being built. While we ate, a representative told us about the character of the community. While a few families live there all year round, it has become a popular vacation spot for religious families because a running shul has been in operation for over thirty years. The location had moved around to accommodate the size variation, but now that it is growing in membership, albeit temporary, the members, local, national and international, have collectively funded the building of a beautiful shul. While they may not always get a minyan in the off-season, the presence of the community has kick started the creation of a beautiful and vibrant collective at different times throughout the year. Every part of the shul itself has been funded by different families who align themselves with the congregation. Each pillar that holds up the shul, each not-yet-painted, stained-glass window, each plaque allocating the different aliyot and service honors, each book, is physical proof of the commitment of the community. The entirety of the shul is tangibly built upon the foundation of its individual members, subsequently creating something much larger and more significant. I realize that many shuls are built in this fashion, perhaps it is because it is in South Africa, perhaps it is because we observed this as a work in progress, or perhaps it is because I have chosen to analyze every possible thing laid out in front of me over the past three months, but something about this construction process, both figurative and physical, seemed unique.

After hearing about the Plet community, a high-school student from another small community nearby in Outdsoorn, came to speak about her community which has undergone a very different transformation. While it was once around 200 families strong (if I recall correctly), it is now a community of just a few families including just five kids. While it is a community that seems to be dwindling rather quickly, they still import kosher meat and bring in a Rabbi from Cape Town to conduct high holiday services. Yet it is clear, that a community once called “the Jerusalem of South Africa” has lost a great deal of its strength and sparkle.

After learning about these small, but beautiful communities, we continued to move further away from Cape Town and traveled to the city of Port Elizabeth. Warmly welcomed by the P.E. community, we stayed in the shul for the whole of Shabbat. Once a two building campus that could, and did, fit around 2000 people in its main sanctuary, the shul has recently sold the sanctuary which has been converted into an apartment complex, leaving only a large building which includes offices and meeting rooms, one of which has been turned into the sanctuary and probably sits less than 100 people, living quarters for the Rabbi and his family, and a large hall for simchas and communal events. The community has been shrinking gradually over the past decades due to members migrating outside of the city, Jews losing their connection and no new faces emerging to fill the vacancy. What is left of the shul is still quite disproportionately grand and seems to be a living monument to what the community once was. This is reflected in the reality that while many of the members are older and have probably been P.E. lifers, every two or three years, a new Rabbi is imported from Israel through the shlichut system, demonstrating a severe lack of local resources and the statistic that less than 20% of the students of the local Jewish Theodore Herzl school is actually Jewish. P.E., once a strong hub of Jewish life is fading fast.

It was so interesting to be exposed to all of this as a member of the Cape Town Jewish community as well as of the various communities of which I am a part in my normal life. While Jewish observance in Cape Town is visibly decreasing along with the passing of each generation, it is the five towns of New York in comparison to these others. Yet, simultaneously, the exposure presents a clear danger of what Cape Town could become if the loss of involved Jews continues at the rapid pace of today. On a grander scale, I kept thinking about how little I have ever been forced to think about the welfare and survival of an entire community in the different ones I occupy at home.

Over the past three years, I have experienced and continue to experience a process of religious transformation. This process has been extremely individual, almost selfish even. When I was angry at Orthodoxy for reasons such as unequal gender roles, stances on homosexuality, the limited vocabulary pertaining to God and the Torah, what I interpreted as narrow-mindedness regarding politics relating to Israel, I was able to step outside the framework of Orthodoxy because I had a family that supported and encouraged this process and because I attend a university that offers different religious outlets that allow the luxury of not needing to fully define yourself and commit to one, set group. I had all the resources available to undergo a personal makeover within a greater community that presented no danger that would have inspired me to understand my importance as an individual within the larger collective. My process has never included the realization that my choices and what I decided to become and dedicate myself to impacts a single community. But what if it did? If I knew that my allegiance mattered in ensuring the subsistence of the Jewish people in a specific location, what would I do, what sect of Judaism would I align with?

After having conversations both with myself and others about this topic, I arrived at the conclusion that beyond all of my personal issues with Orthodoxy, traditional Judaism in my mind, seems to be the foundation that has allowed this way of life to endure. History has proven that allowing wiggle room within practice and belief leads to a decrease in practicing Jews, while a traditional way of life is more likely to contribute to the maintenance of a system that has improbably lasted for mellenia. This is not to personally take importance and legitimacy away from any other sect because I truly believe that everyone needs to find their own spiritual home on their own terms, but I think that changes to tradition set a precedent for change that produces a dangerous slippery slope. It seems that all these emergent forms of Jewish practice and belief are in some form dependent on traditional Judaism to hold as a reference point. Without it, there is no basis for beliefs, for changes, for criticisms. While I can acknowledge the necessity of traditional Judaism, I am still very much at odds with certain aspects and tenets of Orthodoxy (often this may just be Orthodox people though). I cannot accept making individuals feel less than they are, I cannot accept any form of hierarchy and subsequent oppression. But is it my place to refuse to accept these things, do I even have the choice? If I believe that Judaism’s best chance to continue is within a traditional framework then the choices I have made to exist somewhat on the periphery of it can be interpreted as flat and hypocritical. Essentially, what I interpret as my beliefs and my responsibilities are at odds with each other.

Next year, I will be writing my senior thesis using the following question as my starting point in forming an educated understanding of the relationship between individual development and communal structure: How is individual difference reconciled within the context of a community? This question popped into my head several times throughout the trip and is something I cannot get off my mind. Who am I ultimately responsible for, myself or my community? I am sure that it is possible for their not be a tension between the two, but right now that tension seems immovable (I know I have time to figure this out, sorry if I seem dramatic). Can I fit my beliefs, my issues, into a completely traditional framework? Or can I justify my decision to not be a part of a community that I think must exist, but of which I do not want to be a complete member?

Over the past year I have described myself as not fully respecting the halachic system. As a result, I have not felt the need to hold to such seemingly insignificant laws such as keeping the eruv or not tearing toilet paper on Shabbat, I have started eating dairy out, I daven when I feel like it, I have learned to read Torah and participate in egalitarian services (I am not putting all these things on the same plane because I do feel as though the last has increased my level observance, but I just want to communicate the different ways I have exited the halachic framework). I have done things my own way based on what personally inspires me because I do not think that the whole “because God said so” or “our purpose in life is to do mitsvos (normally I say mitsvot, but I wanted to add an element of authenticity to this context)” mentality is sufficient. But maybe there is a way to bring all of these things together. Maybe I can operate within a traditional framework by thinking that each law serves the purpose of reminding us as Jews of our commitment to God, to the Torah and ultimately to being better versions of ourselves and sharing that goodness with the world. But even with that said, I still do not fully know if I believe in the complete divinity of the Torah or in the understanding of God that is preached in our prayers. If this is the case then, if I return to the halachic framework, would my motivation be completely communal? And if it is and my issues do not disappear, than is this a community and a belief system whose subsistence I feel the need to contribute to? I am quite confused...(you might be too..sorry).

Last Thursday was Mayday, International Workers Day (an international holiday everywhere except the U.S. because we are elitists with an ignorant fear of anything remotely related to communism) as well as Yom Hashoah. While these are rather different commemorations, I think they both demonstrate the importance of community and unity in very different ways. Mayday is proof of the power of togetherness and what can happen when the downtrodden fight for the rights; Yom Hashoah reflects the necessity to always feel connected to your history and those who share it to prevent the repetition of past atrocities. My classes dealing with poverty and ways of confronting it as well as the complex and beautiful archaeological past of strong Iron Age African communities, reading One Hundred Years of Solitude, which recounts the beautiful, mythical history of the creation and destruction of a town called Macondo, also demonstrate the need for community and personal responsibility within it. I have had so many outlets recently that have taught me that ultimately we are responsible for each other and we must do what we feel necessary to ensure our collective welfare. But what is welfare? Is it communal survival, or is it what is specifically being sustained? I don’t know. What do you think?

South African (cultural) Ulpan:

Crunchies – some sort of wonderful, magical concoction of granola-ey stuff, coconut-ey flavor, something unknown that creates a wonderful soft texture of a snack that would seem to be hard, that tastes so amazing, like rainbows and daisies.

Cheers!