What Kind of Jew Are You?

My golem, with watchful owl companion

“Jane Doe, please, from cell 16,” I say to the deputy. And she yells at the top of her lungs,  “DOE, DOE, get over here!” The deputy shoots me a look with raised eyebrows. “Good luck. She’s been feisty. You sure you want to see her at the table (the place I always sit to visit with my people, out in the open in general population)?”

We’ve never met before, you’re new here. But you requested the Jewish chaplain and I’m here for you. Our conversation flows as I usually begin with new folks, but you cut it off. 

“What do I have to do to pass the kosher test? Can you give me all the answers. I want the kosher diet.” I ask you to tell me about your connection to Judaism and your motivation for keeping kosher, to which you reply, “I don’t know anything but I hear your food is better.” I tell you the same thing I tell others. Most American Jews don’t keep kosher (you’re shocked at this) because you don’t have to keep kosher to be Jewish, and that I can’t give you the answers because when the (non-Jewish) Sargent comes to give you the “kosher test” it’s a different set of questions every time. I track your facial expressions under your Covid mask. I can see you’re definitely not happy with me.

I breathe to re-connect with my role for the day: I’m your chaplain not your civil rights advocate. This is something we’ve sued over countless times, for various reasons but that’s not why I’m here right now. I take another breath to put aside my frustrations about who gets a healthier meal with a real cut of unprocessed meat (the kosher meal) and who’s relegated to daily bologna sandwiches. The kosher meal is more expensive and at the end of the day (and the beginning of the day!), operating a jail relies on perpetuating a capitalist society. I feel my longing for abolition in my gut. I think about the strategies of incrementalism…inch by inch, forcing changes that get you closer to abolition over time. Do I grant Jane Doe the kosher meal request and help her pass this test? 

And then you launch at me, full voiced yelling in my face. “What kind of Jew are you?” You ask this several times. The anti-Semitic unfurling of your words that follow raise my blood pressure. I wonder if you’re about to physically hurt me. I glance over at the deputy who is now standing up watching us. “You ok, ma’am?” She walks over to our table and sees the look in my wide eyes, brows raised. I’m wearing a covid mask, but my non-verbal communication was obvious, I guess. “Jane Doe, time for you to go back to your cell now,” the deputy says.

I sit at the table, breathing. Jane Doe has held up a giant mirror for me. What kind of Jew am I? I don’t really know, I’ve never thought about this question. As shaken as I am, I want to find this answer. I sit in an open-eyed meditation. Things are happening around me: people braiding each other’s hair, a card game being played at a table, a group near the TV watching Judge Judy. The deputy locks Jane Doe back in her cell. And I am sitting with the question, “What kind of Jew are you?”

Looking into the mirror of my heart, I first notice shame. Am I enough? Have I done enough? Do I know enough? Should I be more observant? I think about Jane Doe. I don’t even keep kosher myself. I’m a vegetarian—mostly vegan—save for an ice cream a few times a year or some butter on my challah. But…

I polish the mirror to go deeper within.

What kind of Jew am I? I scan my body. I feel Jewish in this body. I “look Jewish.” I feel comfortable in Jewish spaces. When I was pregnant with my first child, I learned I was a Tay Sachs disease carrier, a genetic disorder that mostly affects Eastern European Jews. Thankfully, my husband (also an Eastern European Jew) is not, so our children are healthy, as am I. Genetically speaking, this body of mine is Jewish. 

What kind of Jew am I? I’m a Jew with ancestral trauma. I feel the pain of my ancestors in the cells and bones of my being. I can even feel the ancestral trauma in my soul. I am a Jew who is very scared of anti-Semitism. I once had a mystic psychic/astrologer (whom I’d never met before, and she knew nothing about me before our visit) tell me that in my previous incarnation I endured so much abuse, violence and trauma in the Holocaust that my soul needed to split into two just to manage the amount of suffering and pain, and that’s why I have a twin now. There was no way of her previously knowing that I have an identical twin sister.

And yet, despite the tenderness…what kind of Jew am I? I am a Jew who feels deep joy and pleasure in being Jewish, praying Jewishly, celebrating Jewish culture, cooking Jewish food, living a Jewish calendar, connecting with Jewish mysticism, raising a Jewish family… I’m also the kind of Jew who sees the divine in other faith traditions, and feels closer to the Truth when I practice Hindu and Buddhist traditions and rituals. I begin to breathe lighter, with some spaciousness. 

Again, polishing the mirror even a little bit more I finally see the Truth:

What kind of Jew am I? I’m a Jew who has made a sweet little mishkan, a holy sanctuary, in my heart-cave for Shechinah to dwell in. She hangs out there 24 hours a day. We have an ongoing conversation, and I feel Her love for me. And I reciprocate Her love. Every Shabbos we get re-married and fall deeper in love. I serve Her through my actions. Everything I do is for Her. I’m the kind of Jew that understands that because Shechinah dwells within me, I Am That, too. We are One. 

You didn’t have to yell in my face, Jane Doe, but I offer a bow of gratitude for this question. 

—-

A brief teaching about golems and owls:

From the early Israelites into early Judaism and then with destruction of the First and Second Temples, our people have carried the narrative of hateful violence. Despite paradigm shifts in Judaism, the narrative continued throughout Medieval Judaism, into the Haskalah and most certainly experienced in The Shoah. Sadly, in present-day Judaism we’re experiencing historic rises in anti-Semitic threats and violence.

Ceramic art and pottery, have kept our prayers, ritual and stories alive. I’ve sculpted a simple golem from local terracotta clay. On its shoulders sits an abstracted owl figure.

A golem (/ˈɡoʊləm/ GOH-ləm; Hebrew: גּוֹלֶם‎) is an animated, anthropomorphic being in Jewish folklore, which is entirely created from inanimate matter (usually clay or mud). In the Psalms and medieval writings, the word golem was used as a term for an amorphous, unformed material. …The oldest stories of golems date to early Judaism. In the Talmud (Tractate Sanhedrin 38b), Adam was initially created as a golem when his dust was "kneaded into a shapeless husk". Clay golems were created to offer protection, meaning and comfort and carry Jewish folklore forward.

The owl has been used as a representative symbol for the Jews over time and especially during the Medieval period as we faced persecution at the hands of Christians:      

“A medieval person would have looked upon the owl and the birds and seen a Christian parable. Drawing from the Roman tradition of associating owls with death and sickness, the medieval person would have seen a filthy animal further defiled by its nocturnal habits. He would also have seen a Jew.

Befitting the agenda of the medieval Church, the owl was the perfect animal to represent the Jews. According to the Church, no other group turned away from Christ more decisively than them. Anyone who was not with Christ was with the Devil, and consequently evil. Evil dwells in darkness and is unclean, just like the owl. The owl surrounded by the attacking birds is the Jew surrounded by Christians vanquishing evil.”

In my golem’s tale, the owl symbolizes sage wisdom, the one who remembers, guiding the way in the dark night towards the Source of Light. The owl is perched on the right shoulder of the golem, invoking the Jewish spiritual technology of teffilin on the right arm, allowing for mobility and balance of the ‘arms’ between chesed (lovingkindness with compassionate action) and gevurah (strength with discernment). The golem is stable and resilient in the face of anti-Semitism, solid in body and mind, and grounded in the healing clay of the earth.

The word emet (truth), carved into the chest over the heart-space, is the guiding principle. Truth is the path and the goal. The golem can only be killed by removing the first letter (aleph), which would spell met (dead). But, in the case of the golem and its owl, the aleph is unmovable. The aleph represents echad (One, the Oneness of All). The Truth is grounded in the Oneness that our souls are composed of. When we remember our True Self, we remember the interconnection of All.

As history continues to unfolds, let this golem and owl companion serve to remind us of the guiding Light of Truth and protect the Jews from hateful anti-Semitic violence.