Into the heart of Frum-Land last week to go to the simchah shop as The Teen’s birthday is looming so we need plates, platters, napkins etc. It’s not as if there’s a shortage of Jews where we live but most, like us, are just dabbling in the shallows. If you want a choice of sixty different colours of napkin (I do, I do! ), you need to trot along to an area where they take their simchahs more seriously.
In Frum Central, almost every male over the age of two is wearing tsitsis. Walking from my car towards the shop, I feel conspicuously lacking in frumkheit. My hair is fairly tidily (for me) clipped back, but it is clearly not a sheitl (too messy, too grey —you think I’d pay money for this?). I’m wearing jeans rather than a skirt, plus a clingy t-shirt that I now clock is more low cut than I’d realised, as if promoting my bosoms on special offer: Buy One, Get One Free.
I pass what must be a yeshivah: two boys wearing tallit are dismantling a Sukkah — one lugging lengths of timber to one side of the yard, the other stuffing huge branches into a bin.
The dry-cleaners offers specialist services: they will clean your tallit/s (I notice it offers both Reform and Orthodox spellings – how inclusive is that? ), your tsitsis and even your Bekashahs can be expertly cleaned. So they’re not a type of pastry then? Who knew?
I don’t think The Husband’s tallit has ever been cleaned. For decades, he used the same one, since his barmitzvah, so small across his shoulders that it looked like a teeny-tiny anti-macassar on an outsize sofa, then I gave him a new one as a wedding gift. It’s not as if he does the gardening in it or goes jogging — I mean, how dirty is it going to get? But if you’re taking your Judaism seriously, then you’re wearing it practically all the time and you don’t want to bung it in the washing machine with your gym towel and your black underpants, do you?
Seeing the boys clearing their sukkah reminds me that this Sukkot, I was taken for a proper Jew by a frum boy. I was in our high street when a boy of only about 10 started to push a lulav into my hands.
“You need to shake the lulav!” he insisted.
He was just a kid and I don’t like to be unkind, but do I want to wave greenery in the street and look like a loon?
“No, thanks, I’m fine.”
“Have you shaken the lulav?” He pushes the etrog into my right hand, the willow wand etc into my left.
Well, I did do it last year but must admit I haven’t got round to it yet.
“I’ll do it in shul tomorrow,” I tell him.
“No, that’s too late. It ends tonight.” I probably should have known that.
OK. I shake to the left, I shake to the right. Now I’m wondering is it up to the front and behind me, or the other way round, when the boy grabs back the lulav.
“That’s enough!” he insists.
I thank him and depart. Part of me is oddly pleased that a proper Jew, albeit one clearly some way off his barmitzvah, unquestionably assumed I was Jewish even though, by frum standards, I’m definitely not. But now I start to worry: Why did the boy grab the lulav back before I’d finished? Had he spotted a potential better lulav-shaker behind me? Or was he just trying to maintain a high turnover? Or, and this is the real worry, is it because I was doing it wrong?
It’s not as if I’d been asked to read from the Torah. Really, how hard can it be to shake a few twigs? I don’t need to study the Talmud for that, do I? Did I not lift it high enough? Maybe frummers make bigger gestures than Reform Jews? Or smaller? Or, gulp, did I do it in the wrong order? Did I do right then left instead of left then right?
Obviously, I need to consult with a Higher Authority. No, not that one. And not The Husband either obviously because he’d never remember. No, I check out YouTube which is chock-a-block with videos of vital Jewish stuff such as how to sing the blessing before reading the Torah. I watch the first four videos that come up on “How to shake the lulav”. For a start, I can see I got it completely wrong — it’s forwards then rotate then forwards again. All four videos are surprisingly different in how they demonstrate the shaking. The only elements they have in common is that you rotate a quarter turn to the right between shakings and…the etrog must be held in your left hand.
So I got it as wrong as it is possible to get it other than sticking the greenery between my knees and eating the etrog. In my defence, the boy did press the etrog into my right hand and the foliage into my left. In his defence, he probably didn’t want to hold them the ‘wrong’ way round. But I fear I have really let down Reform Jews: That boy might now assume that none of us know how to shake a lulav. Whereas I know that it’s just me.
So I’m making myself a J-plate. Whenever I venture into an Orthodox area, I’m going to affix a white square placard to my back with a green ‘J’ on it to show that I am just a provisional Jew in training and please to treat me gently. Your patience and forebearance are greatly appreciated should you chance to encounter me. Thank you.
Zelda Leon is half-Jewish by birth then did half a conversion course as an adult (half-measures in all things….) to affirm her Jewish status before a Rabbinical Board. She is a member of a Reform synagogue. Zelda Leon is a pseudonym.
