One of the regular visitors to my husband's office was Baruch who is a fundraiser for the Lelov Chassidic community. Before the Holocaust there were many different Chassidic rabbinic dynasties each tied to a particular place. My husband hadn't heard of the Lelov Chassidim before Boruch began visiting. My husband was struck by Baruch's fine qualities as a human being. He seemed to be both deeply sweet as well as smart and knowledgeable about Jewish texts. (Just wearing a beard and a big hat and peyot isn't a guarantee of any of those things.)
Over the years my husband would talk about his visits with Baruch and had clearly become truly fond of him. A few weeks ago we received an invitation to Baruch's son's bar-mitzvah . The invitation didn't ask for an RSVP. My husband asked if I were willing to go. I knew that the celebration would be sex segregated. I would be on my own in the women's section. I was willing to go.
The bar mitzvah was last night.
I had to get dressed. I had to figure out what in my wardrobe would work. It isn't just that the dress is modest, skirts covering the knee, sleeves elbow length and necklines covered below the collar bone, it is also that women's clothing for events in the Chassidic community is more structured than I usually wear. I usually wear soft clingy knits. That just wouldn't do. I pulled together a silk pleated navy and white hounds-tooth skirt that had a structured underpinning and a midnight blue structured silk feminine jacket that I wore buttoned to the top button.
I debated if I should cover my hair. I tried on all of my summer hats and none of them worked. I then realized that since it wasn't a service but just a celebration I could go with my head uncovered. I knew that despite my selecting my clothing carefully to be respectful of community norms, I would look like an outsider no matter what I did.
As we walked from the subway to the venue we talked about what we would do if we were miserable (we would text one another for help). We both felt that at the very worst we would have an interesting evening from an anthropological perspective. We arrived to the pretty venue just as another couple, who like us were not part of the Lelov community arrived as well.
Our host, Baruch walked into the lobby, warmly greeted us and I went off to the women's section. I introduced myself to my fellow outsider. We spent much of the evening hanging out together. Over the mechitza we heard a wonderful men's choir.
They didn't sing this last night, but you get a sense of what we were hearing.
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They sang for most of the evening. Even if this were the only nice thing about the bar mitzvah, I would have left feeling that I had had a nice evening.
But both of my seatmates were delightful and interesting women.My new non Chassidic friend and I had a great deal in common. My seatmate on the other side was a great aunt of the bar-mitzvah boy's father. I am not of their community. I would have been satisfied with a polite hello. Instead we found ourselves chatting about our lives.
My new friend is involved with www.renewal.org which provides support for kidney donors and recipients.
Today I looked up Lelov Chassidim. you can read about them here.
One of the things that fascinate me is how people show their affiliations by how they dress. We all have friends who only wear Red Sox shirts and hats or only Yankees swag.People may show who they are or who they aspire to be by wearing seersucker trousers and boat-shoes or low slug loose jeans and giant t-shirts.
The same is true in the Chassidic world. I was interested to see that most of the Lelov women wore head coverings similar to those worn by Satmar women.
It's a silk scarf tied and tucked over a foam form. Another head covering style I saw was a short pageboy wig topped with a hat or a fascinator. In other groups women cover their hair differently.
After several hours, my husband texted me from the other side of the mechitza. He was ready to go home. I said goodnight to my new friends and my husband and took the subway back home to our own subculture.
Over the years my husband would talk about his visits with Baruch and had clearly become truly fond of him. A few weeks ago we received an invitation to Baruch's son's bar-mitzvah . The invitation didn't ask for an RSVP. My husband asked if I were willing to go. I knew that the celebration would be sex segregated. I would be on my own in the women's section. I was willing to go.
The bar mitzvah was last night.
I had to get dressed. I had to figure out what in my wardrobe would work. It isn't just that the dress is modest, skirts covering the knee, sleeves elbow length and necklines covered below the collar bone, it is also that women's clothing for events in the Chassidic community is more structured than I usually wear. I usually wear soft clingy knits. That just wouldn't do. I pulled together a silk pleated navy and white hounds-tooth skirt that had a structured underpinning and a midnight blue structured silk feminine jacket that I wore buttoned to the top button.
I debated if I should cover my hair. I tried on all of my summer hats and none of them worked. I then realized that since it wasn't a service but just a celebration I could go with my head uncovered. I knew that despite my selecting my clothing carefully to be respectful of community norms, I would look like an outsider no matter what I did.
As we walked from the subway to the venue we talked about what we would do if we were miserable (we would text one another for help). We both felt that at the very worst we would have an interesting evening from an anthropological perspective. We arrived to the pretty venue just as another couple, who like us were not part of the Lelov community arrived as well.
Our host, Baruch walked into the lobby, warmly greeted us and I went off to the women's section. I introduced myself to my fellow outsider. We spent much of the evening hanging out together. Over the mechitza we heard a wonderful men's choir.
They didn't sing this last night, but you get a sense of what we were hearing.
\
They sang for most of the evening. Even if this were the only nice thing about the bar mitzvah, I would have left feeling that I had had a nice evening.
But both of my seatmates were delightful and interesting women.My new non Chassidic friend and I had a great deal in common. My seatmate on the other side was a great aunt of the bar-mitzvah boy's father. I am not of their community. I would have been satisfied with a polite hello. Instead we found ourselves chatting about our lives.
My new friend is involved with www.renewal.org which provides support for kidney donors and recipients.
Today I looked up Lelov Chassidim. you can read about them here.
One of the things that fascinate me is how people show their affiliations by how they dress. We all have friends who only wear Red Sox shirts and hats or only Yankees swag.People may show who they are or who they aspire to be by wearing seersucker trousers and boat-shoes or low slug loose jeans and giant t-shirts.
The same is true in the Chassidic world. I was interested to see that most of the Lelov women wore head coverings similar to those worn by Satmar women.
After several hours, my husband texted me from the other side of the mechitza. He was ready to go home. I said goodnight to my new friends and my husband and took the subway back home to our own subculture.
Thank you for your wonderful story as we prepare to embark on our annual trip to our second home, in the Mexican/American culture of deep South Texas and northern Mexico. Our differences are not so much in dress (though that is true too) but language and custom. We are preparing this year by immersing ourselves in Spanish so we will be able to converse more fluently with our friends. We learn from each other - so many differences in hospitality, gift-giving, when to arrive and depart, who serves/is served first... We feel blessed to have gotten to know so many new and wonderful friends.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment. It is good to come up against a culture that isn't yours and learn from those small shifts of difference. The amazing thing about New York is that so many cultures exist side by side...and even the most insular are influenced by outsiders.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy your trip Sue...soak up the sun.