Kosher Oyster: The Imperfect Jew

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September/October 2019 - The Imperfect Jew

Okay

Benjamin explores the confusing contradictions we face in becoming the person worthy of our place in the world according to societal expectations.

An Honest Take Talia discusses the challenges of finding a strong Jewish identity in the 21st century and how to maintain such a connection.

Have a Chuckle Gary considers the role humour plays in forming Jewish identity and connection.

Repenting Josh explores the challenge of reconciling personal identity with a religious identity.

The Perfect Pass David examines the challenges of reconciling developing Jewish identity in the modern world.

Hello & Welcome Welcome to the second official edition of the AUJS Kosher Oyster!

I have recently returned from an overseas exchange and no, this is not one of those “my life was changed, blah blah” pieces, rather about the challenge of continuing a firm Jewish identity in the face of changing and foreign environments.

My year as AUJS’s Jewish Engagement Officer has been challenging while being so far away from the Jewish people and community I so proudly call my home. Accordingly, I have questioned the reality of my Jewish identity. I have wondered how important Jewish connections actually are. My Jewishness didn’t cease to While living with three of my friends, exist because I was far away but I felt Catholic, Muslim and Buhddist completely hollow and incomplete. respectively- no, this is not the start to a joke- we would tease each other about So arriving home was a shock. Stepping our cultures. I would immediately into the AUJS office where people become defensive, protecting my were using the familiar Yiddish lingo beloved religion. But beyond my that I had previously had to explain discussions with my friends, explaining or singing Shabbat songs with friends what Judaism is and how I grew up, I was that I hadn’t even thought about for 5 truly doubting my ability to advocate months. It was overwhelming but I was for a religion I had little to no way of reminded of the centrality of Judaism connecting to while far away from to my person. Despite any questioning home. I was so swept up into the idea of I had done overseas, stepping back into Judaism as an ideology that I forgot what the Jewish community in Melbourne it meant to feel Jewish. I had not eaten reminded me of the Jewish woman that challah, cholent or drank the sickly sweet I am and always have been proud to be: kiddush wine. I had not felt the passion announcing to everyone that I am a Jew for education that was forged through and allowing myself to connect to my my experiences with Hineni nor the people in the way that feels right to me. endless intellectual discussions with my I have been deeply inspired and moved family (2 Jews, 3 opinions and all that). I by the contributors in this edition of forgot the sense of community instilled the Kosher Oyster, all bringing a unique within me throughout my schooling flavour to the topic: The Imperfect Jew. at Yavneh and in my time in AUJS. The High Holy days encourage the

Jewish people to consider their actions in the past year in order to learn from and therefore become better people, members of society and members of the community as a whole. But what does the Imperfect Jew mean for us? We challenged our writers to consider what societal, spiritual and cultural pressures they have tackled on their path to becoming the so-called pure, total and perfect Jew. We will delve into this question in ten idiosyncratic, dynamic and thought-provoking ways. All of our authors have truly questioning the makeup of an ideal Jew in the way it fits into their lives and in turn, how they fit into the mold of what a Jew is meant to be.

Judaism means family means happiness means completion means perfection.

This Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur when finding this path for yourself bare in mind that the choices you make are not incorrect, rather they are wholly you. You are the perfectly imperfect Jew.

I would like to conclude by, again, thanking our brilliant authors from all around Australia and New Zealand for their fantastic contributions to our shule reading material.

I would like to highlight and applaud the hard work of Natalie Gunn and Benjamin Ezzes in their work this year to not only assist in producing the Kosher Oyster but in developing Like myself, my friends and peers are the way in which Jewish identity is now having to choose the direction experienced within AUJS. I thank you their lives will take and the way for endless passion and commitment. they will engage with their Judaism.

Whether it connecting with it for the So, without further ado, please first time, following their parents’ and enjoy this release of the AUJS Kosher friends’ lead or diverging from the Oyster: High Holidays Edition! path you have been traversing up until this moment. Our struggle in these moments is, in fact, our power. The very existence of this struggle demonstrates the importance of our Jewish identity in our lives. It is who we are. We live Shira Rosenblum and breathe it even if we think it is AUJS Jewish Engagement Officer remote from our us-ness. Nevertheless,

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O K AY

By Benjamin Ezzes

You have been deceived.

you are human, and that humans make mistakes, and that you must rise above. Good parents for You have been presented with two contradictory generations have told their children that they assertions that form the core of who you are. will be loved no matter who they are, and they You have been told by your parents, your will be good at whatever they happen to do. You teachers, and even your friends, that you are must be proud of you, because you are okay. both okay, and not okay. Far from a moral judgement, you have been told you are both Then, you are told you are not okay. You are worthy and wonderful, and worthless and told that you must perpetually better yourself, nothing. At once, you are perfect and imperfect. that the constant state of your being is less than perfect. You are told that you must remember ‘Okay’ doesn't mean much of anything at all. It is a death and all the things that limit you, withhold placeholder – something we call ourselves and are your ego and flourish your ambition. You are told, called without seeking its meaning. The origins of like all good characters, that you are integrally ‘okay’ are trivial and obscure. ‘OK’ is an abbreviation and fatally flawed, and that the only way out is of the phrase 'Orl Korrect', as a homophone of 'All to have the ambition to emerge and succeed.

Correct', and was the 1840 US presidential campaign slogan of Martin Van-Buren. The phrase took off, You are told that however noble and grand our and was abbreviated into OK by his nickname, achievements, that we face mortality. When Old Kinderhook. A made-up word, defined as a Roman commander was given a triumph to satisfactory, permissible, neither good mark their victory, it is said that a slave had to nor bad in any way. Something 'okay' is accompany them and whisper into their ear a in a middle stage of being, you could say. ‘memento mori’, to remind them of imminent and unavoidable death. Literature is filled from Now back to our fundamental dichotomy. its beginnings with characterisations of our lives as fleeting and worthless. Years after Solomon You are told that you are okay. You are told that writes Kohelet, singing of life as vain and vacuous, you are perfect as who you are, special and holy a monk in Germany writes for the Carmina Burana: and made separate. From the Jewish tradition, you ‘Similis sum folio, de quo ludunt venti’ – I am a leaf, inhabit a unique soul with a unique mission and a set tossed in play by the winds. Our Psalms speak to of skills to achieve them. Surely you are okay. Your the beauty in our fragility, likening us to flowers state of living is either satisfactory or resplendent. that bloom in the field – but, at the next instant, we are blown by the wind and fall away. It seems that At some point in school, someone tells you that you the perfect Jew is meant to be self-depreciative are perfect as you are. You are told that whatever and curb the ego that seeks to overwhelm us. effort you give is good, and that your struggles, all of them, are first-rate and right. You are told that There is a second kind of not okay, too. You are

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told to treasure ambition. You are told to have drive, that to remain static and not on a pathway to success is not okay. You are told that you can never be satisfactory, because you can never stop moving onward and ever onward, and that if the point of our conclusion even exists then only when we reach that point will we be okay. That, my friends, is very dangerous - because then you have equated being okay with being perfect.

peoplehood – of not harming others, not violating basic morality and ethics, accepting the honest advice of others in determining our fate.To be Jewish is to learn from every contradiction, every machloket and every word. What can we learn from okay?

That we must uphold and remember the lessons of both dictums.

We are not okay. We must be humble. We must learn to accept that there is something greater So you throw up your hands. Okay is utter nonsense, than ourselves. We must remain not subservient and you are right. Before you are okay, before you but respectful of those things beyond us, the are not okay, you are yourself. You live independent things that have the power to shape us - time, of any other voice, any other commentary, circumstance, death. To be not okay is to strive any other determination of who you are. for goals without them being beyond you, to swallow pride and hubris and suppress arrogance.

Our world is steeped in the expectations of others. Too often, we ignore our own ambitions We are okay. We are not fatally flawed. We have to fulfil what everyone wants us to be. We live a purpose, something to give, and a permanent not through our own agency, but through ability to learn from adversity. Because we know their collective determining of what perfection ourselves, and life is a journey of understanding happens to be, trying all at once to satisfy ourselves, independent of the expectations of everyone's contradictory expectations because others, we can choose what we want ourselves to it is expected of us. We all live distinct lives with be. There are aspects of our humanity that cannot different dreams and separate priorities. How be compromised, parts of ourselves that cannot can others have a hold on what it means for be corrupted, and elements of our thinking that us to be okay? Much less, to be a perfect Jew? will remain free. That we are worthy of our place in this world - and that we, alone, have the ability We must define if we are perfect. Within this, an to choose what we want the word 'okay' to mean. individual has to hold to certain standards of our

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AN H O NE ST TA KE O N T HE JE WIS H E X PE R I E N C E

By Talia Barsheshet

Being Jewish in the 21st century is more complex than I ever anticipated. I just thought I could go through life happily eating poppy seed bagels and spending many Shabbat dinners explaining to others why cholent IS a food group of its own. A simple life, a happy life, a stress-free life. Well, well, well my friends let me tell you that is far from the truth.

and shomer-Shabbos events that interact with the Jewish Calendar. Regardless of your connection to Judaism, AUJS makes sure you’re connected to the community. Chabad on campus for me was the initial organisation that reached out to me, offering a Shabbos meal filled with university students from different campuses. I was no longer alone on campus, I had Jewish friends on campus who then would attend that same Shabbat meal the following year. Through AUJS and Chabad on Campus I have been able to challenge my Jewish ideology and maintain my jewish connection on and off campus.

I’m currently spending my days studying a degree full time, being a madricha at Bnei Akiva, a student apart of Sinai Scholars, the president of AUJS Deakin and working. Now that seems like a easy breezy kind of schedule but mind you, much like every other young adult, a lot of my productive time is snatched away by a new murder series on Netflix and finding memes that ‘get me’ on Instagram.

I believe to be a Jew in 2019 you have to be true to yourself. Are the things you do in your everyday life making you happy? Do the people who you surround yourself with, encourage for you to make positive decisions? Are you living with kavanah or just doing things out of obligation?

Are you being your most productive and best self?

Do you learn from previous experience and try to improve your life? Most importantly, do you ultimately endeavour to lead an authentic Jewish life, that is meaningful to you in your own way?

I thought about Chabad.org –ing this little article and giving you a big spiritual lecture on how to be Jewish in our current climate, but I prefer to give you a more personable account of how I maintain my Jewish identity in the 21st century.

I’m a very proud Jew and Zionist (apologise to all the Neturei Karta readers). My parents raised me to be open minded and to constantly question the world around me, because if we don’t question how can we truly understand (thanks Mum and Aba). Judaism to me, besides my connection to G-D, is about my connection with my community. I still play basketball with majority of my Maccabi and high school team (The King David School). At work, I endeavour to answer my co-workers questions about Judaism in order to educate and break stereotypes. I ensure with the help of Chabad on Campus, to provide weekly kosher lunches on campus for Jewish students.

I try to lead my life with these questions in mind. I try to think about what practices I partake in and why I do them. Asking the bigger question is what brought me here today. I always love to challenge myself, to learn more and grow as a person. In essence, being Jewish in the 21st century to me in being engaged with your community, having a personal connection to the religion and using Judaism to be a good person.

I truly hope that you have a good yom tov, and that you are blessed over these high holidays. I encourage you to think about the questions I posed earlier and try to implement them in your life. So enjoy that little fun existential crisis I’ve left you with, I’m off!

I think we need to preserve our tradition and values once we emerge from the Jewish day school bubble. AUJS does this perfectly, by having kosher

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C HA N G E

By Natalie Gunn

Change is an inevitable concept. Change occurs to us and to those around us and happens so often that it is hard to keep up to. From a young age we are expected to thrive off change, or at the very least we are expected to be able to deal with it. However, there are so many situations where we have tried to stop change from happening.

An example that comes to mind is when a baby is born, we try to ensure that their routine is not changed because we all know that if a 15 minute shluf is added or removed from the their schedule, a disastrous night will occur for all involved.

it. So here are the dos and don’ts of change.

Ensure that the decision is coming from within.

Take a step back and think, ‘am I doing this for me?’, ‘do I want to do this?’. The reason that this is so important is because we need to change for the right reason and can’t just change as quickly as a fashion trend. We need to be that durable black puffer jacket that surpasses the trend, without a reason behind why we are doing something. It is very difficult/if not impossible to maintain! For example, if you want to go to the gym, learn the mishnei and you aren’t doing it to better yourself then there is no point. You shouldn’t be doing something to compete with your friends. Focus on yourself and stay in your lane. For me in becoming religious, I thought about the fact that I was granted this opportunity and why not do something for Hashem, to show him that I care. While I am not at all trying to say that more is better, I am just trying to explore that for me personally the fact that I had the option and opportunity to do more was a key factor in my growth.

This makes me wonder why we are all expected to cope with change so easily and also made me ponder the ways in which we can make it easier. As we all go through change, and these types of adaptations are fundamental to ensure that we grow and develop.

Physical changes generally tend to get the most attention and tend to be dealt with the best, as there appears to be reason and logic. We tend to prepare for these types of things from a young age. For example, as we grow taller, we buy new clothes. However, situational and So now that you know the reason behind why emotional changes tend to need a little bit of you are doing something, how do we implement explanations on the best way to deal with them. it in a way that it won’t be a phase? I don’t like to think of personal growth t as a sprint but rather as Over a year ago, I made the decision to change a marathon. The folktale story about the tortoise my lifestyle and step onto the path to become and the hare is the best example that there is an observant Jew and follow my religious which shows that ‘slow and steady does win the identity. While this decision was not taken race’. When making the change I spoke with my lightly, it involved many months of trying to Rebbeinsin and she told me the importance of break my usual habits. Ever since this decision, I taking each thing bit by bit. What did this mean? have had numerous people asking me why and Reading books, finding a chevrutah to learn the how to change. Did you change to because you 39 melachot. For me the first change I made wanted to perfect yourself? While I don’t claim was not being on my phone and as soon as that to be an expert at all, I hope to share some skills became normal, I went on to “take away the next with you all to help you make positive changes thing”. I don’t really like saying take away because in your lives. I will use the example from my I feel like it detracts from the experience. I really own life to best illustrate the way that I did was gaining more. Taking away my phone made

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me notice how important communication is, and how a phone sometimes acts as a barrier and hinders this connection. In order to find your passion, be willing to start off small, and then as it becomes easier you can gradually add more.

And I am really lucky how this turned out. For me, my friends have been amazing and have moved plans to ensure that I can come or have been understanding and accepting when I have said no to things. My family has been amazing, literally the “small things” that they have done for me have made me so much happier. From making sure that the urn is on and ensuring that I never have to walk home alone. Those that love you will be happy to accommodate for you.

Just make sure that you are helping them and are not using them. Remember gratitude is key.

If you make a mistake that is okay, we are all known to stuff up, and it is even harder when an action is not a habit yet. So, the important thing here is to be kind on yourself ‫ָּ֥תְבַהָֽאְו‬ ‫ָךֹו֑מָּכ ָ֖ךֲעֵֽרְל‬, ‘“Love your neighbour as yourself.”

You might be wondering what relevance this has to my previous comment. I think this is such an important principle because if we can’t love ourselves than how are we supposed to love someone else. Remember those reasons of why you chose to make change and realise that you are not a bad person if you make a mistake or stuff up that it is okay. If you are trying to eat healthier, let Shabbat be the day where you loosen up on yourself, and if you eat that piece of chocolate cake on a Monday morning then that is okay too.

As long as you are trying your best than that is more than anyone else can ask, you need to love yourself for this amazing effort that you are doing.

Don’t judge yourself or anyone else! We are all on our own personal journeys and it is important that you are not judging someone else for what they are doing because you wouldn’t want it done to you! Just as a I hope you wouldn’t beat yourself up for making a mistake, don’t point out a mistake that you may feel someone else is making.

From this journey, I learned that change is natural and important it does not detract from the person who you were before. While I don’t believe that this change has made me perfect in a religious or personal sense. I do believe that this will help me achieve my purpose of living life to the fullest and has helped me to become a better person. With that I wish you all a Shannah Tova Umetukah, a happy and sweet new year, and I hope that the change that you make will add a level of meaning to your life.

Don’t wait for someone else’s validation, because those that care for you and love you are going to stick around to help you make this change. For me personally, I was worried about the way this would affect my relationships with family and friends. I wanted to keep the peace, but I also wanted to do this for myself.

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FIRST THE PAIN, THEN THE RISING

By Keren Lax When we look at the idea of the “Imperfect Jew”, perhaps it’s not the label we need to question and try and understand, but rather the journey. What is the path of the “imperfect Jew”, perhaps the road is not meant to be easy but full of struggles, full of complicated decisions?

Perhaps, it is the quest from imperfection to the yearning of perfection, that ultimately makes life meaningful.

slowly as they become more confident, they are able to just hold onto one hand, a few fingers, just the little baby finger, and then they reach a point where they are able to walk completely on their own. Within the Zone of Proximal Development, in this area of difficulty and challenge, through the constant support, the child is able to grow.

So, the title of the idea that I’m sharing is “First the pain, then the rising” and whilst I wish that I could take credit for this title, it is actually the name of a podcast I listened to by Glennon Doyle, as part of one of Oprah’s series. Glennon takes us on what she calls the “journey of the warrior,” explaining there is no easy way out when it comes to life’s challenges.

“The willingness to dwell in our discomfort and truly listen is how we turn our pain into power.” So I’m listening to this podcast on my way to uni and whilst I have heard the idea, and I think we have all heard this at least once in our lives, that life’s challenges are what allow us to grow, it was in this 20 minute car ride that I was flooded with examples of this not just from my own life and from the experiences of those close to me, but from the Torah, from the Jewish story.

The Rebbe asks a question, of how can Hashem expect the Jewish people to connect to Him, to see Him, if they are weakened by all the darkness around them?! He then goes to answer this question by explaining that it is not enough to know that Hashem is there, and to believe that He is in control of this world, but we need to see Him in this world and in all that we do... even in the darkest of times. When a person hears or smells something, they can be convinced that it is something else, but when you see something and notice the details you become pretty certain that this thing exists... so maybe seeing is believing. We need to SEE G-dliness in our world, even in today's world where the light is often covered by so much darkness. And even more than seeing this light and G-dliness in the outside world, we must recognise it within ourselves, we need to recognize it in our pain, in our challenges, and know that beneath this darkness, is light.

If we start at very beginning, with Avraham, we can see immediately the pain, the hardship, the tests he was faced with, from being the odd one out, leaving his family to go to a foreign country, being asked to sacrifice his only son… but ultimately from these challenges he became Avraham Avinu. And what about Yosef, he was thrown into a pit and sold by his brothers, tossed into jail, forgotten about… and 13 years after being left alone in jail, he rose to being Pharoah’s right hand man, to saving the Jewish people.

Fast forward to 71 years ago... our people had experienced the absolute horrors of the Shoah, the ultimate tragedy, and not to say that one links with the other, but to look at what happened next, from rising from lowest point to celebrating the Independence of the Jewish State.

As we enter the month of Elul, the month in which we are told that HaShem is so close to us, we are overwhelmed with the concept of Teshuva. Rav Kook in Orot HaTeshuva explains how Teshuva encompasses within in it this overwhelming sense of returning to the correct path, of rebuilding ourselves, of feeling our pain, feeling our anguish, and taking the hard and challenging steps to find our way out of the darkness and rediscover the light that is within us.

Perhaps, within the journey of teshuva, and the journey of life itself, it is not necessarily about the final destination, but the journey itself that truly matters, and not just matters, but where the opportunity for growth and connection really lies.

As we near the Yamim Noraim, may we not just be conscious of the journeys of those around us, but identify when we are facing some sort of challenge. We often only remember this idea once we are happy, once we have found some light, but I think what the Torah is trying to teach us, is a key lesson in our lives, that when we are facing a challenge, a difficultly, we are in a time of darkness, it is not for us to give up, to give in, but to remember “First the pain, then the rising”.

There’s a theory in education known as the Zone of Proximal Development. This theory, and if there are any teachers out there please correct me if I’m wrong, explains that students are best able to learn when they are given tasks that are push them slightly out of their comfort zone. There’s a great analogy used to explain this, that when a child is learning to walk, at first they are completely reliant on their parents and they hold tightly onto their parents hands and slowly,

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H AV E A CHU C KLE, I T MI G HT MAK E YO U A BE T T E R J E W

By Gary Hofman

“The greatest Jewish tradition is to laugh” – Jerry Seinfeld As a people, we are quite funny. I could list off Jewish comedians, but it seems like a useless task to me. I am sure that more than one has already come to mind. It also seems useless for me to tell you that the act of laughter is one of the most satisfying sensations that one can feel. Let’s be completely honest, having a good side-splitting laugh is not only an electrifying feeling, but it is also one of the greatest mental cures. If you are having a bad day or even a mediocre one, a good joke can turn that around into one to be remembered for all the right reasons.

There is plenty of academic writing of why laughter and humour are so good. One of the earliest modern pieces on joking was written by everyone’s least favourite psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud. If you want to look at it from Freud’s perspective (in most circumstances I would not want to, but trust me, here it makes sense) it is because jokes are linked to our unconscious and allow us to expel what we have been repressing. This makes sense, humour is an easy way tap into taboo subjects and bring them to the forefront of conversation.

circumstances. Robin Knepp accounts that during the atrocities of the Holocaust “there was laughter – joyful, liberated laughter from those who suffered the most”. Knepp argues that comedy was used to combat the misfortune of the Jewish experience during the holocaust and, ultimately, comedy was a tool to inspire hope, spirit and survival.

So surely, with all these potential powers, making someone laugh is a mitzvah. Right?

Perhaps not. When looking around for a religious text on laughter and humour, I came across a quote from Pirkei Avot: “One should not be a person of levity and mockery (‘s’chok v’hatail’), nor sad and somber, but cheeful (‘samai’ach’). So too did the Sages say, ‘Mockery and lightheadedness accustom [a person] to lewdness’They likewise commanded that a person not be unrestrained in levity (‘parutz (broken out) bi’s’chok’) nor sad and mournful. Rather he should receive all people with a cheerful countenance.”

This stumps me. Mockery is understandable, Levity, however, I struggle with. Levity, the treatment of a serious matter with humour. Levity is something that Jews are all too familiar with. Going as far back to the exodus from Egypt, when faced Further, humour possesses power. Persecution with the pursuing Egyptians on one is not an unfamiliar circumstance for Jews and side and an enormous body of water on neither is their response of joking about such the other, Bnei Yisrael called to Moshe:

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“Are there not enough burial plots in Mitzrayim Removing ourselves from experiences of that you took us to the desert to die?” impending death, we even find humour in our places of worship. Surely, this would be This line here is a moment of dramatic the most inappropriate place to crack a joke. irony, filled with comedy. There is no It is a common occurrence in my Shul for the doubt that this is not a serious question. Rabbi to start his weekly speech with a joke It is characteristic of the type of humour – although the humour is often lost on me, that we relate Jewish humour to now but this reflects what is written in the Talmud. more importantly, it is using a terrible The Talmud writes that “before the great sage situation as a source of comedy. Even in our Rabba began his lecture, he would crack a earliest moments we were filled with levity. joke, the rabbis would laugh, and then he would sit down with awe and reverence Fast-forward to World War Two. As the war and begin his lecture”. Is this not levity? rages on, the Jews in Europe find themselves in concentration and death camps. Although This brings me to my point. I am no expert. I the humour narrative might not be one that have laid out some facts but alas, I do not have we hear about often, there was one that the answers to the questions I am asking. I think surfaced in the camps. Charlotte Delbo, a it is obvious though that perhaps humour French author, recounts how her and her and laughter is not lost on us. It has been a fellow prisoners created a production of The escape, a medicine and a point of discussion.

Imaginary Invalid, a Molière satire about the Of course, if someone like the Rabba would medical profession in the seventeenth century. indulge in a bit of levity now and then, why She explains that it helped them escape from shouldn’t we? The end of the line that says the situation they had found themselves in. we should not act with levity also says that Hani Merich explains how comedy can act we should meet people with a “cheerful as “a shield and as a tool for rising above countenance”. If humour is not a cheerful an incomprehensible, horrific experience”. countenance, then I do not know what is.

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RE PE N T I N G

By Josh Kirsh

It happens every year at almost exactly the same time.

(The timing depends on how long the bidding for call-ups has taken before Kol Nidrei the night before. It is a high honour to be at the bimah when the words, like all the other words in the Torah, are read out to all assembled.)

We’re about 23 hours into the Yom Kippur fast. There’s not much longer to go. It’s not hunger, however, that makes me want to voraciously consume a Freddo frog.

We read from Vayikra on Yom Kippur. Specifically, we read that “you shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” Each word makes me wonder what it is that brings me back, how I can justify sitting and listening for a second longer.

Yom Kippur gives us time to reflect and repent. That reading makes me reflect on the fact that some would like to see me repent for an immutable part of me that I cannot change. It also makes me eminently grateful that I didn’t notice those words before I was ready to.

Growing up at an Orthodox Jewish school, in a Jewish home, with a Jewish family and living a Jewish life, I had nagging doubts about being out, and being myself more generally, whilst also being Jewish. I had the privilege of having those doubts on my own. Of having the space to grow into my own identity without too many of the pressures of external opinions to shape my path.

Being Jewish and out comes with challenges, some more tacit than others. There are plenty who see the two as incompatible - and even more who don’t, but who recognise that the status quo is designed to leave same-sex couples with the message that they need not apply, and are not especially inclined to change it.

Hearing that passage on Yom Kippur - and approaching this time of year - often makes me wonder whether that status quo will remain for the rest of my life. If I am fortunate enough to be married, I know that I won’t be able to be married in either of the synagogues of which I’m a member. (The fact that my parents couldn’t be married in our synagogue either, for entirely different reasons, leaves a sad taste.)

Holding this duality - you are welcome, but be sure to leave those parts at the door - is always challenging. It’s more challenging when I have no food in my stomach, and no energy to make the excuses of others on their behalf.

As a particularly political person, fighting back against prejudice targetting both elements of this dual identity is challenging. There are those within the Jewish community who would see relationships like mine treated as second class under law. There are those within the LGBTQ+ community who see faith - but particularly organised religion - as a collective enemy to be overcome.

The reality, which should not require holding both in one’s heart to perceive, is that antisemitism, homophobia and transphobia all act as canaries in the coal mine. Too often, we see these nasty prejudices as the first sign of growing intolerance and permitted extremism. Violence against Jews, against same-sex couples, and against transmen and transwomen, rises steadily as the world becomes less secure for people who do not conform.

And yet some continue to act as though we live in politically safe times. As though both of these minority groups, relatively small as they are, can afford to nudge against each other in order to seek favour with fickle majorities. Watching certain religious communities and leaders push for the right to exclude gay people - and an answering call to get religion out of the public debate as soon as possible - makes me fearful that no kind of true inter-communal harmony is possible.

It’s hard to be two things that don’t often like each other very much. It’s hard to be reminded of that yearly during a fast. It’s even harder to keep coming back. I admit that this year, I have a class scheduled for the whole day of Yom Kippur, and that very passage is tempting me to learn about Contemporary Constitutional Law instead of attending the two shule services I attend every year.

The days after Yom Kippur are for me to light the flame of hope.

Yom Kippur is there for me to repent my failure to bridge more gaps, my failure to display and model my own form of love, and my failure to have patience and tolerance. I do it by grousing about the same Torah reading, every year. It’s just my way.

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THE M OR AL COS T O F O UR CO MMUN I T Y ’S AF F OR DA B I L I T Y P R O B L E M

By Avi Bart

In keeping with the theme of “The Imperfect Jew”, I would like to discuss what I see as a major upstream determinant of our imperfect Jewish community: the moral costs of our community’s affordability problem. The financial barriers to the access of Jewish life in Australia and around the world have been discussed ad nauseum. While part of this affordability problem is specific to the Judaism of our community – Jewish school fees, Shul membership and the costs associated with the Jewish holidays, for example – much of it arises in the more general context of servicing the cars, homes and holidays of an upper-middle class Jewish lifestyle. To date, the conversation has centred on money: How can we raise more? And how can we spend less? However, while grappling with affordability is obviously an essential component of this conversation, it neglects the ultimate cost of our community’s materialistic mentality. The true damage of our community’s affordability problem is not financial, but moral.

The orientation of our community’s “Skinner’s box” – the carrots and sticks rewarding different behaviours – nudges us towards pursuing professions. For financial and social reasons, from a young age we are encouraged implicitly and explicitly to pursue professional careers.

Our community’s messaging highlights the remuneration of professions compared with vocations or the arts, as the means to fund our upper-middle class lifestyle. The perceived social value of professions and professionals further works to incentivise the pursuing of professions.

Medicine, for example, is a profession viewed positively as contributing to a broader social good. That someone is a doctor acts as a signal both of their intelligence and their goodness.

Furthermore, in a community with a high prevalence of Jewish doctors, there is often an additional family component that nudges

students towards medicine. Bolstered by the many Jewish doctors at the top of their fields who serve as role models in outlining a clear path to personal and professional success, young people come to view becoming a top doctor as an achievable and admirable aim. At a certain point, all of this becomes self-reinforcing. People who pursue professions are tagged as “successful” – and “success”, at least in the material domain, comes to be interpreted as pursuing a profession.

That “my son/daughter the doctor” makes Jewish mothers happy is axiomatic. But do all our kids really want to be doctors or lawyers or accountants? Professions are wonderful for the people who want to do them and are suited to them. But there is a moral cost to the primacy we place on professions – the “opportunity cost” of people pursing other areas they are better suited to. People being nudged towards high-paying professions necessitates them being nudged away from lower-paying professions, vocations and the arts – all of which someone might be much better suited to and find much more meaningful than pursuing a high-paying profession. With its valuing of the intellectual, I think our community does an excellent job of supporting and cultivating “above the shoulders”people but fails“below the shoulders” people – those who express themselves through their bodies, hands and hearts. Unfortunately, the contrapositive of the self-reinforcing success cycle becomes true for these people. It is public perception of lower-paying professions, vocations and the arts that foots the bill for the inflated social value of high-paying professions.

Disincentivising lower paying professions, vocations and the arts incurs a hefty price. With less writers, researchers, artists, teachers, and truckdrivers, we lose the value of diversity and the fertile ground for the cross-pollination of

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ideas. We lose the value of what each alternative career would add to our community. And we deprive individuals of the opportunity for selfactualisation through a career that would be best for them. And every year this continues, ‘compound interest’ accumulates as professions become more entrenched, and alternative career paths continue to suffer from a dearth of viable role models.

I’d like to illustrate this point using two specific domains, the arts and the adult Jewish engagement, as key examples. With regards to the arts, in view of the social pressures presented above, the curve representing the proportion of people in our community pursuing different careers is shifted away from creative pursuits.

To assess the cost of fewer artists is to assess the value of the arts themselves, and one only needs to consider the enormous contributions made by those artists in our community. A school friend of mine, for example, is a comedian whose comedy places a mirror to our community and helps me unpack and reflect on what things we are doing well, what things need be improved, and sometimes even how we can achieve them. As Elli Fischer has written on the subject, “without a vibrant creative class, there is no communal unpacking of that experience, no collective expression or catharsis, no mirror to show the community how it looks from the outside, no legacy of the community’s unique contributions”.

problem constellate to disrupt adult Jewish engagement at every level: content creation, implementation and attendance. The question that animates my Judaism is “what does it mean to be a 20-something year old Jew in the 21st century?”. I aim to lead a life where my Jewish values interface with what I know to be true about our post-modern world. Recontextualising our ancient tradition in the 21st century requires deep knowledge from both Jewish and general spheres to be coupled with sensitivity and creativity. Our generation’s Jewish iteration requires models different from those that were useful for our parents. Yet, with our best and brightest incentivised to pursue high-paying professions and so diverted away from creating Jewish content, we are slower in generating responses to the questions and challenges of our young people. Furthermore, whatever ideas are generated are left up to fewer and fewer people to implement. And, most sadly, even if we did have “the answer”, and fabulous people to implement it, with everyone staying back late at the office to fulfil the requirements of their high-paying profession, there would be no one available to attend. Too busy with meetings and memos, no one would be physically or mentally present.

Whilst striving for professions has paid our community enormous dividends in access and lifestyle, it also continues to exact enormous moral costs. Moving into the new year, we must ask ourselves what does the optimum balance The moral costs of our community’s affordability look like and how can we achieve it? Shana Tova.

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TH E P ERF E C T J E W I N ME

By Chavi Lazarus

As a child I was that girl who wore stockings in summer, was covered from the Collar bone to below the knees in rain, hail or absolute shine as a child. I was even that kid that wore a swimming skirt and a rashie to Bondi Beach! I was that girl that would go to a school birthday party and couldn't eat the food because it wasn't kosher or I had my own special food pack. I may have gone to a Jewish school but it was rather the school for Jewish children rather than practicing Jews! I was definetely the imperfect Jew for the school ethos because I was a little too religious, tznuits and kosher which was not the norm. Even though I was the imperfect Jew everybody still loved me for who I was and this made me so proud to be religious and I thought I was being the Perfect Jew! As I grew up I was not trying to be a rebel but rather just discovering the outside world. I started wanting to stop wearing stockings (which is a religious modesty custom). When I told people they replied saying "you will loose your job if you stop wearing stockings" and "you will never get a shidduch if you do that". I replied saying "if the guy wants me to wear stockings he is not the guy for me"! I always take everything to heart and started questioning if maybe I should stay super religious and not question it for myself. And I did exactly that...I got a job in religious school wearing stockings everyday, davened lots (even on the train) and enjoyed life in the perfect religious bubble which my community wanted me in! I may have been doing this but I was not happy who I was and it was time for a personal change :) Out of the blue, I was asked if it would go on a Jewish six week tour of Israel for people who had just finished school as a carer for someone with special needs. For me this was so exciting....I could finally go to Israel on a non-religious program and see Israel in a whole new light! On the other hand this opportunity was crazy.... how was I going to be the perfect Jew which included keeping Shabbat perfectly, and eating only kosher food and praying everyday! I braved it and was sure it

would be fine!!! Once I got on the program there was no time to daven everyday (unless I davened on the tour bus which I would look crazy doing), Shabbat was like a Sunday, I got a bucket of water poured on me in Meir Sharim while pushing a wheelchair, hashem was not mentioned once and my clothes were taken to the dry cleaner on Kibbuts so I had to wear my left over clothes in my bag which was leggings....and I hadn’t worn leggings since I was three due to religious reasons so this was a disaster! On the other hand, the program was also amazing...I got to have tea with Arabs often, eat amazing food and make life- long friends!

This Israel program made me really start questioning my faith and made me start to wonder who the perfect Jew is! I thought I was the perfect Jew practicing all the mitzvot daily and then I met these amazing people on the program who may not be practicing mitzvot daily but mostly seemed to also be amazing people so who was the imperfect Jew? From my experience as a child, going on this trip and lots of other experiences along my journey in life I have questioned who is gd, what does he really want from us and how to I become the perfect Jew. I also decided it was time to be the Jew I wanted to be....I still keep allot of mitzvot but I always question it and just do what I think is good...aka the stockings are off, the leggings are on, the siddur is getting dusty on my shelf and Shabbat and the Jewish community I would never give up! I have decided there is no imperfect Jew and rather I can only try be the perfect me and try my best to be a proud Jew in Australia that people are proud to be around. I feel that I may not be the Jew my community wanted to be, I may not be the Jew my friends perceived me to be, I may rather be the imperfect Jew but I am the Jew I thrive and want to be!

May you be the Jew you perceive to be the perfect Jew this new year that everybody loves and respects.

Chag Sameach,

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TH E P E R F E C T PA SS

By David Isaac Brockwell

It is no secret that developing a Jewish identity in a thoroughly non-Jewish society has always been a tenuous practice.

Far from intuitively achieving a harmonious accord between the practices and customs of Jewish and non-Jewish society alike, it is a constant balancing act to reconcile one’s Jewish identity with the realities of living in a modern world. This struggle - much like chronic nasal respiratory problems and disdain for shit quality hummus - is endemic to the Jewish experience generally, but has become a striking characteristic of the Jewish diaspora as cultural identity has unseated religiosity as the main component of Jewish self-expression.

Those who do not diminish their Jewish identity entirely, as Theodor Herzl once advocated prior to abandoning his staunch assimilationist policy in favour of seeking a rebirth of the Jewish national identity, tend to arrive at an imperfect balance; a Jewishness on terms which are often contradictory.

The process of negotiating one’s Jewish identity with the outside world is only made more difficult by having to explain it to people who may not fully grasp what a Jew is in the first place. Our ability to pass in broader Western society as “spicy whites”, as one comedian described it, means that the perception of Jews as deeply dogmatic fur-clad foreigners á la Fiddler on the Roof contradicts the contemporary reality of Jewish young people in the West.

Without much effort, it is possible to ‘pass’ rather easily as something other than Jewish. At its most basic, passing is simply incorporating characteristics of broader society in lieu of distinctly Jewish ones. “Meshuggenah” becomes insanity, Shabbat becomes ‘a Friday night family meal’, and the racially ambiguous appearance that many Jews have can easily transform into a chameleon background of ‘Eastern European’ or ‘Middle Eastern’ heritage without going into specifics.

That said, passing can also imply a deliberate rejection of the Jewish self. Some Jews I have met define themselves as having “Jewish heritage” while insisting it plays no role in their own individual identity, ignoring the tireless work of Jews gone by for the very right to assert our lineage in public without discrimination. Others see their Jewish identity as merely a quirk in their background, a crumb of trivia to bring up occasionally while maintaining no façade of Jewish identity generally. Others still may personally value their Jewish identity, but eschew it in public because they are loath to incite controversy outside

of circles sympathetic to the Jewish experience (read: around people who still think Jews are part of an insidious global cabal to undermine humanity). This is the most tragic passing of them all: a flag of convenience that we wear out of fear rather than pride.

Non-Jews have often reacted with surprise when I tell them that I am Jewish. To be fair, their surprise is not baseless: I have a fairly WASPish name, I tend not to wear a kippah or tzitzit in public, my command of Hebrew is middling at best, and I don’t pepper my vocabulary with Yiddish shtick in every sentence. “What kind of Jewish name”, said one curious observer at a party I went to recently, “doesn’t have Gold, Berg or Witz in it somewhere?”

This discrepancy in public image makes it difficult to fully embrace one’s Jewish identity. When I was younger, I would typically refrain from explaining my Jewishness in depth; not out of fear of persecution but out of sheer laziness. It seemed all too difficult to adequately characterise my Jewish identity to myself, let alone to people who never set foot in a synagogue themselves. Trying to explain what a Jew is to someone who didn’t already understand it was an awkward and embarrassing process, as I stumbled around the parameters of my Jewishness like Frankenstein’s monster trying to feign humanity. Unless I was specifically grilled on the matter, I would simply pass as a white kid from the East, and speak very little of my Jewish identity at all.

Perhaps us Jews may one day achieve the Perfect Pass. It would be an infusion of sincere Jewish self-expression aired comfortably within our society’s broader cultural identity without disintegrating into kitsch. Jewish symbols could be displayed freely without Nazi symbols being smeared over nearby surfaces.

Tasteful self-deprecation and insightful observations about Jewish cuisine would surely play a part in the Perfect Pass, as would the feeling that we could simultaneously express admiration for the State of Israel and our host nation without accusations of dual loyalty. With the Perfect Pass, we would shrug off our outsider status without condemning our heritage to oblivion.

For all its flaws, though, the humble imperfect pass remains a useful tool for Jewish perseverance. The ability to shed a layer of your identity can make a potentially uncomfortable situation all the more bearable. Yet as a new storm of hatred seems to gather with us in its eye, it is crucial that we as Jews don’t cast our real identities away, just as history has led us out of hiding for the right to remain Jewish.

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HOW TO D E S I G N T HE P E RF E C T N E W YE AR S RE SO LUT I O N

By Rebecca Hertzman

Why do we make resolutions?

We are all fully aware of the ineffectiveness of the New Years resolution – so why do we make these promises that are destined for failure year after year? Maybe it’s because they provide us with the hope of self-improvement. Even if we struggle to follow through with our resolutions they do provide us with the motivation to better ourselves, and that’s never a bad thing.

It has wisely been said that the biggest room in the world is the room for self-improvement.

The Vilna Gaon proposes that we must always be progressing from one level to another, because “if one does not ascend, he will inevitably fall.''

When should I make my resolution?

While New Years resolutions are firmly linked with the Gregorian New Year (January 1st), the tradition of making resolutions is not a foreign concept within Judaism, but we call it Cheshbon HaNefesh - Accounting of the Soul.

In this practice we look back at the person we were in the year that has passed, and ask if we have lived up to Hashem’s expectations, as well as the expectations that we set for ourselves.

Rosh Hashanah may not mark the start of the secular year, but who says that resolutions have to be made at the beginning of the (secular) year?

Constructing resolutions later on in the year, after you’ve started to stray from your ideals, is in fact the perfect time to re-evaluate and improve oneself.

So, how do we account our souls?

Step 1: Find an area in your life that’s lacking

Self-knowledge is a prerequisite for selfimprovement. Think of all the different aspects of your personality i.e. kindness, tolerance, arrogance, honesty, compassion, greed etc.

Once you have a list that you feel accurately summarises all existing character traits, determine whether you have achieved a “profit” or a “loss” in each area over the past year.

Step 2: Make it specific

Take one of these areas in which you feel that you made a significant “loss” and ask yourself the following questions: Why did I go downhill in this characteristic?

Is this having a negative impact on my life?

How can I improve this aspect of myself?

When you feel that you have decided on the aspect that you want to work on, make sure that you have a fully formed understanding of what the deficiency is and exactly how you can improve it.

Step 3: Get your willpower going

It is well known that the biggest barrier to change is a lack of willpower. It’s easy to get side tracked, to want to take the ‘easy way out’ instead of pushing until the end. There’s no simple way to get around this. You just have to focus on the end goal and imagine

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how you’ll feel once you have reached it.

Rabbi Levenstein muses in Ohr Yechezkel that it’s easier to know the Talmud by heart than to uproot a single character trait. The journey to self- improvement is going to be a long and difficult one, but don’t forget that it’s all about the baby-steps. No one can change overnight, and whilst it is normal to want to make grand actions of holiness and kindness, it’s the smaller deeds that enable you to reach your final destination. It’s easy to become discouraged by a perceived lack of progress, but even the smallest improvements are still improvements.

Why refine our character when there is so much improvement needed in the world?

You can’t change the world until you’ve changed yourself.

We spend a lot of time focusing on all the problems in the world. Poverty in Africa, global warming, animal ethics, the list goes on and on.

But people committed to improving society must be grounded in their personal morals and ethics.

How do you know if you’ve achieved your goal?

Resolutions don’t end after the year is up. Once you forget that this aspect is something you are actively working on and it just becomes a part of your being, you have reached your destination. But the work doesn’t end there; these are promises that you should work to uphold for the rest of your life.

Never stop trying to improve.

And this friends, is the resolution solution.

Chag Sameach!

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GIV E T H E YAMI M N O R A I M A SE CO N D C H ANC E; L IKE G O D I S G I VI N G YO U

By Gabriella Davis

The Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur shule services are the absolute highlight of my year. Yes, you read that correctly. Highlight of my year. But why on earth would a busy, 22-year-old student who considers herself fairly progressive enjoy sitting in shule all day for a service she doesn’t understand?

familiar service, most of as long

tunes from the Kabbalat Shabbat and others were simple tunes that us could catch on to after a few lines, as we followed along in the siddur.

What made this service so different from anything I’d experienced? Every student was there because they wanted to be, and they actively participated through the most beautiful singing, filling the small kindergarten classroom with bellowing harmonies that could be heard halfway down the street.

I grew up going to a traditional Modern Orthodox shule every Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur with my family. The shule experiences of my childhood were similar to most people I know; a cantor and choir leading the service, a few men joining in, and the other 95% of the congregation sitting there chatting. Just like Students were called on to give short drashas that 95%, I went to shule every year because (sermons) explaining various parts of the service my parents said that’s just what Jews do. and their significance, while others led parts of the service. Those in charge realised that, if It was always drilled into me that Rosh Hashanah they wanted students to find meaning in Rosh and Yom Kippur are the most important days in Hashana, they needed to be actively engaged. the Jewish calendar. They mark a turning point at which the past year can be put behind us, and we are Sure, the whole service is in Hebrew. And before given a chance to reflect, repent, and decide what you ask - no, I don’t understand every word of kind of person we want to be in the coming year. what I’m singing. But, does that matter to me? No. If this was really true, how was everyone so For me, when I sit there singing my favourite okay with just sitting in shule completely tehillim and tfillot to tunes I’ve been rehearsing disengaged, just because they’re supposed to? with my sister all year in the leadup to the High Holidays, I am reminded of what I truly care When I was at school, my sister and I successfully about in life. No distractions, no technology, no convinced our parents to let us go to our school’s stress. Just singing. I am reminded of the things 2nd day Rosh Hashanah service instead. It was that are most important to me; sometimes your traditional, by the book Rosh Hashanah these are things I’m really proud of how much service, yet, in so many ways, it was so much more. I’ve given myself to, and sometimes these are things I’ve been neglecting over the past year.

Every page prompted a new song that everyone could sing along to. Some were For me, the peak of the High Holiday services comes

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when we hear Unetaneh Tokef, a poem composed in the 11th century by Rabbi Amnon of Mainz. If you’re not familiar with it, go listen to the most commonly sung tune, written by Yair Rosenblum.

Unetaneh Tokef puts everything into perspective.

we do have some control over what story is told.

The song also asks, “who tells your story?” Or, to put it another way, what story will be told? In Unetaneh Tokef, we say that Hashem, on Rosh Hashanah, reads the Book of our Lives and judges each of us by our deeds. The poem concludes, “vechotam yad kol adam bo” - “the book is sealed by each person’s hand”. In other words, Hashem reads the story we have written. We may have little or no control over who lives and who dies; but

Don’t sit idly by and let yourself detach. Look around for opportunities to engage that work for you. And if you can’t find anything, make a change. Adapt the old into the new. Find likeminded people and create new opportunities for yourselves. Pave the way for future generations of young Jews to connect, to reflect and to strive to be the best people they can be.

Rav Kook taught; “ha-yashan yit’chadesh vehe-chadash yit’kadesh” – “the old becomes new and the new becomes holy.” Our mission in life is to transform and breathe relevancy One of the questions it asks is“Who will live and who and inspiration into our history leading to will die?” Sound familiar to anyone? The opening a life of meaning to create a lasting legacy. line from the finale of the musical Hamilton is: We have to turn history into our story.

“Let me tell you what I wish I’d known when I was young and dreamed of glory; you have no Our generation cannot be the one to disregard control who lives, who dies, who tells your story.” thousands of years of Jewish tradition just because we don’t connect with the way our Both the song and the prayer imply that there is parents’ generation chooses to practice. We randomness to this question – that’s what makes must take on the responsibility to breathe it such a powerful question. We sit in shule on Yom life into our history and create opportunities Kippur reckoning with our lives, our deeds, and we to meaningfully engage with Judaism in an don’t know; will we live to see another Yom Kippur? active way. Lin-Manuel Miranda did it, too, revolutionising the way Americans connect How many more trips around the sun will we have? with their history through a hip-hop musical.

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