My Sabbath Elevator, Part II

Remember this post of mine?

I do. (Vaguely.)

Penned in the heady autumn of 2009-- before I was thirty. Before I was a father. Before I could no longer string together a cogent thought or coherent sentence secondary to the exhaustion that comes with becoming a diaper-changing machine.

I read this old post of mine with a mixture of intrigue, apathy, and amusement. Such vitriol spewed forth from me. Such offensively pulchritudinous platitudes.

Such piss. Such vinegar.

Sometimes I think I've mellowed out, now that I'm thirty-one and the father of two ardent squishies. Other times, though, I think I'm probably just getting warmed up.

I thought, when I read the infuriating "New York Times" article about the bizarre concept of the Shabbat elevator three years ago that I would write my blog, express my rage against my upbringing, my faith, my fellow crazies, and that would be that. The "New York Times" would move on, My Masonic Apron would move on, I would move on, the Jews in their insipid, self-congratulatory perpetually-motioned elevator would move up and down and up and down and up and down and the world would keep spinning on its charming little axis.

Unfortunately, as I thumbed around on my Blackberry's trackball on nytimes.com (shitty mobile edition) I realized that we're not really moving at all. We're quite assuredly standing still, though the elevator numbers of life continue to rise and fall with oh such cunning deception. My weary eyes glazed over the headline and my heart fell:

March 6, 2012

"On Jewish Sabbath, Elevators Do All the Work"

And all I could do was shake my head. And, no, I didn't say, "Oy," but thanks for asking.

We're still talking about this? Really? Part of the reason I stopped blogging hyperactively in the first place was because I felt like I was repeating myself, and here is the "New York Times" writing about this subject matter as if they'd just discovered it? Maybe the "New York Times" should throw in the towel, too.

When I last wrote about the Shabbat elevator, I was angry-- angry about hypocrisy and illogical practices and self-righteousness. Three years later, I feel the same way. I'm angry about the same things, I'm angry that Judaism's absurd inanities are fodder to entertain businesspeople on their iPads on their way to work on the subway. I can't imagine the "New York Times" would allow one of its staff writers to pen an article titled,

"On December 25, WASPs Don Ridiculous Sweaters and Sing Cloying Songs in the Cold"

But it's more than that. I'm not really angry at the Times, though I do kind of think they're beating a dead (Jewish) horse, I'm angry at Jews. Yeah, my peeps.

(Yo.)

We're immigrants. Foreigners. Outsiders. We came to this country in droves prior to the turn of the 20th century, and then again after World War II. My father came with a few of his hooligan, Jewfro'd friends in 1972 to get into textiles, never dreaming that it was perhaps an unwise choice. And I remember the line from "Cool Hand Luke", "What we got here is a failure to communicate."

Maybe what we've got here is a failure to assimilate.

Assimilation is often said and viewed as a poisonous word-- the dilution of culture and pride and faith-- but I posit that a little bit of assimilation is necessary for survival. It's healthy, it's normal, it's... well, okay. When I read about Orthodox Jews requiring special elevators to accommodate the Jewish requirement that you "not make spark nor fire" on the Sabbath, I guess that just makes me feel a little hinky. I mean, when you see a bunch of Jews crowding into one elevator and the rest of the world getting into another one, does that... I don't know... remind you of anything in particular?

WHITES ------------------------ COLOREDS

And ne'er the two shall meet.

Segregation is segregation, whether it's mandated from without or within. I think it would benefit the people who utilize these elevators to think about the message it communicates to the rest of the world-- and "the rest of the world" is something that I don't think Orthodox Jews give much thought to on a regular basis-- and that communique might be "we're special", "we're different", "we're... chosen." And I wonder, chosen for what? Chosen to be ostracized? Chosen to be identified and looked at askew and to be regarded as queer or suspicious or funny or weird? Chosen to be pondered over in America's most significant newspaper as an oddity, as something quaint or strange? I wonder about that. And I wonder, too, how the Orthodox Jewish community would feel if their special elevators were identified by a big yellow star, inscribed with the word "JUDEN".

You know, just to make them easier to find.

My Sabbath Elevator

I'm thinking of changing my blog's name from "My Masonic Apron" to "My Sabbath Elevator."

Just when you think you belong to a semi-sensible religion, you get kicked, right in the circumcision-arena.

Yes, that's right, kids-- the Big Rabbis have officially outlawed Sabbath elevators.

I'll bet you didn't even know there were such things. Well, there are. And, apparently, all-of-a-sudden, they're not good enough. No-- not kosher enough.

Or whatever.

The bad news came from the pen of Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, who is described by the New York Times as "a revered 99-year-old scholar" and "one of the most influential voices in the Jewish world" and, if that weren't enough superlatives, why not throw in "widely considered to be one of his generation's greatest authorities on Jewish law."

Well, let me just say this: if you think this crooked, knobby-kneed handbag with nostrils isn't taking an elevator on Shabbat, you're crazy.

The ruling has thrown the Orthodox Jewish world into a tizzy, especially considering that these elevators were constructed solely for the use of Orthodox Jews on Shabbat, so that they can utilize the convenience of an electrical device without actually touching any of the buttons-- thereby allowing them not to violate Sabbath covenants. (The elevators were designed to stop at every single floor and open and close, so that no buttons need be pushed, working on the theory of, "You'll get there... eventually.")

The New York Times article I read quotes 29-year-old Yosef Ball who, with his wife, now has to climb (sorry-- "schlepp") up seven flights of stairs after synagogue on Saturday, with a baby carriage, two toddlers and three other children. Now, does this ruling seem fair to you? Apparently, God wants you to be constantly making Jewish babies, but He won't let you use the fucking Shabbat elevator to get all their crying, tired asses upstairs?

Oh, no, wait-- it's not God-- it's Rabbi McCrustyface.

And therein lies the problem. Well, one of them.

Anytime you have human beings interpreting religious law, you're going to have issues like these. And, yes, they're stupid. You want to use the elevator on Shabbat in order to facilitate your getting to and from synagogue so you can praise God and feel like you're an active participant in something larger? Go ahead. Who gives a shit? Helicopters are falling from the sky in Afghanistan. Children with swollen bellies and flies in their eyes are toppling over in Africa. Preists are fingering little boys in the confessional, and rabbis are doing it in the mikvah. And you really expect me to believe there's a God up there who gives a hot motherfuck if this poor bastard with a wife and five kids uses the goddamn Shabbat elevator on Shabbat or not?

Come on.

In case you couldn't tell, I think this entire issue is laden with stupidity, but I do think that Rabbi Elyashiv is maybe onto something that has possible legitimacy, and I think that's the issue of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy has, I feel, been like a sword of Damocles, hanging over the heads of Jewish people for a long, long time, and maybe Elyashiv is striking a blow for consistency of behavior.

See, the Orthodox community likes to have their cake and eat it, too, and maybe save some for later. Surprised?

"Well, you can't go out and get bagels on Shabbat-- but if they were made by a goy, and the water wasn't boiled on the Sabbath, and somebody else (who's a goy, too, of course) pays for them, well... then it's okay."

"Rabbi-- is having tea on Shabbat permitted? Because isn't dunking the tea bag in the water work, and aren't we to avoid all work on Shabbat?-- Well, if you just put the tea bag in and don't dunk, then it's okay."

"Gee, can I have sex on Shabbat? I mean, sex is exhausting, and shouldn't we avoid exhaustion? Well, as long as she's Jewish and she's fertile, and you've got a good shot at making another Jewish baby-- eh, it's okay. No, not just okay-- it's a mitzvah!"

Oy. You could get a headache from all the horseshit.

And maybe Rabbi Elyashiv just has a horseshit headache. Maybe he realized that stepping inside an elevator that operates on electricity constitutes the use of electricity, even if you're not pushing the fucking buttons with your own fingers, and maybe he felt it was time to strike a blow, with his gnarled, wrinkly, shaky little fist, against Orthodox Jewish hypocrisy. Maybe now the days when Orthodox Jews can benefit from modern conveniences while sliding under the radar are just a little bit gone.

Maybe Elyashiv is just saying no. No more bullshit. You're either using the elevator, or you're not. And, you know what? You're not.

I think it's also a little funny, reading about poor Yosef Ball, who made the choice to get married at 12 or whenever it was, and to have five children by 29 (and I guess that will continue until his wife's uterus falls out while overcooking chicken one night) and then wants to complain that he has to climb seven flights of stairs after synagogue. Well, you know what, pal? In the old, old days, motherfuckers walked through sandstorms in the goddamn desert to congregate to worship God. Even my father, in Israel, in the 1950s, walked eight miles with his father to go to synagogue.

I think Yosef Ball's complaints probably wouldn't hold up too well when compared to those of Job.

Frankly, I don't really care whether or not Orthodox Jews are allowed to take Shabbat elevators or not. I'm not Orthodox, and I'm thrilled about that. You know why? Because I don't have to worry about whether or not nose-picking is permitted on the Sabbath.

(By the way-- it is, as long as no nosehairs are accidentally or purposefully removed in the process, because that violates the Jewish law against cutting hair on the Sabbath.)

Seriously.

Best Wishes and Love

Like a lot of twentysomethings, I struggle with God. And I don't mean that we arm-wrestle.

It's always been a tenuous alliance, ever since I asked, "Daddy, are we Jewish?" on a family car ride at age 6. My father answered by reaching behind his driver's seat with his clumsy, bear paw of a hand in a vain attempt to control the car whilst simultaneously trying to pull my right leg off.

Of course I knew we were Jewish. In those days, we walked to synagogue, for Christ's sake. What the fuck did I think we were doing-- cardio? I was just trying to stir up the pot, to push my father to the point of explosion. To goad God.

My wife and I had a little picnic dinner out on one of the local college campuses, the one with the duck and turtle pond, and, as we sat there on our blanket, feeling all collegiate again, our post-dinner conversation drifted seamlessly proto-philosophical dimension to another. Just like college conversations do, except without the pot or frisbee-golf.

"Do you think some extremely religious people are crazy, or were they crazy before they got hyper-religious?" I asked, her head resting against my sternum.

"Well, I think there's something in the rituals that appeals to a certain type of person who is obsessive," she replied.

"Right," I said, "like wacko Orthodox Jews. Because the people who convert to Orthodox Judaism have a shitload of rituals and rules, not only that govern prayer, but that run their entire lives-- and you can really get obsessed with that bullshit."

Seriously, the laws dictating what you can and can't do (mostly can't) on Shabbat could fill up a goddamn bookcase. And it's very easy to get so bogged down in whether you can dunk your tea bag on Shabbat or whether or not you can eat bagels that were prepared on Shabbat (well, only if they were prepared by the black non-Jew in the kosher kitchen, and, was the water boiled on Shabbat? etc, etc, etc) such that you can totally ignore or at least forget the meaning behind all of these things.

And, of course, what is devout and pious to one person can really be regarded as totally clinical to another person. Of course, it's the sum total of a person's beliefs and behaviors, attitudes and lifestyle that determine if you're religious or crazy. I mean, it's great that you're in synagogue a lot and that you study the good book and that you pray all the time, but, if you do all that and you live in a one room shack covered in filth, don't pay any bills, count your eyebrows and eat hamster food, then I think we might have a problem.

I've always been skeptical of hyper-religiosity, because I worried that it was a veil covering something unpleasant, that it is sometimes used as a mask or a venetian blind. It's sometimes the case, sometimes not. Child molestation, mental illness, birth defects, social ignorance, racism or other prejudice, sometimes hyper-religiosity is just an innocuous-looking cloak to be worn over these most regrettable negatives. "Ah, but he is such a learned man-- studies the Torah night and day!" "Oh, but he goes to mass and confession every week!"

Well.

At 29, I wish that I had a better handle on my views on religion or God. The pragmatist in me knows that the whole thing is made up, that every people on this planet has their own spin on it, their stories and their legends and their books-- their guides to morality and behavior. And I don't resent or make fun of any entity that desires to prescribe morality for human beings, because, really, we need it. We're a scandalous lot, we are. But I know that religion is always going to be manipulated, either from the top or the bottom, by people who want to use it for their own nefarious reasons, and that depresses and upsets me. As a generally pessimistic person, I tend to focus on this darker aspect of religion, and that, I suppose, is my own failing. Fallen from grace.

On Sunday afternoon, my friend Bob, who is 64, came to our house to put the finishing touches of trim around the master closet that he built for me and my wife. We met Bob through my various Gilbert & Sullivan activities. He's a wonderful man, a music educator and a conductor and, thankfully for us, a pretty skilled carpenter. He popped in some nails in some thin pieces of trim with his pneumatic nail gun and, as he was getting into his truck, we shook hands warmly.

"You know," he said to me, "you gave me too much money."

"Maybe you didn't charge enough," I said. I felt guilty. He said he was giving us "The Thespian Rate," and originally quoted us a price of $500-$600. He eventually finished the job, after multiple trips out here, and he said he wanted $500. I gave him more.

"Well," he said, "you're very kind. Oh, and Winnie sends her best." Winnie's Bob's wife, who accompanied him to our house last weekend with bagels and cream cheese for brunch.

"Well, send her our best wishes right back."

"Oh," Bob said, "and I'm heading to Julie's tomorrow to supervise some guys who are putting in $10,000 worth of fencing at her house, and I spoke to her on the phone and told her I was seeing you guys today and she was so excited. She said to please send you her love and all her best."

Julie's another Gilbert & Sullivan friend of ours. My wife and I love that woman to bits.

"Oh, send her our love, too."

"I will," Bob promised.

"Jeez, all these best wishes and love-- it's like God's singin' in our ears today," I remarked.

"Well," Bob smiled and said, "that's what God is, you know." He waved out the window of his truck and drove off.