Dance the night away

The long Presidents' weekend is over and I'm alone in the house, finally able to resume my search for a job as a pharmacist. I've been looking for almost two months now, with mounting pressure, knowing this job will essentially pay for Ben's Bar Mitzvah in eight short months. It's taken me nearly four years to resurrect the dusty old pharmacy degree from Rutgers College, in which I worked a total of three days back in the 80s, then quit, for three decades. After my recent, painfully oppressive internship in the Walgreens rat race, I know chains are out. I'm thinking a slow, independent store would be perfect, if that even exists anymore. I picture an adorable little pharmacy with a soda fountain, where I can listen to jazz radio or classical. Where it's so slow that when the door opens I look up in surprise. I guess it would be owned by an older retiree who would rather spend his time in Florida. I'm there to keep an eye on the place, basically, and get paid what the poor sap is getting next door at CVS. Somewhere deep down I do know I'm in denial.

I'm all good intentions, but as soon as I turn on the computer my facebook account floods with comments and photos from a group named "Bradley Beach memories." It's a jewish memory lane from the 60s and 70s, and I'm back there, to my cherished childhood home, with a smile on my face.

Many comments are about the small temple in town, an orthodox shul, where quite a few of us went. I think back to the women sitting separate from the men, the feeling of warmth, of a safe haven, my comfortable, cozy temple, my extended family of jews. A few people comment about the strict Mr. Rabinowitz, the first year hebrew school teacher. I post if he actually used a ruler on the hand. Some say he was tougher with the boys. Maybe it was used on my brother Paul, one year older than me. I remember sitting on the floor of our front porch with my beginners hebrew book open, reciting the strange looking vowels- the different ooh, ah, eeh sounds. I was eager to learn, excited to be embarking on this journey into this strange, exotic language. I can't help but feel Ben never got this kind of excitement learning the language. Or for that matter, of being Jewish, feeling such a strong connection to it. I know the town of Bradley Beach was so instrumental in instilling this feeling. It was such an insular jewish town in those years, especially in the summer, when jewish teenagers from all over the state sat together on Brinley Avenue beach, blanket to blanket, transistor radios playing in the background. I suppose it was the last time for a generation to be connected in that jewish way. I know for my mother who went to the all jewish Weequahic High School in Newark, it was highly diluted for me. And now for Ben, is there really much of a jewish connection left?

So I decide to forge a connection. A few weeks earlier, Sherri had forwarded me an e-mail from a group called Kadima, a social group for jewish tweens across the state. Our temple was to be hosting an upcoming party, and Sherri throws in the added incentive that if anyone from Ben's class sleeps over, they don't have to attend Sunday school the following morning. It does the trick.

The Saturday evening of the party, I drop off my shy, rather resistant son at the temple. When I walk in a few minutes later to check on him, I'm reminded of the pre-USY dances that I attended at his age, where we'd board a bus headed for unknown parts of New Jersey with foreign sounding names like Iselin or Rahway, and spend the night searching the disco-lit room for the cutest boys. It was a thrill, getting all dressed up, actually putting on stockings and high heeled shoes, sitting on that darkened bus in total anticipation with my closest friend Ellen.

Ben's friend Ezra won't be there. But Kalman will, and a few of the girls in his class. Rob waits in the car, reminding me to hurry so we can catch the movie "The Artist." But I can't just leave Ben there in this mostly empty room with a DJ, I feel I should introduce him to the three tall, good-looking eighth grade boys from the nearby town of Livingston. They tower over Ben and he looks uncomfortable, awkward as can be, finally turning to me, "you can leave now."

When I get in the car, Rob is upset, how could I spend so much time in there, we probably missed the movie. He's right. But I can't help myself. The last place I feel like going is to a movie, what I really want is to spend the entire night observing Ben, like Jane Goodall taking notes on her favorite young ape. Sherri was actually looking for adult chaparones but I just knew that would be a disaster. I could just picture Ben leering at me all night from the furthest darkened corner of the dance floor.

The plan is to stop at the temple on the way home from the movie and see if Ben wants to sleep over. I can barely contain my excitement as Rob and I walk into the rap-filled room with strobe lights pulsating. I see groups of girls running zigzag en masse to groups of boys, a continuous migratory shifting. I notice there is not one couple in sight. Or Ben. Or anyone from his class.

We go downstairs to another large area, and there, sitting in a row with backs against the wall and headphones on, are Ben and his cohort from hebrew school. Ben still looks shy, but it seems they all do, and are giving each other comfort. It's sweet, somehow. And then I approach, hovering over them asking Ben if he's having a good time. He looks up in horror.

"Do you want to sleep over?" I ask, as if I have a reason to be there.

He gets up and we walk. "No. It Sucks. The kids from Livingston are wearing $300.00 sneakers."

"Who cares? Why would you even notice?"

"They're snobby."

"Fine, you don't have to sleep over. But you should probably tell your friends."

From a distance it seems the girls are suddenly very animated and chatty with Ben. He comes back to me and Rob. "Fine I'll stay."

On the way out, Rob comments on the futility of saying no to a Jewish woman.

I'm sitting across from Sherri in her office at the JLC, and it occurs to me, as it always does when I see her, she doesn't like me. It's obvious. I've known it for years. Not that I blame her, I understand, she has the disagreeable job as enforcer of the JLC rules, rules I've tended to gloss over if not outright defy on an ongoing basis; the carpool line (one should wait patiently in the 15 minute snaking line, not drive over the median which I've done as Sherri runs screaming after my car; the tefillin* must-have-by-such-and-such date (where was I for that e-mail?), that Bar and Bat Mitzvah kids must make every effort to attend Friday night and Saturday morning services.

Sherri leans across her desk towards me. "We fit in so much in our Wednesday class, teaching the kids the meaning of good needs, mitzvahs, how to be productive in the community, visiting soup kitchens, nursing homes. Maybe, just maybe, they get thirty minutes of hebrew a week. Things are different now. Not like when we were kids."

She was right. What was I thinking? And the more she talked the more I agreed with her. I mean here was a woman who was devoting her entire life to Judaism, trying to mix it up for these kids, making it more interesting, whereas I was simply pussy-footing around the religion, complaining about his ability to read hebrew. What was wrong with me, why was I so difficult. I wanted to hug her, tell her I was sorry, that from now on things would be different.

". . . and as you know, Lori, Ben doesn't exactly go to all his classes during the week or on Sunday. Not to mention Friday night and Saturday morning services. Of course this could greatly impact his ability to read hebrew. "

I knew it. Ben's not reading hebrew was my fault. What about all the other kids in his class who are in need of a tutor. Are we all to blame, I want to ask? But I keep my mouth shut. I'm jolted back to realty. And the reality is, I'm sitting across from the Rabbi's right hand man, and she could be tough and intimidating. Getting on her wrong side, their wrong side, as I'd seen, could cause some major suffering.

What I certainly don't share is that Ben and I made a bargain a few years back, that if he'd go to "most" of his hebrew school classes he could miss a Sunday or Wednesday here and there. Admittedly it wasn't the best idea, but it did get him down the road a bit, and over the years it did sort of work. At least he didn't drop out like a number of kids in his class. Like my friend Rona's son, Jeremy, who made it so difficult for her that she simply threw up her hands one day and screamed, "Fine, quit." I just made it a bit more palatable is all, obviously a far cry from the pious Jewish mother that Sherri expected. And now, she wanted Ben, like his classmates, to step up to the plate, become a more grown up Jew and actually attend services.

In the words of Laura, my mother-in-law, Sherri and I were in a game of "Gotcha." In Sherri's mind, by violating the carpool line, I could run over a kid. And yet, I had been driving my entire adult life, near schools, parks, food markets, in and around suburbia with balls rolling under my car, and never once had I run over a kid, especially going 2 miles an hour in the temple parking lot looking out for a kid. One day, I walked the line of cars to get signatures for a petition to retain leveling in our middle school. From 30 yards away Sherri called out to me, "Lori whatever you're doing, stop it." But I continued, as this was a tailor-made concerned group of parents who were more than willing to sign. When I got back in my car and pulled up for Ben, Sherri and I avoided eye contact. I wondered, did I really have to invite her to the Bar Mitzvah.

*the leather straps the boys wrap around their heads on their Bar Mitzvah day. I've yet to see one except on their big day. Maybe in the Orthodox community, but the chances of that are nil. Bottom line, $230.00, and in the closet.

God help me

I leave a message with the cantor who is apparently away on a compulsory cruise of sorts, and call the other possible tutor, Nikki. A few years earlier I had met her when picking Ben up a bit early from Sunday school and sat in the back of her adult hebrew class. I liked her immediately; smart, sweet and kind, with seemingly endless patience for the many different levels of students in the class, she seemed the perfect teacher. I remember thinking if I had the time or inclination I would love to be in that class. But I was neck deep in refreshing a thirty-year-old pharmacy degree while in the midst of a heady spree of writing freelance essays for the NY Times. As usual, Judaism took a back seat. In my mind, Judaism was more like yoga or meditation, I knew it probably would add a sereneness missing from my life, but I was always way too pumped up for anything serene. Judaism was mostly for Ben, just as for my mother, it had been for me.

A few days later Nikki comes to our house and begins the tutoring. She will be coming every Tuesday for a half-hour and assures me that we are way ahead of schedule and that Ben will be just fine. "I've never met a child who didn't do well on their day," she tells me calmly. She'll send over an MP3 of my trope and promises to give me the shortest Aliya possible for Ben's Lech Licha torah reading. I want to burrow my head in her busom, tell her I can't possibly do this, that I'd be too nervous and it would ruin the nine months leading up to the big day. But I can't fall apart. It's just a few lines I tell myself. Ben has so much to learn, we'll learn together. It will be a bonding experience. I can do this.

I think back to my latest bout of stage fright, when Rob had lost his job during the recent financial crisis. I figured I'd put all those years of classical piano lessons to financial use and perform in schools as Clara Schumann, 19th century virtuosa. I write the one-woman show, force myself to practice piano every day for 45 minutes-- Beethoven, Chopin, Robert Schumann, Brahms-- and low and behold I get myself booked. But what I didn't anticipate was that standing in front of 600 students in an assembly, plus teachers, plus principals and vice principals, would cause my blood to run ice cold. Not that my wildly erratic heart wouldn't kill me first. I got total dry-mouth standing up there, would need to constantly gulp water every few minutes. The nerves actually chopped off a whole quarter of a minute from the Minute

Waltz. I was a wreck. After three years, I finally quit. Not that anyone noticed I quit, I simply stopped booking myself. And it finally hit me. Though I like my share of attention, could be extroverted in a group say on New Year's Eve, deep down, as in really deep down, I prefer one on one. It took me many years to finally admit this, to non-judgementally accept it. The truth was, I was actually very shy. And at times, the shyness could be incapacitating. So standing up there on the bima, reading hebrew, actually singing hebrew, among all our friends, neighbors, and family, might just bring out my shyness in all it's brilliant, vibrant colors. It might, very well, make me throw up.

The Temple Defection

That evening I receive an e-mail from Sherri suggesting we meet the following day to discuss Ben's issue. Meanwhile I call around and get two recommendations for a tutor, the first being our recently fired Cantor. In the last year he was forced out by the newly hired female Rabbi, along with the temple board, in a gut-wrenching coup to rival Christ's last supper, or in more secular terms, Steve Jobs' early ouster from Apple. One hundred of the oldest and most religious jews in our conservative temple boycott this decision by the controversial Rabbi, and eventually defect. How could she toss out the Cantor with the golden voice, they ask among themselves. For over twenty-years he led the singing on the bima, started the children's choir, the adult choir, taught the Bar and Bat Mitzvah class to sing the difficult trope for their all important day. In the view of many of these congregants the Rabbi was committing a true sin of the commandments: "you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." Or if that didn't stick, Proverbs 6-16:19: "there are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him-- haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make hast to run to evil, a false witness you breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers."

During the drawn-out dismissal process, rumors were rampant, congregants pitted one against another. Our newly renovated sanctuary had become an off-broadway theater; the bima, a stage for heart-felt soliloques, as one member after another approached the microphone with quaking hands clutched to hard-written notes. Some threatened to leave in a mutinous walk-out, others implored fellow members to remain and see the temple through the hard times.

And for the first time, I find myself a regular congregant. Transfixed by the drama, I was drawn into it, felt I had to be there, at long last summoned by a higher religious calling. But mostly I knew, as the mother of a Bar Mitzvah boy, I was in the thick of it. I kept wondering to myself, why, why alienate an entire congregation? If so many people loved the Cantor, why cause such a schism. But now it was too late, our temple was in shambles. And most of my friends had left. But we, the small group of Mitzvah parents, were stuck. Where were we to go? We mostly forged through, whispered amongst ourselves of the rift, what we'd do after the Bar and Bat Mitzvahs. Many were planning on leaving too. I was unsure. My idea of Judaism still hung mostly on Ben's comfort level with it. This was, after all, his temple, these were his friends.

And my defected friends were now true wandering jews, scrambling to various delis and restaurants in and around town for the morning Minyan -- the early Saturday service. They'd meet at the town library, Giorgio's Italian restaurant, above the Town Hall Deli where the best non-kosher sloppy Joes wafted in, but mostly they'd cram into one another's houses with potluck dishes for the Kiddish. A quarter of the temple leave, taking with them the heart and soul of the temple, the last of the sweet-hearted mensches, not to mention some rather hefty financial wherewithal. I miss them. Now the temple is full of younger families, perky jews, moms with stick-straight ironed hair and fashionable shoes. I miss my shuffling religous jews, the menopausal Jewish moms with greying roots, leaning over and kissing their high school sons and daughters during services.

Not that I was ever a regular temple goer, comfortable sitting in temple reciting prayers, rocking back and forth davening. My friend Rona and I would mostly go on the high holy days with our NY Times articles hidden in the Sedur, the book, swapping clippings from Modern Love, or the Lives section, then singing the sweet songs, leaning into each other. My Italian, non-Jewish husband Rob, keeping me warm with his grasp on my leg. This was fine with me, a kind of social, earthy-feely Judaism. And now that was gone.

It's not my fault.

The problem surfaced two weeks ago. The Rabbi and her assistant Sherri had placed Ben in a small trope* class with just two other boys, both from Solomon Schechter, the all day religious school. When I pick Ben up he gets in the back of the car and slumps deeply into the seat. "Those other kids are miles ahead of me," he says with absolute dejection. "I can't even read Hebrew. They already know how to sing trope. It's not fair. I'm quitting." Is it possible, I wonder driving home. Would they have done that? What were they thinking putting him in this group?

When we get home I go to the computer and open the hebrew sing-song trope his teacher Howard had e-mailed us. Ben begins to read. I'm shocked. My 12-year-old son who has been attending hebrew school every Wednesday and Sunday for seven years now, can hardly read. He's faltering over each letter, painfully stringing together the words, going so slowly that at this rate his Bar Mitzvah would spill over to Sunday.

I tell myself it's not my fault, but still, how did I not notice this. I'm a bad mother,

not to mention a bad Jewish mother. My son can't read the language, and I was too busy to notice. I give a quick stir to my Italian mother-in-law's thick Bolognese sauce, grab the Manishewitz and begin typing off an e-mail to the JLC (Jewish Learning Center).

"Hi Sherri, today Ben came home from trope class and was so upset. He's being taught with Zach and Kalman, both of whom are at Solomon Schechter and legions ahead in terms of hebrew, trope, etc. This I believe was either poor planning on the Jewish Learning Center's part or simply just not thought through. It was just wrong to put Ben in class with these kids who are so far ahead. To make matter worse, he told me he can't really read hebrew. I thought he must be kidding, but sure enough, it's true. I think I could read better when I was a third grader learning in the 60's in Bradley Beach, NJ. I spoke to other parents in his class and was told, they too, feel this way. It seems everyone is getting tutors to catch up, or in one case, switching to another temple where apparently their child is two years behind the other kids his age.

It's not going to work with the current arrangement. Sadly the reality is that his education at JLC is sorely lacking- and this just highlighted it. I just felt my heart sinking tonight when I asked him to read hebrew. I felted duped and also a bit of the neglectful mom, in that I just assumed his hebrew learning would be taken care of at the JLC. I now see I was wrong. I will need to get a tutor. I had put my head in the sand, shame on me, but shame on the JLC for not teaching Ben and apparently other children in his class to read hebrew.

Not a bad letter. The problem being, I actually sent it. As usual, I didn't wait the requisite 24 hours, or even five minutes before pushing the send button.

*a musical embellishment of prose, a notation for musical reading of the Jewish Torah