I Didn't Even WANT to Chant - Part 1

I just wanted to stop feeling like such a tourist in Jewish ritual.

Pssst. Can I let you in on a secret?

I didn't really even want to learn to chant Torah originally. I certainly didn't dream of standing on a bima...

I didn't wake up one morning thinking:

"YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD BE FUN?
Ancient Hebrew musical punctuation."

 Lolz. And yet, here we are.

What I did want, deeply, was much less glamorous.

I just wanted to stop feeling like such a tourist in Jewish ritual.

You know the feeling? When you know enough to follow along, recognize the prayers, to know when to stand up and when to sit down. Enough to know that everyone else seems to know what's going on underneath it all, and you feel completely outside of it? Not enough to feel fully at home.

Sort of like when you're visiting your great aunt's house. You know where the bathroom is. You know where the snacks are (sometimes). But you're still waiting to be told whether you're actually allowed to sit on the couch.

For a lot of Jewish women (and Jews of all genders!), that's what Jewish ritual spaces feel like.

There's no hostility per se. It just doesn't feel like....ours.

We know how to show up, support, organize, volunteer, make the kugel, bring the children & watch them -- but when it comes to the visible ritual stuff: The Torah stuff, the leading stuff, the in front of the room stuff, the "everybody turn and look at the person leading" stuff?

Somewhere along the way many of us got the message:

"That's for OTHER people."

Sometimes the message was explicit.

Sometimes nobody in particular said it out loud (because nobody had to, because the rabbi's wife's piercing gaze said everything on its own).

Sometimes there was simply a very effective Mental Mechitza - an invisible barrier made of assumptions.

Tradition!

Habit!

Fear!

And occasionally a 73-year-old man named Barry who's constantly correcting everyone and making us feel stupid and wrong. Who would want to opt-in for more of that?!

The strange thing is that the moment I started learning Torah chanting, the biggest change wasn't musical, spiritual or even liturgical. I didn't have a come to Jesus moment (in this case, would it be come to Yeshuah?)

The biggest change I noticed was psychological. And emotional. 

Literally - every trope I learned was one less reason I had to shrink and hide.

Every aliyah (Torah portion) I prepared - every student I taught - was one less place where I felt dependent on somebody else's expertise. 

Every time I stood up and used my voice publicly, my nervous system learned:

"Oh.

I'm allowed to be here."

No more Barry correcting me.

No more depending on someone else's expertise.

And this is what I see happen over and over again with my students.

The first thing they gain is not skill.

The first thing they gain is permission.

Permission to participate.

Permission to understand.

Permission to take up space.

Permission to stop apologizing for not already knowing.

Permission to belong.

And from there?

The skills come surprisingly quickly!

The first time my adult students chant publicly from the bima, I stand with them and help them along because it's nerve-wracking as hell. But you might be surprised how quickly my former students have become regular Torah chanters & prayer leaders at their synagogues -- how many times I've arrived to be bima-support for one of my b mitzvah students and to find out by accident that my former student would be chanting Torah or leading prayers that day. Do you have any idea how gratifying that is?! My graduates feel so confident after their first or second try, after putting in the time and effort to learn and study and practice with me, that they don't even bother telling me they're leading that day because they don't need me anymore. They're literally depending on, and doing it for, themselves. And that's LITERALLY all I could ever hope and ask and pray for, for each and every one of you! 

Because once we stop standing around great-auntie's house waiting for a couch invitation, it's much easier to get comfy right away.

The Torah isn't somebody else's living room. It's yours too.

And if you've spent years feeling like a guest, maybe it's time somebody handed you a key?? Fluffed a cushion on the couch and proclaimed, "Have a seat!"

Not because you're special. Not because you've "earned" it. But because, just like me,  it was always supposed to have been yours. All you have to do is take it, and own it.