Wangfujing Avenue, Beijing’s lively shopping strip
What do you get when you combine jet lag induced by a shift of 14 time zones, sleep deprivation from weeks of High Holiday preparation, and immersion in a foreign culture with a totally unfamiliar language? In the middle of our first night in Beijing, China, in mid-September, I woke up with an overwhelming feeling of anxiety. How would I navigate my way through our trip? Would Kehillat Beijing (http://www.sinogogue.org/), the congregation that invited us out, and I be suited for each other? Proverbs 12:25 says that anxiety in the heart weighs one down, and according to the Rabbinic commentator Malbim (1809-1879), “anxiety is one of the most destructive feelings a person can experience.” Malbim goes on to advise us to either suppress the feeling of anxiety when it wells up or evoke a positive image of hope and optimism to counteract it. I tried yet a different approach – I woke up Beverly to talk. Ultimately, we both felt truly privileged to become part of Kehillat Beijing during a most amazing and exhilarating 25-day visit.
The community of expats and guests in Beijing was unbelievably welcoming and generous, touring us around the city, treating us to meals, and inviting us not only into their homes but their lives. We thought our host was joking when she said that someone was coming by at 7 AM the morning after our arrival–a mere 15 hours after landing–to take us to our first sightseeing stop. It was the first of many fascinating and busy days, and we made what I hope are lifelong friends during our stay. In addition to guiding the congregation through services on Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, I had the pleasure of conducting a unique Chinese-style Jewish wedding; a baby naming; Selichot services near the Great Wall; a Shabbat morning service in a hutong (traditional alley neighborhood of courtyard residences); several Friday evening and Havdalah services; and a pair of talks at the Moishe House in Beijing, where I was awestruck by the energy and vibrancy of the post-college Jews. See Beverly and me discuss physics and Judaism at http://www.moishehouse.org/houses/beijing/programs/53371/photos.
BOOKS: In the months leading up to our trip to China, I managed to read some wonderful books, both non-fiction (The Days Between – Blessings, Poems, and Directions of the Heart for the Jewish High Holiday Season by Marcia Falk, Making Prayer Real by Rabbi Mike Comins, Great Schisms in Jewish History – ed. Jospe and Wagner) and fiction (Stern by Bruce Jay Friedman, World Cup Wishes by Eshkol Nevo, Beautiful as the Moon, Radiant as the Stars – ed. Bark and Prose). I highly recommend the autobiographical Little Failure by Gary Shteyngart, and I even found significant Jewish content in Dave Barry’s You Can Date Boys When You’re Forty, with his extensive section on his trip to Israel. On my most recent book-buying splurge of both brand new titles and old classics, I acquired copies of A Bride for One Night by Ruth Calderon, In the Image of God – A Feminist Commentary on the Torah by Judith Antonelli, David Vogel’s Viennese Romance, Torah in the Observatory by Menachem Kellner, and Liona Finck’s graphic-style novel entitled A Bintel Brief among others.
Closer to home, my usual Shabbat and holiday rabbinic responsibilities over the past several months focused mainly on HaMakom in Santa Fe and the Los Alamos Jewish Center. For my Dad’s 24th Yahrzeit in August, my son Dov and I visited my Mom in California. There I had the thrill of having Dov come up for an aliyah while I leyned Torah at Ner Tamid in San Diego.
Rabbi Jack’s tallit bag
I’m currently preparing a presentation on our China experience – in the meantime, you can find photos of us as tourists in Beijing and Xi’an (hint: Terracotta Warriors) on my website www.physicsrabbi.com.
B’shalom,
Rabbi Jack