Amidst the tragic events unfolding in Israel, an important moment transpired in the Orthodox Jewish community: Rachel Fraenkel recited the mourner’s Kaddish at the funeral of her murdered son, Naftali, and the numerous male attendees—including the Israel’s chief rabbi, David Lau—responded “amen.”

Yair Ettinger, writing for Haaretz, described Fraenkel’s public recitation of the Kaddish prayer as “a seminal moment from a religious perspective”:

This was no demonstrative act; it was the act of a bereaved mother saying the Kaddish for her son, immersed in the Aramaic text.

Still, there was great significance in her doing so before a large crowd of people, including Chief Rabbi David Lau and Rabbi Yaakov Shapira, the dean of the Mercaz Harav yeshiva, who sat in the front row, and the Knesset members who attended the funeral — all of whom, coincidentally or not, belong either to national-religious circles or to Shas.

Most of them had probably heard of women who recite the Kaddish, but it is doubtful whether they had ever had the opportunity to respond “Amen” to a woman who actually did so. More important, most of the thousands of people in attendance, and the even larger number who watched the funeral at home, had never seen a woman reciting the Kaddish before.

In non-Orthodox Jewish congregations where women are counted as part of a minyan (quorum), this is not a new development, but in Orthodox communities, women traditionally do not recite Kaddish. Halachically, it is an obligation that falls to male family members. But in recent years, increasing numbers of Orthodox women have been adopting this mitzvah, either in female-only prayer groups, partnership minyanim, or more progressive Orthodox synagogues.

In January this year, Shelley Richman Cohen wrote movingly for Tablet Magazine about the comfort she derived from saying Kaddish for her son Nathaniel, who died at the age of 21 from Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy:

Had Nathaniel had the zechut, the privilege of living a full healthy life, chances are he would have had children to say Kaddish for him. Since that was not to be his fate, who would be more appropriate to say Kaddish for him than his mother? I carried him in my womb, I birthed him, and I orchestrated the life he led. For his 21 years our lives—his and mine—were inextricably bound together. It was out of a profound sense of loss that I took on the commitment to say Kaddish.

At that moment, I don’t think I fully grasped what saying Kaddish would really mean. Yes, I knew it was said at three different prayer times every single day. Yes, I knew I would have to say it for close to a year. But no, I don’t really think I thought about how difficult it would be for a person like me who is, despite the best of intentions, perpetually tardy. All I knew was that I was grieving for almost every aspect of my son’s short life and I wanted desperately to be able to connect to him. Kaddish was a means for me to continue doing for Nathaniel.

The online response to Fraenkel’s public Kaddish has thus far been overwhelmingly sympathetic and positive. Fraenkel is a respected halachic authority who teaches Jewish law at two renowned women’s institutions in Jerusalem; Ettinger notes that she contributed last year to a “religious responsum examining the issue, with a bias toward the public recitation of Kaddish by women.” It is a great misfortune that she must now heed her own advice in such tragic, unnatural circumstances.

Image: Photoillustration Ivy Tashlik; original photo Shutterstock

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Back in March, Lahav Harkov wrote about White City Shabbat’s campaign to host the world’s largest Shabbat dinner in a hangar in the Tel Aviv port. Happily for Jewish number nerds the world over, the organization succeeded on Friday June 13 with a grand total of 2,226 attendees at Hangar 11—as verified by Guinness World Record adjudicator, Pravin Patel.

What goes into making the world’s largest Shabbat dinner a reality? Here are some stats from the press release: “800 bottles of wine, 80 bottles of vodka, 50 bottles of whiskey, 2000 challah rolls, 1800 pieces of chicken, 1000 pieces of beef, 250 vegetarian plates.” (Sorry, vegetarians! No food for you, only crockery.) And of course, no community-building endeavor is complete without some celebs/big machers. Counted among the 2,226 souls were former Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, basketball player Tal Brody, ex-Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren, and the Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, Yisrael Meir Lau.

Turns out the standards for setting the Guinness World Record for Largest Shabbat Dinner are exacting and rigorous: “All 2000+ attendees needed to be in their seats and served their first course by the waiters within five minutes, and then be at their table eating… for a full hour. Table captains were appointed to report to Mr. Patel, and verify that everyone played by the rules. It was also important for the Guinness judge to know that the meal adhered to traditional Jewish customs for Shabbat, including the proper prayers, Kiddush, HaMotzei, and that the organizers weren’t breaking any Jewish religious laws. He had come having done his homework.”

Sounds like a relaxing Shabbat. Mazal tov, everyone!

Image via White City Shabbat

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I stared at the bacon. I had never seen such a fatty piece of meat before. It stared back at me. Oink. Under normal circumstances, I would have flat-out refused to eat it. But the rules were different in the eating disorder treatment facility where I had spent the last two months. I looked across the table at my dietician, weighing my options. The punishment for not completing a meal was a loss of privileges and a lukewarm glass of Ensure.

“I can’t eat pork products,” I said. “For religious reasons.” Fattening, greasy, salty pork products. I had been using a variation of this line since the onset of my eating disorder years previously: I can’t eat that. I’m allergic/sick/full/ethically opposed/skeptical of its whereabouts. All the patients seated at my table knew every trick there was, and I wasn’t sure anyone would believe me. The staff at the facility didn’t have much exposure to Jews. I once had someone ask me if that’s the one where you can’t drink alcohol. But in 2014, the post-PC era, nobody was going to argue with me. My dietician offered me a veggie patty instead.

A little over a month after my discharge from the hospital, here I am again, in a face-off with the proverbial bacon. For the past few years, Passover has marked an annual decline in my health, serving as fuel for the eating disorder. With its institutionally condoned limit on carbohydrates, Passover is an anorexic’s dream. The lessons about redemption and freedom bypassed my underfed brain completely, replaced by an adherence to and obsession with custom. If there was one thing I excelled at, it was restrictive rituals. No peanut butter, no corn, no rice, no bread, and why stop there?

This Passover, I am in recovery, and I have decided to maintain a non-Passover diet for the duration of the holiday. Having been discharged from the hospital only recently, my health, physical and emotional, is precarious. I drank enough weight gain supplements, gave enough blood, spent enough hours doing nothing in the constant presence of medical professionals to learn I never wanted to come back. We weren’t allowed to be alone at all, not even in the bathroom. If food fell on the floor, we had to eat it. My IV drip prevented me from bending my arm for hours at a time. To put it lightly, it was an unpleasant experience—and one that my Judaism had contributed to.

In many ways, it’s Judaism, and not just Passover, that’s difficult for me. Year-round, there are good and bad and pure and impure foods, a hierarchy of sustenance. No animals with these feet, no wine handled by these people, bless the foods in order, don’t eat this after that or that with this. (On my list of rules: no crunchy foods, no sugar, no white foods on Tuesdays or Thursdays, no crusts, no eating with strangers.) In the hospital, they taught us that there was no good food or bad food. Food is nourishment and we need it to live, end of story.

I was the girl who cried kosher. Kashrut had been less a method of connecting with Judaism and more a convenient weight loss tool. Didn’t see the meat being cooked? There’s probably butter. Better not eat it. My conservative upbringing was more kosher-style than kosher, but I capitalized on my Judaism as a way to cut more foods out of my diet.

Consequently, I find my religion at odds with my health. The religious practices are, for me, a gateway to personal rituals, which are a gateway to starvation, a sure way back to the hospital. I will participate in the seders, and eat the matzah and gefilte fish and charoset during communal meals, but this year—bread and pasta on Passover.

I feel justified in my decision, but I struggle with how I will make the holidays meaningful without observing the customs. My family has been accepting—even encouraging—of my choice, as have my friends. Any judgment on the spaghetti I ate for lunch on the first day came from myself. This year, why is this night different from other nights? What makes Passover Passover in 2014? What makes me Jewish? By dismissing myself from the food rituals, I am also excluding myself from the social element of holidays, and of religion.

As is often the case when I pose questions to myself about Judaism, I don’t have anything resembling an answer. I have a friend who maintains that I am looking for a metaphysical solution that isn’t there, and I’m inclined to believe he is right. Nothing is going to feel satisfying or complete, but sometimes—at least for me—just looking is the answer.

This year, the haggadah is the center of my observance. When I turn to the text itself, I find a fragment of validation: We read that when the Israelites approach the Red Sea with Pharaoh close behind, they fear the worst. God parts the seas, and the only way out is through. The Israelites safely make the crossing to freedom, their demons far behind them, but they have a long way to travel. They stop and survey what has just happened. A hurdle is cleared, and the next is ahead. They are free but not unbound.

Once we were slaves, now we are free. In my small way, I have been redeemed, offered a reprieve from a low weight and a low potassium count and low energy. I am reluctant to use the vocabulary of Exodus, because I was never a slave, and in the important ways, my life has been peaceful and good. But in the microcosm of my life, I have finally been offered a taste of freedom from a disease that grabbed hold and wouldn’t let go. Now, even with hurdles ahead, I am running in the opposite direction.

Elyse Pitock is a junior at Barnard College whose work has also appeared in the New York Times.

(Image: Shutterstock.)

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After the ingathering from your threshing floor and your vat, you shall hold the Feast of booth for seven days. You shall rejoice in your festival, with your son and daughter, your make and female slave, the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless and the widow in your communities. You shall hold a festival for the Lord your God seven days in the place that the Lord will choose; for the Lord your God will bless all your crops and all your undertakings and you shall have nothing but joy.”

Nothing but joy, people! We’re supposed to rejoice with all of these random people, everyone from the highest to the lowest members of our community, and we’re supposed to have nothing but joy. (For more on this commandment, see Rabbi Rosen’s blog). Normally the commandments to feel a certain way annoy me, but I surrender to sukkot. On sukkot I laugh and sing zmirot and hang out with old and new friends. Nothing but joy is a tall order, but if there’s anything worth aspiring to, it’s that, right? Here’s wishing you and your families nothing but joy, through sukkot and well into the New Year.

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