Service Interruptus

Here we are, a few days into Chanukah, and I have a great Jewish story to share. It doesn’t have anything to do with the holiday, but who cares, really? A good story is a good story.

Let’s start with a little background for context. I have been on the board of my temple for what feels like centuries. One of the duties, nay, privileges, of being a board member is that we have the honor to sit on the bimah during Shabbat and other special services.  The bimah is like the stage of the sanctuary where all the religious stuff takes place, where the rabbi does his rabbiing and the torah ark is kept and a few chairs have been placed for board members or other recognized congregants. Even though it’s an honor and a privilege, few board members willingly sign up to take a turn. To be honest, it’s not my favorite part of being on the board, but once I am there, I am usually over my dread and rather enjoy myself.

Part of the reason why is our rabbi. I don’t know if other board members have this problem, but whenever I have bimah duty, something happens that makes the two of us crack up and spend the rest of the service trying not to laugh. Many a time he has caught me laughing at something I shouldn’t, maybe a person coughing, his voice cracking, him choking on water, that sort of thing. Who doesn’t want a rabbi with a sense of humor?

Last week, I was doubly honored to have bimah duty because I was the attending board member for a bat mitzvah. My family is friendly with the bat mitzvah family, and I was genuinely happy to be a part of their daughter’s special day. They decided to have a Havdalah service, an afternoon service that is sort of like the closing ceremonies for Shabbat. It’s a lovely tradition, especially in early winter, when the sunset occurs right at the end of services.

Bear with me. I am getting to the great story, I promise.

At our temple, the chairs for the board members are stage left on the bimah, and the far right wall of the sanctuary is glass with a lovely view of the setting sun. Less lovely is the view of the neighboring church. I always call it the Church of the Nazarene, which may or may not be its name, but close enough.  I don’t use churches as landmarks because to me, they are pretty much all the same. Some are more conservative (or crazy) than others, but in my southern town, we have churches on every corner like real cities have Starbucks.

This particular church is in full Christmas mode right now. They do a live nativity drive-through production, complete with animals and back drops and costumes and hastily constructed mangers and whatever else is involved in a crèche. Every year, they use the parking area on the right side of our building to store the animal trailer. It doesn’t interfere with our temple much, and we are happy to do it in the spirit of Christian neighborliness.

So here we go.

While the bat mitzvah girl stood at the podium to lead the congregation in prayer, the rabbi sat next to me as we watched her. I could see what was going on just outside the windows from my board member chair, and since I am easily distracted, I paid a bit more attention to that than the Hebrew prayers. I watched as a man dressed in ancient Bedouin attire led a horse down the hill to the parking lot.

I whispered to the rabbi, “Is that a horse?” He replied, “Just wait. There’s going to be a camel next.”

As the service continued, more people in period clothing walked back and forth behind the neighboring church. I couldn’t look away. I wanted to see the camel.

Eventually, we reached the Torah portion of the service. During a bar or bat mitzvah,  three generations of family stand in a line in front of the congregation and pass the Torah from grandparent to parent to child, symbolizing the sharing of Jewish teaching and values throughout the generations from ancient times to today. It’s always a precarious situation; Torah scrolls are pretty heavy, and grandparents and children are not the physically strongest of the Jewish people.

As the congregation stood and watched the ceremony, the dromedary camel made its appearance. Two people in traditional desert garb were wrangling it, but the camel didn’t give a fuck about the live nativity in which it was to participate. It struggled against its lead, flailing its head back and forth. In a show of defiance and anger, the camel reared up on its back legs, wildly thrashing its front legs in an attempt to make a run for freedom.  It finally gave up, defeated, and was led away to participate in the live nativity. I wondered if an unfortunate wise man volunteer was going to have to ride it. An angry camel doesn’t seem like a safe mode of transport, even for a biblical reenactment.

I continued to watch through the window, but alas, no other livestock appeared. After the Torah was read, the bat mitzvah girl gave her speech.

The rabbi again sat next to me and whispered,” I would like you to recognize my professionalism for not losing it with that camel.” I smiled and whispered back,” Very impressive. I doubt many people could maintain their composure.” “I’m worried about my car. I parked it in that lot,” he said. “Why did I park over there? I hope it didn’t take a crap out there.”

Now, I can’t be certain if that was what the rabbi whispered to me, as we were trying to be quiet. He may not have said that on the bimah, in front of G-d and everybody, but that’s what I wanted to hear.

The rest of the service continued without any animal distraction on the other side of the window. The bat mitzvah girl finished her sermon, kept it together during her parents’ speech, and beamed with pride when she was through. She was amazing.

The rabbi mentioned the camel’s appearance as he offered some final thoughts. He made a joke to the congregation that if they wanted to witness a reenactment of the birth of a Jewish baby boy 2,015 years ago, they could go next door after the service. From the pews, with the windows to the side, the congregation couldn’t really see what was going on outside. Not too many people saw the camel episode, so they didn’t have the distraction that the rabbi and I did from our vantage point.

Never before had I ever seen a distraught camel at a bat mitzvah, but I have to admit, it just added to the whole experience. To sit inside a modern building, listening to a child read from an ancient religious text, while on the other side of the wall, people dressed up in clothing that we assume was like that worn thousands of years ago, reenacting an historical event where people spoke the language she was reading, well, that’s some powerful irony right there. It also made for a one-of-a-kind rite of passage, and I was honored to be a part of it.