My memory of Krakow, a week since, percolating in my brain, is gray and sweet, funny in a topsy-turvy way. My favorite professor at Smith, Len Berkman, can't speak about Poland without strange gestures and racuous laughter. He speaks of Poland as a liminal space, everywhere and nowhere, where anything can happen. I felt this intense strangeness while there, as though I've been in another dimension. Prague is a realer world, and Krakow requires pixie dust and imagination to be summoned into existence.
We toured with a tall, sarcastic student, who informed us the city was once destroyed by flaming walnuts, and that a trumpet player sits in the clock tower 24 hours a day - 4 men in shifts - playing a regal, clipped tune in four directions several times an hour. The greyness enhanced the mystical feeling, neither light nor dark. The pigeons were comically fat, and we ran into the same old gentleman with a dog in a sweater over and over. A sign on the tram proclaimed you couldn't play the trumpet while riding. I ate rose ice cream.
The Krakow Jews are reclaiming a place, infusing it with music. I got an opportunity to speak, and I spoke about being where you are, a lesson I have been deeply focusing on in my own life. In the story of the burning bush, G-d calls Moses, and Moses says "Hineini -- here I am." And in that room in Krakow, I felt quite profoundly that I was there, in this strange, liminal, fantastic place. It rekindled a wavering dream about maybe become a rabbi someday -- or at least, creatinga table with food, song, people, and learning. That, to me, is Judaism. That, to me, is the sweetness of life.
We toured with a tall, sarcastic student, who informed us the city was once destroyed by flaming walnuts, and that a trumpet player sits in the clock tower 24 hours a day - 4 men in shifts - playing a regal, clipped tune in four directions several times an hour. The greyness enhanced the mystical feeling, neither light nor dark. The pigeons were comically fat, and we ran into the same old gentleman with a dog in a sweater over and over. A sign on the tram proclaimed you couldn't play the trumpet while riding. I ate rose ice cream.
We encountered a store called "More than a Cookie" - the "more" turned out to be Jesus. The cookie-seller, a pudgy Minnesotan with eyes begging trust a little too much, accosted us with Messianic Jew literature and asked us to raise our hands if we believed in G-d. "You guys are like celebrities to me," he said, gaping at curly hair and Mogen Davids. "The Jews are the Chosen People." As we left, he asked us if we wanted to be buddies with Jesus. We, noshing on cupcakes, politely ran away.
We went to Friday night services in an old Orthodox synagogue dedicated to Rabbi Remuh, and had to sit in the women's section, wood paneled and under construction, broken chandeliers and wobbly benches and droning Hebrew and an adorable baby wearing fluffy bear ears cooing during silent meditation. I always feel alienated by this sort of services, but the dinner at the JCC was awesome. The Prague JCC is under heavy security, and inside is somber, quiet, empty. In contrast, Krakow's JCC was full of light and song, happy people reconnecting to Judaism in a place that was once a terrible ghetto.
>
A man stood and spoke in expressive Polish, a tale of surviving the Holocaust, building the synagogue benches, marrying a wonderful Gentile woman, and having lots of beautiful children. The rabbi, a jovial youngish man with a long beard and sparkling eyes behind glasses, preached emphatically about life, the first Torah portion of the year, to be fruitful and multiply. He engaged more song, more stories, more laughter. He reiterated the importance of taking responsibility for where you are.
The Krakow Jews are reclaiming a place, infusing it with music. I got an opportunity to speak, and I spoke about being where you are, a lesson I have been deeply focusing on in my own life. In the story of the burning bush, G-d calls Moses, and Moses says "Hineini -- here I am." And in that room in Krakow, I felt quite profoundly that I was there, in this strange, liminal, fantastic place. It rekindled a wavering dream about maybe become a rabbi someday -- or at least, creatinga table with food, song, people, and learning. That, to me, is Judaism. That, to me, is the sweetness of life. 
No comments:
Post a Comment