shabbat with yisroel and the 402

I spent shabbat with my cousin Yisroel in Ramat Eshkol in Jerusalem. His apartment, for the record, it is just west of the 1949 armistice line, according to Google Maps. I met his lovely wife Eliana, whom he married at the end of October.

Yisroel went through a phase of working out compulsively. He seems to have retained his appetite--and some of his physique--from that phase. I felt obliged to keep up with his eating while I was there, so I'm planning to eat my next meal on Tuesday or Wednesday. Did you know that it is a mitzvah to taste all the shabbat food before shabbat begins, and that "taste" means eat almost half as much as I would at a normal meal even though I had already eaten lunch? I learned that this shabbat from Yisroel.

Yisroel and Eliana are in Israel for another six weeks. I think this is a sort of honeymoon for them. He is studying at the Zichron Aryeh yeshiva.

The language on the street in Yisroel's neighborhood was English, not Hebrew. The dvar torah (sermon) at the service on Friday night was nominally English, but I probably would have understood more if it had been in Hebrew because it was so littered with Yiddish or Ashkenaz phrases that I did not recognize.

My understanding of the labels used for sects within orthodox Judaism improved over shabbat, specifically "haredi," "frum," "mitnagdim," and "litvak." I'll skip the explanation now to get to a more interesting conversation on the ride back to Ramat Gan.

I took the haredi (ultra-orthodox) bus from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, route 402. It has two major distinguishing features. Unlike most intercity buses, it does not stop at the central bus station in either of the cities. Instead, it travels through the orthodox neighborhoods in both. Technically Bnei Brak, on the Tel Aviv end, is its own city, but whatever. The second distinguishing feature is that it is segregated by gender. Women in the back, men in the front.

Yisroel and I argued for a little while about the significance of this. I think the symbolism of having women always sit in the back is clearly that they are second class. I told him I would accept the segregation more readily if the women sat in front half the time. Yisroel does not like the segregation either--he got in an argument with another passenger when he rode the bus one time and tried to sit in front with Eliana. He said that probably the justification for women always being in back is that men are more easily aroused and that putting men in front reduces the amount of times men might be tempted by women. He doesn't abide by this justification and would prefer mixed seating, but he also disagreed about what I claimed was the symbolism.

I stuck out like a sore thumb on the 402. These days I am wearing my hair pulled back in a ponytail. I wasn't wearing a kipah, and certainly not the white shirt black pants uniform of the haredim. A four year old boy in the seat in front of me stared at me for most of the ride. A man in his mid-20s named Yehuda sat next to me and to my surprise started a conversation with me.

We started with basics. Where are you from, what are you doing in Israel, etc. We exchanged family histories and current occupations. I think he was mostly motivated by trying to figure out why on earth I was riding the 402. (Answer: I was visiting my dati (religious) cousin in Ramat Eshkol and I live in Ramat Gan, which is next to Bnei Brak.) Now that the context is set, I'll give an abridged translation of the most interesting part of the conversation, which was entirely in Hebrew because Yehuda spoke no English. Keep in mind that I'm simplifying things significantly.

Yehuda: What kind of religious Jew is your cousin?
Ben: Litvak. [Yisroel self-identified as Litvak when I asked him.] What about you?
Y: Also Litvak. What about you?
B: Conservative.
Y: Is your father conservative?
B: Yes.
Y: Really? [He seemed shocked by this.]
B: Yes.
Y: Why not orthodox?
B: What do you mean?
Y: Orthodox is real Judaism. ["amiti" - a word I learned from reading the label on mayonnaise]
B: Orthodox is real Judaism, and conservative is real Judaism.
Y: Jews in the time of King David were orthodox.
B: In the time of King David, they weren't even called Jews yet. They were Hebrews or Israelites. The term "Jew" comes from the kingdom of Judea, after the split between the northern and southern kingdoms.
Y: The Judaism they practiced was orthodox Judaism. They had the temple and the holidays.
B: There are many differences between their Judaism and orthodox Judaism today, and there are also many differences between their Judaism and conservative Judaism today. Judaism changes over time.
Y: Orthodox Judaism today can be traced in a direct line through the rabbis back to King David.
B: It is inaccurate to talk about King David as a part of the chain of tradition that goes back to Moses at Sinai because the kings and the priests were excluded from that chain.

At some points in the conversation I made nitpick-y points (particularly the last one) because my Hebrew wasn't good enough to say what I really wanted to say. I'm quite pleased with the conversation in general because we were disagreeing politely and engaging honestly.

Yehuda and I exchanged phone numbers. I think he wants to recommend a seminar to me. I want to find a Litvak who is willing and able to talk to my chanichim about politics.