Chevra Kadisha Seminar - The Experience

By Susan Esther Barnes

Below is Part One of a two-part post about a seminar I attended. I'm posting it in two parts since each post looks at the seminar from a different perspective. This one is about the experience and the second one is about the knowledge I gained.

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On Sunday afternoon I attended a Chevra Kadisha (generally translated as “holy society”) seminar. It was an introductory lecture on taharah, the Jewish method of ritually washing dead people to prepare them for burial. It was an uncomfortable experience for me, in more ways than one.

When I arrived, I walked into a large room set up with tables and chairs. On the far side of the room were two women and a man seated at one of the tables. I walked over to them to confirm I was in the right place for the seminar. They invited me to have a seat.

More people came in, and they naturally gravitated to our table. In time, there were eleven of us gathered there, chatting amiably. That’s when the man who’d been there from the start said, “It looks like we might get enough for a minyan. If we do, we can daven.” (“Daven” means to say Jewish liturgical prayers, some of which require a “minyan” of ten Jews to say).

From my perspective, we already had a minyan, because there were at least ten Jewish people present. But by his statement this man was declaring he only counts men in a minyan. Without giving it a second thought, this man was telling me, and the other women at the table, that we don’t count. None of us said anything, but I think he picked up the change in body language from some of us, because a short time later he said some things such as he knew some of us were “liberated women.”

The point is, because of this comment, before the seminar even started, I felt uncomfortable. Since taharah is not common among Reform Jews, I started to think, “As I do this am I going to run into a lot of similar situations in which I feel like I’m being put down in some way because my customs are different?”

Aside from the cultural concerns that arose immediately before the seminar, my main source of discomfort during the seminar was caused by the talk of things like blood and mucus and oozing. My husband would probably think it serves me right, because whenever I have a cold or some other malady I want to describe it to him in great detail, and he does not want to hear a bit of it.

The fact is, I needed to hear about the blood and the mucus and the oozing. I still need to hear a lot more about it. This is because my biggest fear about trying to do taharah is there’s a very real possibility that when I see the blood or the mucus or the oozing, I might need to sit down and put my head between my knees in order to prevent myself from passing out. I say this based on past experience.

Frankly, it’s mostly the blood I’m worried about. The good news is, the woman sitting next to me said she’s been doing this for about ten years and so far she hasn’t encountered anyone who has had a violent death. So she hasn’t seen a lot of blood or similar unpleasantness.

Nevertheless, it’s clear I’m not going to be able to do taharah unless I can somehow desensitize myself to some extent to my natural reaction to blood. It’s going to be a bit hard to ritually wash someone while I have my head between my knees. The best way I know to desensitize myself, as with any irrational fear, is to approach it close enough to get uncomfortable, back away, talk about it, calm down, and then repeat the process as often as necessary. This seminar was one step in this process.

So although the content of the seminar may have been things I could have read in a book, my attendance at the seminar provided me with two important experiences: The realization that I need to prepare myself for encounters with people who observe different Jewish customs than I do, and a chance to approach my fears about blood. Not a pleasant way to spend the afternoon, but certainly one that was worthwhile.

My Time as a Chicken

By Susan Esther Barnes

Yesterday was Purim, a Jewish holiday which calls for us to give gifts to friends and the poor, to eat a festive meal, and to listen to the public reading of the Book of Esther, in which Queen Esther risks her life to save all the Jews in Persia.

It has also become a celebration in which we dress up in costume and celebrate our deliverance from the evil Haman by acting as silly as possible. This explains how I found myself standing in front of the synagogue in a chicken outfit, carrying a sign that read, “Studies show matzo balls taste better in beef broth.”

Before long, I became fascinated by the reactions people had to my presence. Some responded to the existence of a person holding a sign by refusing to look at it, as if I were staging some kind of strike or protest and they didn’t want to get involved.

Some people immediately figured out who I was, and said, “Is that Susan?” to which I nodded, “Yes,” while clucking agreeably. Others seemed to have no clue, even though they have seen me stand in the same place every Friday night, and even though I pointed to the “Purim Greeter” badge I wore in place of my usual “Shabbat Greeter” badge. Thus, people who normally would greet me with a hearty smile and/or hug kept a respectful distance from me.

Children, in general, were intrigued. Several of them wanted to pet me, which I encouraged by holding out my arm (wing) and clucking soothingly. One poor little girl was scared and cried, until I took off the chicken head to show her there was a real person inside the costume. One trio of girls insisted I tell them who I was, although I’m sure my name meant nothing to them, since I don’t have kids of my own and I’m sure they assumed I must have been the mother of one of their friends. Many people with cameras took my picture.

The message on the sign I carried was a bit subtle. It requires one to put together knowledge that matzo balls are commonly cooked in chicken broth with the concept that it’s a chicken pushing the beef broth idea, presumably in order to save itself and its kin from the cooking pot. Some people got it right away. Some got it after a few seconds, but a small minority didn’t seem to put it all together. I enjoyed hearing parents reading the sign to their kids and making sure the kids got the humor. A vegetarian woman suggested matzo balls actually taste better in vegetable broth, with which my chicken persona readily agreed.

I had one mildly embarrassing moment today when I found out that one woman who I had leaned over to watch a cell phone video had no idea who I was. I had just assumed she knew, because she had seen pictures of me in the same costume from last Halloween and she did say, “Hello,” when I walked up. She seemed much more reserved with me than usual, and now I know why. How odd and unsettling to have an anonymous chicken leaning over you like that!

It was particularly interesting that almost nobody spoke with me, including those who knew who I was. This is, I suspect, largely due to my insistence of clucking rather than speaking, except for a few times when I felt compelled to use English. I wonder, though, how much of it was due to people not being able to see my facial expressions, not being sure whether or not I was someone they knew, or the general lack of social norms regarding how someone should act around a person in a chicken suit.

At any rate, it was liberating to be able to just wander around on my own, observing others’ reactions to my costume. It makes me want to consider an equally concealing outfit for next year.