Fencing with the Photographer

By Susan Esther Barnes

I’m sitting in services, listening to the guest cantor singing a melody with which I’m unfamiliar. There are two girls becoming bat mitzvah today. As usual on such occasions, there are photographers in the back, outside the sanctuary, peaking through the movable partition to the social hall, preserving memories of the event for the girls and their families.

When I look up to my left, I see a man with a camera on a large tripod. He is standing inside the sanctuary, right in front of the closed main doors. How did he get there? He certainly wasn’t there when I walked in and took my seat.

The rabbi is standing at the front of the congregation, while the cantor continues to sing. I go up to the rabbi to whisper in his ear, “Do you want me to move that photographer?” He replies, “That would be good.”

I walk over to the photographer, and say, “I’m sorry, we don’t allow photos to be taken in the sanctuary during services.” There is no question in my mind that he will say, “I’m sorry,” and he will move his camera outside.

Instead, he says, “She told me I could be here.” I ask, “Who?” and he looks toward another photographer, standing in the back. I say, “I talked to the rabbi, and I’m sorry, but you will have to move outside the sanctuary.” He says, “Oh,” but his body language tells me he has no intention of going anywhere.

I stand my ground and look at him. After a moment, he gestures at the woman in the back. She starts to come forward, but I walk back to her instead. I don’t want to cause a scene inside the sanctuary in the middle of the service.

Once again I say, “I’m sorry, but we don’t allow cameras in the sanctuary.” She angrily responds, “That must be new. I’ve seen cameras in here other times.”

Now, I’ve only missed a handful of Saturday morning services in the last three or four years, and I can assure you, the only other time I’ve seen a photographer inside the sanctuary during services, the rabbi came up to me and asked me to ask him to move outside. Which he promptly did.

I don’t mention this to the woman in front of me now. I say, simply, “It’s not a new rule. I’m sorry, but he will have to move.”

I am wearing a badge with my name, the synagogue name and logo, and “Board of Directors” on it. I consider drawing her attention to the badge, but I don’t want to do that.

I love being at the synagogue. I adore the warm feeling of spirituality and community I get here, and I want to help others feel it, too. I wear the badge because it says, “If you have any questions – if you need to find the restroom or a kippah, or you want to know something about our customs here, you can ask me.” I don’t want it to say, “I’m the photography police. Respect my authority.”

The photographer gestures to the other one, still standing with his tripod and camera in front of the closed main doors. “Can we open the doors?” she asks, suggesting he can then just move his camera back a few feet and continue shooting through the open doorway.

“No,” I say, “We’re having a worship service here. We have to…” and that’s where I stop. She stares at me while I gaze back at her.

My mind casts around for the right words, but I can’t find them. How can I explain this is a holy ceremony taking place in a holy space? How can I get her to understand it is Shabbat, and the rabbi and the cantor are trying to create a special place in time, an island away from the distractions of work and school and the sights and sounds of the secular world? How can I tell her all we’re asking for is a short time to spend with nothing but the divine?

I can’t find the words. I’m not capable of conveying to her, in this moment, why the camera needs to move; why we won’t just swing open the doors for her convenience.

I repeat, “We’re having a service here. He needs to move.”

She says, “How can he take the camera outside if we can’t open the doors?” I don’t know whether she’s being sarcastic.

I give her the benefit of the doubt, and tell her I will hold the door open for him. She goes to talk with him, he picks up his things, and repositions himself elsewhere.

Perhaps it is over for them, but it is not over for me. I don’t often get angry, but I am angry now.

I’m not sure why I’m so angry. Maybe it’s because what should have been a painless one- or two-sentence transaction has turned into a needlessly lengthy ordeal.

Maybe it’s because she wasn’t respecting the sanctity of our sanctuary and the service, or the needs of the congregation. Maybe it’s because she wasn’t respecting me.

Most likely, it’s because I feel I have failed myself. Today, on Shabbat, a day which normally helps me to remember the kind of person I want to be in the world, I have not been that person.

Instead of being warm and welcoming, I have been argumentative authoritarian. I have insisted that someone obey my words without adequately expressing why doing so is in the best interest of others. I have created anger and frustration, and I feel powerless to heal it.

In this week’s Torah portion we read, “Tzedek, tzedek, tirdof,” or “Justice, justice shall you pursue.” Some say the word "justice" is repeated to remind us to pursue justice in a just way.

I don’t think I have done anything unjust. I sincerely wish I had been able to do it in a better way.

Adventures in Passover Shopping

By Susan Esther Barnes

I’m not a shopper. It’s a small thing, really, but sometimes it doesn’t feel like it. Whether it is food, clothing, or something else, my goal is to go in, get what I need, and get out as quickly as possible so I can get on with whatever it is I really want to be doing that day. Anything that slows me down is agitating.

Unsurprisingly, shopping for Thanksgiving is not my favorite thing in the world. I know the parking lot will be crowded, the store will be packed, and the checkout lines will be slow, but at least I’m confident that, with a bit of patience, eventually I will escape with everything I need. Not so with Passover.

Sure, in the days before Passover the store won’t be as crowded as it is leading up to Thanksgiving, but, depending on its proximity to Easter, it may not be a walk in the park, either. But, for me at least, the true tension has always been in wondering how many stores I will need to visit to get everything I need. Often, the trip involves at least one stop for staples such as chicken broth, another stop for various items the first store didn’t have in stock, and a third stop at one of the shrinking number of delis still in existence that carries chopped liver.

For those of you accustomed to the US Thanksgiving traditions, consider what it would be like if you arrived at the store a day or two before Thanksgiving and found you could get most of the things you wanted, but there were no turkeys or cranberries. On Passover, it’s worse. If you can’t get a brisket, that may feel like not getting a turkey on Thanksgiving, but you can substitute a chicken or something else for the main course.

However, the Passover meal isn’t equivalent to Thanksgiving dinner. It’s a religious holiday during which we remember our time as slaves in Egypt and celebrate our freedom. Some of the foods associated with the holiday, like the foods associated with Thanksgiving in the US, are purely traditional. Brisket and gefilte fish fall into this category.

On the other hand, in Hebrew the holiday is “Pesach,” which means “order.” As such, there are certain things we’re supposed to do in a certain order, such as eating bitter herbs with matzo. We may exercise some discretion in our choice of which bitter herbs to use, but the matzo needs to be there, it must be kosher for Passover, and there needs to be a lamb shank bone on the seder plate.

When I lived on the San Francisco Peninsula, I shopped at a local market. Some years they seemed to have everything I needed, and other years they didn’t, but they were always very helpful. Once, when I asked for brisket, the butcher shook his head, thought a moment, then asked me how many pounds I wanted it to be. He asked me to wait a moment, wheeled a side of beef out of the walk-in refrigerator, went zip-zip-zip with a knife, and plopped a nice brisket on the scale, saying, “Here you go!” In these days of pre-packaged meat, I believe that may be the first, and the last, time I’ve ever had the chance to see a real butcher in action. Similarly, in years when there were no lamb shank bones set aside, they always managed to scrounge something up for me.

Since then, I have moved to Marin County, which is, I’ve been told, the county with the largest percentage of Jews in the state. So you would think the stores here would know a thing or two about Passover. Unfortunately, although they gamely put out a display with some matzo and other niceties, they just don’t seem to have caught on to some of the finer points. Neither Lucky nor Safeway seem to have twigged to the notion that every Spring people come up to the meat counter to ask for a brisket and a lamb shank bone.

As a result, it has become a tradition for me to improvise by having a plan for a non-brisket dinner in my mind just in case, and to seek out the cheapest package of bone-in lamb I can find, so I can cut the meat off and pretend the bone is a shank. Not exactly kosher, but it’s closer to the real deal than the alternative of beets I recently heard is used by vegetarians to symbolize lamb’s blood in its place. And pity the poor man I encountered one year, whose wife sent him to the store in search of schmaltz, absolutely required for her chopped liver recipe, but unheard of in Safeway.

This year, finally, I did something I have never done before. Indeed, it had never before occurred to me. This year, I shopped at a particular store for no reason other than I had heard it was owned by Jews. Yes, I went to Mollie Stone’s, and there I found the answer to my prayers. There was chopped liver in the deli case, piles of brisket in the meat department, kosher-for-Passover horseradish in both the red and white varieties, cases of chicken broth – on sale no less! – you get the picture. Everything all under one roof.

The guy at the meat counter didn’t look at me funny when I shyly asked for a lamb bone. Instead, he said, “Of course!” and immediately handed one over. Free of charge. The guy at the check-out lane glanced over my items, recognized what they were for, and asked if there was something in Hebrew he could say that would be appropriate for others doing their holiday shopping. I recommended “chag sameach,” which he repeated several times and wrote down for future reference.

For the first time during my years of Passover shopping I felt like I’d been in a store that said, “Jews are welcome here!” It’s not like I’ve ever had an experience like my father did at a store in Idaho, where he asked for lox and was told, “Sorry, we’re out, all those Jews got it already.” But there is something so welcoming, that is such a relief, in knowing there is someplace I can go without worrying about whether they will have what I need or if they will look at me like I’m a nut when I ask. It’s a small thing, really, but sometimes it doesn’t feel like it.