{"id":600,"date":"2013-01-17T22:10:49","date_gmt":"2013-01-18T02:10:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/?p=600"},"modified":"2013-01-17T22:12:32","modified_gmt":"2013-01-18T02:12:32","slug":"not-my-brothers-kippah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/?p=600","title":{"rendered":"Not My Brother’s Kippah"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I make kippot<\/a>.\u00a0 It was a hobby until last weekend. Before I left for the annual Ohala <\/a>conference, my husband, Ralf, suggested a name for my new business (see title, above).<\/p>\n

My business\u2019 name is not simply a clever joke. It\u2019s an answer.<\/p>\n

Like so many Jewish women, I know what it is to have Judaism used against me, to crush me and make me small.\u00a0 I have been told to cover my elbows.\u00a0 I have been the victim of angry demands: How dare I continue singing when he walked into the house?\u00a0 Didn\u2019t I know that a woman\u2019s voice seduces?<\/p>\n

His brand of Judaism was enraged, extreme.\u00a0 He was, when I knew him, so far right that some family members joked about where he might have been the night Yitzhak Rabin, then Israel\u2019s prime minister, was assassinated.\u00a0 He wanted to kill every Palestinian, and said so.\u00a0 He made me want to run screaming in any direction away from anything Jewish that wasn\u2019t academic, and therefore, safe territory for me.<\/p>\n

How could I make teshuva<\/a> when coming back would mean accepting humiliation I had known when I was young?<\/p>\n

And yet.<\/p>\n

And yet, when we were first married three decades ago, Ralf took my grandmother\u2019s prayerbook out of the discard pile and brought it back to me.\u00a0 In the late 1990\u2019s, my then six-year-old son took to davennen<\/a> as if he were born inside its cadence when I dared attend services at a nearby havurah<\/a>.\u00a0 Now and again I\u2019d remember \u2013 with a kind of longing \u2013 my grandfather\u2019s davenning \u00a0the Maxwell House haggadah<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What is all that about the journeys that begin with tender, tremulous steps?<\/p>\n

The sign on the trail: \u201cJewish Renewal.\u201d While walking I found men and women opening up the world of halakha<\/a> and making it more than safe \u2013 a source of delight, in fact.\u00a0 I listened to women singing without restraints, teaching with power and humor.\u00a0 We all stood together at Sinai \u2013 many of us, women and men, with our elbows uncovered.<\/p>\n

I had begun making kippot for friends.\u00a0 I vowed I would only make a kippah when I knew whose head would wear it.\u00a0 I deviated just slightly, making some for my congregation so that children and adults could choose one as they entered services.\u00a0 A kippah with a penguin?\u00a0 Beads and butterflies?\u00a0 Glittery gold fabric?\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For years, at every Jewish Renewal event I attended, women asked me if I sold my kippot.\u00a0 I would explain, see the sadness, and persist.\u00a0 I would not sell.\u00a0 I would only give.<\/p>\n

Three years ago, Rabbi Nadya Gross, mentor, teacher, and friend, began bugging me.\u00a0 \u201cThere are women out there who need your kippot,\u201d she said.\u00a0 \u201cWhat\u2019s out there for them?\u201d<\/p>\n

There are hats that can get too warm and scarves that can look like shmattes<\/a>. For a while, kippot of beads and wire were in fashion.\u00a0 Pretty, but insubstantial. Frankly, I want to feel<\/em> my head covered.\u00a0 My kippah is a manifestation of sorts, the hand of the divine cupped over my keppe<\/a> to bless it.<\/p>\n

I gave in and began sewing for people I did not know.\u00a0 My son designed some of my work \u2013 making my beadwork asymmetrical, surprising.\u00a0 My husband matched fabrics and flowers I would not have put together.\u00a0 I sewed until I woke up at night with my fingers raw and sore.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Then I left for Denver, and the annual conference run by Ohalah, a trans-denominational association of rabbis, cantors, rabbinic pastors, and students of those professions.\u00a0 Later, I will tell you stories.\u00a0 Stories of the way women crowded around the table, the way men bought kippot for female friends.\u00a0 One of the kippot my son designed went to a woman just waking from a coma.<\/p>\n

I will tell you the way those men and women nearly cleaned out my stock and asked me for a website, please<\/em>.\u00a0 I will tell you stories that made me cry with relief and gratitude.\u00a0 Stories of women sitting in rows with feathers, flowers and beads on their heads, walking the hotel corridors wearing the kippot I\u2019d made in ways I had never imagined \u2013 rakishly, in different directions, with grace and charm.<\/p>\n

I want to thank everyone at Ohalah, in Jewish Renewal, for helping me manifest a peaceful, colorful, gentle answer to any who would crush Jewish women and make them small: These are not my brother\u2019s kippah.<\/p>\n

May the palm of God\u2019s hand cup the beautiful keppes they adorn.\u00a0 May those women grow surer and stronger wearing them.\u00a0 May Jewish Renewal\u2019s path widen in yet more welcome, and may we give answers of love and healing to all who walk even the smallest step with us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like so many Jewish women, I know what it is to have Judaism used against me, to crush me and make me small. I have been told to cover my elbows. I have been the victim of angry demands: How dare I continue singing when he walked into the house? Didn\u2019t I know that a woman\u2019s voice seduces?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[142,143,78,84,141],"class_list":["post-600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-davennen","tag-halakha","tag-jewish-renewal","tag-kippot","tag-ohalah"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=600"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":614,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600\/revisions\/614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}