Second Quarterly Update

Second Quarterly Update

December 15, 2006

So it has been six months. I'm exactly halfway through this "trip," which can no longer adequately be called a "trip," or a "journey," or even an "odyssey." I think a better word would be "challenge." I'm six months into this "challenge," and what have I learned? What's the big, overarching, all-encompassing message that I have come away with? The big concept that comes to mind is appreciation . True appreciation for things can only really be felt in their absence.

In Australia, I learned that I appreciate friendship because I had been without it beforehand for quite some time, and I had to forego it again once I left. In South Africa and Namibia, I came to appreciate safety because it had been taken away from me. In New Zealand, and with some considerable difficulty, I came to appreciate the comfort and warmth of romantic companionship and the difficulties inherent in letting that go. Here in Morocco, as I fumbled with poorly-pronounced basic French phrases, I came to know the basic appreciation of one's home language. It is the absence of the things that we all cherish as integral to our lives that is what defines the Watson Fellowship. Someone may have given me $25,000, but they took away friends, family, romance, and security, and they're not giving them back until June 15th, 2007.

I was rereading the little letter of introduction that I was given to take with me on my "challenge," and I was struck by a certain phrase. "Watson Fellows, nominated by their undergraduate institutions throughout the United States, are selected by the foundation for their outstanding promise as members of the world community." Outstanding promise. I think back to the way I was six months ago and I think that it probably took a remarkable leap of faith for someone to recognize me as a man of outstanding promise. What did I know about responsibility? What did I know about going it alone, about leaving friends behind to pursue challenges elsewhere? What did I really know about being completely, utterly, and totally alone in a place? Very, very little.

I think the reason—the real reason—that Thomas J. Watson set up this foundation was not because he thought Americans should see the world or get to pursue the adventures of their dreams. No, I think the reason was so that we would learn what it is to live without. If we really are people of "outstanding promise," then chances are, for many of us, our lives will be comparably easy after this. Reason would dictate that we're going to find good jobs, and we're going to do well. Perhaps never again will I spend a frigid night in a zero-star hotel in a place like Chefchaouen for seven US dollars a night. Maybe I'll never again land in an airport without someone to pick me up at the other end. What if my Watson colleagues and I went on to become movers and shakers on the world stage without ever knowing what it was like to be tired, or hungry, or dirty, or alone? I think the word I'm searching for here is "perspective."

And so on to the Jewish communities. They too have given me perspective because of how differently people with supposedly the same beliefs can live their lives.  I should begin with the Lemba Jews, the so-called "African" Jews, because those are clearly the most exotic I've encountered so far.  They keep kosher by not eating pork, not mixing milk and meat, and by slaughtering their animals in a ritual fashion, but aside from that, their traditions have largely been lost.  They read the Old Testament in the Venda language and recite psalms obtained from free handouts at Jewish funerals.  While their chaplain (their word) had a tallis (prayer shawl) and yarmulke (skullcap), he didn't really know what to do with them, and I had to act as a sort of Jewish "missionary" to explain to him the prayers and traditions that went along with them.  It was a bizarre moment of empowerment as I watched this respected community elder hang on my every word.  I found myself wishing I had paid more attention in Hebrew School.

The most interesting part of the Lemba experience--by far--was returning to Johannesburg and my Jewish friends there. The question on everyone's lips was, "But these people aren't really Jewish , are they?" It really got me thinking. Who's to say who's Jewish and who's not? I saw these people clinging to every scrap of Judaism they could find, and though it didn't add up to much, at least they were trying. Are they really less Jewish than my friends and I back home as we have the world of Judaism at our fingertips and yet we choose to do nothing with it? If a Hassid saw me driving on Shabbat without a yarmulke and eating a cheeseburger, he'd say I wasn't Jewish, but I certainly consider myself a Jew. So now I'm a "reform" or "conservative" Jew looking at the Lemba people and having to make the same judgment. The blood in the veins of the Lemba people indicates that they're kohanim (the priestly tribe of Jews), and they do what they can from their one-room schoolhouse in Tshikhwani, South Africa to preserve whatever few traditions they have left. I'm prepared to call them fundamentally Jewish, even if it ruffles a few feathers here and there. The Jews of Johannesburg are also an interesting group. They live in some of the most adverse conditions on earth, but they manage to make due. Given my experiences in Tahiti, New Zealand and Australia, I was expecting (according to my hypothesis of Jewish communities as a reflection of circumstance) that these people would be very standoffish, given the level of crime in the city. I was surprised to find myself welcomed just as I had been in Perth. As a result, I have revised my hypothesis to state that Jewish communities are welcoming according to their circumstances, but only the circumstances that are particular to Jews, if that makes sense. Jews in Johannesburg live in a city where, on average, 83 murders take place per day, but these murders are not racially motivated. There is very little, if any, anti-Semitism in Johannesburg, so there is no alienation of Jewish communities and no "standoffishness" like I experienced in New Zealand. Synagogues are under armed guard and heavy security, but not because of anti-Semitic groups, but simply for fear of street crime and theft. It was also interesting to see how the Johannesburg Jewish community has evolved to adapt to their unique situation. The Beth Din (governing body) issued an edict that Jews in Johannesburg were allowed to break the rules of Shabbat (sabbath) to turn on their security systems in their homes. Traditionally, Jews are not allowed to use electricity in any way on Shabbat, but the threat of home invasion is so great that this exception had to be made. I find it an extraordinary (and frightening) way to live. All told, the Jews of South Africa are every bit as welcoming as those in other Judaism-friendly locales around the world, or so I've experienced. The South African Jews share this sort of unspoken bond that seems to say, "We were here when times were good, and we're going to have to stick together if we're going to get through the times that are not-so-good." You can feel the little covert head-nods and acknowledgements in restaurants, shops, and malls. It's a kinship based, unfortunately, on dire circumstances, but it's a kinship all the same. And on to Morocco, the "friendliest" Muslim country in terms of relations with Jews. While I've only been here a week, I can tell definitively that the Jewish culture here is not thriving. There are synagogues in Casablanca, Rabat, Tangier, and Fes, but the community is not overly welcoming, and at the Shabbat I attended in Rabat, there was never any offer to make room at the sabbath table. It was almost the exact same circumstance as I had experienced in New Zealand--I've been invited in numerous times by regular Moroccans for tea in their homes, but the Jewish community has a sort of innate xenophobia about it. Even leaving the synagogue in Rabat, a city where I had been assured that Jews were safe and well-received, I noted with a sort of disappiontment that each and every congregant left the evening prayers and promptly put on a baseball cap to hide his yarmulke. The synagogue itself has no outward signage to indicate that it's any sort of house of worship, and I found it only with great difficulty. In my travels through rural northern Morocco thus far, I have found many vestiges of a Jewish Morocco gone by, but nothing to indicate that Judaism here is practiced anymore at all. There are many old Jewish antiques sold in shops from now-defunct synagogues, an entire town (Chefchaouen) with walls painted blue from the Jewish presence here in the first half of the 20th century, and countless cemeteries littering the countryside, but my efforts to find a Shabbat in this storied region proved fruitless. It's disappointing and discouraging, but I suppose there can be some solace taken in the fact that these Jewish communties disappeared as a result of mass immigration abroad and not anti-Semitism or violence. It's a small step forward, but a step forward all the same. So that's that. Six months in, and six to go. I feel weary, sure, but also proud, and tested somehow, and I'm glad for it.