Bride of Christ

This Bat Mitzvah has been a whole new experience and a learning one for me.

First of all, I got a woman whose role in life is to be obstructive and destructive.

It's no accident that she was in the middle of a divorce during this process. I came to feel for her soon-to-be ex husband. First she drove him to drink, and then to beating her. I, too, felt like beating her.

But - no - I'm supposed to be a nice person. I'm supposed to be understanding and treat her like a "sick" person - which she indeed is. But it came hard. I used my program and prayed for us both. The really sad thing is that I thought she was most likely to become my friend in this process. She and I have a similar requirement, I thought, of our Bat Mitzvah in that it enlarge and develop our spiritual growth. It would be a milestone on the path of becoming. She is probably closest in age to me and since I found the youth of most of the other women to be a barrier - well, it wasn't to be.

The younger women are well educated, deeply involved in careers and have young children - many of whom are in the bar mitzvah process and during which their mothers wanted to understand and know what their children were expected to do. A laudable goal - but not one I was in any position to experience.

The fact is that my expectations were bound to be disappointed. You can't get a group of Jewish women together without creating a setting for power struggles, competitiveness, and one upmanship. Sadly enough. Although maybe any group Jewish or otherwise, has these things going for it. I had hoped for better.

I was also surprised at the disrespect many of them had for the whole classroom experience. Granted, the teacher was a disorganized wishy wash who lost control early on and never really regained it - although she did try some things. She admitted to me that boundaries were difficult for her and saying "NO", is a definite boundary. But it was more than that - they were disrespectful, talking over her, continuing to chatter about their own issues when she tried to steer them into "class" objectives. And just generally being oblivious of the necessity of paying attention and respecting each other. I can't imagine how any of them functioned in their own scholastic experience and a couple of them are currently teachers - although admittedly, one of the teachers behaved responsibly and the other was more easily herded into a semblance of order. But a couple of the others just didn't!!

Don't you wonder what their kids are like?

My own educational experience was old fashioned - we were taught to respect the teachers - indeed their word was law - which is another reason I was so disappointed in this teacher - she did not put her foot down and demand attention, respect and order. She let the more aggressive people in the class take control of it. And what a mess that is.

I'm hoping and praying that the end result will be at least acceptable, if not glorious. My fear is that we'll stumble around on stage, bumping into each other, forgetting parts of the service and having to start over. Or be reminded what to do.

Tonight was the 3rd to last rehearsal and we are still blithering around like a bunch of sheep without a leader. We are still making changes to the structure of the service and debating the music to use for particular musical parts. I don't feel at all secure in knowing what comes next, knowing what the music is for that part or where I should be positioned on the stage in relation to everyone else.
I'm afraid I will sit when they stand, or face the ark, when they face the congregation.

Fortunately, the woman who sits next to me is well organized and points me in the right direction but even she admits to having a lot of re-writes and write-ins on her performance notebook (and she was the one who wrote it all out in the first place).

Well, what is the worst that can happen. The rabbi can take over and herd us through the process - or we can just stumble to the finish line and no-one will laugh. There are no judges who will kick us out or announce that we haven't achieved our level of competence. And G-d hasn't been known to strike anyone dead under these circumstances, for quite a while now.

But, like I said, it's not what I expected.

Oh, and the title - G-d help us. They've all decided to wear white like we are brides of Christ - and some of them are shopping at Nordstroms for bridelike dresses and for all I know veils. Here I was with my white T shirt and Ross skirt, planning on being as Orthodox as I'm capable of and planning on slipping in on a Saturday morning and doing my thing and slipping out. Not going to happen.

If there is a G-d, I imagine he's laughing his butt off.