The Torah of the Talking Donkey and the Rabbi’s Husband

“Mah tovu ohalecha Ya’akov, mishkenotecha Yisrael”

how great are your tents, Yaakov, your homes Israel. 

In this post-denominational world of Jewish life that I seem to have found myself immersed in, last Shabbat really demonstrated to me the beauty and, dare I say it, Divine presence that was felt, when we are able to truly live our values with respect and dignity.

Let me explain.

Growing up in a large, comfortable thriving Reform synagogue in London, I loved our values and felt absolutely integrated in the life of the community. Sitting (often on my dad’s knee) on the front row, listening to female rabbis deliver powerful sermons (Rabbi Sheila Shulman z’l particularly stands out), and enjoying the Debbie Friedman tunes integrated into the flow of the services. This was my Judaism and this was where I felt at home, that I mattered and that we were absolutely living Jewish life as God intended. 

it was a huge, uncomfortable adjustment for me when I went into an orthodox synagogue for the first time as an adult. I distinctly remember the feeling of suppressing my outrage and not only being directed up the stairs to the women’s area, but with a poster illustrating what ‘modest attire’ was for ladies too.

Whilst I still find these gendered boundaries difficult, especially when it inevitably means that as a woman I do not feel valued in these institutional spaces, on Shabbat last week, this was truly tested in a very surprising way and I’m still figuring out what it all means. 

Let’s track back to last summer, when I decided to begin running a Shabbat morning minyan. Inspired by my experiences in America through my studies, I wanted to create a Shabbat morning experience that felt deeply meaningful and spiritually connected. Thinking about the values that would underpin it all, the most important that kept returning to me was to trust myself and create a space that would allow me to express and share the insights, wisdom, yearning and comfort I find in our liturgy and Shabbat morning practices. 

I was determined that it was not a Reform minyan - there’s Sinai Synagogue for that and I wanted to absolutely offer something different - and I was determined that it was not orthodox either - it felt important that everyone was welcome and everyone counted. There is no gender segregation.

When we met in each others’ homes, we enjoyed guitar accompaniment, and when we moved to the Jewish community centre, we agreed to not have the guitar out of respect to the orthodox minyan that met across the corridor.

The orthodox minyan across the corridor is a very small, friendly aging group, led by a Rabbi, which, like ourselves, sometimes struggles to reach the prerequisite ten people (men in their case) in order to perform certain rituals and say certain prayers in community.

Last Shabbat, I have to admit I was a little nervous. I hadn’t had enough time in the week to prepare as much as I had wanted to, and the Torah portion was particularly mysterious… Whilst I felt confident I could hold space for some really interesting discussion on some elements within the parasha (weekly section), I lacked confidence in the story of Ballam and Balak - my brain is just wired to get confused between the characters when, in the text, there is just one letter (OK, two in Hebrew) difference between them. I wished I’d had visual prompts - perhaps acting out the story to track the characters - especially when the talking donkey appears (you read that right - yes we do indeed have a TALKING DONKEY in Torah!) which surely lends itself to a Shakespearian set and antics?!?! 

So I was still mulling this over in my head when we were settling to start, praying quietly that somehow it would all work out and the flow of Soul-Full Shabbat would work and perhaps we’d end up talking about something else as we sometimes do within our Shabbat morning wanderings, and one of the men from the other minyan came over to ask us a favour: He very politely told us that they were approaching the Torah service and reading, but there were only nine men in the room which meant they could not bring out the Torah and read from it. 

Now, this restriction on reading Torah without ten men perhaps would have worked in my favour the way my brain was over-thinking about what may happen in my minyan that morning, but putting that aside, we looked around each other, and only one person fit the bill for the orthodox minyan’s needs: my husband.

I know that he was conflicted; he had come to be with me, with us, to enjoy SoulFull Shabbat and he was, as is so often the case, being asked to put his needs and wants aside, for others. But we all knew that the request needed to be met - and so he went and joined them.

He was quite a while - without going into the nitty gritty of the interesting Torah reading cycle we’re in at the moment, it was a particularly long reading that week - and those of us in SoulFull Shabbat meandered our way through enjoying the space, the tranquility the depth of discussion, the heartfelt song, and we arrived at the time for us to adventure through the Torah ourselves. I still didn’t really know how this was going to shape up, so I took a deep breath, and we opened up the page in our Chumashim (books of Torah with English translation and commentary).

At this point, my husband rejoined us and we all welcomed him back and congratulated him on the mitzvah (good deed) he had done. Then, the gentleman who initially asked for his presence joined us and joined the discussion too. Then, the Rabbi also walked over to thank us for lending out one of our men, and I invited him to also join us. Which he did. 

With these fresh eyes and contributions, our discussion took different turns than usual and we pondered elements of the story that we otherwise wouldn’t have done.

Before last Shabbat, and without knowing the story of Balaam and Balak,  I would have said that an orthodox rabbi joining our SoulFull Shabbat was as ridiculous as a talking donkey in Torah.

And perhaps they would have said that a Rabbi’s husband making up their minyan was as ridiculous as a talking donkey in Torah.

And now…?

I can’t help but marvel at the turn out of events -and the presence of the Divine Shechina - that dwelt with us all that morning -just as Balaam said in awe at the sight of the Israelite encampment in the parasha; 

מַה־טֹּ֥בוּ אֹהָלֶ֖יךָ יַעֲקֹ֑ב מִשְׁכְּנֹתֶ֖יךָ יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃

How fair are your tents, O Jacob,Your dwellings, O Israel!

(Numbers 24:5)