Yom Kippur (Ne'ila) and Durga Puja

After spending the day in reflection, as well as reading my Muslim texts, I washed my feet and hands and face and performed the Asr prayers before dressing for Ne'ila services and the conclusion of Yom Kippur. I was fasting for G-d, and for Allah, and for Durga, the warrior goddess who claims the final three days of Navaratri.

In the middle of the afternoon, I had fallen asleep while reading the Koran, and lost about two hours of productivity, which seemed like a kind of karmic humbling after I had posted so grumpily about Muslims who snooze through their fast.

I bicycled back down to the United Church wondering if I would have to stand, but I found the crowd greatly thinned from the Kol Nidre the night before. I took a seat in a pew on the main floor toward the back, almost exactly on time for Ne'ila. This time, I could see the worship leaders. They were a man and a woman, probably both in their fifties or sixties, both wearing prayer shawls.

The Ne'ila service included repetitions of some of the prayers sung at Kol Nidre, and I was able to sing them better because their melodies and the Hebrew syllables were fresher in my memory than normal. I have been to enough Jewish services to navigate them well, even when the prayers are unfamiliar (which is most of the time), but the repetition made it even easier. I could raise my head out of the prayer book more and look around and sing with confidence.

Normally, my face stays pointed down into the book, because there is so much to look at, and so much to engage the brain within the pages. There are the elegant and yet meaningless (to me) forms of the Hebrew letters on one page. On the facing page, there is usually an English translation, and at the bottom of the page, sometimes (but not always) a transliteration to help the Hebrew-challenged follow along with what they are supposed to be singing. There is also occasional rabbinic commentary printed at the bottom of the page, or simply a footnote from the writer of the prayer book. Unlike a Christian hymnal, there is no musical notation. You have to follow the melodic example of the people around you.

Usually, at a Jewish service, I find that my concern about agreeing one hundred percent with the words I am singing is diminished. It's a false comfort, of course, born entirely of the fact that the meaning of the Hebrew syllables feels less present since I don't know the language. If I'm in a Chrsitian church, and a song like, say, "Have Thine Own Way, Lord" is on the agenda, I'll feel torn about singing it -- like it's maybe less offensive and more honest to be silent and non-participatory than to sing lyrics I might not mean, like these:

Have thine own way, Lord! Have thine own way!
Thou art the potter, I am the clay.
Mold me and make me after thy will,
while I am waiting, yielded and still.

I feel dishonest, singing in English, about being willing to let God have His way with me, and about "yielding" to the shaping forces of a God whose presence I do not feel. And yet, that second line there, about God the Potter, comes up every year at the Kol Nidre service -- and every year I sing along. The image comes from the book of Isaiah, which both Jews and Christians accept, and the similarity between the religions of the images for God does not end there.

At the Ne'ila service, I sang for forgiveness from a G-d described as both Father and King in the Avina Malkeinu, and I belted out a series of metaphors about the human relationship to G-d in a prayer called Ki Anu Amecha. (Examples: "We are your children; you are our parent." "We are your sheep; you are our shepherd.") The shepherd metaphor, of course, to me, feels very Christian, as does God as King.

My colleague Rachel, in a conversation before the High Holidays, remarked to me that Yom Kippur feels like the most Christian to her of all of the Jewish holidays, focusing as it does on repentance and forgiveness. I replied to her that despite the thematic similarities (in fact, because of them) Yom Kippur in actual practice feels utterly foreign and extremely non-Christian to me, since it deals with those themes of repentance and forgiveness with absolutely no need for Jesus. It's a conversation directly with G-d, without the mediation of a bloody god-man sacrifice, and it introduces other not-very-Christian metaphors, such as the idea of a gate closing at the end of the holiday.

I understand the appeal of a one-time acceptance of Jesus for the forgiveness of all sins. It’s quick and complete and eternal, and I did it once myself. But for figuring out how to navigate human relationships and improve one's own life, I prefer the Jewish practice of checking in once a year.

So, the practice, I get. The belief, I do not.

At one point during Kol Nidre (i.e. day one), the cantor instructed us to page through an amidah, or standing prayer, on our own. She told us to listen to our own voices and the voices of those in prayer around us, and upon finishing the prayer, she told us, we should listen to the voice of G-d before sitting down. What does that mean? If I had obeyed, I would never have sat, and would be standing there still.

At the Ne'ila service (day two), one of the cantors read a prayer that used the phrase "the Eternal One" as a name for G-d. In the prayer book, I noticed, the text stated that "the Eternal One is a compassionate God and a gracious God." The cantor said aloud however that "the Eternal One is Compassion and Grace." I decided to file this away as a tactic for translating what people mean when they say "God." Since God is an abstraction, whenever “God” is combined with an adjective, why not just combine the words all the way, producing the adjective's abstract noun form as the name for God?

I followed this new tactic the next time I opened the Koran and discovered it works quite well for that text. Quite often, Muhammed follows mention of God with a comma and then two adjectives, like this: “There is no God but He, the Powerful, the Wise.” Or: “In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.”

To appropriate the cantor‘s formulation, then, “God" is Power, Wisdom, Compassion, Mercy.

As at the raga concert at the Hindu temple, I felt moved to dance at Ne‘ila when the music occasionally picked up a faster, more rollicking beat. Many of the songs were somber, of course, given the theme of the day, but as we got closer to the end of the service, the joy embedded in the songs seemed to emerge. Nobody danced, but many people clapped or stomped their feet, and I kept the beat by clacking the ring on my pinkie finger against the pew in front of me.

Is there a name for the type of Jewish song that breaks away from the Hebrew and just uses simple syllables? Ai, dai, dai, dai, la-dai, da-dai, dai, dai-dai. Those are so much fun to sing! A stuffy old Protestant church doesn‘t necessarily seem the right space for it though; I am put more in mind of dancing around a campfire (a pillar of fire?) in the desert, under the waxing moon.

It was during one of these more joyous interludes that the cantor announced that Fabrangeners believe that we are all priests, and we were encouraged then to accept our priestly role and raise our hands to bless each other as we sang. I put down my prayer book and raised one hand toward the older man seated to my left. On my right side was the wall, so I raised my other hand above the mother and daughter who were seated in front of me. They had raised hands to each other, until the mother noticed me behind her, and moved her left hand to bless me. She smiled broadly and I smiled back. We made bright, friendly eye contact, which seemed deeply pleasant. How often do we maintain a good-hearted gaze with a stranger?

I noticed some congregants raising over each other a split-fingered gesture that I recognize from pop culture as the Vulcan hand symbol -- which I found startling -- only to discover later that I had the origin of the gesture backward. It was a Yom Kippur symbol first; Leonard Nimoy appropriated a Jewish priestly blessing for his character’s alien greeting on Star Trek.

After the blessings and the final closing of the gates, three men in the balconies raised shofars to announce the end of the service. We all offered “shana tovas” to those around us.

Three days later, I would return to the United Church for a third time, and from the spot where the shofars ended the Jewish High Holidays, a powerful blast from a church organ would start another Christian Sunday morning service.

UPDATE, 10.13.08: The joyful, often wordless songs are called nigunim.

Navaratri (Thank you, India.)

Navaratri, a nine-day Hindu celebration of various manifestations of the Divine Mother, began last Tuesday, triggered by the same new moon that ended Ramadan and began the Jewish New Year. There's no way I can deny that I felt my heart leap when I first discovered that this holiday is meant to honor the goddesses.

I grew up with a Father God. This Father God has a Son, who lived and walked upon the Earth inside a male body. I have even met Christians who will insist that the Holy Ghost is male, meaning that the entire Trinity can be considered -- apparently -- as just a big all-male three-way, with the unmistakable understanding that THERE IS NOTHING FEMALE ABOUT THE CHRISTIAN GOD. Period.

So, after a month of focus on the Father God of Islam... and his male prophet... and the male-dominated worship spaces at the mosques, the sense of relief and balance that Navaratri might bring felt exciting to me.

Navaratri spends nine days and nights honoring the sacred embodiment of creative and feminine energy -- Shakti.

The holiday is divided into three parts, with three nights apiece devoted to a different goddess, each of whom represents a different facet of Shakti’s divine feminine power. The three first days and nights go to Durga, a fierce warrior goddess, consort of Shiva, and the mother of Ganesha. She rides a tiger and slays demons. The second three go to Lakshmi, consort of Vishnu, and giver of physical wealth. She is also closely associated with the upcoming holiday of Diwali. The final three nights belong to Saraswati, consort of Brahma, supreme goddess of wisdom and the arts. She is often depicted as a river, or as connected to rivers or water.

When I set about finding a Navaratri celebration in my area, I quickly learned that all of the Hindu temples are in the suburbs. I found two temples from which to choose, as well as one Hindu organization planning Navaratri celebrations for various school and university auditoriums in Maryland and Virginia. I was leaning toward a Saturday night celebration at a university, when I discovered an afternoon concert planned for 1PM at the Sri Siva Vishnu Temple in suburban Maryland.

The flyer I found announced that Vijayalakshmy Subramaniam would be providing vocals, with Avaneeswaram Vinu on violin and Shertalai Ananthakrishnanan on mridangam, a type of South Indian drum.

Perfect, I thought. If gay men know how to do anything worshipful, it's how to revere female vocalists as the incarnation of goddesses. So, I will go listen to Vijayalakshmy Subramaniam sing. It will be a good excuse for me to show up at the Hindu temple for the first time, and it will connect to the theme of the holiday. Perhaps I will consider attendance at the concert to be my worship of Saraswati, and her connection to music and the arts.

Instead of biking, I chose to rent a Zipcar for the 17-mile trip.

The Sri Siva Vishnu Temple is located on a winding two-lane road accessed from a much larger suburban artery lined with strip malls, fast food, and gas stations. It is tucked away on this largely residential street behind some trees, much less obvious from the road than the houses behind their flat lawns. A sign in the full parking lot directed overflow traffic to park at the nearby Greek Orthodox church.

I did this, and then walked back to the temple on the shoulder of the road.

The temple is all white, with red doors. The basement of the temple isn't visible at the first approach, but can be accessed via a descent to the parking lot behind the building. From the front, a pedestrian can walk directly on top of this basement, onto a wide walkway with stone railings that encircles the main floor. On top of this, five tall, white, tapered peaks, inlaid with figures and carvings, set the building apart as a special kind of gathering place.

As I walked up to the walkway by the temple, I saw a sign that stated: "NO smoking, NO alcohol, and NO non-veg on premises. This includes parking lot."

The main entrance to the temple was in the rear, up a set of tall stairs from the parking lot, with the already elevated walkway around the temple leading directly to the main door. Outdoor cubbies clearly meant for shoes lined the walkway, so I shed my shoes and socks before going inside, though I missed the foot-washing station just inside the door.

The lobby just inside the front vestibule spanned the width of the temple. To the right, the walls were lined with shrines. In front of me, archways opened into the primary worship space. To the left was a small store with books and DVDs and incense, and next to the racks of retail goods stood a man behind a counter with a money box. I asked if I should buy concert tickets through him, and he directed me down a staircase to the basement.

The smell of curry grew stronger as I descended, and downstairs I found a tableau not that different from the basement of the church I grew up in. A lower-level lobby sat beneath the upstairs lobby, with doors opening into classrooms, restrooms, and a fellowship area connected via a serving window to a kitchen. Here, families sat together eating lunch from styrofoam plates.

Next to the fellowship area, doors opened into an auditorium filled with plastic blue chairs facing a stage draped with rust- and saffron-colored cloths. A chest-high goddess statue with four arms and a raised leg stood to the side of the stage.

It was here that I paid my $15 for the concert and took a seat.

When the musicians entered, they took their places on a low platform at the center of the stage set with three microphones. Vijayalakshmy Subramaniam sat cross-legged at the central microphone and faced the audience. She wore an orange and green sari, a large, bright red bindi, and a gold necklace, with her hair pulled into a loose knot behind her neck. Her male accompanists, both in kurtas, one grey, and one rust-colored, sat on either side of her and faced each other.

Without comment to the audience, Vijayalakshmy Subramaniam then proceeded to sing ragas for three hours without a break. She acknowledged applause with a namaste, but otherwise did not appear to respond to the crowd. Often, I found myself with my eyes closed, transported by the music to a place where blanking out my mind was easy. Sometimes, the more upbeat songs made me want to dance, though I noticed the audience remained mostly motionless, and I noticed that Vijayalakshmy Subramaniam herself limited her movements to keeping the beat with one hand slapping against her thigh. Less often, but frequently enough to notice it, I grew bored, with the unfamiliar words to the songs blending together and starting to sound "all the same" to my ignorant ears. At the two-and-a-half hour mark, I had to step out to phone the car company to extend my reservation.

At 4PM, a barefoot, bald man in a blue shirt and grey slacks took to the stage to announce that the concert must end, because some women needed to prepare the basement auditorium for another use later in the evening.

The man heaped praise upon Vijayalakshmy Subramaniam, three times calling her voice "melifluous." He was right. She was beautiful and entrancing. (If we have art, why do we need religion?)

"I hope you noticed how our musician today chose her ragas based on our season of Navaratri," the man said, though his thick accent and frequent use of long proper names made his speech difficult for me to follow. "Especially, I noticed her focus on Lakshmi, since today is one of her days."

The man took a few moments to praise the three goddesses of Navaratri for their gifts, and reminded us all that the primary Trinity of Hinduism -- Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu -- are nothing without their female consorts. He focused especially on the relationship between Vishnu and Lakshmi, since it was Lakshmi's day, and gave an example pulled from contemporary headlines.

"Just look at what's happening in our country now, with the economy melting down to nothing," the man said. "But what can the Protector do… what can Vishnu do to protect us without money? And where do we turn when the problem is with money? To Lakshmi."

Then a male priest in traditional dress with a grey topknot of hair and a red bindi entered the stage with a giant silver platter of fruits. The man in the blue shirt explained that the priest would now offer a traditional blessing to the musicians to thank them for their appearance today.

The priest offered his blessing, while each of the musicians touched a finger to a substance apparently pooled on the platter and rubbed the finger along their skin, around their necks and behind their ears. Then, each member of the musical Trinity selected a fruit, and took a bite.

The audience was leaving, so I went upstairs to check out the main worship space, before the reservation on my car ran out.