Thread by @RabbiHugenholtz

<thread>
This is what Jewish looks like.

This is what a 40 year old female, blonde rabbi looks like.

I started wearing a tallit and laying tefillin one and a half decades ago. It’s taken me years to get over my internalized judgment as a woman wearing tefillin. /1

Tefillin are a strange and uncomfortable feature of Jewish practice even on the best of days. I’ve had to consciously move myself beyond my own discomfort to own this mitzvah that means so much to me. /2

Like many Jews who have a davening practice, mine has waxed and waned over the 15+ years that I’ve been davening regularly. Ive wrapped in odd places (including a storage closet at a temp job - 🤣) to praying side-by-side with a Muslim woman at the Amsterdam airport chapel. /3

My tallit and tefillin have traveled to odd places; from covert davening with Women of the Wall at the Western Wall to praying on vacations in Cuba and the Arctic Circle or wrapping them with a heart full of poignant emotions overlooking East Berlin. /4

I have loved prayer and dreaded it. Done it out of obligation and joy. Whispered these words with passion and mumbled them with rote boredom. None of this is meant to be simple; all of this is meant to be an ever-evolving and enduring relationship with God and self. /5

My tallit I bought in Holland. The Judaica shop only had 3 styles. I liked the juxtaposition of the white on black. The white, after years of use and regular washing, is fading to yellow. It’s a tallit that’s been with me almost a generation of my life. /6

The tefillin I bought with a male friend in Mea Shearim. He was my decoy for a ‘clandestine’ purchase by a woman. The retzu’ot (straps) are now so soft and supple with use. /7

Had so many encounters w/these objects. Israeli Airport security guards having their heads exploded as to why a woman would have these in the 1st place. Cried tears of pain & joy into my tallit. Prayed w/these at the morning of my wedding. Hope to be buried in this tallit. /8

Like any Jew, I have a right to develop my own unique and personal relationship with these objects; these words of Torah that I bind upon myself, these fringes with which the Shechinah (Divine Presence) embraces me. /9

A relationship that is authentic despite gender politics, despite denominational bickering & my own spiritual frailty. They’re my companions through this journey called life. They’re my teachers & my teaching tools. I take pride that I’ve showed women (& men) how to wrap. /10

This is what Jewish looks like.
I embrace it wholeheartedly & take pride in what this represents. Embodied holiness. The uncompromising message of my infinite worth, regardless of the toxic messages of our culture on what a woman is meant to be. Of what a Jew is meant to be. /11

This journey of the excavation of my soul taught me this much; I don’t know what God is & live w/doubt, but when I pray, I know that I’m a link in an amazing, vibrant, resilient tradition, a part of my People & that God loves me with a great love.
It’s what being Jewish is. <end>