Doing and Being

There is a woman who comes to our synagogue every week. She’s not Jewish. I know this because I’ve talked to her.

Eva is a small framed, solid-looking Philippino woman with long, thick dark hair pulled together into a simple ponytail at the back of her head. The wheelchair that she maneuvers holds middle-aged Penny. She is paraplegic with coiffed sandy red hair, and thick wide rimmed glasses that often fall down the arch of her nose. Eva, I find out is Catholic. She is non practicing and unsure of her religious commitment. She has been sponsored from her homeland to be a full time caregiver for Penny.

Penny is Jewish and tells me she is relieved to have found our Reconstructionist synagogue in Toronto. Here, she can practice Judaism in a liberal, traditional practice that values inclusivity and diversity. As a Reconstructionist, women and men have the same rights and responsibilities, Jews and non-Jews are both considered chosen by God, and the synagogue sanctuary is a home for all.

Penny’s accident a year and a half ago prevents her from living independently. She relies completely on the help she gets from others. Attending synagogue has brought her back to her roots, allows her to self reflect and helps her to feel reconnected. I’m not surprised to learn that Penny anticipates her weekly involvement in Shabbat service, time for prayer and meditation, and opportunity to interact and engage with others. I feel the same way about my attendance each week.

Eva makes sure that Penny gets to services each week, pushing her wheelchair through the snowy streets and settling her among the synagogue pews. Eva sits down beside her and throughout our very long service attends to Penny’s needs, sometimes turning the pages of the prayer book, often wiping her nose with a fresh tissue, occasionally whispering something to her.

Week after week they are there. As the traditional prayers and songs are sung together, I often sympathize somewhat with Eva. “She must be so bored,” I think to myself. “How noble is she to sit patiently with Penny during a 3 hour service.” I wonder about the depth of the relationship that must be developing between these two women and how each depends so much on the other.

At the end of each service, as we all meet in the dining area for our shared Shabbat meal together, I greet them both with a “Shabbat Shalom”; in English means “Good resting day”.

A few weeks ago, engaged in my own self-reflective prayer, I happened to glance over to the other side of our sanctuary. There was Penny in her wheelchair, leaning back, cushioned in her protective neck brace. Next to her was Eva. This time Eva had her own prayer book in hand and she was confidently and knowingly singing along with the rest of the congregation. “A real Jew.” I said to myself, and with a smile and a nod shared the sight with my husband Paul.

Eva was being Jewish. I wondered how much she understood…how much she knew. And then I thought, that for those three hours of practice, it didn’t really matter. She was engaged in communal prayer in our Jewish community. The two women shared something profound.

It reminded me then of what an old mentor of mine once said. In preparing me for professional growth and possible promotion, she commented, “In order to get this job, Amy, you will need to already be doing the job.” It made sense to me that I need to show that I could do what the job required.

Sometimes being depends on what we do. In Judaic law you don’t have to believe in God to serve God. Judaism is a religion of practice - lighting candles on Friday night, sharing a ritual meal before the Sabbath, sitting Shiva for deceased family members, and remembering the anniversary of their death by saying a memorial prayer each year, fasting on Yom Kippur, and symbolically throwing our sins in to the rivers in the form of breadcrumbs for ducks to eat as they swim away. For many the practice is the beginning of the belief. If we “do” Jewish before we feel Jewish, it is only a matter of time before what we do becomes who we are.

I don’t know if Eva will ever consider herself to be religious. And religion isn’t what this is all about. I realized that what we do in this world eventually translates to who we are. And what we are is recognizable, ultimately, in what we choose to do.