It's not a dvar torah, in the usual sense. It's a description of her feelings about a business meeting with secular Israelis. The feelings she describes will likely be familiar to those who travel in multiple religious worlds.
And again I prepare to travel to a business meeting in Tel
Aviv, again I open the closet to vacillate for the hundredth time as to what to
wear to be tzanua (private, modest) but sufficiently modern, elegant but
not too pretentious, and again I know in the shelter of my heart that when I
leave the car in the parking lot in the heart of Allenby that I will feel, as
always – foreign, unusual, other, of “them”. My designer kerchief, which at a
women’s evening in the yishuv (community) would draw compliments and
inquiries of “Where did you buy it,” is exactly as relevant on Allenby Street
as a Muslim hijab, meaning that it is not at all relevant.
After I succeed in overcoming a wave of feelings of
inferiority, I enter a building tiled in parquet, they are already waiting for
me for a meeting that was set ten minutes ago (somehow, the density of the traffic
jams at the entrance to Tel Aviv and in its streets always succeeds in
surprising me). One last trip into the restroom to arrange the kerchief, to
check that the makeup is still present, and a last, final and decisive sigh:
Who am I kidding? A dossit (quasi-derogatory term for ‘religious’) remains a dossit.
A moment before I enter the meeting, the usual consideration
passes through my mind – will they be surprised that I am religious? Did
the one who invited me add this
description as an inseparable part of my description – “We will work with
Naama, she designs interfaces. Oh, yes, she is also religious – nu, dossit
with a kerchief, but she’s sababa (A-OK)”… I was never present in the
room when this sentence was uttered, if
it was uttered, but I can always sense it when I enter the room, even though I
am received entirely naturally, and with a smile, the hands of the men are not
extended to me for shaking, and the smiling receptionist hastens to inform me
that the coffee is kosher.
Then the moment comes when, as part of the small talk,
someone is interested in asking, “Where do you come from? Did you say Jerusalem?”
(They always remember Jerusalem, because of the area code.) And I blush, “No,
no, a small yishuv, in the vicinity of Modiin.” Oh, they all nod,
Modiin, yes, we have heard of that city, we really must get there some time with
the kids, they say there is an excellent park there.
There will come a day – I promise the small, agitated pursuer
of honesty inside me – when I will gather the courage, and in response to this
question I will answer with the truth: I live in Neriah, a community yishuv
in Binyamin. Yes, it is across the Green Line, what they call in the media a “settlement”,
but we prefer to call it a development. You should come to visit some time; it’s
very nice here.
This is part of what was viciously taken from us - a thoughtful, sensitive human being who lived in multiple Jewish communities, and who could have brought them together through her actions and words. חבל על דאבדין ולא משתכחין, woe to us for those we have lost, who are no longer found.
