Hoshanah

Well, the first two days of Sukkot have just ended. I've eaten way too much and been in lots of sukkot (the booths we build during this holiday... they symbolize a lot of things, including living in an incomplete dwelling and deepening your faith as G-d is protecting you more than the incomplete roof above you). We had amazingly nice weather, especially after getting soaked to the skin by rain (and catching a cold) during Yom Kippur.

One part of the Sukkot service is called the Hoshanahs. Usually just the men do it, they carry their lulavim and etrogim and walk around the Torah chanting "Hoshanahs." Truthfully I don't know that much about why we do them.

The holiday of Sukkot leads into Simchat Torah and, as much as I love all the holidays, these are sometimes a little difficult because so often men do things while the women just look on. So yesterday, on the first day of Sukkot, the men of our shul were saying their Hoshanas in the parking lot of the shul. I was the only woman who walked out (eager to be in the sunshine) and watched from the side. The rabbi called me over by name to join them. "Come on, ______," he said.

"I can?" I answered, and a few of the men chuckled a little.

"Well, it's not like we're holding hands and dancing," he said. (Orthodox men and women avoid physical contact with each other unless we are family.) More laughter.

So I joined. I felt self-conscious, awkward and in awe. I was too shy to go near the Hoshanas again today, but I felt like I was breaking ground, and showing bravery, to be the only woman who joined them. I wished others did too and wonder if at some point more women will get involved because I do. (There are a lot of times when I am the only, or one of the first, of the women at shul.)

Granted, there are many women who are extremely dedicated in other ways, or are way more knowledgeable than me, but I still feel like I'm making a special quiet impact, if only on my own soul.

Best of all, it felt so good to be welcomed in like that. That has never happened before, and I was sincerely moved. I want to tell all the people in the old places I've lived who thought that could never happen.