Thirty-Nine

Last night was the 39th day of the Omer, and I will always associate 39 with the number of labors prohibited on Shabbat. 39 is a number of what you can and cannot do, of self-control to extend beyond self.

How fortuitous, then, to end Shabbat by letting Rabbi Aaron Finkelstein start  #countingthebromer at 39. He knows from going beyond self:

The period of the Omer has always been an interesting one for me. When I first started counting the Omer in a mindful way (in college perhaps), it all felt very communal; I was suddenly aware that the Omer was a time of mourning for the Jewish community, and as such, many Jews refrain from live music, performances and the like during this time.

A few years later, it became much more personal. It all changed when I started not shaving for the Omer. Up to this point, I was generally clean shaven, so not shaving was a BIG deal. It had this cosmic feeling, like I was doing something against my will. I was very, very aware that I wanted to shave, but I wasn’t. And I think this is really the point that I’ve taken with me through the years: there is a spiritual value in doing things that we don’t want to do.

Spirituality often brings with it a focus on the self; after all, we are constantly working on ourselves as we develop our connection with God and with Judaism. Still, the Omer for me is the time where I remember that it’s not all about me. It’s the time where we reconsider our commitments and even do things that might be against our will.

At this point, I seem to be rocking the short beard (surely is there a name for that?). The Omer is less dramatic for me than it once was. Now it means not trimming my beard for a bit longer than I’d usually let it go. But letting the beard go for a solid month and change is a good reminder that in the end, it’s not all about me. So I try to let go, at least a little bit.

Thirty-Eight

Last night was the 38th day of the Omer, and given the solid number of reflections preceding this one, it feels like a good time to switch things up a little. So let’s talk less facial hair and more…hair hair. Let’s talk less displaying hair and more concealing it. Let’s talk less male and more female. Let’s talk Cheryl Krugel-Lee and #countingthebromer:

I never wore any sort of head covering before I got married, even though I grew up attending a Conservative synagogue in the Chicago suburbs. Looking back on it, this seems odd to me, because I was pretty adamant about wearing a tallit, leyning Torah, etc–why wouldn’t I wear a kippah as well? My family’s minhag is for women to cover their hair in shul when they get married, and the women in my family who follow this minhag (including my mom) usually use what I both lovingly and derisively refer to as “doilies.” This, however, would not be for me. My hair is my favorite physical characteristic about myself, so how to cover it when I got married was an important decision–and thus an informed decision.

When I attended college, I became friends with, for the first time, married Orthodox women who cover their hair with sheitels, tichels, snoods, scarves, and more. To me, this was beautiful, exotic, oppressive, and empowering–all at the same time. “There are more ways to cover your hair than just wigs and doilies?” Once I got married, I began collecting tichels and headbands, eventually deciding–after a lot of study and observation–that a headband was the right way to go for me. This reconciled my desire to continue to display my favorite physical characteristic while also marking an important transition in my life. Unlike my family’s minhag, I cover my hair in most Jewish settings–davening at shul, Shabbat and chag meals, and when I’m lighting candles. I have often considered covering my hair with a headband all the time; like many people, my Judaism is an ever-evolving process.

One of my favorite parts of this is how I’m passing my tradition down to my daughter–who is 2. She often walks around shul (and elsewhere) wearing one of my headbands around her neck. I’ve only gotten her to wear it “like Mommy” a few times, though.

Thirty-Seven

I once had an improv teacher who taught me that every idea holds its own opposite within it. I guess that means all these beard reflections are really reflections on being clean-shaven. So Rabbi Joshua Franklin is in good, baby-faced company.

Last night was the 37th day of the Omer (does that also suggest a 73rd day? 12th? Whatever, let’s just keep #countingthebromer):

“You can’t be a rabbi, you don’t have a beard!” I’ve lost count of the number of people who exclaim this nonsense when they first meet me. It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that about a fifth of all new people I introduce myself to offer me some variation of this intended benign comment. I brush it off, but I have to admit, it stings a little. In the Jewish mind, the beard signifies a kind of pseudo-Jewish authenticity. This means that your average Brooklyn hipster is more likely to exude an outwardly Jewish appearance than me, a beardless rabbi.

It’s not that I haven’t tried to grow facial hair. I’m simply bad at it. My beard grows in thin, patchy, and gives me the juvenile appearance of a Bar Mitzvah student who hasn’t quite realized that he has hit puberty. Both of my brothers can grow a healthy-looking beard, and so can my father, but not me. The beard gene must have skipped a generation. Only once have I actually attempted to see what would happen if I didn’t shave for an extended period of time. When my wife and I went to Hawaii on our honeymoon, I went on a two-week hiatus from shaving. The results convinced me that I should never again try be someone that I am not. I am simply a clean-shaven rabbi.

I’m reminded of another beardless biblical figure who might offer us some insight on living with a boyish face. When God charges Samuel to choose a new king of Israel from among the sons of Jesse, Samuel’s eye inclines toward the tallest and most masculine son Eliab. Presumably Eliab would have had a beard. David––who the Bible describes as “ruddy, with beautiful eyes, and a fair appearance” ––isn’t even initially considered a candidate for king by his father. God offers Samuel some timeless advice for how to examine others: “Do not look at another’s outward appearance.” God doesn’t look at the beard, rather “God looks at what is in the heart.” As beards continue to grow fuller through the counting of the Omer, our eyes are misled evermore to measure masculinity and Jewishness by the length of a beard. Remember to see beyond the hairy or fair face, to do your best to gaze into the soul of another, and to see what is in their heart.

Thirty-Six

Last night was the 36th day of the Omer, and you’d think making it this far would mean I’d be more on top of the contiguous schedule. The silver lining of finding someone to try #countingthebromer last minute, however, is those spontaneous participants tend to offer some of the most surprisingly whimsical takes on this whole enterprise. Adam Schwartz is no different.

Two words: beard permit. Enjoy!

There are lots of things for beards. Beard months (No-Shave November), beard contests, even beard festivals. And then there are beard permits.

Let me start by saying that I’ve had a love-hate relationship with my beard for a couple of decades. The beard waxes and wanes. As a young Bar Mitzvah, when I first developed facial hair, I considered it a sign of masculine maturity. Looking back I see how silly this was; it grew without my input, and certainly didn’t mean I was mature. When I was a Lone Soldier, I started out quite gung-ho. I was in the army, the Israeli army, and I wanted to do it right. That meant being clean shaven every morning. However, the seven minute time limit to shave, dress, perform ablutions and be in formation woke me up to reality pretty quickly. That, coupled with my involvement in a Jerusalem observant Jewish community (mainly composed of Reform and Conservative Jews, most from North America), led me to the next logical step. I applied for a beard permit, of course. For the next two years I donned a neatly trimmed beard, which functioned both as a mark of observance as well as an easier military-standard approved hygienic option.

I now live in Minnesota, where having a beard is extremely helpful during the snow-covered half the year. It’s less of a choice and more of a practical face guard against sub-arctic temperatures. As a year round biker, I need the beard. Even when I walk, the beard freezes, defrosts, and refreezes, regulated in part by the warm steam of my breath when I speak.

The flip side: I really like the feelings of cleanliness and sensitivity that only a shaved head can provide. Efficiency is something I admire, so I shave my scalp and face to the same length and at the same time. This results in a cycle: Every two weeks or so, I go down to stubble, and two weeks later I have a (retreating) head of hair and a full beard! Once it gets too itchy, off it goes. Having a beard is less a spiritual practice, and more an exercise in not having to shave.

Thirty-Five

Last night was the 35th day of the Omer, so it’s a full five weeks of #countingthebromer. We’re three-fifths of the way there, a beautifully irreducible fraction of time that leans, just barely, toward completion.

Adam Reisberg has his own fractional relationship to the Omer (an elegantly simple one-half). Let’s let him count, shall we?

I’ve apparently counted the Omer during even years, through both beard growth and an acknowledgement of the days through some creative intention. Three years ago I took 49 photos. Last year I drew 49 comics.

The first beard arrived early without warning around 16, which lent itself towards implying a maturity that I had not – and possibly still have not – met. It was a matter of disguise (and possible laziness), hiding the fact that I could perhaps emulate someone much older while still in my teens.

Having had rather tumultuous interactions with Judaism during my youth, I rediscovered the Jewish community only five years ago. Two years into that rediscovery, I made the conscious effort to count the Omer, as well as grow my beard during that time. The intentionality of sticking with it – continuing to grow the beard even as it gets longer than you are accustomed to – is a challenge. For me, it’s a reminder that to learn something new or to build something greater you need the dedication and consistency to make it happen.

Thirty-Four

There’s often a point in the middle of a journey that you pause to ask yourself where you’re even going and why you’re heading there and what does it even mean anyway. Know what I mean?

Rabbi Matt Carl knows what I mean. Last night was the 34th day of the Omer, but I’ll leave actually #countingthebromer to him:

Yesterday was Lag BaOmer. I think people expected me to trim my beard. I didn’t do it.

When I was in college, I let my head hair and my facial hair grow constantly because I was, for lack of a better term, a hippie. At least that’s what people called me. To their credit, I loved listening to David Crosby belt out “Almost cut my hair” and improvised versions of Clapton’s “Let it grow” and even sang them myself at hoedowns in the commune I lived in. I didn’t view it as emphatically as David Crosby did, but it was philosophical, it was personal. In rabbinical school, a rabbi professor asked in class, apropos of nothing, in a high-pitched, Yiddish-accented, squeal, “Matt, you have a beard because you’re frum or because you’re a hippie?” Neither, I think.

As a guy who wears a kippah, as a rabbi, many people in Brooklyn assume my beard is longer and more unkempt than usual because of S’firat HaOmer — and they’re right — but specifically to mourn Rabbi Akiva’s students? Nope. I didn’t trim my beard on Lag BaOmer* because it’s not about that for me. In a class setting, I’ll explain this in further detail, but for now, here’s my theory:

It’s more about hair than about mourning. It’s more about farming than about mourning! Abbreviated: Jewish (men) use hair in place of crops.** We are commanded to count 7 days of weeks from Pesach, the barley harvest, after which we can harvest wheat. We will have to bring a Bikkurim offering but first, we’ll have to leave it there on the stalk, let it grow. Wheat is vulnerable, it’s susceptible to mold and fungi. It’s much less reliable (and more valuable) than barley. And we have to sit there and watch it do its thing, worrying each day if this will be the day it gets ruined. I’m not a farmer in Eretz Yisrael. I don’t do any of this… except on my face.

My beard is getting really gray. I’ve never liked the way my beard looked as it gets long enough to really call a beard. All the more so now that it’s gray. I don’t know what wheat mold looks like, but I think I’ve seen something similar to it the last 30 or so days in the mirror. This practice has been tough this year. Will this be the day it all falls apart? Will this be the year everything is ruined? I see the gray in my beard and wonder how I got this old, wonder if I’m where I ought to be by this point in my life. I literally see my face aging day by day, week by week, as I count toward… what again? In a couple weeks, I plan to finally harvest these feelings, to glean lessons, to trim my life to what is most important. I plan to make a joyful sacrifice. I’m not sure yet what it will be but I’m comforted knowing it will be Bikkurim, the first of something. I’m not counting to an end but to a beginning.

I’m hoping to teach a class on this (minus most of the personal parts) on Shavuot.

*We can talk about my feelings re Lag BaOmer and how it relates to all this some other time.

**Let’s discuss Orlah/Upshirn and Payiss some other time, but that’s where I’m going.

Thirty-Three

Most Jews celebrate Lag B’Omer with bonfires. Alex Schwartz is #countingthebromer to acknowledge last night was the 33rd day of the Omer and celebrate some major changes in his life. Let the metaphorical bonfire blaze!

I’ve had some form of facial hair, on and off, ever since high school. I actually think my first serious beard was when I was 15. While it usually starts as a act of shear laziness, and never lasts more than a month or so, my recent growth has been a reflection on who I am today and the significant growth and change in my personal and professional life.

Having recently quit my job of four years for a considerably more senior position elsewhere, I realize that the shear responsibility I’ve been given is a true blessing. I’m not saying that my beard brought this job upon me, but rather it externally mirrors the maturity and intentions my personality and skill set have shown for some time. In my line of work, knowledge and communication will always trump looks and appearances, but bringing a sense of maturity to any meeting is always valued. Being taken seriously by colleagues and clients is a must, and I would not be able to do that without the education and experiences afforded to me by my lot in life. And for the first time, I am at the perspective where people are honestly surprised by my age when I share it at work.

I’ve been reminded that a number of the great sages across the ages have had significant and defining facial hair and while I’m still coming into my own, I feel that I can connect with a part of history and lineage that defines great thinkers and unique minds.

Thirty-Two

This morning, I heard an incredible word of Torah on leaving the corners of your field to the poor (pei’ah).

Now, Joshua Schwartz is honoring the fact last night was the 32nd day of the Omer by #countingthebromer with that same pei’ah in mind.

Funny how that works:

This is not quite about my beard, but it is about hair, Judaism, practice, and the Omer, so please indulge me.

One of the practices I love most about the Omer is actually one of the subtlest. It’s that haircuts are not allowed. While it’s definitely one of the more prominent elements of the Omer, as a period of quasi-ascetic practice, its impact, I think, has not been so boldly obvious. People commonly associate the proscription of follicular shortening with mourning, as the Omer is traditionally associated with a memorial period for Rabbi Akiva’s students. However, we are equally forbidden to get our hair cut during Chol ha-Moed, during which mourning is not allowed (at least publicly).

So what is going on here?

When I was shteiging (studying) away in Jerusalem, in touch as I was with the spirit of the city and its pietistic proclivities (there’s a whole syndrome!), I decided to take on the custom of payos – allowing my forelocks to grow long. What I loved about this practice (and still do) is that it necessitates letting go of a certain amount of control regarding one’s appearance. I will never look totally neat again. Whenever I wear a hat, there will be these conicular tufts of hair poking out. I have set my face free. My face is now hefker (ownerless).

And indeed, letting the forelocks grow long shares a name with another mitzvah, Pei’ah, in which any owner of a field is commanded to leave it unharvested, as available sustenance for the poor and needy. It is free; free of my possession, free for the taking.

Similarly, I have set my looks free, my visage free, my image free – it is now beyond my tame-able control. I give it to you, in an act of trust. I leave it for G?d, as it was made in The Image (as was yours).

It’s free.

I’m free.

Thirty-One

So yesterday wound up so hectic, I didn’t get a chance to post before Shabbat that (now) two nights ago was the 31st day of the Omer. I would feel a sense of disappointment in posting late, but Nina Pick’s stunning contribution to #countingthebromer reminds me that we have what to learn from our shadows and misses:

This Thing of Darkness

Women rarely talk about facial hair. We will speak openly, at all times and in all places (on the beach, at the bar, at work, at the dinner table) about leg hair, armpit hair, pubic hair, eyebrows, hairstyles, bikini waxes, blowouts, dye jobs, and hair products, but never once have I heard a woman discuss her—for lack of a better word—mustache. My face hurts when I recall the efforts I’ve made to eliminate the peachfuzz on my upper lip: tweezing; threading; bleaching; hair-removal chemicals that left most of the hair and took off half my skin. And I have been successful; I’ve had boyfriends who never knew that we shared a mustache in common. But at what cost? My face has been burned and scarred, red and raw, in reaction to my aggressive maneuvers to abolish all lingering signs of the shadow. For indeed, the shadow is what it is—shameful, secret, and disavowed; taboo, malignant.

Why is the feminine mustache wreathed in such secrecy and silence? I think it has to do with a deeply held Jewish shame that goes back to our ancestry—our Russian grandmothers, with their own formidable accumulation of facial hair, who got off the boat in the New World, silenced by their unfamiliarity with the language, traumatized by their losses, suddenly a stranger. My faint mustache is a continual reminder of my otherness, of my not quite belonging here. I’ve been here my whole life, and I’ve never fully arrived. A woman’s mustache is, in my imagination, un-American, un-white. Blond women don’t have mustaches. When the Nazis come for the Jews, it will be my mustache that betrays me.

So I abolish it, one hair at a time, with my tweezers as my weapon. Like the drops of wine we spill on Passover, each hair is named with the scourge it represents: pogroms, starvation, immigration, Auschwitz, dislocation, despair, survivor’s guilt, intergenerational trauma, the shame of the woman’s body. I hope to pull this legacy out from within me, once and for all. And yet, no matter how diligently I pluck, after just a few days, the mustache returns, like a stain. And this is indeed the characteristic that most defines it as the shadow. The shadow will persist until we learn from it what it has to teach. It is only when we turn to look in the mirror, face the mustache, accept it for what it is, and say with Shakespeare’s Prospero, “This thing of darkness I / acknowledge mine” that it will be transformed.

Thirty

They say the beautiful thing about turning 30 is that lots of your old uncertainties and insecurities fade away as you grow more comfortable with yourself. I wonder if #countingthebromer feels that way now that last night was the 30th day of the Omer.

I’m pretty sure that Jacob Friedman and his beard are still dealing with uncertainties, but they seem content with their current direction:

My facial hair, my masculinity, and my Judaism have all kind of grown at the same time.

A couple years ago, when I was growing into a relationship with my girlfriend and after 10+ years of lazy but regular shaving, my mom suggested I finally go on Birthright. I think it was the very last trip I was eligible for. I had never been deeply connected to my Jewishness and was vaguely nervous about Israeli government propaganda, but I didn’t really have any informed opinions, and I wanted the free trip. I went, and it worked, kind of. I wept at the Western Wall and loved the Kabbalah at Tsfat. I was grateful to be in a relationship and thus exempt from the hookup culture encouraged by the program, and I did see some awesome spiritual masculinities in Israel. By far the best facial hair I saw belonged to the IDF soldiers who joined the trip, who represented an ideology that I grew apprehensive about as the trip went on.

When I got back, I had a lot of questions about my identity as a Jewish man. Should I stay with my incredible but Catholic girlfriend? Was it possible to be Jewish and not just talk about hypothetically questioning policies of the State of Israel, but actually, vigorously, fundamentally question them? Could being Jewish be good and fun, and not just an ancient chore?

Everything, including my facial hair, soon changed for the better. I read Jewish Renewal by Michael Lerner, which spoke to my whole self. And I started growing a real beard for the first time, which felt right to me, and was encouraged by those around me. I started going to renewal services in New York City, and my girlfriend and I worked through difficulties both religious and relational. I volunteered for Bernie, who, beyond his politics, provided an amazing example of Jewish masculinity. I joined IfNotNow, where I now coordinate the d’var Torah blog and do other organizing work. And I started the tough, forever-ongoing process of understanding my own masculinity. But in every way, I feel that I’ve made it through the itchy, patchy, stubbly part.

I love my facial hair. I love looking pensive and a tiny bit distinctive. I love looking indiscernibly old. I think my beard has helped me grow towards the Jewish masculinity in which I feel comfortable- bookish, not-fully-kempt, not-fully-hegemonic. There’s nowhere to grow but down and out, and that’s a good thing.