I.In this Issue

This issue includes a shameless plug for my CDs, exciting news about my Bubbe Ida's 1941 post office mural, and, as promised, a Minna-drash about not-so-pleasant public prayer experiences. Anyone likely to be offended by self-promotion should probably skip the first of these. Anyone likely to be offended by vulgar language should probably skip the last of these. There is nothing offensive about my Bubbe Ida's mural, unless you simply can't stand to look at any image of Abraham Lincoln which omits his beard.

May we live life whole by being "strong in the broken places."* (*Hemingway said this last part but I don't know where.)

Shameless Plug
If you would like to help support my ongoing work, please help me sell my music. Especially now, as I focus my energies more on my Ph.D. work and consequently play out less, I need help moving CDs and cassettes. My first album is available only on cassette tape right now, and the other two -"The World is Ready," and my new live album "Live at Lena's"-are both on CD. What can you do? Three things:

1. Buy CDs http://www.minnabromberg.com/shop/shop.shtml and tell other folks you know to do the same. As an extra incentive, I'll give you a free CD for every four sales you send my way. So, if you buy four CDs, the fifth is free. Or if you get four other people to buy one CD each, I'll send you a free one. Any in-between combination of these is fine too. You can listen to samples of my first two albums in the website's "fan center" but feel free to buy something even if it's just because you like me. I'm happy to report that the PayPal system works very well, but if you'd prefer to pay by check, let me know:minna@minnabromberg.com.

2. Get my CDs reviewed. I know there are some wonderful writers who read this newsletter as well as other folks with access to publications of various types. If you know of somewhere you can write and/or publish a review, please contact me at minna@minnabromberg.com for a review copy of my album(s) and other press info.

3. Get airplay. If you listen to (or produce) a radio program that reaches what seems to you like a good audience for me, please send me the relevant contact information.

Art Online
In 1941, my grandmother, Ida York Abelman (a.k.a. "Bubbe Ida"), was granted a contract by the Federal Art Project (part of FDR's "New Deal") to paint a mural in the post office in Lewiston, Illinois. One of my favorite family stories about this is that she was pregnant with my mom while she was painting -up on scaffolding no less! The mural is still there; I last saw it when my mom and I were driving from New York to Oregon several years ago. But now I've discovered a way to see the mural anytime I want to: online! There's a whole website devoted to WPA murals www.wpamurals.comand it includes a photograph of Bubbe Ida's "Lewiston Milestones" www.wpamurals.com/sld021.htm. Check it out!

Next Issue
Next month's issue will include an update on my Ph.D progress, news about my summer plans, and a Minna-drash about discernment and a lost and found lovebird.

IV. Minna-drash: Praying in Public IV

The story I am about to tell involves a good bit of impoliteness. I want to tell it because it also involves some important truths for me. Anyone who is likely to be offended by graphic language about sexual harassment should stop reading. You may be wondering what sexual harassment has to do with praying in public. Well, it goes a little something like this:

Several weeks ago, I was minding my own business davenning the amidah (the central prayer of the Jewish worship service) when into my field of unfocused vision rolls an attractive -to my mind anyway-Black man on rollerblades. He says, "Excuse me," and asks if I'm reading Torah. "No," I answer, "I'm praying." He asks, "Are you reading the Prophets?" I repeat myself and then add, "It's a more recent text." And he says, "Do you know the Prophets?"

While I ordinarily enjoy meeting and conversing with attractive Black men, I'm already a little suspicious here. Partly this is due to my generally heightened sense of stranger-danger ever since I was accosted on my block about a month earlier…but I'll return to that later. On the other hand, I am naturally pulled to be open to people who approach me while I'm praying so I keep talking to him. I shrug a bit and say that I've read some prophets. And then he asks me if I know Daniel. The truth is I am not very familiar with the Book of Daniel. Something about a lion's den. But I indicate that I'm listening.

He is very methodical in his approach. He takes his time. He doesn't want to tell me too much in any given sentence and he truly waits to make sure that I am still in the conversation with him. The interesting problem that this creates is that I am often saying "Yes" or nodding my head to mean, "Yes, I am listening" but I think he reads this as "Yes, I am agreeing with you."

He tells me that Daniel indicates when the Messiah will come and that this is connected with the rebuilding of the Temple and that the place where the Temple originally was is now in Alaska. I interrupt to ask if I've heard him right about Alaska and he says, "Yeah, something about Cyrus…" but he trails off. He quickly gets back to his story about how the Book of Daniel tells us how many weeks and months and years it will take for the Messiah to come and the calculations clearly indicate that the Messiah has already come. He emphasizes that last point, sort of leaning toward me as if to say, "Do you catch my drift?"

I suddenly begin to feel a surge of adrenaline in me. It's not a light switch but more like the volume levels on a soundboard being pushed steadily up. I shrug again as if to remind myself to that I am trying to practice equanimity here. This is partly a fledgling aspect of my spiritual practice and largely my simpler desire to stay out of a fight.

He continues, "And that Messiah," he pauses, "is Jesus and you should read the book of Daniel." Then he quotes chapter and verse numbers which I have already blocked out and I blurt out, "There are many ways of reading sacred texts." He again directs me to read the passage of Daniel and then I will know that Jesus is the Messiah. I tell him that just because I read that passage doesn't mean I will translate it the same way he does. And here I notice something click in me because my desire to end this exchange suddenly overrides any reserve I'm trying to maintain. So I repeat myself only louder, "There are many ways of reading sacred texts, and," and by this point my voice is cutting him off, "and I would hope that you would love me as your holy sister regardless of whether or not I read Daniel the same way that you do." By now I feel like a newscaster repeating whatever I hear in my earpiece because I just open my mouth and start sentences without any clue where they will end. Nonetheless, it feels like a brilliant move: hit the Christian where it hurts by reminding him of Jesus' great love. He says, "I do love you. You are a child of God." It should be noted that receiving love graciously is not my strong suit even under the best of circumstances. "Good," I say bluntly, "then please let me return to my prayers."

I'm about to declare victory, and start ignoring him, but he slips in, "You are a child of Abraham," and I get an uh-oh feeling as he pushes ahead, "Judaism is the tree." I'm slipping out of the lead here because I know exactly what's coming. I try to cut him off by asking again that he let me return to my prayers, but he gets in one parting shot before rolling away, "Judaism is the tree, and Christianity is the fruit." His words trail behind him as I stammer, "It's one fruit but…" but he's gone. I am raging and I am hurt. I can only liken the feeling to what I imagine I might feel if one of my brothers had just tried to convince me that Mom and Dad simply didn't love me anymore. I turn back to my siddur (prayer book) and try to find my place and discover that I am crying. I wish he would skate back here and see me crying so that he could know that he has hurt me, but then I worry that maybe he meant to hurt me. What did he mean to do?

Walking home, I realize how similar this encounter feels to the attack of a much different nature I endured a month before. Having dropped off a friend after we'd seen a movie, I was walking home from the lot where I park my car. It was 11:30 on a Thursday night. I usually feel relatively comfortable walking in my neighborhood alone at night even though many people I speak with seem to view it as unsafe. As I approach the left turn onto my street, I see a man in a black trench coat cross perpendicular to me. Yes, you read that right and I am not making this up, he really was wearing a black trench coat and black pants and a black fedora kind of hat. So he was heading west and I was heading south about to turn east. As I was turning, I noticed that he had stopped about eight feet west of me. He had turned 180 degrees and was now facing east, as I was. I felt afraid and then I reassured myself that it was nothing to worry about. I felt afraid that he would pull out a gun and shoot me, but I put this in the same category as being afraid that cars going by me on Halloween might throw out a huge pumpkin and hit me in the head and kill me because I have either dreamed this or it really happened to someone once when I was a kid. So I kept walking.

I had a block and a half to go. As I got to the corner where the Jehovah's Witnesses have a Kingdom Hall, a car came through the intersection very loudly. I turned my head to look at it and realized that the man in the black trench coat was now six feet behind me and gaining. He had been following me for a block. I was terrified. Under his black fedora and trench coat, I now noticed he was a skinny white man with wispy blond hair. I stammered, "Hello?!?" as in "Hello, why are you following me?" And he said, "Hi" in a really slimy sort of tone. I still told myself I was overreacting. Let's assume he's just some overly friendly college student going to a party in my neighborhood. I moved to the left to give him more sidewalk to pass me because maybe he just needed to walk back this way for some reason and wasn't really following me. The next thing I knew he was right up with me at my right side. Not quite leaning on me, but pretty close. I glanced at him and realized that he was exposing himself to me and, in fact, stroking himself. Before I knew I had opened my mouth, I heard myself say, "Get the fuck away from me, man," in a tone that was much more exasperated than irate. He protested, "But you're really sexy." "Yeah, well, you're not," I answered with a nearly impossible flatness to my voice. "But that doesn't mean you can't suck my dick," he offered almost half-heartedly. I didn't say a word. I walked a few more feet and he trailed behind and then I heard him mumble something like, "Well, OK then," and he must have gone down the alley to our left. I don't know where he went because I just kept walking with my eyes and heart and feet fixed on the goal of turning the key in the front door of my building, getting in, and shutting the door behind me. I don't want to understate how frightened I was. I was shaken and hurt and terrified. But from an intellectual perspective, he seemed like such a feeble sex offender. It was almost as if he really thought this was a good way to meet women.

So here were two men simply following misguided urges that they nonetheless felt compelled to follow. But at least the guy in the trench coat didn't have to dress up his public masturbation in the guise of serving his god.

When I was behind the locked door of my apartment, I immediately called the friend I had just dropped off at home. He said he was sorry this had happened to me and that he apologized on behalf of his entire half of the species. Then he said I should make some tea. He asked what flavor the tea was and when I said it was Lemon Zinger, he said, "Gin. Gin would be your best bet."

After being accosted by the Christian guy, I want to call some good Christians. I don't need them to apologize for this man or for everyone else -in any religion-- who hurts people in the name of saving them. I just want their reassurance that this man is not the majority. I want their reassurance that they believe, as I do, that we do sacred work by serving each soul exactly where they are. We serve God by helping people with things that they actually already think they need. We fool ourselves and we hurt others when we think we are serving God but are merely serving ourselves right in the faces of God's children.

I hope I won't let the rollerblading Soldier of Christ turn me off to other loving and gentle Christians just as I hope I won't let the man in the trench coat succeed in turning me off to loving and gentle men. But it takes a conscious effort. I feel a certain shakiness, a certain preciousness to my self. A reminder to be especially gentle not only with myself but with those around me. There is a vulnerability to praying in public and it calls on our willingness to be fragile out in the open. The first few nights I decided I was ready to walk alone again, I sang "Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys" the whole way home and I let myself spin around or look over my shoulder whenever I needed to. The fragility is both scary and very, very sweet.