This post is a continuation from "Torah Camp" posted earlier on. To view earlier posts, scroll down.
July 5, 2010
I decided I wanted a beard when I was in first grade. I’m glad, in retrospect, it didn’t come in that early, but every day I’m reminded of the inadequacies of my own beard. Why? Because every day, I walk among beard major leaguers- chasids.
When I would zone out during lectures, I used to try to imagine what rabbis would look like without their beards. I thought, I can’t see your face- how am I supposed to see the individuality of your character. I’m realizing now that beards might represent more character than faces.
My roommate Farmboy is looking progressively more like an Amish man. D’s Jafar beard is getting more entangled every day. Herring’s facial hair makes him look like a hood criminal. And Robin, of course, is still Robin Williams.
Among the yeshiva guys next to us, you can find characters from all over American History. This guy looks like a pilgrim, this guy a cowboy, and this one an old prospector.
One of our rabbis is big and gentle with a massive black beard. He could play Hagrid in the Harry Potter movies. And while many beards have a wizard look, there’s one guy here who could be Albus Dumbledore’s twin. There’re men up here who like dwarves, gnomes, and giants too.
Rabbi Kaplan is one of the heads of our program and a brilliant teacher. He is a mammoth Jew with an equally huge beard. But it’s all tied together when he speaks- a low, booming, powerful voice. And when this trained chazzan davens, the walls shake and you can feel the Hebrew in your bones. A single image crystallized in my mind when I met him: he was a Viking god in tzitzit.
One of our counselors, a young rabbi, goes by Chonie. He looks like the son of Santa Clause.
I could name a dozen other characters these beards connote- blacksmiths, pirates, and ancient senseis, to name a few- but there were a few beards I just couldn’t place. I would look at the chasid in question and try to figure out why their beard looked so familiar, what character they looked like.
I realized one day during a lecture. It was our oldest rabbi speaking, which meant most people were either zoning out or praying that class would end (so we would have afternoon prayer services and they could zone out).
And suddenly, there was this one moment when he looked up to search through a text on the podium and his white beard crumpled against his suit, the book, and his face. The whole picture together hit me: it was like I was staring at the spirit of the Jew.
I realized all those beards I didn’t recognize were Jewish beards. There was no other word to describe them. All I knew was that the Jew wouldn’t be the same without that beard, nor the beard without that Jew.
Which makes my patchy, scruffy, awkward facial fur all the more frustrating.