Jew Watch Jew Word from: Adam Shechter

My Jew watching activities have always been with me, but only really took solid rooting and blossomed last summer, after I moved to Kensington, Brooklyn. In fact, it was just hours into my very first night, a Friday night no less, approximately 9:30pm that the Holy One initiated the opening moves of an optic encounter. I was lugging some giant heavy box of books through a punishing drizzle when a black hatted Yeshiva Bochur no older than fourteen-years-old came peyos swinging by, flashing me a judgmental neon-lit eyeball. So, I paused mid-sidewalk, between U-haul van and apartment building, biceps burning, neck aching, t-shirt sticky with sweat and rain, and through the cloudy forest of raindrops collecting on my eyeglass lenses, returned the morally inquiring stare. Expecting his countenance to soften with a golden glowing: Welcome to the neighborhood Jewish brother! the scrutinizing orbs of pale blue ice just crackled yellow and red a bit, and then his black shoes hurriedly clattered on, Heaven on Earth, and I am not joking.

I love to stare at religious Jews! And they love to stare at me. Really, they just love to stare in general. A close musician friend of mine told me that he was once playing a concert where a few Chassidic Jews were in attendance. The small party of three walked as close as possible to the stage (in this case, that meant practically face to face) and proceeded to gawk at his fingers for the remainder of the show. Needless to say, his guitar playing was not so good that night. But! My dear Internet gazing buddies, I would like to very happily inform you that such shameless Yiddishe gaze wields little or no power over me! And if anything only aids my own voyeuristic work. As soon as an orthodox eye lands on my silhouette, my own eyes hone in on it with burning intensity like heat-seeking missiles! Their fascination with my yarmulke-less bearded head has bought me full rights of passage to gape straight down the crystal lakes of their corneas, swimming to the very bottom of their souls. But really, I think that I am giving you the wrong impression, the origin of my desire to look at religious Jews is not seated in confrontation, but in a much more benevolent wish to simply observe forbidding the forbidden in a way that is forbidden to me.

The weekly peak of my Jew watching usually transpires on Friday night, while lounging on a bench along Ocean Parkway. Unwinding in the summer breeze from another long and arduous Monday through Friday of work, I take great pleasure as the Jews rush by on their way to services. I like to admire the suits the men wear and the modest skirts and blouses the women have on. I take great satisfaction in imbibing the hues of black and blue and gray, the contrast of dullness and hysteria excites me to no end. Each and every aspect of their demeanors draws my vision: The auburn wigs which sit on pale perturbed white faces, I ask myself what exact thought is contorting her lips, have no idea. I can only dumbly guess something about an argument with her husband over.The beards which pour forth from faces like hay and fire, faces chiseled by a thousand years of seriousness yet wearing a navy blue blazer no older than a year. I ask (in the whispers of my hedonistic mind) the little boy, trailing along with his father, How many times have the pants you are wearing been washed? Then conclude that his older brother running ahead with great anticipation probably wore those pants more times than him. A real little one scampers by with swaying tzitzits practically longer than his legs. Now a battalion of shul going boys bumble forward, shining some 20 white-light flashlights into my secular eyes. Ohhh, they are looking at me, I love it! And I look back! And they look at me! They see my pale hairy white legs jutting out of black shorts, a white Fruit of the Loom t-shirt, yellow armpit stains if they look close enough. They see my beard and glasses, skinny white fingers clamped down on a dark book. An aesthetic scheme really not that different than their own, they look away. Look again. Who am I? Do they take my blinking sinful image into the synagogue with them to cleanse it?

And that is the highlight! When everyone has already entered the synagogue and I can no longer see a single Jew, maybe a lone mad straggler here and there making it through the setting sun in his long gabardine coat. Well, I can see the door open and close as he pops in for a split second I catch the corner of a pew or the edge of the ark in the back. But really, I have no idea what I am seeing, so then comes my greatest delight, imagining what is happening inside! What prayer are they up to? Are they singing a psalm? Is the service already over? One minyan or two? How impassioned are they? What is the feeling in the room? Is it crowded? Who sits by who? Who is talking Torah in the back? Who is gossiping?

Not that I know anyone by name, or even the sound of their voice, just the shapes of bodies, the speed of their walk, their size, the attitude of their shoulders, the angle on which they wear their hat, the fact that they wear only a yarmulke, why? Now you are probably wondering what the hell is wrong with me. Why do I not just get up and go in and participate. You see, you are oversimplifying things. You are not understanding my bliss. I could do that, but then I would be renouncing the pleasure of my yearning through the eyes, the ecstasy of the conflict. I sit in my shorts and t-shirt with sandals and as the tender breeze runs its sinuous fingers over and through my skin, I watch. And I look. I lovingly and longingly gaze at the bodies clothed head to foot as they disappear into a building clothed head to foot in sanctified bricks. I yearn like a good Jew. That is the depth of my pleasure. Not only am I a Jew who yearns, but I am Jew who yearns to yearn like another Jew, but cannot! I am forbidden. There is no other joy like this one, the pinnacle of a Jewish soul detected, examined and raised on high.

My girlfriend can find it quite frustrating when we go on our evening walks through the endless streets of cutesy Kensington houses. She is constantly poking me and taunting, Oh, I guess I might as well just go home and leave you alone with your friends! No, please stay. Please stay, I playfully beg her, my eyes fixated on a superb black hat, contemplating the fact that I could never afford to spend 100 or so dollars on such a thing, and how vast with longing for God my life would be if I owned and covered my head with that exact fashion object. I look from porched home to porched home, yards stacked wildly with playing Jewish boys and girls, half-inflated basket balls awkwardly bouncing, antiquated roller skates scraping by, mothers hollering beautiful Brooklyn accents, sitting in packs at the top of the stairs. How great would my life be if I were the father of this household? But how much greater it is to walk among them and just want and not have. The man with the expensive hat now passes by me and opens his sleepy mystic eyes like two doors to two separate Bet Dins. I crawl inside the left one and have a seat in an old comfy shtetl red velvet Rabbi chair. I cannot afford his hat, but will gladly wear his judgment for free.