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01:01Take a breath.
01:09I understand you're a 49-year-old Professor of Anthropology at USC.
01:15Yeah.
01:16I had a loss of energy and just this sort of dry, shallow cough, which I still have.
01:21And how much cigarette smoking have you done in your life?
01:24For about three years, I smoked a pack and a half a week.
01:28And have you ever had a malignancy before?
01:30I did. I had cervical carcinoma.
01:34And I had a hysterectomy.
01:40Okay.
01:42Can you tell me, sir? Can you swallow, please?
01:46Is that the thyroid you're looking at?
01:48Mm-hmm. Again.
01:52Do you live here for lymph nodes?
01:53Yes, I am.
01:55Okay.
01:58Let's loosen things up for a minute.
01:59Now we're trying to determine how much of your lung has fluid and tumor in it and how much has
02:06good lung.
02:06And you can tell that by the sound?
02:08You can tell by the difference in the note.
02:10Uh-huh.
02:12What the right lung shows is a lot of areas that are white, that are abnormal, that has more fluid
02:19than it should.
02:21Cancer cells are present in the fluid and we don't know for certain whether it is a primary lung cancer
02:26or one that is spread.
02:43This is not the film that I started out to make.
02:46Originally, I intended to do a broad-based depiction of Jewish life in Fairfax in LA.
02:53I hoped for the kind of professional distance that every social scientist wants to bring to the subject.
03:00But to do anything except something that touched my own life was time I didn't have.
03:21I came into the community after I became ill and they came out to me with these treasures which I
03:29hadn't expected.
03:29Offering resources, offering rituals, offering this deep caring, offering an interpretation of what my illness meant and how it fitted
03:40into a whole cosmos, a whole world.
03:43This is a community that is not ordinary.
03:47It's not weird, but it's certainly not what you'd expect to find all around you.
03:52It's as if I walked into a New Guinean village in the middle of my own backyard.
04:17This community which looks from the outside, sometimes very drab, and you see these dark figures hurrying along the street.
04:24They seem, for all the world, some of the most discouraging and beaten people.
04:29And yet you step inside these little worlds that they have all over their streets, and there's something there you
04:35never could have dreamed existed.
04:38They have what everyone is looking for in religion, and that is community and spirituality.
04:46I certainly didn't intend to make a film about the Orthodox per se, but they turned out to be somehow
04:53the most compelling and drew my life into theirs so deeply that they became the focus.
05:00And in a way that was kind of familiar and satisfying, because this is really what anthropologists are taught to
05:06do.
05:07You study what is happening to others by understanding what is going on in yourself, and you yourself become the
05:14data gathering instrument.
05:16So that you come from a culture, and you step into a new one, and how you respond to the
05:21new one tells you about them, and it tells you about the one you came from.
05:39I want it to look like my own hair, obviously, as much as I can.
05:43Okay.
05:44We don't always carry every color and every style.
05:47If you want, I can show you a couple of styles.
05:50You know why I want a wig.
05:52I mean, it's not for religious purposes.
05:54Yeah, yeah, I have an idea.
05:56Well, yeah, I mean, I don't know if or when or how much hair I may lose from chemotherapy, but
06:03it could be a lot.
06:06And what's so ironic about this is that I spent my childhood trying to get rid of curls because I
06:13thought it was Jewish hair, and I was embarrassed.
06:16And now that I'm middle-aged and I like it, here I am getting a wig.
06:22You wear a wig for religious purposes.
06:24Right.
06:25If people think it's your hair, don't they think that then you're not being observant?
06:30It's not, it really has nothing to do with that.
06:33The reason women cover their hair is not because to look ugly.
06:38I mean, this is part of modesty, and just like there is modesty in attitudes and in views of life,
06:46and so there is in dress.
06:47And here is, after all, an expression of a woman's body.
06:51Do you feel naked with your wig off?
06:53You become very conscious of yourself, especially if a man, another man would come into the room.
07:00It's like the first thing a woman would do if she wasn't wearing a wig is run to cover her
07:04hair or something.
07:06For your husband, you can reveal your hair.
07:10Oh, my God.
07:12I mean, the .
07:13Gee.
07:14Okay, you don't cover your ears.
07:16You look very young.
07:18Well, I don't know what my children would say if I walked in the house.
07:21Okay, wait just a second, let me pull out a brush.
07:24What does a modern woman give up in order to follow these laws?
07:27The truth is, I was never what you call a modern woman, okay?
07:31I'm what you call an ultra-orthodox, religious, Hasidic woman.
07:38But do you know enough about modern women's lives to know how your life is different from that?
07:44For example, did you date? Did you meet a lot of different men?
07:50I did date, but not the way the modern woman dates, okay?
07:56It was always, here, I'm doing something else.
07:58I don't know if you, I'm just, you know, trying.
08:01The modern woman may not necessarily date for purposes of marriage.
08:06The modern woman may just date, you know, to sleep with a guy or something.
08:10Mm-hmm.
08:11And that's not what is done in our circle.
08:14Let me just pull down another whip.
08:16Okay, this is a little wrong.
08:17Blonder and blonder.
08:18Yeah, the color is not, you know, it's really, it's maybe difficult to tell the wrong color.
08:24They look interesting in blonde.
08:26It's interesting in blonde.
08:27In this color.
08:29You know what I've always imagined?
08:32A Jewish woman, an orthodox woman is unavailable to her husband approximately half the month, right?
08:39Yeah.
08:39Does that mean when she is available to him that it has greater meaning?
08:45Yeah, it does.
08:46Is that your experience?
08:47It's definitely true.
08:49I can tell you, whatever you have between your husband grows.
08:52Hold it down close to your front so that when I ride it over the back, it won't go forward.
08:57Right.
08:57Okay.
08:58Oh, that's kind of interesting.
09:04You have other laws, I mean, other rules, a lot of them, don't you, that as an orthodox woman you
09:09have to follow?
09:10This is very long, I just, you know, notice, but it's...
09:14If you make a mistake, what would you do to make up for it?
09:16You don't...
09:18If you're living according to the Jewish laws, and if a religious woman does not make a mistake,
09:24the biggest mistake that she would make is when she's not supposed to touch her husband
09:29will accidentally touch her husband.
09:31That's the kind of mistake that she can possibly make.
09:33Does it ever happen?
09:35Do you know of any cases?
09:36I wouldn't want you to name names, of course, but...
09:38I don't.
09:38I really don't.
09:39Does it...
09:39There must be some cases in the community where people, you know, fall by the wayside,
09:45or...
09:46What happens to them when they violate the custom, or the law?
09:50If they do, I really wouldn't know about it.
09:52Yeah.
09:52Is it just...
09:54It's very quiet?
09:55If it...
09:55If it...
09:56I really doubt that it is violated, because people...
09:59I mean, if the woman is not so religious, at least the man would be...
10:02I mean, somebody would be religious, and I really doubt very much that there's really any violation.
10:08I don't know about any.
10:10Really?
10:10Yes.
10:11Would anybody ever go to the Rebbe for forgiveness, or...
10:14I mean, if there were a violation?
10:16No, it's not.
10:17Would he be the one?
10:17Would it happen?
10:18We're not a...
10:18We're not Catholic or Christian or something like that.
10:23What about mikveh?
10:24Mikveh is one of the laws of the Jewish woman.
10:27What do you do?
10:28What's that?
10:28You know, I've never been to a mikveh.
10:30Really?
10:30Yeah.
10:31I thought you did.
10:32No, I know.
10:33I'm going to.
10:33Yeah.
10:34But I haven't yet.
10:35Okay.
10:35Can you tell me about it?
10:36What's...
10:36What does it feel like to go to the mikveh?
10:40Um...
10:40It's a very...
10:41What can I say?
10:43It's very personal.
10:44I mean, it's not something that you would tell your friends, like,
10:47Gosh, I'm going to the mikveh tonight.
10:49Oh, really?
10:49Yeah.
10:49Because it's...
10:51You know, not everybody has to know your intimate life with your husband.
10:54After a woman goes to the mikveh, she's, you know, allowed to be with her husband.
10:58And before she went to the mikveh, she wasn't.
11:00Okay?
11:01So right away, people know what happens in your life.
11:04So it's a good feeling.
11:05You take that feeling home to your husband?
11:07Yeah.
11:08It is.
11:09I mean, it's interesting.
11:10It's hard to, you know, it may be hard to understand unless you've actually experienced
11:14it.
11:16After all that work with Nesha, to try to find the right wig, I didn't buy a wig.
11:23Because, in fact, I never lost my hair.
11:26I did lose my curls, my Jewish curls, that I had this lifetime of struggle with.
11:31One day, I just got up and my hair had gone straight.
11:35With or without a wig, however, I did go to the mikveh.
11:39Even though you're not married now, and that you're not going to the mikveh in order to
11:43purify yourself for the sexual act, this is your need to become hallowed, to express
11:52yourself religiously.
11:53And this is your relationship with God.
11:57Barbara began her personal journey with this ritual purification.
12:01As both a scientist and a sick woman, she was intrigued by mikveh's promise of renewal.
12:07Miriam Hutler, a rabbi's wife, was her guide.
12:12Okay.
12:13You've got to give me directions, Miriam.
12:15What do I do next?
12:15We have to comb your hair.
12:17Okay.
12:18We have to make sure that the water goes through each strand of hair.
12:23pubic hair and hair, under arm wrap.
12:26In other words, the water is supposed to cover you completely when there's nothing between
12:32you and the water.
12:37Before you go in, I'll have to check you.
12:39I have to check that you have no hair on your body and that all the makeup and nail polish
12:46is totally off.
12:48As you're in the water, you can think of things that you want to happen.
12:52Because when you're in a state of great purity, then your wishes can come true.
13:02How's it feel?
13:04It feels like it's exactly body temperature.
13:07Great.
13:08It's supposed to be a very comfortable experience.
13:11Elevating experience.
13:13All right.
13:13Now, what you'll do is you'll have to stand up and dunk your head totally in the water.
13:24And I'll make sure that the head is totally covered.
13:28And then I say kosher.
13:30When I say kosher, then you'll bop up your head.
13:33Okay.
13:34And then you'll dunk twice again.
13:36Okay.
13:36So go ahead.
13:40All right.
13:40Find kosher.
13:41Oh, you touched the sides.
13:44You weren't supposed to.
13:44Oh, I didn't.
13:45Okay.
13:46See, you're supposed to float in such a way that the water goes up inside of you.
13:49Yeah.
13:50Oh.
13:50It's almost like a douche.
13:51Okay.
13:52Here we go.
13:53Ready?
13:56Kosher.
13:57Kosher.
14:00Okay.
14:01I think elevated thought.
14:05Kosher.
14:07Kosher.
14:08Okay.
14:08One more time.
14:14Kosher.
14:16Kosher.
14:18Kosher.
14:19Okay.
14:20Good job.
14:21Now what?
14:22Now we'll...
14:23Did you have any...
14:24Yeah.
14:24Was it pure thoughts and wishes as you were in there?
14:27Well, I felt very peaceful.
14:29And I felt very, um...
14:32It feels very good.
14:33It feels very, um...
14:35How can I say?
14:36Fulfilling?
14:37Yeah.
14:37Yeah.
14:38It's something that I can imagine doing again.
14:40Mm-hmm.
14:41I like it.
14:42Well, I hope to get married and then let's go.
14:46Let's do one thing at a time.
14:48First I'm going to give.
14:48I like it.
14:52Going to a mikveh to purify yourself before making love must be very arousing.
15:00My experience in being around Orthodox families is that there is a special kind of buzz between
15:06them very often.
15:07And I think it comes from the fact that they're not available to each other half the month sexually.
15:16Mikveh is at the center of Orthodox married life, as Barbara's friend Rabbi Beryl Zaltzman explains.
15:23This law of, um, the Jewish law, to be the special time, to be separate, this helps so, so many
15:36to, to forget everything, the old fighting, the everything.
15:40Just take, for example, if you, you stay with your husband.
15:44And, uh, your husband or you, you go for two or three, for two weeks to some place because
15:50of your job.
15:51You have to go.
15:52And you, or your husband, you go there and he wait for you.
15:57He don't go to some, any places to look, to looking for, you know, for, uh, enjoy.
16:03And when he came back, how you wait for him, how you love him, how he love you, loves you.
16:10You can imagine.
16:11It's, it's everything new.
16:13It's everything fresh.
16:14You forget everything.
16:15You want to be together.
16:17You want, you want, you want, he want to be with you.
16:19He want you.
16:20And this is the way what we have the whole life.
16:25Every month, I have, like, a new wife.
16:28She knew for me.
16:29She, I forget everything.
16:31I, I want her.
16:32And this, and she wants me.
16:36And this is a beautiful place to be.
16:40She is telling her, she knew what she knew, and she loved her.
16:46She knew how she had to be.
16:48And she was telling her, she knew her.
16:54And she might have a love.
16:55And she was telling her, she knew what she knew.
16:57She knew how she knew.
16:58I knew where she knew how she was.
17:02She knew how she was.
17:06I am a Jew, and I believe in God, and I love the tradition, and so much of the law
17:16makes
17:17incredible sense so that I can respect it and I can also live a lot of it.
17:30Sultana and her family are particularly interesting.
17:34They're baltshuva, which means people who have actually returned to an Orthodox way of practicing
17:41Judaism, and you can see this in their consciousness.
17:45You know, Sultana, what intrigues me about this, Cervantes, Dostoevsky, Flaubert, Lessing,
17:52Shakespeare, Ulysses, it's an incredibly eclectic and, you know, the library of a terribly sophisticated
18:00and educated woman.
18:02You see these here, and then you see the bookcase over here, which is the library of an Orthodox
18:09Jew.
18:10It's always fascinated me as to how you put them all together.
18:14The authors, say from the secular world, are touching them on the same thing.
18:18They just haven't quite found the same path.
18:21They don't use the same vocabulary.
18:22But this is the library of a profoundly questioning mind, and most of this is about a believing
18:29mind.
18:30And doesn't that leave you in an agony of always having to go back and forth?
18:35This is knowledge.
18:36I have a certainty about this.
18:38It's not a question of I believe in this or I believe in God.
18:40I know this.
18:41And I know that also.
18:43It's just a knowledge of the two.
18:45They're not so separate from each other.
18:48They're really not.
18:49You know, there's a saying, I don't know where it came from, but it goes something about
18:53when the heart is truly open, there is room for yes and no.
18:58You've probably come through more changes than most people.
19:02What's the big shape of this story of your life, your religious life?
19:07It wasn't a decision to make a big step to become religious.
19:10It wasn't like that.
19:12It was more a question of a journey.
19:14And I felt that I forgave God for everything, and I felt that that was reciprocal.
19:19And I felt very, very thankful.
19:21And I had to discover how to show that thanks.
19:24And that meant to live as a Jew.
19:28But you were willing to actually put your marriage, your family at risk to do this.
19:33I mean, what if he had refused?
19:34Well, he did refuse.
19:37Oh.
19:37What happened?
19:38My husband said, I can't do it, I won't do it, and this is it.
19:43And I said, you're right.
19:44Essentially, I mean, these are not the words, but essentially what was said was, okay, you're
19:48right.
19:49You can have the stereo, you should have the couch, you enjoy the color TV, you should have
19:53it.
19:54There were maybe four very tough years that really brought our marriage to the brink of
20:00separation.
20:02I can sit down and tell you the story.
20:03Can I sit down and tell you the story?
20:05Yeah.
20:05I want to censor everything you're going to say.
20:08You'll have to work at it.
20:09Um, when I finally understood that she having accepted who she was as a Jew, left her really
20:18no alternatives.
20:19And I took a harder look at it myself.
20:21And the truth is that while so much of the motivation for me to get into this was her,
20:26and my life and my family, there were some things that became very attractive to me.
20:32One of the last things that I was willing to begin to observe, so to speak, was the two
20:38separate beds.
20:40He hates this topic.
20:41Why?
20:42Because most, I mean, one of the most common problems that a Balchuva couple faces is over
20:47the issue of mikvah.
20:49That's, that's the problem.
20:50The last vestige of, of being able to, to hold on to anything for him was the issue of
20:56the separate beds.
20:57He didn't come near me even though we were in the same bed.
20:59He'd even roll over and breathe on me.
21:01But still it was one bed, and it was, no, once in a while.
21:04But still it was one bed, and that symbolically was very important to him.
21:08It takes quite an adjustment.
21:09And I fought it for a long time.
21:11Awful long time.
21:12I just said, if I'm really going to keep the mitzvah, I'm not going to sleep in the bed.
21:15And I moved out into one of my kids' beds.
21:18Wow.
21:19That isn't what you did.
21:20I certainly did.
21:21I went to sleep in Flora's room for three nights.
21:23But it wasn't, but it wasn't a protest.
21:26It wasn't a protest.
21:27It wasn't like you were going to spend the rest of your life doing that.
21:29Well, it wasn't out of anger.
21:30It wasn't a protest.
21:31It was that he had the right to have the one bed.
21:34That was his right.
21:35And I had the right to really keep the mitzvah.
21:38But, sweetie pie...
21:39And if the only way I could do it was to leave, that that's what I should do.
21:43And this is a real separation.
21:44I can't hand him a fork.
21:46We cannot share an object in common.
21:51My wife was turning them, and...
21:53Just so somebody turns them.
21:55Yeah, but you didn't turn these.
21:58I turned them once.
21:59These?
21:59Oh, no.
22:00You have to turn those.
22:01They're hamburgers.
22:02There's lamb chops.
22:04Chicken.
22:05Salad.
22:07If you're going to have bread, I brought out a washing cup and a hose.
22:11Flora.
22:12How old were you when all this came upon you?
22:15Eight.
22:15How is it for you now?
22:17It's okay, except for sometimes.
22:21Flora, didn't you always relate to me and my problems?
22:26Right.
22:26Really?
22:27I always talked.
22:27I didn't talk to my mom.
22:28I didn't like my mom for a long time.
22:30Really?
22:31I didn't like her.
22:32Just because it asked so much of you?
22:34Well, because I thought she was doing something to me.
22:37First, I thought she was making everything up.
22:39And she was doing it for some reason, which I didn't understand.
22:43Because no one else I knew or none of my friends and none of the people I associated with did
22:49this.
22:49You know, they looked at me like I was strange.
22:51I kept kosher and didn't eat cheeseburgers or whatever.
22:54What do you think of going out with boys, my darling on the verge of a 16-year-old daughter?
23:00Let's hear it on dating, Flora.
23:02I don't want to talk about it.
23:04No.
23:05Is that tough for all the girls your age?
23:08I don't know.
23:09It depends if different parents feel different ways toward things.
23:15Especially this one.
23:16Especially this one?
23:22Flora would like to be able to socialize a little more in ways that I'm not so sure I want
23:28her to socialize.
23:29So we're trying to, you know, make some compromises.
23:35I've always been very close to my daughter, in spite of the fact that I've raised this issue.
23:40All the conflicts that I had, Flora had.
23:44I remember days, I remember hours, I remember just sitting with her.
23:47And talking to her in my most intense times of conflicts with Suzanne, I could go to her.
23:55I'm her daddy.
23:56And feelings are real important to me and they always have been to this family.
24:02And they go beyond law and custom and everything else.
24:06It depends on what the feelings are and what the law is.
24:11It's not what I'm saying at all.
24:11But I don't know, I don't think it's-
24:12If you're new to something, as I am and as my wife is, you don't know everything.
24:18She doesn't know what the 45 different interpretations or commentaries on the law have been.
24:24So it's very important for her to cling to that one thing.
24:28Because I know it can't be that unbending.
24:34It's not so much that the law is unbending as that I tend to be more unyielding.
24:42Totally unyielding.
24:44How much can you identify with Sultana?
24:50Well, to tell you the truth, I can identify in that I can understand what she's talking about.
25:00And probably more than with anyone else I know, I feel envy.
25:06Because I think she stepped through that invisible barrier.
25:10You can't step through?
25:11Exactly.
25:12I can see through the membrane and I can't walk through it.
25:16And the membrane is thinner now than it's ever been.
25:19Because there are times when in this illness, I realize I can't do it alone.
25:24I really need help.
25:26That something has to come from outside of me.
25:29Or it may be inside of me.
25:31But it's not the regular stuff that I can use.
25:33I can't use my head in the same way that I always have all my life.
25:38So Barbara decided to try something new.
25:41Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson is the leader of a quarter of a million Jews
25:45who believe he can make miracles.
25:48She took the chance of writing to him to ask for a miracle.
25:51I think you have to write down yourself this particular letter in English.
25:59And just to explain to the rebel like a kid to a father.
26:03Just very, very honest, very openly.
26:09Like you spoke to yourself.
26:11Like you spoke to God.
26:12Okay.
26:15I am a professor of anthropology.
26:21In June, I learned I have lung cancer.
26:41I have had two courses of chemotherapy which have not been successful.
27:01Now it appears there are no medical solutions which I can turn to.
27:08Shall I say at the suggestion of my friends the Salzmans?
27:12Yeah.
27:13He knows you.
27:14He knows you.
27:16I have become particularly interested in orthodox life.
27:20I shouldn't say though I'm not myself orthodox.
27:23No.
27:23Okay.
27:24Don't do it.
27:24Okay.
27:25You say enough already.
27:26Okay.
27:26I like the orthodox life.
27:28Okay.
27:30Even when the rabbit told you, they will tell you to keep every, everything of Judaism like a straight law
27:38orthodox even.
27:39Yeah.
27:39It's easier than the chemotherapy.
27:42Easier than the chemotherapy.
27:43The chemotherapy.
27:44A hundred percent.
27:45A hundred percent.
27:46A hundred percent.
27:47The chemotherapy you only do a few days.
27:50If you start keeping kosher and all that you do it for your life.
27:54This is easy to do.
27:56Believe me.
27:57Chaya, I'm sometimes lazy.
28:00I can't believe it.
28:01Every one, every one of us have this.
28:03Yes.
28:04Sometimes.
28:04But like, you know, wearing clothes the way you do, and stockings and all, and a shetel on a very
28:11hot day.
28:12I don't know if I would have the discipline to do that.
28:15Chaya, who told you about the shetel?
28:17Who told you about the stockings?
28:18Well, if you do the whole thing, that's what you do.
28:21Take it easy.
28:22And don't make the whole thing.
28:24And matzah is very far away from that.
28:28Yeah?
28:28Really?
28:28Yeah, sure.
28:31Okay, girl.
28:32It's not easy.
28:35I don't want to say it and not do it.
28:37I'm prepared to become more intensely Jewish.
28:45Though at my own pace, if you think this is advised.
28:50When you see, you believe.
28:51I would certainly like that.
28:53I would be very grateful, not just to be well, but to see, and to have a miracle done for
28:59me.
29:00I mean, not just because I would like to be well, but because everybody wants a miracle.
29:04You know, I mean, you're Russian.
29:05You know Dostoevsky?
29:06Yes.
29:07Yes.
29:08What everyone wants is bread and miracles.
29:11That's what everyone wants from religion.
29:13Not the church, not the laws.
29:15They want bread and miracles.
29:16And I'm no different.
29:18I thank you.
29:19Yes.
29:19Thank you so much.
29:22The first leap I made didn't require faith at all.
29:26It required simply being receptive to how much they cared about me and how much they
29:31believed that I was going to be well and be aided by their treatment of me, by their actions.
29:46Rabbi Naftali Estulin is a charismatic figure among the 15,000 Soviet Jews who've settled in Fairfax.
29:52He reacted to Barbara's illness by conducting a ritual which gave her a new Hebrew name.
29:58According to tradition, the angel of death wouldn't be able to find her with her new name.
30:06On the one hand, it could be looked at as magical in kind of the superficial sense.
30:11You change my name, you change my destiny.
30:14It's sort of simplistic.
30:15But then I began to see that in a different light.
30:18Because as Naftali and the others explained, it's not simply a name.
30:23It's a message about beginning again.
30:35The ordinary early morning prayers made way for the special ceremony.
30:40Even though Barbara had to watch from behind the partition that always separates the women from the men.
30:51You know, Naftali said something about self.
30:54The angel of death doesn't know you or doesn't find you?
30:58It's a new name. As a name, it becomes a new person.
31:01Does that mean your old fate has escaped?
31:04It's a new source of life. This is the reason I change the name. Because the name is very important.
31:08So this would give me a new grasp of health then?
31:12Well, would you tell him I'd like him to pick it?
31:15Okay.
31:16So whatever he would decide.
31:17Okay.
31:17As long as he tells me what it means.
31:19What's your mother's name?
31:20Fegi.
31:20Fegi, my name's chef?
31:21Yes.
31:22Okay.
31:24Is that...
31:25Will you, will you signal me when they come to that part where they say it?
31:29Yeah, okay.
31:30Which...
31:31I want to hear it now.
31:31Okay.
31:47Amen.
31:49Amen.
31:52Amen.
31:54I don't want to have a good life to save you.
32:00I will not have a good life to live.
32:03I will not have a good life to live.
32:06I will not have a good life.
32:08I will not have a good life.
32:09I will not have a good life.
32:14Overwhelmed. I have to sit down.
32:17Why is this doing your name?
32:19Because I'm sick and...
32:22Thank you, Mr. White.
32:23Nice.
32:25So what's your new name?
32:26My new name is Hanna.
32:28Now it's Hanna Basia Bas Fegi,
32:33which is Hanna, the daughter of God and the daughter of Fegi,
32:37which also means bird, little bird.
32:40It's my mother's name.
32:42And he said he gave me that name because it's all good things.
32:47He said it, you notice when he read it,
32:49how forcefully he said it over and over.
32:51It was like you should really listen.
32:53It's very convincing.
32:56I expect to feel better this afternoon.
33:08I just kissed the Torah with my new name, Hanna,
33:12which I didn't answer to because I never heard it before.
33:17This was a very special honor,
33:19because women traditionally don't even get to touch the sacred scrolls.
33:45I came to this work with certain antipathies to the way women are treated,
33:51to the exclusions of women,
33:56to the secondary status of women in the faith,
33:59to the fact that this is a very patriarchal religion.
34:02There's no getting away from that.
34:04What I had left out of the construction was the return value.
34:08The women are given roles and tasks that are fulfillable,
34:13and they are honored for them.
34:14What do you think I am?
34:16Rabbi Fahey?
34:18I feel like I made a definite commitment
34:21that this was the type of life I wanted to read.
34:24This was the type of family I wanted.
34:26These were the beliefs I had, and it was very good for me.
34:31I often asked, well, you grew up this way, so you had no choice.
34:37And I keep remembering, yes, I did have a choice.
34:40Fahey Estulin has been married to Naftali for 14 years.
34:44She strictly adheres to orthodox law
34:46and has carefully prepared her kosher kitchen for Passover.
34:50I think there are misconceptions because of ignorance.
34:53That's why I like to tell people that, yes, we go to college,
34:58yes, we're educated in America, yes, we read the newspaper,
35:03and we're very aware.
35:06And no, we're not like people living in the Middle Ages.
35:10However, we have these very strong values
35:12and this very definite lifestyle that we lead.
35:16You have a whole additional life that we're not safe.
35:22What is it you do in addition to the future?
35:25I sell real estate.
35:27In fact, you should have come a little earlier
35:29while I was doing some negotiating on the phone
35:31while I was cooking.
35:32But you missed that.
35:35I think there's a lot of confusion today if you're a woman,
35:38because you're expected to be everything.
35:43On the one hand, being a mother is not satisfying enough
35:47because that's what they say, it's not satisfying enough.
35:51Working isn't satisfying enough.
35:52I know when I was just working, it wasn't.
35:56I don't feel that conflict as strongly.
36:01My feet are very firmly planted on the ground.
36:04I am an Orthodox Jew. I'm a Hasid.
36:09And there's no contradiction in anything.
36:12Could this have been you?
36:15You mean, could I be one of these women?
36:20Unfortunately, when I look at the women, it's across this vast and affectionate distance.
36:26It's so much not possible for it to be me.
36:30For one reason, there's several.
36:31One reason this woman we spoke with earlier articulated perfectly
36:35when she said how she loved the restrictions, how they gave her life order.
36:40Now, a part of me is deeply attracted to that.
36:43That's why I've always loved ritual.
36:45But a part of me is profoundly rebellious and independent.
36:50And I do not love restrictions imposed on me from outside.
36:54I don't think I could bear that for a quarter of an hour.
36:58Let me do it!
37:04Certainly, the men have more of the kinds of things that I myself would want and value.
37:09But the men don't get cheated the way they do in my society,
37:14of participation in a family.
37:16And they don't get cheated of intimacy.
37:31If I got married with my wife, not just because, you know,
37:34two people came together and say, hello, let's live together.
37:37We came and we bound ourselves by the laws of God.
37:40The whole house is now running by the laws of God.
37:43It is different.
37:44Everything has a purpose.
37:45Everything has a meaning.
37:46Everything has love.
37:47Everybody has an understanding.
37:49Because the boss is God.
38:11Delicious.
38:18When the time came for us to film a wedding sequence between Olga and Eugenia,
38:24we had another experience of the power of mikvah.
38:28We waited for the bride to have her period so that she could go to the mikvah after the number
38:34of days she's supposed to wait,
38:35when she is pure and clean, and then the wedding could be held.
38:41Special teas were brewed, prayers were made, the film crew was waiting, the hall was booked tentatively.
38:48Nothing could go forward.
38:49And it suddenly became clear that, you know, we lived in a world, we secular modern people, lived in a
38:56world with calendars and schedules and dates and a sense of the urgency of all those absolutely artificial markers.
39:03And here was this biological concrete events.
39:07When the woman's body was ready, the ritual would be held and the ceremony could take place.
39:14Okay, I want you to know, you speak English pretty good, right?
39:17Yeah, right.
39:17This is the marriage contract, which says your name and your wife's name, and says where it is, what time
39:23and where and when, and what day and when, and where.
39:26And you've taken upon yourself full responsibility to feed your wife and to clothe her and to give her everything
39:32which is necessary as a Jewish good husband.
39:34Which means, whoever says here, you're accepting.
39:37Okay.
39:37Pick this up.
39:38You're accepting?
39:39Good.
39:45Barbara visited Olga and Eugene just before their Orthodox wedding ceremony.
39:50Actually, they were married in the Soviet Union in a civil ceremony 13 years ago.
39:55Now, they're living as Jews in Fairfax and struggling to succeed as performers.
40:04One stood, one stood, one stood, one stood, one stood.
40:25But the last hit, oh, but the last hit their fate will be resolved
40:36And the end of their侍 will always put it
40:42God in his own way
40:46He took the courage to take
40:50On the river, on the waves
40:53She flew with a kiss
40:57On the river, on the waves
41:00She flew with a kiss
41:15How did you become interested in Judaism?
41:18Because you weren't Jewish at the time
41:19Our friends in the Refusenik's Jewish community
41:23They introduced us to Judaism
41:24So we started to celebrate holidays
41:27We started to celebrate Shabbat
41:29A great many people don't even know what a Refusenik is
41:32This is a Soviet Jew who applied to go to Israel
41:34And whose visa was denied
41:36By the Soviet authorities
41:37By the Soviet authorities, whatever
41:40Applying to go to Israel
41:42Is a political thing
41:47They consider you as
41:49You're just like a trader
41:52And you can't continue to live
41:54Under the same circumstances
41:56Like you did before
41:59So you lose your job
42:01And you lose your friends
42:04Because friends
42:04They're also scared to keep contact with you
42:07But that was very risky, wasn't it?
42:09Barbara, the thing is
42:11I was born really like orthodox communist
42:14And I really believed that our country is the greatest one
42:17And I really felt it
42:19And suddenly I realized that it's all fence around
42:22Does it hurt you to speak negatively about your homeland?
42:27I'm not talking about my homeland
42:30I am talking about people who occupied my land
42:34You have to separate Russia and the Soviet Union
42:38I am Russian
42:39I am Russian
42:40Because I was born in Moscow
42:43And I was, you know
42:45The history is my root
42:47I feel it
42:49Like Jews, they feel the root
42:51They feel their connections with us
42:54That's how I feel
42:56One way to look at it
42:57Is that you have no political freedom
43:01And no religious freedom
43:02And no religious freedom in the Soviet Union
43:03When you become Jewish
43:05You do
43:06You gain many things
43:07But you also give up some freedom
43:10So in a way
43:11What do you mean give up some freedom?
43:13To be a Jew
43:14You give up some freedom
43:15You have to follow many laws
43:16But this is a freedom
43:18A real one
43:19Because you choose it
43:28The wedding was improvised in the alleyway
43:31Behind Naftali Synagogue
43:33It's the opposite of what we think of
43:35As the rigid religious behavior
43:37That requires you to do something
43:38In a very formal way
43:39It must be that they've lived like this
43:42It must be that all these people
43:44Who were in the underground world
43:47Of Judaism and the Soviet Union
43:50Survived by that kind of flexibility
43:55By such a woman
43:57De huyed
44:02De huyed
44:04De huyed
44:05De huyed
44:06De huyed
44:06De huyed
44:18De huyed
44:18We could do shit.
44:33This is a magic.
44:35Show them the finger, the ring.
44:37This is yours?
44:39Yes.
44:40You paid for it, right? With your own money.
44:41American money or Russian money?
44:43American.
44:45Array.
44:46Array.
44:47Array.
44:48Array.
44:48Array.
44:49Array.
44:50Array.
44:51Array.
44:52Array.
44:55Array.
44:57Array.
44:59Array.
44:59Array.
45:00Array.
45:01Array.
45:02Array.
45:02Array.
45:06Array.
45:07Array.
45:08Array.
45:09Array.
45:10Array.
45:11Array.
45:11Array.
45:12Array.
45:13Array.
45:14Array.
45:15Array.
45:16Array.
45:16that's held the wine from which the couple has drunk at the wedding is smashed and it's smashed
45:23for many reasons one of them is to remember that the temple was destroyed so you take always these
45:29moments of joy and you remember the grief they presented me with an organic life
45:46a life that was all of a piece it had a totality because of the way the people knew each
45:52other
45:52because of the deep intertwining of their lives at every moment on every level in every relationship
45:59and because of this envelope of belief that enfolds them all so that there almost can't be a separate
46:08word for religion it's not a separate category or activity it's embedded in everything
46:22so
46:29so
46:30so
46:30so
46:30so
47:24The reply that I gave you
47:30to the question of restrictions
47:33and the loss of freedom and independence.
47:36When I spoke about it,
47:38several months ago,
47:39it was not the one I would say now.
47:42Mostly then, I was thinking about
47:44restrictions as coming from the outside,
47:47things I would have to do
47:48because they were laws.
47:50I was thinking, of course,
47:52about what, the priesthood,
47:56religious laws,
47:57God giving me rules.
48:01There was no sense in this
48:03of the God within, let's say,
48:05or the restrictions coming from something
48:09that I carried,
48:11not that I bowed to.
48:14So suddenly, here are restrictions.
48:17I can't walk the way I did,
48:20eat, breathe,
48:21the basic functions,
48:23mother my children the way I did.
48:25Every day presents me with new ones.
48:27And I have some choice still,
48:31some days more than others,
48:33as to whether I see those as restrictions
48:35or doorways to other possibilities.
48:40As Barbara became increasingly fragile,
48:43she continued to struggle
48:45with the unfinished business of her life.
48:48Her friends in the Orthodox community
48:50offered their own traditional forms of help.
48:54One of the rituals
48:55that they were most eager for me to have
48:57from the very beginning
48:58was get a Jewish divorce.
49:02Rabbi Salzman told me,
49:04your civil divorce
49:06doesn't talk about your soul.
49:07He said,
49:08how are you going to get your neshoma back?
49:09Because when you marry,
49:11your neshoma, your soul,
49:13is wrapped around your husband.
49:15And indeed,
49:16I had lived with
49:17and loved the same man
49:19for 30 years.
49:21And I didn't feel
49:22I had gotten my soul back.
49:24And I knew I needed to.
49:26So I put myself in their hands.
49:29I am the agent.
49:30I am the agent.
49:31To deliver the get.
49:32To deliver the get.
49:33The bill of divorce.
49:34The bill of divorce.
49:35To his wife.
49:36To his wife.
49:37Bashe.
49:38Bashe.
49:38Demiscario Barbara.
49:40Demiscario Barbara.
49:41Basneighton.
49:42Basneighton.
49:43And here I have the get.
49:45Here I have the get.
49:45And the documents.
49:47The documents.
49:47Proving.
49:48Proving.
49:49That I was duly delegated.
49:50That I was duly delegated.
49:52By the husband.
49:53By the husband.
49:54By the husband.
50:10of your own free will.
50:17Without compulsion.
50:18And arm conditionally.
50:19Yes.
50:22Now we have to hold the get.
50:30If there is anyone who has a claim against the validity of this get,
50:35He shall come forth now.
50:38Before it is too late to state his objection.
50:44Now you hold this hand.
50:47The hand this way.
50:48And he will take this get and hold it over your hand.
50:54And then when I tell him to let it go, you catch it.
50:59The get.
51:02And don't let it go until I'll take it.
51:04I know.
51:05You know, it's not the first time for him.
51:10Say, this is your get.
51:11This is your get.
51:12The bill of divorce.
51:13The bill of divorce.
51:14Which your husband.
51:15Which your husband.
51:16Sent to you.
51:17Sent to you.
51:17And there with.
51:19And there with.
51:19You shall be the worst.
51:20You shall be the worst for him.
51:22From this very moment.
51:23From this very moment.
51:24And you are permissible.
51:25You are permissible.
51:26To anyone.
51:27To anyone.
51:28Okay.
51:29Squeeze it together.
51:30Close it.
51:31And lift it up high.
51:33And put it under your arm.
51:36And you.
51:37Wait.
51:38And make four steps forward.
51:40Yeah.
51:45Okay.
51:46Come back to me.
51:47They give me the get.
51:50That's all.
51:51I don't know.
51:51I have an episode by the Lord.
51:53When I cut the get.
51:55They are cut off now.
51:57You are not allowed to marry for 92 days.
52:02May God bless you and grant you peace and fulfillment.
52:18These people have the fundamental human heritage that the rest of us have lost.
52:25Spirituality and community.
52:27That's probably what they've shown me more than anything else.
52:31How will those figure in my life in the future?
52:35I have no way of knowing.
52:37I know I want them.
52:40I know they've made them accessible to me.
52:43I don't know what my future will be.
52:45I have no way of anticipating my health, my freedom.
52:53I'll never be the same after doing this work.
52:59I will never want to lead a life where I have to do without those things again.
53:06And I can't think of any other people to whom I could have turned where I would find these offered
53:13to me so abundantly and in a way so simply.
53:19And here it was.
53:21It was in a way mine all along.
53:24It was what I belonged to without knowing it.
53:31And I suppose that's a treasure really that they've given to me.
53:37If I can, in my work, as an anthropologist at the same time, make it clear to others who they
53:46are and what they feel and what they have.
53:48If I can take what they've shown me and pass that through me and out into the world, then my
53:57work is done.
53:58One, two, three, four, five.
54:03Good.
54:04Now I'll see you all to me for now coming to the world.
54:06Now I read over?
54:14Grant this day that in your glorious Shekhinah there shall be five sweetened severities through the striking of the willow
54:23twigs on the ground, according to the custom of your holy prophets.
54:28Awaken your love.
54:30Show us your abounding affection in tempering the severities and strict judgments.
54:38And from there bestow generous bounty upon your servant who prays to you, pleading that you grant me long life.
54:47Forgive my sins, wrongdoings and transgressions.
54:53Extend your hands to receive my wholehearted penitence.
54:57Open your bounteous treasure to satiate a thirsting soul, as it is written.
55:03The Lord will open for you his bounteous treasure, the heavens, to send rain for your land in its season,
55:11and to bless all the work of your hand.
55:14Amen.
55:15Amen.
55:16I'll give you a kiss to see them.
55:18And let's throw it.
55:20Okay.
55:21Come on.
55:22Hold the problems.
55:23A little closer.
55:24Get rid of him?
55:25All right.
55:39You did it!
55:42I'll give you a kiss to see them.
55:47I'll give you a kiss to see them.
55:52I'll give you a kiss to see them.
55:54I'll give you a kiss to see them.
56:00Barbara died two weeks after we filmed her interview.
56:07Oh, не ветер ветку клонит, нету бравушка шумит.
56:22То моё сердечко стонет, как осенний ливиз дрожит.
56:36То моё сердечко стонет, как осенний ливиз дрожит.
56:51Извела меня кручина, подколодная змея.
57:04Догорой моя лучина, догорю с тобой я.
57:17Догорой моя лучина, догорю с тобой я.
57:28Знай, судил мне рок с могилой,
57:38Отвенчаться молодцу.
57:43Раступись, земля сырая,
57:48Дай мне молодцу.
57:58Раступись, земля сырая,
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