Skip to playerSkip to main content
LegalDramaDaily
  • 8 hours ago
In Her Own Time 1985
Transcript
00:00.
00:30.
00:31.
00:31.
00:31.
00:31.
00:31.
00:31.
00:31.
00:31.
00:36.
00:52.
01:01big breath in and out now with your mouth open big breath feel good again I understand you're
01:11a 49 year old professor of anthropology at USC yeah I had a loss of energy and just this sort
01:18of dry shallow cough which I still have and how much cigarette smoking have you done in your life
01:23for about three years I smoked a pack and a half a week and have you ever had a malignancy
01:29before I
01:30did I had cervical carcinoma and I had a hysterectomy
01:42you're coming soft you swallow please did the thyroid you're looking at again
01:59now we're trying to determine how much of your lung has fluid and tumor in it and how much has
02:06good
02:06luck you can tell that by the sound you could tell by the difference in the note what the right
02:13lung
02:13shows is a lot of areas that are white that are abnormal that has more fluid than it should cancer
02:21cells are present in the fluid and we don't know for certain whether it is a primary lung cancer or
02:27one
02:42that is spread this is not the film that I started out to make originally I intended to do a
02:48broad-based
02:49depiction of Jewish life in Fairfax in LA I hoped for the kind of professional distance that every social
02:57scientist wants to bring to the subject but to do anything except something that touched my own life was time
03:06I 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 offering resources offering rituals offering this deep caring offering an interpretation
03:37of what my illness meant and how it fitted into a whole cosmos a whole world this is a community
03:45that is not
03:46ordinary it's not weird but it's certainly not what you'd expect to find all around you it's as if I
03:53walked into a
03:55New 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 and yet you step inside these
04:31little
04:31worlds that they have all over their streets and there's something there you never could have dreamed
04:37existed they have what everyone is looking for in religion and that is community and spirituality I certainly
04:47didn't intend to make a film about the Orthodox per se but they turned out to be somehow the most
04:54compelling and drew my life into
04:57their so deeply that they became the focus and in a way that was kind of familiar and satisfying because
05:04this is really what
05:05anthropologists are taught to do you study what is happening to others by understanding what is going on in yourself
05:12and you yourself become the data 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
05:31hello can i come in
05:39i wanted to look like my own hair obviously as much as i can okay we don't always carry every
05:46color and every style if you want i can show you a couple of styles you know you know what
05:51i want to wig i mean it's not for delicious purposes
05:54yeah yeah yeah i have an idea well yeah i mean i i don't know if or when or how
06:01much hair i may lose from chemotherapy but um it could be a lot and what's so ironic about this
06:09is that i spent my childhood trying to get rid of curls because i thought it was jewish hair and
06:15i was embarrassed and now that i'm middle-aged and i like it here i am getting a wig
06:22you wear a wig for religious purposes right if people think it's your hair don't they think that then you're
06:28not being observant
06:30it's not it really has nothing to do with that the reason women cover their hair is not because to
06:37look ugly i mean this is part of modesty and just like there is modesty in attitudes and in views
06:45of life and so there is in dress and here is after all an expression of a woman's body
06:51do you feel naked with your um wig off you become very conscious of yourself especially if a man with
06:58another 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 for your husband you can reveal your hair
07:10oh my god
07:13gee
07:14okay you don't cover your ears you look very young
07:17well uh 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
07:30okay i'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 theirs
07:43um for example did you date did you um
07:47well meet a lot of different men
07:49um i did date but not the way the modern woman dates okay it was always i'm doing something else
07:58i don't know if i'm just you know trying
08:00um the modern woman may not necessarily date for purposes of marriage the modern woman may just date you know
08:08to sleep with a guy or something
08:10and that's not what um is done in our circle
08:14let me just pull down another wave
08:16okay this is a little longer
08:17blonder and blonder
08:18yeah the color is not you know it's really it's maybe difficult to tell the wrong color
08:24you look interesting in blonde
08:26it's interesting in blonde
08:27in this color
08:29you know what i've always imagined um a jewish woman an orthodox woman is unavailable to her husband approximately half
08:37the month right
08:38yeah
08:39does that mean when she
08:41is available to him that it has
08:44much more meaning meaning meaning
08:46yeah it does
08:46is that your experience
08:47it's definitely true
08:48i 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
08:55it won't go forward
08:57right
08:57okay
08:59oh that's kind of interesting
09:03you have other laws i mean other rules a lot of them don't you that as an orthodox
09:09woman you have to follow
09:10sure
09:11this is very long on you i just
09:12yeah
09:13notice but it's
09:14what if you make a mistake what would you do to make up for it
09:16you don't
09:18if you're living
09:19if 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 will accidentally touch her
09:30husband
09:30that's the kind of mistake that she can possibly make
09:33does it ever happen do you know of any cases i wouldn't want you to name names of course but
09:38i don't i really don't
09:39does it there must be some cases in the community where people you know fall by the wayside or what
09:46happens 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
09:55i really doubt that it is violated because people i mean if the woman is not so religious at least
10:01the man would be
10:02i mean somebody would be religious and i really doubt very much that there's really any violation i don't know
10:09about any
10:10really
10:10yes
10:11do would anybody ever go to the rebbe for forgiveness or i mean if there were a violation
10:15no
10:16would he be the one
10:17we're not a we're not a 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 what's that you know i've never been to a mikveh
10:30really
10:30yeah
10:31i thought you did
10:31no i know i'm going to
10:33yeah
10:34but i haven't yet
10:35okay
10:35can you tell me about it what does it feel like to go to a mikveh
10:39um
10:40it's a very
10:42what 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
10:48really
10:49yeah because 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
10:56you know allowed to be with her husband and
10:58before 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 it
11:16after all that work with nesha
11:18to try to find the right wig
11:20um i didn't buy a wig
11:22because in fact i never lost my hair
11:26i did lose my curls my jewish curls that i had this lifetime of struggle with one day i just
11:32got up and my hair had gone straight
11:35with or without a wig however i did go to the mikveh
11:38even though you're not married now and that you're not going to mikveh in order to purify yourself for the
11:44sexual act
11:45this is your need to become hallowed to express yourself religiously and this is your relationship with god
11:57barbara began her personal journey with this ritual purification as both a scientist and a sick woman she was intrigued
12:05by mikveh's promise of renewal
12:07miriam hutler a rabbi's wife was her guide
12:12okay
12:13you gotta give me directions miriam what do i do next
12:15we have to comb your hair
12:17okay
12:18you have to make sure that the water goes through each strand of hair
12:23pubic hair and hair under arm
12:25in other words the water is supposed to cover you completely when there's nothing between you and the water
12:37before you go in i'll have to check you i have to check that you have no hair on your
12:42body and that all the makeup and nail polish is totally out
12:48as you're in the water you can think of things that you want to happen because when you're in a
12:53state of great purity then your wishes can come true
13:02how does it feel?
13:04it feels like it's exactly body temperature
13:07great
13:07it's supposed to be a very comfortable experience
13:11elevating experience
13:13all right now what you'll do is
13:16you'll have to stand up
13:18uh-huh
13:19and uh
13:21dunk your head totally in the water and i make sure that it's that the head is totally covered and
13:28then 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
13:35okay
13:36so go ahead
13:40all right
13:40all right fine
13:41kosher
13:41oh you touched you touched the sides
13:44you weren't supposed to
13:45oh i didn't okay
13:45see 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
13:56okay
13:57kosher
14:01okay
14:05kosher
14:16kosher
14:17kosher
14:19okay
14:19good job
14:20now what
14:21now
14:22well did you have any pure thoughts and wishes as you were in there
14:27well i felt very peaceful and i felt very um it feels very good it feels very um what can
14:35i say
14:36yeah
14:37yeah
14:38yeah something that i can imagine doing again
14:40mm-hmm
14:41i like it
14:42i'll get married and then let's go
14:46uh let's do one thing at a time first i'm going to give my lap
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 body
15:05cause between them very often and i think it comes from the fact that they're not available
15:10to each other half the month sexually
15:16mikveh is at the center of orthodox married life as barbara's friend rabbi beryl zaltzman
15:22explains
15:23this law of the jewish law to be the special time to be separate this helps so so many
15:35to
15:36to
15:37to
15:37forgot everything the all fighting the everything just take for example if you you stay with
15:43your husband
15:44and
15:45your husband or you you go for two or three for two weeks to some place because of your
15:50job
15:50you have to go
15:52you have to go
15:53and you or your husband you go there and he wait for you he don't go to some any places
15:59to look looking for you know for enjoy and when he came back how you wait for him how
16:07you love him how he loves you loves you you can imagine it's it's everything new it's everything
16:14fresh you forget everything you want to be together you want you he want to be with you he want
16:19you
16:20and this is the way what we have the all life every month i have like a new wife she
16:28knew for me
16:29she i forget everything i i want her and this and she want me
16:37to
16:37like
16:37to
16:38have
16:39on
16:39the
16:44the
16:45the
16:46the
16:46the
16:47the
16:47the
16:47the
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.
17:31Sultana and her family are particularly interesting. They're baltshuva, which means people who have
17:37actually returned to an orthodox way of practicing Judaism, and you can see this in their consciousness.
17:44You 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. You see these here, and then you see the bookcase over here, which
18:07is the library of an orthodox Jew. It'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. They just
18:19haven't quite found the same path. They 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. And doesn't that leave you in an agony of always having to go back and forth?
18:35This is knowledge. I have a certainty about this. It's not a question of I believe in
18:39this or I believe in God. I know this, and I know that also. It's just a knowledge of
18:44the two. They're not so separate from each other. They'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. What's the big shape of this
19:05story of your life, your religious life?
19:07It wasn't a decision to make a big step to become religious. It wasn't like that. It
19:12was more a question of a journey. And I felt that I forgave God for everything, and I felt
19:18that that was reciprocal. And I felt very, very thankful. And I had to discover how to show
19:23that thanks. And that meant to live as a Jew.
19:27Mm-hmm. But you were willing to actually put your marriage, your family at risk to
19:32do this. I mean, what if he had refused?
19:35Well, 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. And 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. You can have the stereo. You should have the couch. You enjoy the color TV. You should
19:53have it. There was maybe four very tough years that really brought our marriage to the brink
20:00of separation. I can sit down and tell you the story. Can't I sit down and tell you the
20:04story?
20:05Yeah.
20:05Can I read that?
20:05I want to censor everything you're going to say.
20:08You'll have to work at it.
20:10Um, when I finally understood that she having accepted who she was as a Jew left her really
20:18no alternatives. And I took a harder look at it myself. And the truth is that we were
20:23while so much of the motivation for me to get into this was her and my life and my family,
20:28there were some things that became very attractive to me. One of the last things that I was willing
20:35to begin to observe, so to speak, was the two separate beds.
20:40He hates this topic.
20:41Why?
20:42Because most, I mean, one of the most common problems that a Balchuk a couple faces is over
20:48the issue of mikvah. That's, that's the problem. The last vestige of, of being able to, to hold
20:54on to anything for him was the issue of the separate beds. He didn't come near me, even
20:58though we were in the same bed. He'd even roll over and breathe on me. But still it was
21:02one bed. And it was, well, once in a while. But still it was one bed. And that symbolically
21:07was very important to him.
21:08It takes quite an adjustment. And I fought it for a long time. An awful 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. I 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.
21:29It wasn't out of anger. It wasn't a protest. It was that he had the right to have the one
21:34bed that was his right. And 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. I can't hand him a fork. We cannot share an object in common.
21:51My wife was turning them.
21:53Just so somebody turns them.
21:55Yeah, but you didn't turn these.
21:58I turned them once.
21:59These?
21:59Oh, no, though, you have to turn those.
22:01They're hamburgers. There'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?
22:23Didn't you always relate to me and my problems?
22:26Right.
22:26Really?
22:27I always talked. I 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,
22:46and none of the people I associated with did this.
22:49You know, they looked at me like I was strange.
22:51I kept kosher and didn't eat cheeseburgers or whatever.
22:54Flora.
22:54What do you think of going out with boys,
22:56is 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.
23:10Different 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
23:25in ways that I'm not so sure I want her to socialize.
23:29So we're trying to, you know, make some compromises.
23:35I've always been very close to my daughter,
23:38in spite of the fact that I've raised this issue.
23:40All the conflicts that I had, Flora had.
23:43I 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.
23:53I could go to her.
23:55I'm her daddy.
23:57And feelings are real important to me,
23:59and they always have been to this family,
24:01and they go beyond law and custom and everything else.
24:06It depends on what the feelings are and what the law is.
24:11That'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,
24:16you don't know everything.
24:18She doesn't know what the 45 different interpretations
24:21or commentaries on the law have been.
24:24So it's very important for her to cling to that one thing.
24:28Because they know it can't be that unbending.
24:33Because it's not so much that the law is unbending,
24:37it's that I tend to be more unyielding.
24:42Totally unbending.
24:44How much can you identify with Sultana?
24:50Well, to tell you the truth,
24:53I can identify in that I can understand what she's talking about.
25:00And probably more than with anyone else I know,
25:03I feel envy.
25:06Because I think she's stepped through that invisible barrier.
25:10You can't step through?
25:11Exactly.
25:12I can see through the membrane,
25:14and 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,
25:22I 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
25:43is 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
25:50to ask for a miracle.
25:51I think you have to write down yourself
25:54this 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, like you spoke to God.
26:12Okay.
26:15I am a professor of anthropology.
26:21In June,
26:26I learned
26:27I have
26:30lung cancer.
26:41I have had
26:45two courses
26:47of chemotherapy
26:52which have not been successful.
27:01now it appears there are no medical solutions
27:06which I can turn to.
27:08Shall I say it the suggestion
27:10of my friends, the Salzmans?
27:12yeah.
27:13He knows you?
27:14He knows you.
27:14He knows you.
27:16I have become particularly interested
27:19in Orthodox life.
27:21Should I, I shouldn't say though I'm not myself Orthodox.
27:23No.
27:23Okay.
27:24Don't do it.
27:24Okay.
27:25You see enough already.
27:26Okay.
27:26I like the Orthodox life.
27:28Okay.
27:30Even when the rabbit will tell you to keep everything of Judaism,
27:37like a straightly orthodox, even, it's easier than the chemotherapy.
27:42Easier than the chemotherapy?
27:43The chemotherapy.
27:44A hundred percent, a hundred percent, much easier.
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, believe me.
27:57Chaya, I'm sometimes lazy.
28:01Everyone, everyone of us have this.
28:04Yes, sometimes.
28:04But like, you know, wearing clothes the way you do,
28:08and stockings and all, and a shetel on a very hot day.
28:12I don't know if I would have the discipline to do that.
28:15Who told you about the shetel?
28:18Well, if you do the whole thing, that's what you do.
28:21Take it easy.
28:22I'm going too far.
28:34I don't want to say it and not do it.
28:37I'm prepared to become more intensely Jewish, though 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, you know Dostoevsky?
29:07Yes.
29:07What 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, and I'm no different.
29:17I thank you.
29:19Yes.
29:22The first leap I made didn't require faith at all.
29:25It required simply being receptive to how much they cared about me and how much they believed that I was
29:32going 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.
30:39Even though Barbara had to watch from behind the partition that always separates the women from the men.
30:52Naftali said something about self.
30:54The angel of death doesn't know you or doesn't find you?
30:58It's a new name.
30:59It's a name.
31:00It becomes a new person.
31:01Does that mean your old fate has escaped?
31:04When you change your name, it's a new source of life.
31:06This is the reason I change your name, because the name is very important.
31:08So this would give me a new grasp of health, then?
31:12Yes.
31:12Well, would you tell him I'd like him to pick it?
31:15Okay.
31:16So whatever he would decide.
31:17Okay.
31:18As long as he tells me what it means.
31:19What's your mother's name?
31:20Fegi.
31:20Fegi, my name she has?
31:21Yes.
31:23Okay.
31:24Is that...
31:25Will you signal me when they come to that part where they say it?
31:30Yeah, okay.
31:30Which...
31:31I want to hear it now.
31:31Okay.
31:43Amen.
32:07Amen.
32:15Well, I'm going to have to sit down.
32:17Why is this your new name?
32:19Because I'm sick and...
32:21You should be well.
32:22Thank you, Mr. Weiss.
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.
32:40That's my mother's name.
32:42And he said he gave me that name because it's all good things.
32:47He said it.
32:48You notice when he read it how forcefully he said it over and over.
32:51It was like you should really listen.
32:54It'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
33:49to the way women are treated, to 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 Fagey?
34:18I feel like I made a definite commitment
34:21that this was the type of life I wanted to lead.
34:24This was the type of family I wanted.
34:26These were the beliefs I had.
34:29And it was very good for me.
34:31I often ask,
34:34well, you grew up this way, so you had no choice.
34:36And I keep remembering, yes, I did have a choice.
34:40Fagey 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,
34:56yes, we go to college.
34:58Yes, we're educated in America.
35:00Yes, 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.
35:20Yes.
35:22What is it you do in addition to this?
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.
35:53I know when I was just working, it wasn't.
35:56I don't feel that conflict as strongly.
36:00My feet are very firmly planted on the ground.
36:04I am an Orthodox Jew.
36:06I'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,
36:22it's across this vast and affectionate distance.
36:27It's so much not possible for it to be me for one reason.
36:31There's several.
36:31One reason this woman we spoke with earlier articulated perfectly
36:35when she said how she loved the restrictions,
36:39how they gave her life order.
36:41Now, 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.
37:00Mm-hmm.
37:01On my feet.
37:03Mm-hmm.
37:03No, no, no.
37:04Certainly the men have more of the kinds of things
37:06that 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,
37:32not just because, you know,
37:34two people came together and said,
37:35hello, let's live together.
37:37We came and we bound ourselves by the laws of God.
37:40The whole house is now running with the laws of God.
37:43It is different.
37:44Everything has a purpose.
37:45Everything has a meaning.
37:46Everything has love.
37:48Everybody has an understanding.
37:49Because the boss is God.
38:10Wonderful.
38:14Delicious.
38:18When the time came for us to film a wedding sequence between Olga and Eugenia, we had
38:24another 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
38:33number of days she's supposed to wait when she is pure and clean, and then the wedding
38:39could be held.
38:41Special teas were brewed, prayers were made, the film crew was waiting, the hall was booked
38:47tentatively, nothing could go forward.
38:50And it suddenly became clear that, you know, we lived in a world, we secular modern people
38:55lived in a world with calendars, and schedules, and dates, and a sense of the urgency of all
39:01those absolutely artificial markers.
39:03And here was this biological, concrete event, when the woman's body was ready, the ritual
39:11would be held, and the ceremony could take place.
39:14Okay.
39:15I want you to know, you speak English pretty good, right?
39:17This is the marriage contract, which says your name, and your wife's name, and says where
39:22it is, what time, and where, and when, and what day, and when, and where, and you've taken
39:27upon 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, whatever says here, you're accepting.
39:37Okay.
39:37Pick us 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.
40:00Here.
40:01Here.
40:02When I first met him on the river,
40:06They were on the river on the river,
40:12They didn't want to stop him to the enemy.
40:25But the last hit, oh, but the last hit,
40:33He will solve his fate and end of their侍
40:39We always put God in his own waves.
40:47He took a good job.
40:50On the river, on the waves,
40:54a ship with a kiss plowed.
40:57On the river, on the waves,
41:01a ship with a kiss plowed.
41:15How did you become interested in Judaism?
41:17Because you weren't Jewish at the time.
41:20Our friends in the Refusenik's Jewish community,
41:23they introduced us to Judaism.
41:25So we started to celebrate holidays,
41:28we 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.
41:40Applying to go to Israel is a political thing.
41:47They consider you just like a trader.
41:52And you can't continue to live under the same circumstances
41:57like you did before.
41:59So you lose your job and you lose your friends
42:04because friends, they're also scared to keep contact with you.
42:07But that was very risky, wasn't it?
42:09Barbara, the thing is, I was born really like orthodox communist.
42:14And I really believed that our country is the greatest one
42:18and I really felt it.
42:19And suddenly I realized that it's all fence around.
42:23Does it hurt you to speak negatively about your homeland?
42:26I'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 because I was born in Moscow.
42:43And I was, you know, the 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 is that you have no political freedom
43:01and no religious freedom in the Soviet Union.
43:04When you become Jewish, you do, you gain many things,
43:08but 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, you give up some freedom?
43:15Well, you have to follow many laws.
43:17But this is the freedom.
43:18The real one.
43:19Because you choose it.
43:28The wedding was improvised in the alleyway behind Naftali's synagogue.
43:33It's the opposite of what we think of as the rigid religious behavior
43:37that requires you to do something in a very formal way.
43:40It must be that they've lived like this.
43:42It must be that all these people who were in the underground world of Judaism
43:48and the Soviet Union survived by that kind of flexibility.
44:18And the group of wicked dushy.
44:20Amen.
44:33This is a magic.
44:35Show them the finger, the ring.
44:37This is yours?
44:39Yes.
44:40You paid for it, right?
44:41With your own money.
44:41American money or Russian money.
44:43American money.
44:44Yeah.
44:45Array.
44:46Array.
44:47Array.
44:50Array.
44:56Array.
45:01Oh my God.
45:15When one is married, the cup that's held the wine from which the couple has drunk at the
45:20wedding is smashed.
45:22And it's smashed for many reasons.
45:24One of them is to remember that the temple was destroyed.
45:27So you take always these moments of joy and you remember the grief.
45:43They presented me with an organic life, a life that was all of a piece.
45:48It had a totality because of the way the people knew each other, because of the deep intertwining
45:54of their lives at every moment, on every level, in every relationship, and because of this
46:01envelope of belief that enfolds them all so that there almost can't be a separate word
46:08for religion.
46:09It's not a separate category or activity.
46:11It's embedded in everything.
47:05It's not a vacant one.
47:09It is good for you.
47:25The reply that I gave you to the question of restrictions and the loss of freedom and
47:35independence, when I spoke about it several months ago was not the one I would say now.
47:42Mostly then I was thinking about restrictions as coming from the outside, things I would
47:48have to do because they were laws.
47:50I was thinking of course about what the priesthood, religious laws, God giving me rules.
48:01There was no sense in this of the God within, let's say, or the restrictions coming from
48:09something that I carried, not that I bowed to.
48:15Suddenly here are restrictions.
48:17I can't walk the way I did, eat, breathe the basic functions, mother my children the way
48:24I did, every day presents me with new ones.
48:27And I have some choice still, some days more than others, as to whether I see those as restrictions
48:36or doorways to other possibilities.
48:41As Barbara became increasingly fragile, she continued to struggle with the unfinished business
48:46of her life.
48:48Her friends in the Orthodox community offered their own traditional forms of help.
48:54One of the rituals that they were most eager for me to have from the very beginning was
48:59get a Jewish divorce.
49:02Rabbi Salzman told me, your civil divorce doesn't talk about your soul.
49:07He said, how are you going to get your neshoma back?
49:09Because when you marry, your neshoma, your soul, is wrapped around your husband.
49:15And indeed, I had lived with and loved the same man for 30 years.
49:21And I didn't feel I 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 to deliver the bill of divorce to his wife.
49:42And here I have the get and the documents proving that I was duly delegated by the husband.
49:53And here I have the get and the documents proving that I was duly delegated by the husband.
50:04Do you, Barce de Mascario Barbara, consent to receive the bill of divorce sent to you by your husband, Haim
50:13Dovid, Amkhune Li, of your own free will, without compulsion and unconditionally?
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, he shall come forth now before
50:38it is too late to state his objection.
50:44Now, you hold this hand, the hand this way, and he will take this get and hold it over your
50:53hand, and then when I tell him to let it go, you catch it.
50:59The get, and don't let it go until I'll take it.
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.
51:18And therewith.
51:19And therewith.
51:19You shall be divorce from him.
51:21Should be divorce from 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.
51:29Close it.
51:29Squeeze it together.
51:30Close it.
51:31And lift the top high.
51:33And put it under your arm.
51:36And you, wait.
51:38And make four steps forward.
51:40Yeah.
51:45Okay.
51:46Come back to me.
51:48And give me the get.
51:50That's all.
51:51And employ an episode by divorce.
51:52When I cut the get, they are cut off now.
51:57You are not allowed to marry for 92 days.
52:01May God bless you and grant you peace and fulfillment.
52:07Wow.
52:18These people have the fundamental human heritage
52:22that 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?
52:34In the future?
52:36I 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.
53:38If 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.
53:59Two.
54:00Three.
54:01Four.
54:02Five.
54:03Good.
54:04Now I read over.
54:07Yes.
54:14Grant this day that in your glorious Shekina, there shall be a peace.
54:18Five sweetened severities through the striking of the willow twigs on the ground, according to the custom of your holy
54:26prophets.
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 do it.
55:21Okay.
55:21Come on.
55:22All the problems.
55:23Get rid of him?
55:25All right.
55:25All right.
55:39Come on.
55:40You're done!
56:00Barbara died two weeks after we filmed her interview.
56:10When the wind blows up, the wind blows up and doesn't sound like a baby.
56:24My heart will blow up, as the summer of the summer.
56:35To my heart stonet, like the autumn leaves.
56:49And my heart stonet, like the autumn leaves.
57:03And my heart stonet, like the autumn leaves.
57:14I am
57:19my light
57:22I am
57:25with you
57:27I am
57:30I am
57:30my
57:32my
57:33my
57:33my
57:34my
57:34I love you.
57:41I love you.
57:45I love you.
Comments