the auction-gods wife

In High school I fantasized about would be like to be attached to the One. Do you know who I mean? For me it was never anyone as obvious as the captain of the football team but more of the aloof and artsy one who was still popular. The one who made everyone's head turn but secretly. Someone who always, always ended up with with the skinniest, blondest girl with the biggest boobs who made the rest of us feel silly for ever thinking that we had a chance.

For me the appeal was not so much in the imaginary relationship that I could have with The One, but what the relationship would do for my life. I would be noticed, accepted. All of the people who never gave me the time of day would pay attention. They would finally recognize that I deserved their recognition. That inside I was popular just like them. I was in High-School. Like everyone else I grew up and realized the error of this type of thinking. We are not who we are attach ourselves to. Our insides and our outsides are generally not that different. The people who like us are the people who recognize our intrinsic selves. I learned to share this self with the world. I stopped wanting to attach myself to the star and started searching for the value within me. I grew up. Mostly.

Synagogue life is not all that different from high school. You have the cliques. There is the religious clique. The ones who show up every Shabbat and lead services and read Torah and teach adult education classes. Usually the ones in this clique didn't do so well in High School but they come alive in the synagogue. They are accepted by virtue of their knowledge of Judaism. They are often friends with the rabbis. You also have the committee clique. The ones who run programs and care the most about tikkun olam but aren't so much in it for the religious aspect. You of course have the sanctioned cliques, the mens club and the sisterhood. And then there are the cool kids. They are rich and give generously to the synagogue. Their children have the most lavish Bar and Bat Mitzvah's. They are on the board. They care tremendously about the synagogue but generally don't come to services. They run the capital campaign. They are lawyers and business people and sometimes doctors. They were almost always popular in High-School. They also have a name, they are called machers.

The big event every year for the machers is the synagogue auction. Machers love to get dressed up and and show off their money. The first year we lived in Portland we couldn't imagine ourselves attending. At the urging of our friends we went reluctantly the next year and sort of enjoyed it. By some strange turn of events Jeff co-chaired the auction the following year. He did a wonderful job and was asked to do it again this year. This years was even better. Somehow in the year in between Jeff became a macher.

Sunday night was the chance for me to live out my high school fantasy. All of the machers, every single one of them talked to me. They complimented me on my hair, my dress, invited me to their parties. They talked about what a phenomenal event Jeff had pulled off for the synagogue (he really did). The part of me that is still in High School enjoyed this attention tremendously. I preened for them. I accepted their compliments and party invitations. But the grown-up part of me was disappointed. Why is the grown up world so much like high school? And why was the feeling not as fun as I'd always imagined it could be?

I am tremendously proud of Jeff but I wish that I was recognized more for my own contributions to the synagogue. For teaching their children Hebrew. For running Shoreshim when no one else would touch it. For my creative stories at tot Shabbat. For showing up on Shabbat and reading Torah. I understand that money is important and that the synagogue will cease to exist without it but wouldn't it also cease to exist without all of us who are trying to hold up the Jewish end of the pole?

All of this is not as black and white as I am making it. This being Portland the cliques are pretty fluid and we move back and forth between religious and macher and committee (so far we have stayed away from sisterhood and the men's club but mainly because we are too young) almost seamlessly. Except perhaps at the auction where the differences are more pronounced. I am hugely proud of Jeff and couldn't be happier to be his wife. For those who asked me on Sunday if I am happy to have my husband back the answer I gave was yes. But really what they should know is that I never lost him. I liked watching him become a macher. He learned how to gossip with me at the dinner table about synagogue stuff which is, of course, what I grew up doing. I learned that there is more than one way to develop a connection to Judaism. It doesn't always have to be about religion. Jeff's connection has been as deepened by running the auction as surely as mine is through study. His commitment has expanded and this enriches our life together. I love him not because of how being attached to him feels but because of who he is and who we are becoming together.