Dance happens to be a Jewish form of expression. A famous
Admor once said that the greatness in dance lies in that it
elevates a person, if momentarily, completely from the earth,
and brings him that much closer to Heaven.
And so, too, for women. "And Miriam the prophetess... took a
timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her with
timbrels and with dances."
"... Her dance had risen beyond that particular happy occasion
to embrace all brides and grooms, all places and times for
celebration..."
Our selection of pure joy, in honor of Simchas Torah...
There were two hundred women in the wedding hall, and they
were standing transfixed by the dance. The dance belonged to a
woman of around 70, and she was dancing like someone at least
50 years younger.
She danced in the small clearing in front of the bride who sat
on a chair. She danced for the enjoyment of the bride who was
her great niece, but her dance had risen beyond that
particular happy occasion to embrace all brides and grooms,
all places and times for celebration.
She had been dancing alone in that enchanted circle for at
least twenty minutes and she still showed no signs of fatigue.
Even the little children who stood closest to her in the inner
circle couldn't dance the way she danced, with all she knew
about life defining her dance.
She danced quickly with sharp angles, raising her knees and
stamping down her feet to the rhythm of the music. At the same
time, her dance was incredibly fluid with not a single
unnecessary movement.
The rain was pounding on the roof of the hall. She had grabbed
an opened umbrella and was raising it high like a queen's
scepter at one moment, at the next like a splendid bouquet of
flowers. Then she turned the umbrella into a silent partner
high above her head, whose movements she was following.
The two of them sped round and round. I recognized the woman
as my neighbor's mother and the grandmother of the children
who played in the courtyard next door. I also knew her as the
wife of a respected Rov whose loving concern for people
gripped by illness or warm wishes for women about to give
birth had the potency of blessings.
She was the one who gently ushered us into the Rov's study
when we came to speak with him. Now, in the middle of her
dance, she was not the Rov's wife or the elderly woman in the
housecoat. Her identity in this lifetime receded as her dance
kept rising higher.
It was a dance without end. For however long she would dance,
we would stand there riveted. It was mesmerizing, like
watching the flame of a candle. The flame kept rising higher
as her feet tapped out the rhythm, and the expression on her
face spoke of a supreme concentration.
This was a holy dance from the depths of a holy soul. The
dance didn't wind down, and she didn't look tired. It was a
fire that burned but didn't consume. Seeing her dance that way
revived me, made me feel incredibly energized.
*
Now I wanted back my dance more than anything. Whatever it
would take to get it back, however long it would take, I knew
that I would finally get it back. All the transformations I
endured, all the winding paths, all the pains, all the
revelations of these last years while my dance slumbered
inside me until the dance of me as a mature woman would
finally erupt and express the beauty and balance I had found
and lost, found and lost once again. I would swoop the way
birds swoop. I would jump up the way I had learned to rise
after falling. When I was filled to the brim with elation, I
would swell the way I had seen waves swell into white caps
before hitting the shore.
*
My first conscious memory of my dance bursting to the surface
was dancing at the age of seven to a Beethoven symphony when
no one was watching. I glided through the shafts of sunlight
by the piano and, as I danced, saw the tiny particles of dust
suspended and fluttering in the air. Was it only me who knew
the whole universe was dancing?
My dance was a dance of intense happiness for being alive and
having arms and legs that could move so easily when the music
ignited them. My body moved of its own mind without being
driven or commanded. In that body of movement, I tangibly felt
the exhilaration of knowing a self that hovered above my
ordinary self and was all light and had absolute freedom of
movement. At age seven, I treasured those moments of dance in
my childhood living room which opened into vast, luminous
spaces beyond those walls.
*
At age eight, the dance I found in my ballet classes wasn't
the same. I tried to copy the formal gestures of the lead girl
in the spangled tutu, but it didn't flow the way I knew dance
could. I stood in my toe shoes in a frozen arabesque and the
photographer clicked his camera. In the photograph, there's
only a glimmer of my dance in the wistful smile.
Two years later, my dance came out of hiding temporarily. My
fifth grade teacher was auditioning one girl after another for
the dance portion of a musical performance for mothers. I was
too shy to care whether I danced or not. When my turn came, I
walked to the center of the room, and with heart pounding,
waited for the teacher to turn on the phonograph.
The music was like a powerful electric current, and without
any conscious effort, I responded. I didn't think it through,
but there I was feeling as if I was finally being allowed in
that setting to do what I had been created for. For those
glorious moments, I only knew I was dancing. I didn't feel
myself the shy, vulnerable child. I was simply a being of
light. I was whirling with the music, barely touching down on
those polished wooden floorboards.
When it was over, I was amazed at myself. I had danced in
front of my teacher and classmates. I could have easily stood
there petrified by my fear of the teacher's severity and the
children's taunts. My dance had burst through the fortified
walls and taken me by surprise.
The teacher was even more surprised that this was the same
little girl who was usually daydreaming and looking out the
window. She showered me with compliments. Maybe my dance could
rescue the performance from being mediocre and uninspiring.
Now she had great hopes that the whole thing might improve. It
was my shining hour.
I had received verification that my dance existed, that it was
good, and I could share it with other people. The way it
happened so suddenly without preparation or forethought, and
what's more, to me in my orthopedic shoes -- all that made it
clear to me that my dance was a sacred event and essentially a
gift from the One Above. I was awed at this knowledge which I
couldn't express in words. It was a knowledge that ran strong
and deep inside me like an underground river.
At the performance itself, I did my dance without the
spontaneity of the original. I was relieved when the applause
sounded, and realized that no one seemed to notice how wooden
it felt to me.
*
It took a long time before my real dance surfaced again.
During my college years, I created a course called "Dance as
Religious Expression." My Biblical Studies professor was
unusually tolerant and even a bit whimsical. Instead of
writing a paper for the final grade, I invited her to a
performance of "The Dance of Life" which I improvised with a
group of theological students. I received an A in the
course.
I was always searching for nooks and crannies where I could
put in the dance but after school, life suddenly turned
serious and extremely left- brain; I was working in the City.
I enrolled in modern dance classes [for women], did the
grueling exercises and took my place in the line that moved
diagonally across the floor.
I knew that when dancing, I could feel like a bird in flight.
I was a master at catching air streams by adjusting one wing
and then sailing on for hours in a dance with my own shadow on
the land below. But there I had been banished to dreary
beginning dance classes in one school after another. I reached
the conclusion that I wasn't destined for the Dance World.
When I watched dance performances, my legs jerked in reflex. I
tried to still the tiny bird that was fluttering over my
heart. There was nothing to dance and nowhere to dance.
"I will never be a dancer," was my sad refrain for a very long
time.
A still, small voice said, "I am a dancer." The river was
flowing again.
"By now, you're too old to dance," came the harsh retort.
But the river was flowing with the knowledge that the dancer
is never too old and the dance never dies.
*
[Years and worlds later...]
I found myself dancing again in the living room when no one
was watching. Suddenly, I was the being of light again. I
could be bone tired from housework and children, but as soon
as the music started, I was flying. I was lifted above time
and space into another dimension. I really felt that I was
dancing with angels.
Sometimes during my morning prayers, I would imagine a letter
of love to Hashem about the gifts that had come straight from
His hand, with my husband and children heading the list. The
tears would sting my eyes, and like spontaneous combustion, I
would jump up to dance.
I began to dance with my family. I would sweep up the children
and dance. It was something I did for my own sanity and to
brighten up the house. I never dreamed it went beyond that.
I got an inner message, like something in my head saying,
"Dance even more."
When I mentioned it to someone I respect, they took it
seriously and said, "Your dance is beloved. It hasn't gone
unnoticed. When you're not dancing, I am sure it is missed On
High."
To emphasize the point, this person opened up a Tanach to
Shmuel where it describes how Dovid Hamelech danced before the
oron as it was carried back to Jerusalem after being
held captive by the Philistines. "Dovid leaped about with all
his might before Hashem." Some commentators suggest that Dovid
Hamelech went barefoot in order to increase his agility.
His wife complained that it was not befitting a king to behave
this way. Dovid defended his ecstatic dancing and explained
that it was an expression of profound gratitude without any
concern for his personal honor. For this reason, he was
certain that his leaping and prancing had been pleasing to
Hashem.
I was reminded of the beautiful old woman dancing in front of
the bride. We were spellbound as we saw her flame go higher
and higher till it reached to the top of the heavens. She was
dancing for all of us, and her sublime dance was an offering
to Hashem.
*
[Years and worlds before...]
Then there is the dance from a distant place and time that
might have been even more precious than all the dances I have
known.
We were three friends who met one night a week to study
Yiddish from the single copy of a textbook we shared. It
helped to keep our minds alive during the long winter months.
Our interest in Yiddish was purely cultural and nostalgic. We
felt comfortable grasping something rooted to our common past.
That was before we knew better...
At the end of one night's session, we hesitated to go our
separate ways. Maybe just being together -- three Jews on the
seacoast of Maine, far from any major city -- had touched
something that went deep and was indefinable. It showed up as
a feeling of restlessness and a need to stay together after
the usual hour.
In spite of the stormy weather, we decided to take a drive on
the national park road. We stopped the car on the hill
overlooking the beach, walked out into the storm, and stood
together on one of the giant boulders that jutted up out of
the sea. It was clearly too dangerous to stay there because of
the gale winds and torrential sea spray. We turned down the
narrow path between the rocks that led to the beach.
It was safe once we reached the beach, but between the
pounding surf and the howling winds, the noise was deafening.
We certainly never agreed verbally to dance because there was
no way to hear each other's voices. Suddenly, we took hands
and began to circle around. Without knowing why or what we
were dancing, we lifted up our eyes in the freezing rain. The
clouds sped across the face of the moon.
After a few moments, we let go of the circle and danced
separately in our heavy rain gear. It was the dance of trying
to stand our ground against the storm. We were three
stragglers at the end of a long drawn out Exile, in a place at
the end of the earth. We felt like remnants but didn't know
from which Whole we were missing. It was a clumsy, groping
dance that took tremendous effort because of the wind and our
bulky clothing, but we were not doing it for ourselves. We
were dancing to find Hashem.
The dance was for Him. We were blindly reaching out for His
touch. It was a dance out of the pain and the darkness, the
only dance we had, a pure gesture of longing.
We returned home in silence and never spoke about the strange
dance we had formed. We forgot it entirely like a powerful
dream that slips through the fingers.
Now I understand and remember. The dance with my friends on
the stormy beach had picked me up in one place and put me down
in another. Afterwards, I still stood in the darkness, but
soon I began to sense Him standing there with me. At the hour
of deepest night, this stumbling dance was a signal that I had
turned the corner.
Editor's Note: This essay is a report of the feelings and
experiences of someone who made a number of great changes in
her life, most notably becoming religious at some point along
the way. Some of the scenes recorded here took place before
she became religious.
