Camp

Sitting at every Brooklynite's favorite camp-like bar/lounge Saturday night, I start talking with a friend of a friend who is, himself, new to the neighborhood. And then he starts telling me about his friend's friend who, after years in all sorts of lines of work, decided to open a bar. And this friend, like all good members of the human race, studied at UC Berkeley. And so, in reverence to that magical city on the Bay, this friend of my friend's friend's friend will be opening a bar in Brooklyn that takes its cue from The Albatross.

The Albatross may be the world's best bar. Cheap drinks, plenty of room to sit and a friendly staff, not to mention board games, parlor games and 25 cent, all-you-can-eat popcorn. What more could a man want?

So this friend is opening a bar. And it's going to be amazing. And, in further deference to his alma mater, he wants this bar (aptly named "Pacific Standard Time") to be a locus for Cal almuni to watch Bear football games.

Which is where our conversation gets interesting.

Because, after detailing the amazing attributes of this bar-to-be, the next words out of my friend's friend's mouth are, "Well, I don't know if you keep Shabbat, but... you get the idea."

He continued, "Even if you do though, if you happen to walk by there and then go in to watch a game, it couldn't be that bad!"

So I sit there, a little bewildered. This guy doesn't know me. He knows nothing, to say the least, about my Jewish identity and observance.

Sure enough, it was that circle of cloth sitting atop my head that gave me away, that betrayed my inner workings to this perfect stranger sitting next to me. But put aside the assumed implications in his mind of what it means when someone's wearing a yid lid, and let's dissect more fully his language.

What he said to me immediately conjured memories of something I was taught by a favorite Park Slope shit-stirrer, Douglass Rushkoff, in his book Nothing Sacred:

The questions we ask each other should assume the halakhic validity of both parties. "Try asking, 'How do you keep kosher?' or, 'What does kosher mean to you...' You'll br surprised at the kind of conversation that is opened up."

That is to say, get rid of the entire premise of the question, "Do you keep kosher." That very question assumes the possibility, and inevitability, of dispensing of millenia-old conscious Jewish decision making when it comes to eating. Rather, start by asking how your fellow keeps kosher - and be prepared for a myriad of answers.

So too would it be with Shabbat. The question is not "do you keep Shabbat" but, rather, "how do you keep Shabbat." Rushkoff teaches us not to close off the possibilities of conversation from the onset of our question-asking. Think about how much further we could go in our discussions if we only think through the way that our questions frame and limit the possibilities of answers!

And all this went down in my head in an instant of enlightenment over a few beers, in comfy chairs, next to perfect strangers, at a bar in Cobble Hill, a bar named Camp. And in that instant, that moment, I remembered why I camp is such a powerful, meaningful and important life experience - because who doesn't want to come together with other people on a given night and talk about the world? Because it opens doors to new possibilities, it allows walls of assumptions and presuppositions to be torn down, it pushes the limits and brings people together.

And it also happens to allow for a chance to eat some of the most delicious smores in town...

Comments

[David A.M. Wilensky]

Now there's a Reform yid for ya.

PS, put me back on your blogroll. davidsaysthings.wordpres.com

Thanks.