The emBODYment of Jewish Femininity

My name is Cara Lopatin. About six years ago, at age seven, I was diagnosed with a germinoma brain tumor. I was so sad and depressed when I found out that I was going to lose my hair because of chemotherapy and proton beam radiation. Two years after I had healed and recovered from my cancer, at age nine, I was diagnosed with cancer again. This time, however, my tumor wasn’t able to be seen through MRIs, but the doctors could see it through my bloodwork. Therefore, I would have to go through chemotherapy again, but instead of radiation, I had a stem cell transplant. Even though I had already lost my hair once, I was still heartbroken and upset.

Thankfully, I regenerated quickly and now I have, at least in my opinion, beautiful and long curly hair that I can brush, braid, massage, design, and play with. I am so happy with the hair that I have now, and I am so lucky to have a body that I Iove.

It was a long journey for me to end up standing at the mikveh, ready for my conversion. I struggled with changing from my old skin with all the history it brought and stepping into my new Jewish skin. I realized that I wasn't completely letting go of the old me and that I was always Jewish in my heart, this last step just made it official. One of the biggest ways I connect with G-d is through nature. I am always in awe of this world that we get to live in and how tiny we are when I am surrounded by all that G-d has created.

One of my earliest and most vivid memories occurred at the home of my grandparents when I was three years old. It's a moment that happens to have been captured on video. The scene consists of all the aunts and uncles desperately trying to get all the grandchildren seated on the staircase and smiling for a family photo. While babies wailed and older cousins argued, there I sat at the center, waiting patiently, and giving such a huge smile that the rest of my face almost seemed to disappear. At that moment, the older male relative behind the video camera called out, "Don't smile, Shoshi!" Within seconds, my huge smile was replaced with a look of confusion, which then melted into a frown as I lifted my hands to cover my face.

The message I absorbed in that moment, that someone I love didn't think my smile was pretty, stuck with me for years to come. In subsequent family photos, you can recognize me as the child with the hands covering my face. As I grew older, I began to smile in photos again, but never showed my teeth. Over time, I continued to fixate on everything that was "wrong" with my smile. I visited dental specialists and asked them to fix my "underbite," which they informed me existed only in my imagination.

As I grew up and developed more positive body image and sense of self, I found myself taken aback by people who would remark, "You have such a pretty smile." As an adult, just like at age three, I have a huge smile that sometimes takes over my whole face. But it's the feature that makes me distinct, and that conveys the growth I have attained in my happiness and self-confidence.

For many years, I couldn’t see myself in a positive light.. I didn’t like me. A huge part of my healing was learning to be compassionate with myself, and kind to my body, to know that it is a home for my soul, and not an envelope for pain. This is why I strive to teach kids how to love themselves, trust their emotions, and feel safe and centered in their bodies.

I felt more connected and in love with my body during the 42 weeks of my pregnancy with Zoey than any other time in my life. For the first time, I felt that I had a true dialogue with my body, and with Zoey growing within it. We went to prenatal yoga and Zumba together, we worked out together, meditated together, and connected through the body and life we shared. When she was born, we kept going to postnatal yoga – for the first few months of her life, I began to feel the intensity of our separation into two beings. I had less say in how she experienced the world around her. I felt vulnerable and protective at the same time. I shuddered (and still do) at how people took liberties with their comments about my daughter’s body. Or perhaps, because of that. It has been a real struggle for me – I yearn to protect her from the world, to keep her from internalizing comments like that as she grows up. The best I can do is affirm her strength, confidence, and radiance. I can teach her to love herself, respect herself, and believe in herself.

Even at this early age, it is a battle with those outside the bubble of her and me. I teach her to meditate – I sit with her every day and we breathe, even if she doesn’t really get what’s going on when we sit. I took her to yoga until she was 9 months old and crawling around the studio, and now she crawls around me as I do my morning practice in the apartment. I practice my Zumba routines with her on my hip – it is a beautiful experience to be able to teach her the wonderful things that a body can do. As she grows into herself – into this bright, curious, radiant, stubborn, miraculous child, I want her to grow up and feel confident and safe in the world, to feel safe within her family, to know that she is always, always loved.

I credit the Jewish value of modesty, tzniut, which guides the way I dress and relate to my body, with sparing me from much of the emotional turmoil that many women facing breast cancer suffer through as we learn to accept what has become of the bodies we once knew. The normalization of covering provided by the way I relate to tzniut allowed my body and I to heal and become reacquainted in private, on my terms, the way I needed to heal.

I felt protected by simply continuing to dress the way i had for years before my diagnosis; the painful, otherwise obvious changes to my body remaining imperceptible in my daily life. No one could see the many scars all over my body. My wig, which I have worn since the day after my wedding, looked the same despite my hair loss, the bangs helping to hide my thinning eyebrows. I found wearing fashionable scarves to be particularly comforting, protecting my altered silhouette from being noticed by those around me, and empowering me to carry on with my day-to-day, while continuing to feel like myself.

Since my body has remained covered and private all these years, my identity that I connect with and project to the world has very little to do with the way my body looks. My sense of self is not dependent on my breasts or my hair. Tzniut de-emphasizes the physical in public, instead allowing my actions, words, intellect, and soul define me as a person. And that person was not taken from me by breast cancer, and can never be taken from me.

So, after allowing myself the time to become comfortable with my post-treatment body, I now see my scars as a reminder of how strong my body was, and how, with G-d's help, it carried me through the most challenging time of my life. It is the body of a warrior, complete with battle scars. It is the body of a survivor and I am proud that it is mine.

I think about emBODYment as those moments of synergy between my physical and spiritual existence. Few activities in life can give me that sense of embodiment like singing. The fact that I can hear music and sing is a great gift from G-d. I’ve always loved to sing and secretly dreamed of becoming a famous singer. On any given Sunday you could find me rummaging through my dad’s huge CD collection, wearing his big earphones pretending to be Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey and Lauren Hill on the top of my lungs. However outside of my fun one woman show, I got the clear message from my school and community (Chabad and later Modern Orthodox ) that Kol Isha Erva and that nice Jewish girls just don't sing near or for men. Looking back, the most crushing part of that message was that there was no all female space to sing in either and so I was left feeling angry at Hashem for creating such a love and desire inside me yet no channel to actualize myself.

I can say for certainty that that message and lack of female musical influence was the reason I left my practice of Halacha for several years. It was not until I was on a year abroad program at Bar Ilan University that I had a councilor who was a chassid of Reb Shlomo Carlebach and who took me to the Moshav, that I found “my people.”

After university I spent a year at Nishmat and later made Aliyah and lived in Nachloat. While there I spent a lot of time learning the Halachot and thinking about the concept of kol isha, I had come to experience the beauty and power of men and women singing Kabbalah Shabbat together or jamming together at a Melave Malka. This beautiful music- the blending of tones and harmonies with a true desire to have a relationship with Hashem gave me true insight into the power that a woman's voice can have. Yes a women can use her voice to seduce but she may also use it to elevate, to lead and to connect.

I write music and play percussion. When I’m singing that’s physical but it’s for a spiritual reason. When I feel a niggun coming on I can bring higher thoughts to my head. Getting into it is an out of body experience. Closing my eyes and allowing myself to flow. Letting everyone take the energy. When the lights go off, and you cannot see others around you, you can lose yourself in your head and heart.

Creating a Soul drumming circle I invite women into a singing space where they are all contributing at the exact same time. A drum circle can make people feel closer. I learn more about others through that. I recently invited this drum circle back into my life. I feel truly myself when doing these circles because in that moment I feel both body and soul. By holding this space I am helping other women connect physically and spiritually.

I am sitting on my bed in my room. A very cozy homey place for me. It is my own. After my husband died, after some healing time, I painted my room hot pink. My favorite color. For me it is the color of joy and a bit rebellious to paint an adult room that color!! The camouflage bedding is also a youthful rebellious choice as most adults do not have that as their bedding.

I thought about where I feel most at home in my body. Which clothes, which place, which position. I also thought about makeup. I asked myself whether I feel more at home wearing or not wearing makeup. I feel very different with and without makeup. I feel prettier and more put together and presentable in makeup. More polished. Without makeup I feel I am in my natural, private state. I feel like a hippie. I feel raw and natural and clean without makeup.

I decided to be photographed with half face with makeup and half without. I was so surprised to see that my face with makeup looks pretty much the same as without. I cannot even tell where the makeup is when I look closely at the picture. Only the lips. On my lips I can see that they are two different colors split down the middle. Fascinating. I have a state of mind if I know I have makeup that makes me feel confident in the world that is different than my state of mind without it on. Sometimes, being inside myself, I can forget whether I am wearing makeup or not, and just feel like myself. A couple of times I have forgotten to wear makeup to work. Then, I have forgotten that I am not wearing makeup. I felt no different. It is not the makeup that makes me feel different, it is the THOUGHT about it.

Lots of people have such negative ideas about getting older as a woman. Somehow, I found being younger to be more challenging. In my twenties, I was completing college, med school and medical training, getting married, and having babies. In my thirties, my identity was swallowed up mothering my three small children and beginning my career as a physician.

What I've noticed that over each decade, I’ve felt more empowered. It hasn’t been until my forties that I had the space to become reacquainted with myself. I care less what other people think and more about what I think. I have been taking new, creative turns in my professional life. This year, I’m launching an institute to train people in the connection between the health of our bodies and the health of the natural world around us. I’m also present in my body in a way I’m not sure I ever have been. First, I began trail running 5 months ago. I’ve never been a runner in my life, but I decided that I wanted to be able to complete a 5k. When I started, I couldn’t complete a half mile without stopping. But within 6 weeks of daily attempts, I reached my goal! And in the process, I began to love doing it. Running has been incredible for me in so many ways, and because I’m running in the forest, it is so meditative. At that point, I realized that my body could do a lot of things I never thought it could. So I started to lift weights--barbells! All of this has made me appreciate my body and what it can do, rather than feeling critical of it. It’s been a very powerful and beautiful time.

Some traditional Jewish communities believe that woman cannot speak in public or hold public roles because of the concept of tzniut. Many Orthodox Jews assume that it’s not tzanuah for a woman to speak or sing publicly in front of a group of men because of kol b’isha. However, many important rabbis would agree with me that there is no problem for a woman to speak or sing in front of a kahal in shul. Shul is a holy space, and when I am up on the bima speaking I hope that people are listening to my Torah and my message, and not focusing on my physical attributes. I am a vessel transmitting Torah and ideas, and I don’t think of myself as being objectified by anyone.

To speak about tzniut in a way that merely objectifies women’s bodies through restricting what they wear and how they behave belittles the true meaning of tzniut, which comes from the heart and the personality. Tzniut is about the midot one has, and not about whether one’s clothing or voice is too tempting. When we relegate tzniut to mere measurements and restrictions of women, we set up a dynamic in which women bear the burden of men’s supposed inability to control themselves. We need to emphasize tselem elohim in every person and not dehumanize women by making us a series of tempting body parts.

This is a very typical Friday afternoon for us. I'm struggling with my teenage daughter and my needs regarding her appearance.My daughter Gavri's hair is beautiful but she often resists wearing it curly. I was thrilled she agreed to do so for the shoot. Partway through, she asked for help styling it which is something of a relief for me because I consider her curly hair significantly more attractive than when she straightens it or pulls it back into a bun and I'm vocal with her about that. I felt that if she was willing to accept my help then she might be more comfortable wearing her hair like this in the future (especially on occasions when I care how her hair looks!). My daughter Sarit is looking on with a very typical facial expression, equally willing to share her opinion--on MY appearance--solicited or otherwise. She rarely comments on her sister's attire or appearance.

When I first started doing yoga I was distant from my Judaism. I always have been very physically oriented and aware of my body. I started doing “regular” hatha yoga and then met a rabbi while living in Chicago who took me under her wing, mentored me and sent me to do a Jewish Yoga and Spirituality Training. I had been teaching 6 years before. My yoga was always a very holistic and spiritual yoga. When I did this training it opened a portal to my Jewish soul because I had always been so physical and our tradition doesn’t have this idea of connection to our bodies in the mainstream at least. Jewish people in general are not connected to their bodies (we are the “people of the book” after all).

Torah yoga I found was very different than regular yoga. It was another pathway that opened up inside me. When I am teaching in a Jewish setting there is a channel for me that doesn’t open up in other places. Something flows in and out that is very different. My clients tend to consist of either secular jews who have no connection to their Jewish soul, or very religious jews who are distanced from physical practices.

In the modern way we practice Judaism, connection to body is not part of our spiritual practice. If we go in and look at the texts there are so many references to spiritual body connection but you have to actively seek it out. When we do yoga we go to eastern traditions and take the poses from there, but it’s really easy to find it in our texts and even liturgy and to use it in a way that speaks to a Jewish soul. The way that Judaism talks about the breath and soul is very holistic and very yogic I feel - it’s a way to realize these two things can be intertwined. I believe I am helping people realize they don’t need to turn to other traditions to find embodied practice that is both physical and spiritual...and Jewish.

I’m five feet, no inches tall. In my teens, I began to notice that my appetite and my activity level didn’t match my height. In my mind, I was about 4 inches taller than my true height. I set an internal baseline for knowing when I felt good in my body. It generally involved losing weight, until I began to recognize that losing weight and feeling healthy are not the same thing. All these years later, I feel great - with my strong body and my crazy-salt and-pepper curly hair. I feel that I’m me, and that’s a good feeling, for me.

I’m strong and I’m healthy - and mostly proud that I didn’t wait for a medical calamity to send me a wake-up call. I took advantage of the gift of good health (even when it was accompanied by poor habits and bad choices). I’ve invested in making my good health worth even more as the years have progressed.

With my family’s tremendous support, when my youngest daughter turned 18, I began to pay attention to my own lifestyle, activity level and eating habits. I started working out routinely, then I changed my eating habits. Now, nearly four years later, I work out 2 -3 three times a week. I try fill in with yoga when I can. I take stairs rather than escalators. I commute by train, walking to and from the train each day. On non-work days, I try to walk, too. I do a lot of weight-bearing exercises. I lift and carry at every opportunity, to keep up my strength. I’m proud to say that I can currently lift a 115 pound bar bell, from the ground, which is a weight I’ve worked up to over the past few years.

I’m 57 years old (young) and I plan to hit my stride when I turn 60. I want to be a very healthy 60-year old, and will set my goals and intention at that point to be a very healthy 63 year old, then 66 year old, and so on - all the way to 120.

Sally, 61

“Any day I get on the bike It's a head to toe refreshment . Cycle, breathe, sing.

Good company on the ride is a bonus. Open air honest conversation and no limits.

Enjoy the ride!”

Shira, 33

“When I cycle, every fiber of my being feels alive. The fresh air, the exercise, the scenery - they take my breath away. There's nothing that makes the tension melt from my body like biking through crisp fall foliage with good friends. Everything is better on a bike.”

The path that opened up my life and brought me confidence and happiness was becoming a photographer. My camera has been my friend. With a camera I can walk down a street and focus on life and people. I meet people, I stop and talk; I have a reason to look and to just be there. My photographs have been published and exhibited. Many of my images are documents of history, the history of NYC and its people.

I met my husband through photography. From the very beginning of my relationship with Isaac he encouraged my photography, Isaac and I are now getting older. We look past the physical changes and see the kindness in each other, the inner beauties. We support and encourage each other.

As I age, I see many changes in my body. The most dramatic is getting shorter. I’ve always been 5’2”; now I am about an inch shorter. Sometimes I still say 5’2. I guess that means I am not accepting the change. I look in the mirror and I see sun spots on my face, and a disappearing neckline and I wish I could change this, and I may. But underneath the physical self is an identity that believes in me, that charges ahead, the walks proudly with a smile, that believes in the inner goodness of people, that has too many photographic and artistic projects to probably ever complete, that embraces life with hope.

I am a firm believer in exercise. My daughter madeline introduced me to yoga 25 years ago. I used to take classes. That’s how I would start my morning. Now I do Qi Gong.

When I eat properly and exercise I feel better about myself.

At 82 ½ I feels great. That ½ is so important because I live everyday and try to make the most of it. Sometimes life throws you a screwball and you have to deal with it.

I went grey about 10 years ago because that’s who I am. I have gotten more compliments as a grey haired woman than when I was a blonde.