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Big breath. In and out now with your mouth open.

Big breath.

Real big. Again.

I understand you're a 49-year-old professor of anthropology at USC.

Yeah. I had a loss of energy and just this sort of dry, shallow cough,

which I still have.

How much cigarette smoking have you done in your life?

For about three years, I smoked a pack and a half a week.

- Have you ever had a malignancy before? - I did.

I had cervical carcinoma, and I had a hysterectomy.

Let it go.

- Your tummy soft? - Mm-mm.

Swallow, please.

- Is that the thyroid you're looking at? - Mm-hm. Again.

- You gonna do the lymph nodes? - Yes, I am.

Let's loosen things up for a minute.

Now we're trying to determine how much of your lung has fluid

and tumor in it and how much has good lung.

You can tell that by the sound?

We can tell by the difference in the note.

Uh-huh.

What the right lung shows is a lot of areas that are white...

- Mm-hm. - ...that are abnormal,

that has more fluid than it should.

Cancer cells are present in the fluid, and we don't know for certain

whether it is a primary lung cancer or one that has spread.

This is not the film that I started out to make.

Originally, I intended to do a broad-based depiction of Jewish life

in Fairfax in LA.

I hoped for the kind of professional distance

that every social scientist wants to bring to the subject,

but to do anything except something that touched my own life

was time I didn't have.

But I came into the community after I became ill,

and they came up to me with these treasures,

which I hadn't expected.

Offering resources, offering rituals,

offering this deep caring,

offering an interpretation of what my illness meant

and how it fitted into a whole cosmos, a whole world.

This is a community that is not ordinary.

It's not weird, but it's certainly not what you'd expect to find all around you.

It's as if I walked into a New Guinean village

in the middle of my own backyard.

This community, which looks, from the outside, sometimes very drab

and you see these dark figures hurrying along the street,

they seem, for all the world,

some of the most discouraging and beaten people.

And yet you step inside these little worlds

that they have all over their streets,

and there's something there you never could have dreamed existed.

They have what everyone is looking for in religion,

and that is community and spirituality.

I certainly didn't intend to make a film about the Orthodox per se,

but they turned out to be somehow the most compelling

and drew my life into theirs so deeply that they became the focus.

And in a way, that was kind of familiar and satisfying,

because this is really what anthropologists are taught to do.

You study what is happening to others

by understanding what is going on in yourself,

and you yourself become the data-gathering instrument,

so that you come from a culture

and you step into a new one,

and how you respond to the new one tells you about them,

and it tells you about the one you came from.

- Hello. Can I come in? - Yes, please come in.

I want it to look like my own hair,

- obviously, as much as it can. - Okay, okay.

We don't always carry every color and every style.

If you want, I can show you a couple of styles--

You know why I want a wig? I mean, it's not for religious purposes.

Yeah, yeah. I have an idea.

Well, yeah, I mean, I...

I don't know if or when or how much hair I may lose from chemotherapy,

but, um, it could be a lot.

And what's so ironic about this is that I spent my childhood

trying to get rid of curls

- because I thought it was Jewish hair... - Oh, really?

...and I was embarrassed.

But now that I'm middle-aged and I like it, here I am getting a wig.

- You wear a wig for religious purposes? - Right.

If people think it's your hair,

don't they think that then you're not being observant?

It's not-- It really has nothing to do with that.

The reason women cover their hair is not because-- To look ugly.

I mean, this is part of modesty.

And just like there is modesty in attitudes and in views of life,

and so there is in dress.

And here is, after all, an expression of a woman's body.

Do you feel naked with your wig off?

You become very conscious of yourself.

Especially if a man with another man would come into the room.

It's like first thing a woman would do if she wasn't wearing a wig

is run to cover her hair or something.

For your husband, you can reveal your hair.

- Oh, my God. Ah! - I mean...

Jeez.

Okay, you don't cover your ears. You look very young.

Well, I don't know what my children would say if I walked in the house.

Give me just a second. Let me pull out a brush.

What does a modern woman give up to follow these laws?

The truth is, I was never what you'd call a modern woman.

- Really? - Okay?

I'm what you call an ultra-Orthodox, religious Hasidic woman.

But do you know enough about modern women's lives to know

how your life is different from theirs?

- Um... - For example, did you date?

- Did you meet a lot of different men? - Um... Well, it...

Um, I did date, but not the way the modern woman dates.

Okay? It was always-- Here, I'm doing something else.

- Mm-hm. - I don't know if you--

I'm just, you know, trying, um...

The modern woman may not necessarily date for purposes of marriage.

The modern woman may just date, you know, to sleep with a guy or something.

Mm-hm, mm-hm.

And that's not what is done in our circles.

- Let me just pull down another wig. - Okay.

- This is a little blonder. - Blonder and blonder.

Yeah, the color is not, you know, really--

It's maybe difficult to tell the wrong color.

- You look interesting in blond. - It's interesting in blond.

- In this color. - I'm not a blond.

You know what I've always imagined?

A Jewish woman, an Orthodox woman, is unavailable to her husband

- approximately half the month, right? - Yeah.

Does that mean when she is available to him

- that it has... greater meaning? - Much more meaning? Yes, it does.

- Is that your experience? - It's definitely true.

I can tell you, whatever you have between your husband grows.

Hold it down close to your front so that when I ride it over the back...

- It won't go forward. - Right.

- Okay. - Okay.

- Here, we'll... - Oh, that's kind of interesting.

You have other laws, I mean, other rules, a lot of them, don't you,

that, as an Orthodox woman, you have to follow?

This is very long on you. I just, you know, noticed. But--

What if you make a mistake?

- What would you do to make up for it? - You don't...

If you're living-- If you're living according to the Jewish laws and if--

A religious woman does not make a mistake.

The biggest mistake that you would make is,

when she's not supposed to touch her husband,

will accidentally touch her husband.

That's the kind of mistake that she can possibly make.

Does it ever happen? Do you know of any cases?

I wouldn't want you to name names, of course, but--

- I don't, I really don't. - Does it--?

There must be some cases in the community

where people, you know, fall by the wayside or...

What happens to them when they violate the custom or the law?

If they do, I really wouldn't know about it.

- Yeah. Is it just... very quiet? - If it--

I really doubt that it is violated, because people--

I mean, if the woman is not so religious, at least the man would be.

- I mean, somebody would be religious. - Mm-hm.

And I really doubt very much that there's really any violation.

I don't know about any.

- Really? - Yes.

Would anybody ever go to the rabbi for forgiveness?

Or, I mean, if there were a violation...

- No, it's not... We're not a... - ...would he be the one? Wouldn't happen?

We're not Catholic or Christian or something like that.

What about mikvah?

Mikvah is one of the laws of the Jewish woman.

What do you do? What's that? You know, I've never been to a mikvah.

- Really? I thought you did. - Yeah. No. No, I'm going to.

- Yeah? - But I haven't yet.

- Okay. - Can you tell me about it?

What does it feel like to go to a mikvah?

Um, it's a very... What can I say? It's very personal.

I mean, it's not something

you would tell your friends, like, "Gosh, I'm going to the mikvah tonight."

- Really? - Yeah. Because, it's...

Not everybody has to know your intimate life with your husband.

After a woman goes to the mikvah,

she's, you know, allowed to be with her husband.

And before she went to the mikvah, she wasn't. Okay?

So right away, people know what happens in your life.

So it's a good feeling.

Do you take that feeling home to your husband?

Yeah. It is. I mean, it's interesting. It's hard to, you know--

It may be hard to understand unless you've actually experienced it.

After all that work with Nesha to try to find the right wig,

I didn't buy a wig, because, in fact, I never lost my hair.

I did lose my curls, my Jewish curls that I had this lifetime of struggle with.

One day I just got up and my hair had gone straight.

With or without a wig, however, I did go to the mikvah.

Even though you're not married and you're not going to the mikvah

in order to purify yourself for the sexual act,

this is your need to become hallowed,

to express yourself religiously, and this is your relationship with God.

Barbara began her personal journey

with this ritual purification.

As both a scientist and a sick woman,

she was intrigued by mikvah's promise of renewal.

Miriam Cutler, a rabbi's wife, was her guide.

Okay, you gotta give me directions, Miriam. What do I do next?

- You have to comb your hair. - Okay.

You have to make sure that the water goes through each strand of hair,

pubic hair and underarm hair.

In other words, the water is supposed to cover you completely,

where there's nothing between you and the water.

Before you go in, I'll have to check you.

I have to check that you have no hair on your body and that all the makeup

- and nail polish is totally off. - Mm-hm.

As you're in the water, you can think of things that you want to happen,

because when you're in a state of great purity,

then your wishes can come true.

How's it feel?

It feels like it's exactly body temperature.

- Great. - Very relaxing.

It's supposed to be a very comfortable experience.

Elevating experience.

All right, now, what you'll do is,

- you'll have to stand up... - Mm-hm.

...and dunk your head totally in the water,

and I make sure that it's-- That the head is totally covered.

And then I say "kosher."

When I say "kosher,"

then you'll pop up your head, and then you'll dunk twice again.

- Okay. - So go ahead.

All right. Fine. Kosher. Oh, you touched-- You touched the sides.

- You weren't supposed to. - Oh, I didn't-- Okay.

You're supposed to float in such a way that the water

- goes up inside of you and out of you. - Oh.

- It's almost like a douche in a way. - Okay, here we go.

- All right. - Ready?

Okay. Kosher.

Think elevated thoughts.

Kosher.

Okay, one more time.

Kosher.

- Kosher? - Kosher.

- You did a good job. - Now what?

Now-- Well, did you have any pure thoughts and wishes as you were in there?

Well, I felt very peaceful. And I felt very, um...

It feels very good. It feels very, um...

- How can I say it? - Fulfilling?

Yeah, yeah. It's something that I can imagine doing again.

- Mm-hm. - I like it.

Well, I hope you get married and then have to go.

Let's do one thing at a time.

First I'm gonna get well.

Going to a mikvah to purify yourself before making love

must be very arousing.

My experience in being around Orthodox families

is that there is a special kind of buzz between them very often,

and I think it comes from the fact that they're not available to each other

half the month sexually.

Mikvah is at the center of Orthodox married life,

as Barbara's friend Rabbi Berel Zaltzman explains.

This law of the Jewish law to be...

This special time to be separate,

this helps so, so many to forget everything.

The old fighting, the everything.

Just take, for example,

if you stay with your husband, and your husband or you,

you go for two or three weeks to someplace because of your job.

You have to go.

And you or your husband, you go there and he waits for you.

He don't go to some-- Any places looking for, you know... for enjoy.

And when he came back, how you wait for him, how you love him,

how he loves you,

you can imagine, it's everything new.

It's everything fresh. You forget everything.

You want to be together. You want...

He wants to be with you. He wants you.

And this is the way what we have the whole life.

Every month, I have, like, a new wife. She's new for me.

I forget everything. I want her, and she wants me.

I am a Jew, and I believe in God.

And, um... And I love the traditions.

And so much of the law makes incredible sense, so that I can respect it

and I can also live a lot of it.

Sultana and her family are particularly interesting.

They're baal teshuvah, which means people who have actually returned

to an Orthodox way of practicing Judaism,

and you can see this in their consciousness.

You know, Sultana, what intrigues me about this...

Cervantes, Dostoyevsky, Flaubert,

Lessing, Shakespeare, Ulysses.

...it's an incredibly eclectic

and, you know, the library of a terribly sophisticated and educated woman.

You see these here, and then you see the bookcase over here,

which is the library of an Orthodox Jew.

It's always fascinated me as to how you put them all together.

The authors, say, from the secular world are touching upon the same thing.

They just haven't quite found the same path.

They don't use the same vocabulary.

But this is the library of a profoundly questioning mind.

And most of this is about a believing mind.

And doesn't that leave you in an agony of always having to go back and forth?

This is knowledge. I have a certainty about this.

It's not a question of "I believe in this" or "I believe in God."

I know this, and I know that also. It's just a knowledge of the two.

They're not so separate from each other. They're really not.

You know, there's a saying. I don't know where it came from,

but it goes something about:

"When the heart is truly open, there is room for 'yes' and 'no.'"

You've probably come through more changes than most people.

What are the big--? What's the big shape of this story of your life,

your religious life?

It wasn't a decision to make a big step to become religious.

It wasn't like that. It was more a question of a journey.

And I felt that I forgave God for everything.

And I felt that that was reciprocal. And I felt very, very thankful.

And I had to discover how to show that thanks.

- And that meant to live as a Jew. - Mm-hm.

But you were willing to actually put your marriage, your family,

at risk to do this.

- I mean, what if he had refused? - Well, he did refuse.

Oh? What happened?

My husband said, "I can't do it, I won't do it, and this is it."

And I said, "You're right," essentially. I mean, these are not the words,

but essentially, what was said was "Okay, you're right.

You can have the stereo, you should have the couch,

you enjoy the color TV, you should have it."

There was maybe four very tough years

that really brought our marriage to the brink of separation.

I can sit down and tell you the story.

- Can I sit down and tell you? - Yeah.

I'm gonna censor everything you have to say.

- You'll have to work at it. - Um...

When I finally understood

that she having accepted who she was as a Jew

left her really no alternatives,

and I took a harder look at it myself.

And the truth is that, while so much of the motivation for me to get into this

was her and my life and my family,

there were some things that became very attractive to me.

One of the last things that I was willing to begin to observe, so to speak,

was the two separate beds.

- He hates this topic. - Why?

Because most... I mean, one of the most common problems

that a baal teshuvah couple faces is over the issue of mikvah.

That's the problem.

The last vestige of being able to hold on to anything for him

was the issue of the separate beds.

He didn't come near me, even though we were in the same bed.

He didn't even roll over and breathe on me.

But still, it was one bed, and it was-- Well, once in a while.

But still, it was one bed.

And that, symbolically, was very important to him.

Takes quite an adjustment. And I fought it for a long time.

- Awful long time. - I just said:

"If I'm really gonna keep the mitzvah, I'm not gonna sleep in the bed,"

and I moved out into one of my kid's beds.

- Wow. - That isn't what you did.

I did. I went to sleep in Flora's room for three nights.

- Slept in my room for three nights. - But it wasn't a protest.

It wasn't.

It wasn't like you were gonna spend the rest of your life doing that.

It wasn't out of anger.

It was that he had the right to have the one bed.

That was his right.

And I had the right to really keep the mitzvah--

But, sweetie pie...

And if the only way I could do it was to leave, that that's what I should do.

And this is a real separation. I can't hand him a fork.

We cannot share an object in common.

My wife was turning them and...

Just so somebody turns them.

- Yeah, but you didn't turn these. - I turned them once.

- These? - Oh, no, you have to turn those.

There are hamburgers. There's lamb chops. Chicken salad.

If you're going to have bread, I brought out a washing cup and a hose.

Flora, how old were you when all this came upon you?

- Eight. - How is it for you now?

It's okay, except for sometimes.

But, Flora?

Didn't you always relate to me and my problems?

Right. We always talked. I didn't talk to my mom.

I didn't like my mom for a long time.

- Really? - I didn't like her.

Because it asked so much of you?

Well, because I thought she was doing something to me.

First I thought she was making everything up

and she was doing it for some reason

which I didn't understand, because no one else I knew,

or none of my friends and none of the people I associated with, did this.

They looked at me like I was strange.

I kept kosher and didn't eat cheeseburgers or whatever.

What do you think of going out with boys,

my darling on-the-verge-of-16-year-old daughter?

Let's hear it on dating, Flora.

- I don't wanna talk about it. - No?

- Is that tough for all the girls your age? - I don't know. It depends.

Different parents feel different ways toward things.

- Especially this one. - Especially this one?

Flora would like to be able to socialize a little more in ways

that I'm not so sure I want her to socialize.

So we're trying to, you know, make some compromises.

I've always been very close to my daughter,

in spite of the fact that I've raised this issue.

All the conflicts that I had...

- Mm-hm. - ...Flora had.

I remember days, I remember hours,

I remember just sitting with her and talking to her.

And in my most intense times of conflicts with Suzanne, I could go to her.

- Mm-hm. - I'm her daddy.

And feelings are real important to me,

and they always have been to this family.

And they go beyond law and custom and everything else.

It depends on what the feelings are and what the law is.

- That's not what I'm saying at all. - I don't think--

When you're new to something, as I am and as my wife is,

you don't know everything.

She doesn't know what the 45 different interpretations

or commentaries on the law have been.

So it's very important for her to cling to that one thing,

because I know it can't be that, uh... unbending.

It's not so much that the law is unbending.

It's that I tend to be more unyielding.

Totally unyielding.

How much can you identify with Sultana?

Well, to tell you the truth...

I can identify in that I can understand what she's talking about.

And probably more than with anyone else I know,

I feel envy, because I think she's stepped through that invisible barrier.

- You can't step through? - Exactly.

I can see through the membrane, and I can't walk through it.

And the membrane is thinner now than it's ever been.

Because there are times when, in this illness,

I realize I can't do it alone.

I really need help, that something has to come from outside of me.

Or it may be inside of me,

but it's not the regular stuff that I can use.

I can't use my head in the same way that I always have all my life.

So Barbara decided to try something new.

Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson is the leader of a quarter of a million Jews

who believe he can make miracles.

She took the chance of writing to him to ask for a miracle.

I think you have to write down yourself...

- Okay. - ...this particular letter in English.

And just to explain to the rabbi like a kid to a father,

just very, very honest, very openly.

- Okay. - Um...

Like you spoke to yourself. Like you spoke to God.

Okay.

"I am a professor of anthropology.

In June...

I learned I have lung cancer."

Um...

"I have had

two courses of chemotherapy,

which have not been successful.

Now it appears there are no medical solutions which I can turn to."

Shall I say "At the suggestion of my friends the Zaltzmans"?

- Yeah. - He knows you.

"...I have become particularly interested in Orthodox life."

I shouldn't say "though I'm not myself Orthodox"?

- No, don't do this. - Okay.

You say enough already.

- "I like the Orthodox life," you know? - Okay. Okay.

Even when the rabbi told you--

Will tell you to keep everything of Judaism like a strict Orthodox,

even that's easier than the chemotherapy, yeah.

- Easier than the chemotherapy? - The chemotherapy.

- A hundred percent. - Oy vey!

- Much easier. - The chemotherapy, you only do a few days.

If you start keeping kosher and all that, you do it for your life.

This is easy to do. Believe me.

Chaya, I'm sometimes lazy.

- Every one of us... - I can't believe. You, lazy?

- Yes. - ...have this sometimes, but...

Like, you know, wearing clothes the way you do and stockings and all

and a sheitel on a very hot day,

I don't know if I would have the discipline to do that.

- Who told you about the sheitel? - It's not it, Barbara.

Well, if you do the whole thing, that's what you do.

- Take it easy. - I'm going too far?

- You make the whole thing... - Kosher and matzo

is very far away from that.

- Really? - Yeah, sure.

Okay, Berel. It's not easy.

I don't want to say it and not do it.

"I'm prepared to become more intensely Jewish,

though at my own pace, if you think this is advised."

When you see, you believe.

I would certainly like that. I would be very grateful.

Not just to be well, but to see and to have a miracle done for me.

I mean, not just because I would like to be well,

but because everybody wants a miracle.

You know-- I mean, you're Russian. You know Dostoyevsky?

He says what everyone wants is bread and miracles.

That's what everyone wants from religion. Not the church, not the laws.

They want bread and miracles. And I'm no different.

- I thank you. - Yes.

The first leap I made didn't require faith at all.

It required simply being receptive to how much they cared about me

and how much they believed that I was going to be well

and be aided by their treatment of me, by their actions.

Rabbi Naftali Estulin is a charismatic figure

among the 15,000 Soviet Jews who've settled in Fairfax.

He reacted to Barbara's illness by conducting a ritual

which gave her a new Hebrew name.

According to tradition,

the Angel of Death wouldn't be able to find her with her new name.

On the one hand, it could be looked at as magical

in kind of the superficial sense.

You change my name, you change my destiny.

It's sort of simplistic.

But then I began to see that in a different light,

because as Naftali and the others explained,

it is not simply a name.

It's a message about beginning again.

The ordinary early-morning prayers made way for the special ceremony,

even though Barbara had to watch from behind the partition

that always separates the women from the men.

Naftali said something about

"so the Angel of Death doesn't know you or doesn't find you"...?

Because it's a new name. As the name, it becomes a new person.

So does that mean your old fate is escaped?

You've changed names. A new source of life.

This is the reason to change your name. A name is very important.

So this would give me a new grasp of health and...?

- Yes. - Well, would you tell him

- I'd like him to pick it? - Okay.

Whatever he would decide. As long as he tells me what it means.

- What's your mother's name? - Fayge.

- Fayge, one name, she has? - Yes.

- Okay. I'll go. - Is that...?

Will you signal me when they come to that part where they say it?

- Yeah. Okay. I want to hear it now. - Which...? Okay.

Thank you.

...Fayge...

- How do you feel? - Overwhelmed. I have to sit down.

- Why did they say your new name? - Because I'm sick and--

- You'll be well. - Thank you, Mr. Weiss.

- So, what's your new name? - My new name is Hana.

Now it's Hana Basya, uh, Bas Faygy,

which is "Hana, the daughter of God and the daughter of Fayge,"

which also means "bird," "little bird."

It's my mother's name.

And he said he gave me that name because it's all good things.

He said it-- You notice, when he read it, how forcefully he said it over and over?

It was like, "You should really listen." It's very convincing.

I expect to feel better this afternoon.

Oh.

I just kissed the Torah with my new name, Hana,

which I didn't answer to because I never heard it before.

This was a very special honor

because women traditionally don't even get to touch the sacred scrolls.

I came to this work with certain antipathies

to the way women are treated, to the exclusions of women, um...

to the secondary "status" of women in the faith,

to the fact that this is a very patriarchal religion.

There's no getting away from that.

What I had left out of the construction was the return value.

The women are given roles and tasks that are fulfillable,

and they are honored for them.

What do you think I am, Rabbi Fayge?

- Clay? - I feel that I made a definite commitment

that this is the type of life I wanted to lead.

This is the type of family I wanted.

These were the beliefs I had. And it was very good for me.

I'm often asked, "Well, you grew up this way, so you had no choice."

And I keep remembering, yes, I did have a choice.

Fayge Estulin has been married to Naftali for 14 years.

She strictly adheres to Orthodox law

and has carefully prepared her kosher kitchen for Passover.

I think there are misconceptions because of ignorance.

That's why I like to tell people that, yes, we go to college,

yes, we're educated in America,

yes, we read the newspaper and we're very aware,

and no, we're not like people living in the Middle Ages.

However, we have these very strong values

and a very definite lifestyle that we lead.

You have a whole additional life that we're not seeing.

Yeah.

What is it you do in addition to this, your work?

I sell real estate.

You should have come earlier while I was doing some negotiating

on the phone while I was cooking.

But you missed that.

I think there's a lot of confusion today if you're a woman.

Because you're expected to be everything.

On the one hand, being a mother is not satisfying enough,

because that's what they say: It's not satisfying enough.

Working isn't satisfying enough. I know when I was just working, it wasn't.

I don't feel that conflict as strongly.

My feet are very firmly planted on the ground.

I am an Orthodox Jew.

I'm a Hasid. And there's no contradiction in anything.

Could this have been you?

You mean, could I be one of these women?

Unfortunately, when I look at the women,

it's across this vast and affectionate distance.

It's so much not possible for it to be me for one reason--

There are several.

One reason, this woman we spoke with earlier articulated perfectly

when she said how she loved the restrictions,

how they gave her life order.

Now, part of me is deeply attracted to that.

That's why I've always loved ritual.

But a part of me is profoundly rebellious and independent,

and I do not love restrictions imposed on me from outside.

I don't think I could bear that for a quarter of an hour.

- Let me do it. - Mm-hm.

- I light this. - Mm-hm. No, no, no.

Certainly, the men have more of the kinds of things

that I myself would want and value.

But the men don't get cheated the way they do in my society

of participation in a family, and they don't get cheated of intimacy.

If I got married to my wife,

not just because, you know, two people came together and said:

"Hello. Let's live together."

We came and we bound ourselves by the laws of God.

The whole house is now running with the laws of God.

It is different. Everything has a purpose. Everything has a meaning.

Everything has love. Everybody has understanding.

Because the boss is God.

Little salad?

Delicious.

When the time came for us to film a wedding sequence

between Olga and Eugene,

we had another experience of the power of mikvah.

We waited for the bride to have her period so that she could go to the mikvah

after the number of days she's supposed to wait, when she is pure and clean,

and then the wedding could be held.

Special teas were brewed.

Prayers were made. The film crew was waiting.

The hall was booked tentatively. Nothing could go forward.

And it suddenly became clear that, you know, we lived in a world--

We, secular modern people,

lived in a world with calendars and schedules and dates

and a sense of the urgency of all those absolutely artificial markers.

And here was this biological, concrete event.

When the woman's body was ready, the ritual would be held

and the ceremony could take place.

Okay. I want you to know-- You speak English very good, right?

This is the marriage contract, which says your name and your wife's name

and says where it is, what time and where and when--

I mean, what day and when and where.

And you take upon yourself full responsibility

to feed your wife and to clothe her

and to give her everything which is necessary as a Jewish good husband,

which means whatever it says it here, you're accepting.

- You accept? - Accept. You're accepting? Good.

Barbara visited Olga and Eugene

just before their Orthodox wedding ceremony.

Actually, they were married in the Soviet Union

in a civil ceremony 13 years ago.

Now they're living as Jews in Fairfax and struggling to succeed as performers.

- We are there. - Thank you very much.

How did you become interested in Judaism?

Because you weren't Jewish at the time.

Our friends in the refuseniks Jewish community,

- they introduced us to Judaism. - Uh-huh.

So we started to celebrate holidays. We started to celebrate Shabbat.

Many people don't even know what a refusenik is.

This is a Soviet Jew who applied to go to Israel

and whose visa was denied.

- By the Soviet authorities. - By the Soviet authorities, um, whatever.

Applying to go to Israel is a political thing.

They consider you as a... You're just like a traitor.

And you can't continue to live

under the same circumstances like you did before.

So you lose your job and you lose your friends

because friends, they're also scared to keep contact with you.

But that was very risky, wasn't it?

Barbara, the thing is, I was born really like Orthodox Communist.

And I really believed that our country is the greatest one,

and I really felt it.

And suddenly I realized that it's all fence around.

Does it hurt you to speak negatively about your homeland?

I'm not talking about my homeland.

I am talking about people who occupied my land.

You have to separate Russia and the Soviet Union.

I am Russian because I was born in Moscow.

And I was, you know-- The history is my roots.

I feel it. Like Jews, they feel the roots.

They feel their connections with us.

That's how I feel.

One way to look at it is that you have no political freedom

and no religious freedom in the Soviet Union.

When you become Jewish, you do--

You gain many things, but you also give up some freedom.

So, in a way...

What do you mean, give up some freedom to be Jewish?

- You give up some free--? - Well, you have to follow many laws.

But this is a freedom, a real one, because you choose it.

The wedding was improvised in the alleyway behind Naftali's synagogue.

It's the opposite of what we think of as the rigid religious behavior

that requires you to do something in a very formal way.

It must be that they've lived like this.

It must be that all these people who were in the underground world

of Judaism in the Soviet Union survived by that kind of flexibility.

Show them the finger, the ring.

- This is yours? - Yes.

You paid for it? With your own money?

American money or Russian money?

Mazel tov! Mazel tov! Mazel tov!

When one is married,

the cup that's held the wine from which the couple has drunk

at the wedding is smashed.

And it's smashed for many reasons.

One of them is to remember that the temple was destroyed.

So you take always these moments of joy, and you remember the grief.

They presented me with an organic life.

A life that was all of a piece.

It had a totality because of the way the people knew each other,

because of the deep intertwining of their lives at every moment,

on every level, in every relationship,

and because of this envelope of belief that enfolds them all

so that there almost can't be a separate word for religion.

It's not a separate category or activity.

It's embedded in everything.

The reply that I gave you

to the question of restrictions and the loss of freedom and independence

when I spoke about it several months ago is not the one I would say now.

Mostly then I was thinking about restrictions as coming from the outside.

Things I would have to do because they were laws.

I was thinking, of course, about... um...

What? The priesthood? Religious laws? God giving me rules?

There was no sense in this of the God within, let's say,

or the restrictions coming from something that I carried,

not that I bowed to.

Suddenly, here are restrictions.

I can't walk the way I did, eat, breathe, the basic functions,

mother my children the way I did.

Every day presents me with new ones.

And I have some choice still, some days more than others,

as to whether I see those as restrictions or doorways to other possibilities.

As Barbara became increasingly fragile,

she continued to struggle with the unfinished business of her life.

Her friends in the Orthodox community

offered their own traditional forms of help.

One of the rituals that they were most eager for me to have

from the very beginning was "get."

A Jewish divorce.

Rabbi Zaltzman told me, "Your civil divorce doesn't talk about your soul."

He said, "How are you going to get your neshama back?

Because when you marry, your neshama, your soul,

is wrapped around your husband."

And indeed, I had lived with and loved the same man for 30 years.

And I didn't feel I had gotten my soul back.

And I knew I needed to.

So I put myself in their hands.

- I am the agent... - I am the agent...

- ...to deliver the get... - ...to deliver the get...

- ...the bill of divorce... - ...the bill of divorce...

- ...to his wife... - ...to his wife...

- And here I have the get... - Here I have the get...

- ...and the documents proving... - ...and the documents proving...

- ...that I was duly delegated... - ...that I was duly delegated...

- ...by the husband. - ...by the husband.

Do you...

...consent to receive the bill of divorce sent to you by your husband...

...of your own free will, without compulsion and unconditionally?

Yes.

Now we have to fold the get.

If there is anyone who has a claim against the validity of this get,

he shall come forth now before it is too late to state his objection.

Now, you hold this hand, the hand this way.

And he will take this get and hold it over your hand.

And then when I tell him to let it go, you catch it.

The get.

- And don't let it go until I tell you. - I know.

He knows. It's not the first time for him.

- Say: This is your get... - This is your get...

- ...the bill of divorce... - ...the bill of divorce...

- ...which your husband sent to you. - ...which your husband sent to you.

- Therewith... - Therewith...

- ...you shall be divorced from him... - ...you shall be divorced from him...

- ...from this moment. - ...from this moment.

- And you are permissible to anyone. - You are permissible to anyone.

Okay. Squeeze it together.

Close it and lift it up high and put it under your arm.

Okay, you go that way.

And make four steps forward. Yeah.

Okay. Come back to me and give me the get. That's all.

When I cut the get, they are cut off now.

You are not allowed to marry for 92 days.

May God bless you and grant you peace and fulfillment.

Wow.

These people have the fundamental human heritage

that the rest of us have lost:

spirituality and community.

That's probably what they've shown me more than anything else.

How will those figure in my life in the future?

I have no way of knowing. I know I want them.

I know they've made them accessible to me. I don't know what my future will be.

I have no way of anticipating my health, my freedom.

I'll never be the same after doing this work.

I will never want to lead a life where I have to do without those things again.

And I can't think of any other people

to whom I could have turned where I would find these offered to me

so abundantly and, in a way, so simply.

And here it was. It was, in a way, mine all along.

It was what I belonged to without knowing it.

Um...

And I suppose that's a treasure, really, that they've given to me.

If I can, in my work as an anthropologist,

at the same time make it clear to others

who they are and what they feel and what they have,

if I can take what they've shown me and pass that through me

and out into the world, then my work is done.

One.

Two. Three.

Four. Five. Good!

- Now I read all this? - Yes.

"Grant this day that in your glorious Shechinah,

there shall be five sweetened severities,

through the striking of the willow twigs on the ground,

according to the custom of your holy prophets.

Awaken your love.

Show us your abounding affection in tempering the severities

and strict judgments.

And from there bestow generous bounty upon your servant who prays to you,

pleading that you grant me long life.

Forgive my sins, wrongdoings and transgressions.

Extend your hands to receive my wholehearted penitence.

Open your bounteous treasure to satiate a thirsting soul.

As it is written, the Lord will open for you his bounteous treasure,

the heavens,

to send rain for your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hand."

- Amen. - Amen.

I'd like you to kiss there.

- And let's throw it. - Okay.

Come on. All the problems.

- Come even closer. - Get rid of them? All right.

You did it!

Barbara died two weeks after we filmed her interview.