One of my colleagues at work tells me in a serious voice that my yarmulke gives her "bad feelings." I shop in the Navel; I live near Nada in Kinky province; my apartment complex is called "Joyful Tennouji." T-shirts are imprinted with ungrammatical English. The average citizen only prays when his son needs to get into college. The only person who knows what my "head beanie" is comes from some weird non-Jewish cult which spends its time in Israel. Where am I? Japan, of course. For two months in the summer of 1997, I bid my wife a temporary farewell, left my life as a graduate student at UC Berkeley, and went to work for a Japanese company in Kobe, Japan.
My time in Japan began and ended with two important holidays: Shavuous and Tisha B'Av. I arrived in June, in time to help complete the minyan for Shavuous; it was quite an international group of Yidden, from the Japanese Jew Abraham (who converted to Judaism along with his wife Zipporah) to the French pearl dealer and his son, to some visiting American businessmen. Although the Sephardic customs took some getting used to, everything was according to Halachah—it just took a lot longer!
There is a grocery store in Kobe which imports many American products with reliable hechsherim, so I simply made my own breakfast, lunch, and dinner, occasionally buying a plain, dressing-and-bug-free salad from the corner convenience store or eating sushi (uncooked salmon, yellowtail, or tuna) that had been prepared without contact with treif knives or countertops. (My work as a mashgiach at a glatt kosher restaurant in San Francisco helped me to understand the workings of kashrus so that I could know what was okay to eat and what was treifah). The Japanese love to go out and drink beer and sake (rice wine), making my social outings with Japanese colleagues and friends fun and kosher. One visiting chemist from Maryland who visits Japan twice a year told me that because he couldn't eat any of the food that his hosts offered and can only drink the beer, he has to be very careful when he goes out for a "business" lunch—he could end up on the floor, having imbibed past his limit in an attempt to stay full!
Wearing a yarmulke on the packed trains in Japan was an interesting experience to say the least, because many Japanese would stare at me: at first, because it is still rare for foreigners to ride the downtown subways, especially during rush hour. Then they would do a double take to stare at my yarmulke. If I caught their eyes, they would quickly look away—it isn't polite to stare in Japanese society. No doubt most people thought I was from some other religion with my pressed suit and shined shoes. Getting stared at is at first uncomfortable, but I got used to it.
Some of the long-time foreign residents in Kobe explained that living in Japan has helped to keep them deeply involved in frumkeit. It is harder to "assimilate" and thus lose your identity in a culture that will not completely accept foreigners into its midst. Many Americans, no matter how long they have lived in Japan or how excellent their Japanese, report that there is still a barrier between them and native Japanese citizens. (There are also many difficulties in actually becoming a legal Japanese citizen, but that is a different story.) Through e-mail, faxes, and phone calls, Jews living in Japan receive weekly droshes and vorts from yeshivot all around the world, including Aish HaTorah, Ohr Samayach, and others. All sorts of religious leaders, from Lubavitcher rabbis to Italian pearl dealers with smicha, come to Japan each year, sometimes doing outreach work, other times doing business. All of them bring with them kosher food, tons of books, and, of course, a desire to bring all Jews, regardless of their level of observance, closer to Judaism.
There was a friend of some friends of mine teaching English in a remote, rural region of Japan. Although I didn't get a chance to meet with him, as he lived about eight hours north of where I was, when I heard from him that he didn't have any Shabbos candles, candlesticks, or bentchers, I made up a "frumkeit in a box" kit and mailed it to him. Even in Japan, I learned, we can help other Jews who are looking to return to their roots.
I told her that just as a laser is more powerful than a flashlight because of its focused nature and can cut through dense materials, so a "restricted" Jewish lifestyle helps us to cut through thick barriers that, living in our secular society, so often hold people back: materialism, money, career success, etc. Whether or not she understood, I was grateful for the chance to think out loud about the power of my heritage. Upon returning to my home and looking through a book of talks given by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, I learned that he had used the exact same metaphor in one of his talks.
My wife and I kept in contact via phone calls and e-mail, "talking" to each other about three times a week (I am still quite grateful to my company for letting us do this). She sent me divrei Torah, lists of people who needed a mishabeirach, and updates on our Jewish community. She hoped to enrich my rather light kosher diet (which was primarily crackers and home-cooked rice) by sending me food through the mail. Candy bars, dehydrated food packets, and spices were fine, but when the sealed packages of meat finally arrived after being held up for three weeks in the Japanese postal system, I was a little concerned about the state of those glatt kosher salamis (especially because it is illegal to have meat products sent in the mail to Japan). Overall, though, I would recommend that visiting Jews simply bring with them those staples that are hard to find in Japan: kosher wine, kosher bread, and candy bars. Vegetables, fruits, and the like, although outrageously expensive, are readily available.
Nisan Anav's daughter, Dahlia, who was raised in Japan, is currently combing her deep (read: fluent) knowledge of the Japanese language with her interest and knowledge in Yiddishkeit. She has just finished translating a book on the Kabbalah from English into Japanese, and is about to begin working on the book, Toward a Meaningful Life: the Wisdom of the [Lubavitcher] Rebbe. I congratulated her on her choice of books and told her that I believe Japan can benefit from these teachings. She is another example of how, even living in Japan, Jews can contribute to other cultures.
If you visit Japan, be sure to visit the Jewish cemeteries in Yokohama and Nagasaki, and daven at the shuls in Kobe and Tokyo. Visiting Japan can help us to recognize that even in Asia we can find Jewish brothers and sisters with whom to refine our behavior and deepen our learning.