Carly Goes to a Hindu Temple…Again
Carly Silver continues her adventures in non-Jewish houses of worship. In this installment, Silver returns to Hinduism, visiting a Hindu temple under construction in Flushing.
The smell of fish assaulted my senses as I prowled through J Mart, a Japanese supermarket, in Flushing, Queens. One particular tank, labeled “Crap Fish”—hopefully a misnomer, made me sidle farther away from the seafood. I was in Flushing as neighborhoods editor for Inside New York, a Columbia University-based guidebook to New York City. When writers didn’t sign up to investigate some neighborhoods, yours truly went to cover them.
After doing plenty of work in the Japanese-, Chinese- and Korean-American sections of town, I had yet to make my way to the Indian-American area of Flushing, where I planned to renew my history of trekking long distances to visit Hindu temples. On previous trips to a Hare Krishna temple in Manhattan, I had managed to find my own personal shrine in a Lower East Side Whole Foods and become entranced by mantras and the diverse backgrounds of Hare Krishna followers.
This time, the destination was the Hindu Temple Society of North America. I made my way onto the hot Flushing streets and down one boulevard after another. Getting lost on my way to a temple was nothing new. On my first attempt to visit the Hare Krishnas, I couldn’t find my way and ended up in the aforementioned paradise of an organic supermarket.
After asking the umpteenth construction worker where I was supposed to be going, I finally found the right block. Switching my iPod to a Desi remix of Jay Sean’s “Eyes on You” to get myself in an Indian mood, I made my way down the street, expecting to see a colorful building with gilded spires and a welcoming sign.
Instead, all that met the eye was gray, barely enlivened by a hint of gold on the roof, which was constructed in layers like a wedding cake, each carved with ornate figures that were difficult to make out. The Hare Krishna temple looked similarly unprepossessing at first, located in an apartment building up a cement staircase. It led into an apartment-sized lobby opening into a cool wooden sanctuary.
This temple, though, looked like a construction site. Upon entering the courtyard, grit from the dusty ground coated my lips, while the smell of sun-baked pavement tickled my nostrils. I followed in the wake of a confident-looking Indian family who strode up to the small door in the side of the temple. A pile of shoes lay on the black rubber mat by the door. Reluctantly, I shed my sandals as I had once before, unsure of what lay ahead.
The family ahead of me disappeared up a stairway. Tentatively, I looked back and forth, unsure of which way to go. A sign saying, “Coconut Breaking Here” was tacked to the wall. There must be some scene where people raised the hairy fruits high and bashed them down for the fun of it, but there were no coconuts in sight.
A group of women dressed in brilliantly-colored saris shot through with gold and silver thread with red bindis between their eyebrows crowded the entranceway. They led the way up one staircase and into a lobby where a woman, black hair tied back in an excruciatingly tight bun, sat in an information booth.
A clear plastic wall separated her from the temple-goers. “Hi,” I said, painting a cheerful smile over my nervous countenance. “What time are you open until? Also, what’s coconut-breaking?” I took out my reporter’s notebook, ready to jot down the information.
She explained brusquely that individuals broke coconuts as offerings to various gods. Then, she grabbed a business card and read the hours from it, glancing dubiously at me out of the corner of her eye. I shifted nervously from foot to foot, averting my gaze as she nodded at the larger sanctuary. “Go in,” she said briskly.
To the left was a large space with images strategically placed around the room. As I entered, a sign read, “Please dress appropriately for the temple.” As it was a Wednesday afternoon, the sanctuary was rather empty, but several men and women in traditional Indian garb prostrated themselves before small wooden altars hung on every wall. Two women sat on the floor off to the left, cut flowers strewn across their laps, soon to be offered to a god. Others worshipped at large wooden pavilions housing life-size statues of deities.
Glancing down, I noticed that, instead of more respectful attire, I was wearing clothes that kept me cool on my trek through Flushing: worn navy capris and a pale blue T-shirt, which I bought—on sale, of course—from Ricky’s, reading, “Will Work for Cupcakes.” It had seemed appropriate, given my ongoing love affair with baked goods, but it wasn’t exactly suited for a house of worship.
Grimacing slightly, I studied the first altar, a square wood formation like an oversized book. Though the deity’s name was inscribed on the wood, the figure was unfamiliar—apparently, what I learned a year-and-a-half ago in class hadn’t prepared me for the multitude of Hindu gods. I searched the image’s gilded face, wreathed head and limbs splayed in oddly graceful poses, for something familiar.
What was I looking for? After all, Judaism doesn’t approve of graven images. Though I’m reluctant to label Hindu statues “idols,” for fear of that word’s negative connotation, I couldn’t help but feel discomfort here. Anthropomorphic deities, these images of the divine were anathema to Judaism, which was founded on the rejection of Hinduism’s primary mode of ritual expression. No matter how much I stared into that golden image’s face, I couldn’t see a divine spark or animating force. Nothing about it seemed remotely familiar.
Maybe there didn’t need to be something of my own religion within that of another. Just because I couldn’t recognize divinity within Hindu images didn’t mean that they were opposed to what I believe. Both expressed different perceptions of divinity. Even if Jews didn’t approve of how others manifested their beliefs, that didn’t mean others couldn’t—or shouldn’t—do so After all, the famous story of Abraham smashing his father’s idols appears in our tradition only as a midrash, not in the text of Genesis itself. Looking at these oddly realistic figures, I still felt uncomfortable. However, this wasn’t the right time to pick up a hammer and do away with someone else’s idols.
Turning to a far wall, I glimpsed something vaguely familiar. Peering closer, I grinned in delight at the sight of an old friend. Well, as close to an old friend as one can get with an inanimate statue of someone else’s deity. The statue was of Shiva Nataraja, the god Shiva in his dancing form, in which he looked remarkably like one of the Rockettes, but with a few more hands and a crown. Shiva Nataraja is the King of the Dance, but this isn’t any normal two-step. Shiva’s dance is believed to be the dance of creation and destruction that maintains and ruins the universe. The dance’s duality personifies Shiva, who often embodies such binaries. I smiled at the figure, blithely kicking up one of his legs in a jig, and then proceeded to gaze at other altars, none of which struck the same chord.
Eventually, it was time to move on. I walked out of the sanctuary and down the stairs to collect my shoes. Before I could so, I noticed a short, colonnaded hall made of the same gray stone as the temple’s exterior. I padded down the steps and noticed a familiar shape carved into a column. The engraved figure rang the same bell in my mind as Shiva Nataraja. This one was the elephant-shaped Ganesh, god of beginnings. His carving seemed to beckon me down the corridor to other columns, each engraved with the same image. I almost felt the urge to thank him for his welcoming smile, but remembered that Ganesh also symbolizes life’s dangers, the good and the bad, the ups and the downs—not so different from what students learn in Hebrew school. Life can be good and bad, but, with God’s help, it gets better.
I came to this temple expecting to an art exhibit, ready to examine a few pretty statues, then leave. In truth, I was able to recognize both my own academic experience and some familiar religious beliefs in several Hindu gods. The divine power to create and destroy, life’s wonders and dangers—these are universal principles, limited to neither Judaism nor Hinduism. Different religions express these ideas differently, whether through physical images or Biblical stories.
Collecting my shoes, I left the temple, my mind busy contemplating what I had seen. As I proceeded back toward Main Street, a blue building loomed to my right a short walk from the temple. Emblazoned with signs proclaiming it the Kissena Jewish Center, its cheerful facade beckoned me closer, but there was only an hour left before I had to leave Flushing.
Looking back at the temple, gray in the distance, I glanced back at the Jewish center. They were closer than I originally thought. A smile edged up the corners of my mouth as I strode through the hot sunlight towards the next stop on my journey.
Carly Silver is a senior at Columbia University. The two previous installments of 1,000 Leagues From Hillel can be found here and here.
