Chinyere Oparah and Rabbi Camille Angel

[00:05] CAMILLE SHIRA ANGEL: I'm Camille Shira angel, and I'm 58, almost. I'll be 58 May 10. And today's date is April 27, 2023. So you have 13 days to get ready for my birthday. And we are here at the University of San Francisco, and I am going to enjoy this interview with my interview partner, Provost Chinyere Opara.

[00:40] CHINYERE OPARAH: And my name is Chinyere Opara. I'm age 55. We're here on April 27 of 2023 at the University of San Francisco, and my interview partner is Rabbi Camille. And we are beloved comrades in the struggle for social justice and a greater humanity.

[01:03] CAMILLE SHIRA ANGEL: Amen to that. Yeah, we were talking on the cusp of talking about what it means to be human and how hard that is. I think it. I think it can be particularly hard when you have a group of people who are passionate all together for their vision, and each one has a slightly different vision. And it takes a kind of humanity to lead all the perspectives in a civil, peaceful, forward way.

[01:55] CHINYERE OPARAH: I think it takes curiosity, because if we're really interested in what people are thinking and why they're saying what they're saying and what their hopes are and what they're afraid of and what they're fighting to have, but also to not have, then it becomes less about positions and more about creating. I like this idea of peaceful coexistence. I don't have to change you. You don't have to change me. But maybe we could find a way to be at peace because we share humanity, and then that's where the spiritual path comes in, because if you're not in touch with your own humanity, it's very hard to find a shared humanity with somebody else. And so that, for me, is that is that spiritual journey to becoming more human, to becoming more in touch with one's wounds, to allowing those wounds to help you grow, which means you have to feel your way through them and to feeling yourself part of something bigger that will hold you through it. You won't be dropped, it won't be too much. Right?

[03:06] CAMILLE SHIRA ANGEL: You have to have experience with that in order to build upon it. And I don't think until you've had to find the strength that it's necessarily a part of one's practice. In my experience, it often takes some crash or some trauma or some, you know, logical consequence that has you up against the wall, and then you have to make those changes, and then hopefully, you can integrate what you've learned and make it a practice. But it's that kind of self care for our own humanity. I haven't found it natural, naturally flowing in most queer people that I've worked with. It's a hard time and generation to be able to claim our prideful place. It's usually come with some great suffering, too.

[04:27] CHINYERE OPARAH: You live your life, I think, very much with your heart out in the open, right. That you have this incredible. And I know it's a commitment and decision. I don't think it's a personality that you've made this decision to lead with vulnerability, to show the pain, to share the tears, and to model what it actually is to be fully human, I think in many ways, and I wondered what led you to that. What was your turning point, if there was one that made you realize that your life was too short to live it in an inauthentic way?

[05:07] CAMILLE SHIRA ANGEL: Yeah, I think it is my personality, in part. I think I have a kind of defiance born out of being acquainted with grief at a very early age. So I was dear to my grandmother. I saw her every other day and she died when I was ten. And then my father, he had a kind of cancer that progressed. They said he would have six months, but he actually lived two years. He was very active in those early teenage years. But figuring out how to get on with it after encountering radical loss, I think it made me. I think it gave me a kind of access to empathy, but it also created with me a kind of defiance that I wanted my. I don't know how to say it exactly. Suddenly I had this, like, therapeutic insight, but something about him dying and leaving. I felt determined to not be invisible because he had been the one who'd seen me the most and parented me in that way that you typically associate with the maternal reflection. But that wasn't my mom, it was my dad. And so in his absence, I became. I wanted. I became more noticeable. Like, I don't know. So I think I was a class clown at camp. I was like, you know, a big cut up. I remember in college I was in a program where, like, I was the one who got pizza delivered that shouldn't have been in the middle of the night and told by the director she wouldn't write me a recommendation during rabbinic school because I had such poor judgment. So I was always in, like, silly ways. But then when I came out, my mother said to me, can't you pick another cause? Why do you. Why does this have to be your cause? It was like, this isn't a cause. But in terms of my personality, I think she could see already from a young age, I was gonna need a cause.

[07:59] CHINYERE OPARAH: Hmm.

[08:01] CAMILLE SHIRA ANGEL: And it happened timing wise, that the Jewish Reform liberal progressive movement was just starting to think about how it could deal with gay and lesbian aspiring rabbis and cantors and teachers. And I was ordained in 1995, and I think don't ask, don't tell and defensive Marriage act and all that was like, so I was the second out lesbian to be hired in a jewish mainstream congregation in the country, and they wouldn't. They had a search committee process. This is the upper west side of Manhattan. They debated whether or not they could offer me the position. It was the 16 year old president of the youth group who said, I can't even believe we're debating. It was clear we liked her the most. This is the Upper west side. You taught me repair the world. And then I only actually learned this part of the story, like, last month. This is 23 years ago. This is 28 years ago. My senior, Rabbi he said at that time, if it turns out that you make the decision, we won't hire her based on her sexual orientation. I don't think I can lead this congregation anymore. So it was sort of that time. Yeah, I needed him. Straight alliance.

[09:42] CHINYERE OPARAH: It seems to me that one of the things that we have in common is being firsts or seconds a lot. So I'm the first black female provost at USF. You know, I was the second black woman tenured, I believe, at mills. You know, it's not something that you necessarily want. It's an important role to play so that others can come up behind and not have to have the burden of being the first or the second. But, yeah, there's something about that that takes a certain type of courage and a willingness, as you said, to be visible in ways that are just, you just know, are not going to be comfortable for many folks around you because they want and have got used to it being one way. And then here I am, you know, a black queer woman. And that doesn't just mean that, you know, I think that oftentimes when you become the first, people think, well, we can accept or we can tolerate or we can, you know, it's fine for her to be this other thing. But then they don't realize they're going to get a completely different person. They're not just going to get someone with an identity category that you check off. You're going to get somebody who leads differently, who practices differently, who prays differently. It's actually an infusion into all aspects of who we are. Right. It's part of your spiritual practice that you're queer. It's part of my leadership practice that I'm an african woman, that I'm an immigrant woman. I think that. And so I show up in ways that having been marginalized and not listened to and dehumanized, I'm going to lead in a way that allows space for people to be human and to be heard. And I'm going to create what can actually be a scary kind of democratizing practice that opens up doors to people who have voices who didn't have them before, and, in fact, gets people to feel so empowered that. That it becomes almost out of control, that now the whole community is just going to feel that they should be able to say what they need and to work towards it for a better USF and a better world. And I think that that's what they don't see coming. I think that there was a study about black women in sea level, c suite level positions, and it was talking not so much about the glass ceiling of getting in. It was talking about that once in, it would become untenable to stay or else they simply would be not able to stay because they led so differently and the system couldn't understand that or wrap its head around it. And I think that that's part of our journey as first and seconds to do it differently so that people who come up behind us, they won't be looked at as so unexpected and different. Right. That we're kind of getting the community or whatever system we're in to adjust itself just a little bit to be able to accommodate that difference. And that's not an easy path to be on.

[12:47] CAMILLE SHIRA ANGEL: No.

[12:48] CHINYERE OPARAH: And it's not an easy path to be on in a way that you stay open hearted, peaceful. Right. And not get sucked into armoring up or becoming combative, which are both different ways of not allowing ourselves to be fully human because we're having to be reactive. How do you address that in your life, in your practice?

[13:11] CAMILLE SHIRA ANGEL: Well, one way is to avoid being in positions of needing to make ultimate decisions between competing values and competing stories. I find that in terms of who I am, to be just so hard to hold all of that and nothing. That's why I bring it up often to you, because I have always really shined when I could be part of bringing the plan to bear, but I could say yes to you and yes to you and yes to you and not like, I'm sorry, there's limited resources and we're going to have to that place, you know, but something that you talked about that I wanted that feels like a piece. Here is the practice that's practices that can sustain us. And I was thinking that over the many years of my rabbinate, one practice has been engaging in Torah study, which connects me to this really old text, but connects me to this practice, really old practice of interpreting the text and insisting that there are multiple narratives beyond even just the two people wrestling with the text. And also seeing the text hasn't changed. The genesis stories are the same, but I've changed each time I encounter them. And I do find great. It's a thrill, actually, to see my story somehow this year in the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel, for instance, or I. And it does also give me some peace of mind that these are old challenges, and we are always inventing new possibilities. And even, yeah, just being a student of jewish history, it's like, yes, this is the worst time in history in certain ways. And still we have improved a little bit. We're not barbarians in quite the same way.

[15:55] CHINYERE OPARAH: You know, it's funny, you say you talk about that really finding yourself rooted in a tradition that can give you some peace, because that gives you a long history and some perspective. And I think about that, too, for myself. I think one of the. So I attend a christian church, UCC, a very progressive, queer church, queer friendly church with a lesbian outburst. I have buddhist practices, and I meditate and I listen to Dharma talks, and I find a lot of truth there. And my core practice, my prayer practice, really is rooted in my nigerian roots. And so I have a relationship with aspects of the divine that call themselves names, like Mami Wata, who is the goddess of the ocean, and she is the great healer. But interestingly, what I look at, it's not so much the text, but it's some of the imagery. There used to be a lot of tradition of carving these wonderful sculptures. Every village, every home would have these, would make these houses, actually, for the deities, and they would carve out these beautiful sculptures, and they would always be represented with certain symbols. And so Mami Wata, she's considered to be of the waters. So sometimes she's represented as having a tail, myrrh tail. But then sometimes she's often represented having snakes wrapped around her. She's also represented as, like, being a market woman. She likes beautiful things and beautiful scents. And so when you dig into the story of Mami Wata, Mami wata is pidgin. So it's a combination of, you know, it's a sort of nigerianizing or nebo izing of English, of mammy marmtha, water. Right? And so her representation. She's represented as a little bit lighter skin than most of my relatives back home would be and with lots of curly hair. And in some ways, you know, her story is the story of encounter, right? She's the oceans who came across the oceans. What harm came across the oceans? But then there's a sort of transformation and absorption, where she becomes absorbed and becomes part of us. And then she travels throughout the diaspora. And then you see her showing off. You know, she's Oya in Candonble in Brazil, and she's showing up in Vudun, and she's showing up in Cuba, right? And so she's. She's this incredible shape shifting deity that kind of connects us all to this really painful history. But when we pray to her, we're not in pain, we're not thinking of that history, right? She is actually bringing us healing, abundance, fertility, strength, courage. And so when I have that practice, for me, it reminds me of, wow, I may think I'm struggling, but my ancestors went through colonization, you know, went through the forced christianization and the demonization of our own practices, went through, you know, of course, the mafia, the great holocaust that we call the transatlantic slave trade. Right? Then more recently, you know, in more recent history, that's in my family memory, the Biafran war, where a million igbos died unnecessarily, many through starvation, and where my family was fragmented, and so we ended up dispersed, and where my uncle died, and my stepmother has stories of sleeping in trees so that they wouldn't be attacked and stolen away in the night. So all of that is there, and it's painful, and yet somehow there's the pride of knowing that we came through that. And so surely, you know, the same gods that brought us through that surely are here with us today. And so whatever problem we're facing, you know, we can face it with some courage and some resiliency. So there's something really powerful about history and legacy, even if it's troubled and in some ways would have excluded the ways we are today. Right?

[20:02] CAMILLE SHIRA ANGEL: So beautifully said.

[20:05] CHINYERE OPARAH: I love the way that our paths, you know, are so very different and encompass such different geographies and histories, and yet there's so many similarities. And, you know, there's some way talking to you that feels like a homecoming to me. I can feel that, that spirit and that humble yearning to seek spirit and seek to be more and then to share that with others. And that's something that I try to do also in a different way.

[20:37] CAMILLE SHIRA ANGEL: I think the meaning of home is to come back to. I don't know, did we start? But I feel like we talked about what it means to be at home. And it's not always the case that I have felt at home as a jew in my life, and I have spent most of my professional life in adulthood working for the jewish community and then more recently, coming to learn about jesuit values and ignatian culture and ideas and being part of this catholic project in some new way. But I've actually had to learn more about dominant culture and Christianity than I ever knew before coming into this space. And this last couple years, we've seen a rise in antisemitism in this country. That if you had asked me, like, in 2015, when I was teaching Holocaust education to 8th graders, if it would look anything like it does now. So it's surprising to me. I've seen these great highs in the last decade of making progress, and then I've seen. And I guess I've come to also understand how religious based homophobia and transphobia fuels anti lgbt legislation. And anyway, I think what I'm trying to say is, like, I've gone. I've become more unsettled as a jew in the latter years of my. In these recent years and more agitated. Like, I feel curious about God having brought me to this place, and I. Because I feel like I'm a guest as a jew in this institution. And so I sometimes. I spoke about this last week. I sometimes feel like a rude guest because I want to point out some things that need adjusting. And one could say, like, go back to your own house and clean up your house. And. But. So I have found my. I found this kind of agitational feeling, that defiant feeling that's old within me of, like, how can I safely push the envelope in a. And what is that? Can you safely.

[24:02] CHINYERE OPARAH: Is that just tautology? Yeah. You know, when you said, you know, why didn't you just go back to your home and clean that up? It resonated because as a child, one of the big chants, the playground's chants, was to send them home, and they meant black people, and they meant that we didn't belong in England. And that. And, in fact, there was a big movement called repatriation, which was ironic. Most of us have been born there, that we were supposedly going to be sent somewhere. Africa, the Caribbean. Well, of course, there's a history of that. As we know, Sierra Leone comes from that history. And so it was very painful as a child to be constantly pushed out of community pushed out of belonging. Pushed out of the photo, the frame. I remember. So I come from a very multiracial family, and I remember my white sister's wedding. And I just remember distinctly, and she was quite a lot older than me, so I was maybe a teen or something. And I remember distinctly the photographer looking at me and saying, no, this photo is just for immediate family and trying to push me out. So that sort of symbolic of what that actual childhood felt like. But at a certain point, I decided that I wasn't going to ask permission to be home anymore. I wasn't going to ask permission to belong anymore. And that sort of like a turtle, I was going to carry my home. I'm belonging everywhere I went. And so any space I enter into now, I try to enter with just my authenticity of who I am. And I decide I'm at home. I'm at home because I'm on the planet. I'm at home because I'm a beloved child of God. I'm at home because I see the person in the room who's feeling vulnerable and isolated and insecure. And perhaps I go out and say a kind word to them and then we've made home together, right? I'm at home because I'm of service, you know, I'm at home because I'm able to be an ally to so many people because of my own life journey. And that actually, those of us who have been thrown out and discarded are the majority. And so everywhere I am, I'm at home with them. I belong with them. And so that's been a beautiful, for me, life path because not belonging and not feeling a part of was such a almost physical pain for me, you know, particularly as somebody who was in the foster system. And so from the very beginning, it was like, you know, you don't belong. You're not with us, and you're sort of on your own, you know, figure it out on your own. And then to realize that I'm not on my own, you know, I can decide that I'm at home on planet Earth, and I'm at home with this species called humans, and I'm at home with our relatives that are not human, you know, and just sort of, it feels like to me that it can be a decision, but it needs some kind of spiritual backing. Like, for me, if I didn't know that I was loved, then I wouldn't be able to find home in that way.

[26:54] CAMILLE SHIRA ANGEL: And you should add parent in there because I think as a parent, as a mother, you're making a home and not link in the chain of our human condition, of making, creating something of our own likeness with her own imprint. I think that homemaking is so ultimately reparative.

[27:26] CHINYERE OPARAH: That's a beautiful noticing. I think that one of the things that happened to me as a very young mother early in my motherhood, and I wasn't a young mother, but early in my motherhood, was that I went through. I relived all the traumas, every age that my, every milestone that my daughter hit. So I was wondering why I was just stricken with grief when she was six months old. And then I think, a wise friend, and I can't remember who it was, said to me, did anything happen to you at six months? And I said, well, not really. I mean, I was moved from one foster home to another, or, no, I was moved from a foster home. I was into another home. And I was like, oh, that's actually a bit of a big deal, isn't it? And so those moments, you know, I began to anticipate those moments that would be painful, but then I moved through them with her, you know, and she didn't experience those things. And so there was a healing in that. You know, it's interesting that it even went all the way back to her birth, because I went to a midwife when I was seven months pregnant, and I said, I'm terrified that I won't bond with my baby. They've told me that I'm fairly at risk of having a c section, and that means that I'm going to have drugs in my system. And I'm just terrified that just as I was not connected and didn't have an opportunity to bond with my mother, history's going to repeat itself. And she said, that is no longer your birth story. You are creating a new birth story. You and your daughter are going to have a new birth story. She said, I'm going to be with you, and if you don't want to see Satchin, we're going to do everything we can to make sure that that doesn't happen so that you can be conscious and awake, and so can she. And what ended up happening was that my daughter was posterior, which means that she was the wrong way up, which typically, you try and push them out for a bit, you get back labor. It's terribly painful, agonizing, and then they're just like, epidural, we'll do it for you, you know, and I had a doula who knew a particular pressure point to make a bearable. And so for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours. We just kept going. And we were in a hospital, but we created a sacred space with this incredible midwife and this doula. And when my baby finally came out at high speed, because the pressure was quite intense, they went and they put it up on the nurses station, they put the baby, you know, a par born this time, and they put posterior vaginal delivery because it was so unusual, and they were so excited and delighted. And she came out and they put it on my chest, and she was still not cleaned up or anything. And she just looked around and looked for her food source, and that was it, you know, and we bonded immediately, and we spent the next three days naked in the hospital room, just the two of us. Nurses would come in and say, do you want to wrap her up now? I'm saying, why? She is perfectly happy lying on my chest. So it's true that we can remake those stories, can't we? We can remake them. And that was absolutely a sacred experience for me, which is why I've become such a passionate warrior for birth justice, because I know that it can be either such a transformative and healing experience, or it can be an absolute replication of old traumas, and for too many women aren't necessarily, it becomes that re traumatizing event that they have to, they're taught that they have to celebrate because, well, you got a healthy baby, didn't you? So no matter what the trauma you went through to get that healthy baby, you can't say anything about it. So, yeah, that was a big turning point for my spirituality. Thank you for bringing that up.

[31:15] CAMILLE SHIRA ANGEL: Something you said reminds me about how I got here from being a congregational rabbi. My father was a rabbi, he was a congregational rabbi, and he was actually the 8th generation in his family to be become a rabbi, but the first one to be studied in a secular university. So he was. His siblings were able to persuade his father, who had come from Poland, to allow my father to go to Harvard, where he'd been accepted as part of the few students in those 1920s who were allowed to take the ranks. And anyway, I loved him in so many different ways, and had already pronounced at my young bat mitzvah that I wasn't going to marry a rabbi like my sister had, but I was going to be a rabbi, which actually was already possible. The first woman was studying Sally Priesandhe. So it wasn't completely a creation in my imagination, but when he died, I just knew. I mean, I knew he asked me, would I be remain Jewish in my adulthood? It was kind of a delusional, medicated moment towards the end of his life. And I promised, it was like a deathbed promise that I would be the best jew that I could be, which meant following in his footsteps, as far as I could tell, or trying to. And I did that. I became a congregational rabbi, and I did that for 20 years. And as my daughter was approaching the age of Bat mitzvah, I realized the steps I was trying to follow in would have there. We'd come to the end that actually I didn't have any more steps to follow in my father's way, and I could leave the world of the congregational pulpit and pursue being a teacher. And that was an amazing gift. It was like, until I could get to this place, I couldn't see what was possible, but I had fulfilled the promise. I saw that in my daughter, I had transmitted a love for being jewish, and that was like I was done. I had made the next link possible. And I see that still today. I see my young adult daughter discovering the jewish community of Portland, Oregon, and critiquing it. You know, I like this. I don't like that at Passover. Why are we doing it like this? We always used to do it like this. So owning rituals. And so I see the legacy, and it is very healing to know that I fulfilled that promise. And I can also now have new energy to grow something else with my robina. So. Well, I have one more question for you, which has to do with your spiritual practice. And just wondering, like, is it daily? Is it weekly? Is it annually? Is it spontaneous? Is it.

[35:25] CHINYERE OPARAH: I love that question. For me, it is a practice. I'm also a yogi, and we're very into practice. You're not a yogi unless you do it. So it is something that I'm very dedicated to, and I think that it's not because I'm looking for a life in the hereafter, and it's not because I'm trying to be a really good person. It's because the days that I don't practice don't turn out so well. So I start my day every day with some prayer and meditation. I start my day with some yoga, which is part of my meditation practice, my spiritual practice, which automatically flows into some gratitude, some Thanksgiving, and some asking. And I asked for some help for my day. You know, I asked for help to show up, and I share this with your students, to show up steady and serene, which is not always the way of higher ed administration, to show up steady and serene, to show up courageous and authentic, and to show up boundaried and compassionate. And I just think that asking for help sets my day up, both because I've reminded myself of who I really am and who I want to be, and that it's possible we can have serenity no matter what the environment is, because it comes from within, and that authenticity is simply a choice and that we are naturally compassionate. We just have to slow down enough to feel what the other person might be feeling. But we also have to have boundaries, because otherwise, you know, it'll flatten us. Right? And so that's a part of my practice. And I have some prayers that I say, and then, you know, throughout my day, I pause when something's hard or when somebody said something that's hard, or even sometimes just because I have to go from one meeting to another and I want to be present, I just take a pause and I breathe. And sometimes I'll say a very short prayer. And so it's. It's definitely a daily pause of my practice and being part of a spiritual community with others, being available to listen to others in my community that are suffering or going through something and maybe say a prayer with them. Just having prayer at the start of a meal with my family, just weaving throughout my day has been a way of keeping me connected at every time. Because for me, I've lived the life of trying to do it through self will, determination, and intelligence. And I did it. I did fairly well, you know, professionally, got a whole bunch of degrees. But, you know, I think that I was living, as a friend said to me, I was living slightly, you know, ahead of my body. I wasn't quite integrated into myself. And I choose today to choose to be fully embodied in who I am. So I think that can be more of service to others.

[38:27] CAMILLE SHIRA ANGEL: I love that. I love that question. Or the idea of your head being ahead. You're being ahead of your body, because Jews are so often just in their heads and not the rest of their bodies. And so we're looking to find it way to integrate. And I think that's one of the gifts, actually, that women and queer folk have brought to jewish practice, is how to be more embodied and less just focused on the word.

[39:04] CHINYERE OPARAH: I was trained to be in the head. You know, I went to University of Cambridge. There was no cura personalis, mind, body, spirit. It was all about the mind and your individuality, your individual brilliance, and tackling complex theories and ideas and philosophies. And they really didn't tend to growing who you were as a person. And I sort of thought that that was what you should do, you know, take that and then apply it in action in the world. And so it took some time to come around to a different way of being. But I much prefer, and I find my relationships so much deeper because I'm able to be present. And so that's what I attract to me today, and that makes a difference, too.

[39:50] CAMILLE SHIRA ANGEL: It's awesome being here at the university at this time with you. And I think the two of us, at least for the students that I know together, we have influenced and connected with. It's pretty. I think it's pretty amazing that. I think it's an example of actually, jesuit mission that our collective diversity we bring is welcome here and nourished here and provides for our students who are so diverse, who I think just like all these queer students who've been religiously traumatized to have your nigerian christian black brilliance combined with this, like, jewish queer rebel, there's something that has been very beautiful to see the students take away with. They're referring to your visit. They're asking when you'll come back. Yeah. Anyway, it's a really good time to be here together with you. And I love that we had this conversation.

[41:09] CHINYERE OPARAH: Thank you. Thank you for the ways in which you accompany me. It means a lot to have people that you can. Yeah.

[41:17] CAMILLE SHIRA ANGEL: Be walking this path together with, I think, students. We're all students. Like, we're lifelong. I think the best teachers are the ones who are still, like, filled with curiosity. And I think in jewish culture, there's this idea that when you die, the picture of the world to come is that you go to the higher academy and you have the time just to learn from all the great masters. It's like infidler on the roof, you know, it should only be that way. And I like to say I'm at the academy and I didn't even have to die. So lucky that I get to drink of these waters here and now. So anyway, thank you.

[42:02] CHINYERE OPARAH: Thank you. This is a beautiful conversation.

[42:05] CAMILLE SHIRA ANGEL: Yeah.