Hannah paused and acted surprised.
"I was so tired last night, I completely forgot about it!" she said.
"But I can open it now. It's still in my pocket," she reached into her coat for theatrics.
"No!" he said in a panic. "Now's not a good time. Maybe you can give it back to me and I'll give it to you later," he said with disappointment.
"I can't do that," Hannah replied.
"Why not?" Uri asked, sweating beneath his shirt.
"Because I am already wearing it!" She grinned and pulled the chain from her shirt, revealing the beautiful ring.
"Hannah Hagen!" he exclaimed, frustrated. If he didn't love her so much, he might have been upset with her.
"Uri Geller!" she said back to him, playfully. "I wish you could kiss me."
"I wish that more," he replied.
Hannah leaned against the locker next to his and traced her fingers along the lock, hesitating before she spoke.
"Uri, if I convert, I need you to tell me some things. Can I work? Can I go to school? Because there are a lot of things I want to do. I want to be a social worker, or maybe a writer."
"Yes of course you can do those things!" he replied. "My mother is a teacher back home."
Hannah looked intently into his deep brown eyes.
"Yes," she said.
"Yes. . .to what?"
"Yes, to everything. I will convert, Uri. I want to convert!"
He wanted to embrace her; to give her a million kisses. A thousand thoughts crossed his mind. Hannah had never seen him so animated.
"I could cry right now, Hannah,” he said. “At lunch I will tell you more. There is so much to learn. Shabbat has a lot of rules you'll need to learn. You can't turn the lights off, you can’t cook food, you can’t even tear toilet paper on the Sabbath, but I'll explain that later. . . tonight I will talk to my parents. . ."
They walked up the stairs. As Uri rambled in excitement, Hannah's mind buzzed with thoughts and questions, oblivious to the obstacles ahead of her.
20
Two hours into Hannah’s flight, the captain turned on the fasten seat-belt light, announcing that the cabin should expect more choppy air. Trying not to think about the open sea tens of thousands of feet below her, Hannah continued to let her mind dwell in the past.
She turned up the volume of her music and thought about the night Uri told his parents that he loved her. The plane jolted and her stomach dropped. She closed her eyes, concentrated on her breathing, and remembered the story Uri told her.
URI TOLD HIS PARENTS that he needed to talk with them on the fifth night of Chanukah in 1996.
After another evening of celebration, Uri helped his mother clean the kitchen, and asked his parents if they could meet in the living room.
His parents sat together on the front sofa, and Uri sat across from them in the old armchair.
"What is it you want to talk to us about, son?" Avi asked as he yawned; he had worked a long, hard week at the hospital.
Riddled with anxiety, Uri didn't know where to begin. In his evening prayer, he asked HaShem for guidance and confidence. He took a deep breath and spoke quickly and honestly.
"Abba, Imma, I think. . .no, I know that I have found my b’shert," he said, referring to the Hebrew word for "soulmate."
Avi sat forward on the couch; his weariness disappeared. "Uri, you don't mean Hannah?" he asked with resignation.
"Yes, I do,” Uri spoke with confidence.
Devorah Geller sighed and dramatically covered her face with her hands. "Avi, I knew something like this would happen if he attended a secular school!"
"Please Abba and Imma, hear me out.” Uri sounded reasonable and mature.
"Hannah is not a Christian,” Uri explained. “Her family is not religious. She and I have had many talks about the Jewish faith, and she is fascinated. She wants to learn more. I have even taught her some of our prayers. She believes she has a Jewish soul. And it is by HaShem's will, not by mine."
Devorah’s face remained cupped in her hands. Avi stared at his son silently. A few minutes passed, the sound of the clock marking the minutes.
"Does she realize the work required for an Orthodox conversion?” Avi finally broke the silence. “Does she realize how much her life would change? All of the secular luxuries she would give up?" Avi asked his son.
Before he could answer, Devorah interrupted. "She is so young. How can she possibly make a life-changing decision like this?"
"Imma, I have already heard you talk with other women about a wife for me. How is Hannah's decision any different than any other Jewish girl who wants to marry?" Uri tried his best to stay calm.
"What does her family think of this? Would they be supportive?" Avi asked.
"I'm not sure. They aren't religious so I don't think they would have an objection."
"What about her health? Her father's condition is genetic. If she is a carrier and you are a carrier it could be dangerous to have children. You will need to be tested." Avi suggested with deep concern.
Uri didn’t respond. He hadn't taken her health into consideration.
"We need to talk with Hannah, Rabbi Weissman back home, and most importantly, Hannah’s family," Avi added. "It is imperative that Hannah not convert for you, Uri. Her feelings for you could cloud her judgement. The rabbi may not be willing to oversee her conversion, and if he does, he will likely require the two of you to stay apart until her conversion is complete."
Uri restlessly tapped his foot on the hardwood floor. "I know she is anxious to talk to a rabbi," he said. "She has given this a lot of thought."
"If she were to make such a dramatic life change, I would insist that she do it in Bala Cynwyd, within our community," said Devorah. She expelled a long sigh. “I am too tired to continue thinking about this tonight. Suddenly I have a headache." She rose from the couch and walked upstairs.
"I've upset her," Uri said to his father as his mother left the room.
"It's a lot to take in, my son," Avi responded, rubbing his eyes. “Your mother’s side of the family is stricter about these things. You know that.”
“Yes, but they accepted you, a Conservative Jew with a non-Orthodox background. You started to practice Orthodoxy for her, so why doubt Hannah’s intention?” Uri pressed his father.
“My choice was for HaShem and no one else!” Avi raised his voice at Uri, his eyes wide with anger.
Startled by his father’s irate reaction, Uri stopped speaking.
Avi composed himself and sat back on the couch. He rubbed his beard and exhaled a deep breath. "Uri, there is something you should know,” he said.
"Yes, Abba?"
"Your Zayde Ezra was a ger."
Uri was stunned. "Zayde converted? Why has no one told me this before?"
"Because if the conversion is genuine, the point is moot. It's an unveiling of a Jewish soul. Zayde has always been a Jew," Avi explained what Uri already knew.
"Then you can understand, Abba. You know your father's heart and his love for HaShem, and I can see that same love in Hannah."
Exhausted by the conversation, Avi continued to rub his eyes beneath his glasses. "It has been a long week. Let’s talk about this when our minds are refreshed. I’m joining your mother now."
He walked up the stairs, before stopping to address his son once more.
"Uri, I presume that you and Hannah have engaged in activity that is prohibited?" he asked, not bothering to look at his son.
Uri paused before answering. He could not continue lying to his parents. "We have spent some time alone together, Abba."
"It needs to never happen again, Uri.”
"I know that, Abba."
Avi nodded, and slowly made his way up the stairs and into his bedroom. Uri heard the door close and listened. He wondered if his parents would continue their own discussion upstairs, but he heard nothing.
Uri remained in the old armchair, the chair he loved since he was a small boy. It was the very chair wher
e his Imma nursed him; where his Abba read him stories. He thought about the complexities of their situation and wondered if Hannah was truly willing to make the sacrifices required of her; if the two of them could handle the hardship of being apart. Shouldn’t love be simple? he privately asked HaShem.
Drained by the evening’s events, he didn’t want to leave the comfort of the familiar chair. He prayed to HaShem and fantasized about a future with Hannah. Images of them together flooded his mind. Like he did when he was a little boy, he wrapped himself in a throw that was on the couch and curled himself up back on the chair. As Hannah faded in and out of his thoughts, he fell into a deep sleep.
21
Three hours into her flight to Tel Aviv, a flight attendant interrupted Hannah’s daydream—asking her if she would like a meal. She quietly asked the attendant for one that was kosher. The attendant nodded and returned a few moments later with a plate of roasted chicken and a potato dish.
As Hannah unwrapped her meal, she thought of the last meal she shared with her parents, only a few days before.
Having lived in Bala Cynwyd for almost two years, each time Hannah returned home, it felt more alien to her. Incredibly proud of her acceptance to Bryn Mawr, her parents respected Hannah's decision to convert to Judaism. Her mother did her best to stock up on kosher items while she visited, and Hannah brought back food of her own from local kosher markets. Still, each visit to South Dakota felt like a line she was crossing; moving between the religious and secular world.
The summer after her high school graduation, the Geller family invited the Hagen’s to their house for dinner. After a large meal, the two families shared a lengthy discussion about Hannah's wish to convert and the possibility of a marriage.
"They are so young," Kathleen Hagen stated the obvious to everyone present.
"They are, but in Orthodox tradition, even Modern Orthodox, most young couples choose their matches around this age," Avi responded.
"How do we know Hannah will be accepted into the community?" Mike Hagen asked over the buzzing of his portable oxygen machine.
Devorah looked apprehensively at Avi. "In Jewish culture, it is commanded that a ger—I mean a convert—be treated with the utmost respect. In fact, converts are viewed as people with Jewish souls who were born in non-Jewish bodies. In all honesty, our community in Bala Cynwyd is somewhat insular. But that doesn't mean Hannah won't be welcomed. It will take some time for adjustments."
"Will Hannah have to change her name?" Kathleen asked.
Devorah smiled. “No, unless she chooses to. But her name is already very Jewish, though the spelling may be different if she chooses.”
"I definitely want to keep my name," Hannah said assertively.
Devorah explained, "If she indeed converts, her Hebrew name will be Chana bat Avraham v’ Sarah, which means "Hannah, daughter of Abraham and Sarah," our patriarch and matriarch. And if Uri and Hannah marry," she cleared her throat—showing her unease—"her name of course will be Chana Geller."
Uri looked at Hannah and smiled; his eyes beamed with pride.
Kathleen and Mike Hagen left the Geller home feeling overwhelmed and concerned about their daughter, but they knew the girl they raised. Hannah was stubborn, her will-power a force to be reckoned with. Though they didn’t understand her wish to enter a life so foreign to them, they recognized that her mind was made up. A new world had opened up for their daughter, and nothing, not even her dying father, could keep Hannah from entering it.
MIKE HAGEN’S HEALTH continued to deteriorate after his bout with pneumonia. Shortly before she left for Israel, Hannah sat with him on his bed and laid her head on his chest. She heard the painful sound of the wheezing of his overworked lungs. Mike asked Hannah to remove her head from his chest; it was making it too difficult for him to breathe.
At that moment Hannah knew.
He was never going to get his new lungs.
She fought back tears and squeezed his hand, unable to even think about the prospect of him dying.
On the morning before she left to return to Philadelphia to fly to Israel, her mother insisted that Hannah and Mike have their picture taken together. Her eyes red from crying, Hannah sat on the arm of her father's chair. He gave a handsome smile as she tried to hold back more tears, surrounded by medical equipment and medications.
"I am so proud of you, Hannah Rose. You are living your dream. Don't forget how beautiful you are," he said to her before she left.
My father who always thought of me as beautiful, Hannah thought to herself. Even when I was an ugly child.
Hannah smiled and slipped a note in his pocket as she hugged him. She didn't have the courage to hand the note to him herself.
She wrote that he was the best father any girl could ask for. She wrote that it didn't matter to her that he couldn’t take her on bike rides or hikes growing up. She told him that he gave her a moral compass and a passion to care for others—the greatest gift any man could give his daughter.
She walked to the door with her luggage, giving Tully a few last belly rubs.
"I love you, Daddy," she sobbed, no longer bothering to hold back her tears.
"I love you too, Punkin."
She closed the door behind her. Tully looked sadly at her though the window, wagging his tail.
She left with her mother to the airport in a cold, damp fog, unaware that was the last time she would ever see her father.
22
After two years of grueling study, learning Hebrew, Jewish history, and philosophy; immersing herself into an Orthodox neighborhood and the Jewish way of life; being questioned by the Beit Din not once, but twice, Hannah’s official date to make her final appearance before the Beit Din was set. She would appear before them one last time, answer a set of questions, and, if all went well, she would schedule an immersion in the mikveh.
The hardest part of the two years was her separation from Uri, who was in his second year serving in the IDF. He excelled quickly and qualified for an elite force called Rimon. With reluctance from Rabbi Weissman, the two could exchange letters, but no more than once a month until Hannah completed her conversion.
Rabbi Moshe Weissman was a quiet and serious man. He intimidated Hannah, though Uri was unbothered by him, having known him most of his life. He oversaw Uri’s Bar Mitzvah. The rabbi sported a short, gray, beard, wore broad framed glasses, and his tzitzit always hung visibly from his dress shirt under his coat. He looked so Jewish that Hannah thought of him as sort of a typecast. He was exactly the type of rabbi she pictured in her head before she moved to Bala Cynwyd. Had the Geller’s not been in his good graces, Hannah wondered whether the rabbi would accept her at all. But as the weeks and months passed, Hannah’s commitment to learning impressed the rabbi.
One evening after studies, he told her, “I have had no other student memorize the berachot as quickly as you. In fact, I bet you know them as well as Uri,” he smiled. At last, Hannah felt genuinely accepted by the rabbi—that he believed she was converting out of love for HaShem, and not for the purpose of marriage.
Hannah and Uri exchanged letters frequently, despite the rabbi’s attempt to limit their communication. Hannah initially wrote about her homesickness and the things she missed: her dog Tully, her parents, her best friend Faith. She wrote about the challenges of transitioning to life in Bala Cynwyd.
The community was nothing like she had expected. It was more modern than she imagined, with breathtaking vibrant trees and colorful foliage. It was also more affluent than she had anticipated, with beautiful rows of colonial houses. Children played freely in the narrow streets, and Hannah adored watching the young boys wearing their small kippahs, and the little girls in their lovely play dresses. Watching families engage on their front porches, Hannah realized how much she wanted a family connected to community. She wanted her children to know the love of community and neighbor, something she was deprived of as a child.
While her neighbors in Bala Cynwyd were pleasant, Hannah quick
ly realized that they thought of her as an outsider. The women were friendly but curious about her background, and, as expected, the men kept their distance.
The narrow, tree-lined streets were in walking distance to many shuls, the largest being the Lower Merion Synagogue, where the Geller's attended.
While she attended Bryn Mawr, where she studied sociology as well as Hebrew, she didn't live on campus. Instead, the Geller family made arrangements for Hannah to rent a room just two blocks from their home from a lovely lady named Mrs. Ruth Blum.
Mrs. Blum was a woman in her late 50's, a widow whose husband recently died of cancer. She had a beautiful daughter named Avigail who lived in Israel with her husband and infant son.
"They are trying to get me to move there with them, to make aliyah,” she told Hannah one day. “But I'm not ready yet. Perhaps one day soon.”
A pang of guilt ran though Hannah as she thought about her own mother living in an empty house without her husband. Mike Hagen’s days were numbered—a reminder that looked her in the face each time she saw Mrs. Blum staring at an old picture.
Hannah often caught Mrs. Blum gazing lovingly at a black and white photo of her late husband, Levi, standing next to a small tree he planted in their front yard. The tree still stood in the yard, healthy and well maintained; its top nearly as high as the home’s third floor.
Hannah's new living quarter was Avigail's old room, still decorated with photos of Avigail's childhood, most of them of her wearing her uniform from Hebrew school. It felt strange to live in someone else's childhood room, but soon Hannah found herself so busy with school and her Jewish studies that she rarely spent time there.
Yet when she was at the house, Mrs. Blum provided her with patience and comfort. She proudly wasted no time in showing Hannah the complexities of keeping a kosher kitchen.
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