Questioning Return
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Copyright © 2016 by Beth Kissileff
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including electronic storage and retrieval systems, except by explicit prior written permission of the publisher. Brief passages may be excerpted for review and critical purposes.
This book is typeset in Minion. The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R1997).
Designed by Barbara Werden
Cover photo © Can Stock Photo / lucidwaters
Publisher’s Cataloging-In-Publication Data
Names: Kissileff, Beth.
Title: Questioning return: a novel / Beth Kissileff.
Description: Simsbury, Connecticut: Mandel Vilar Press, [2016]
Identifiers: ISBN 978-1-942134-24-4 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Graduate students—Jerusalem—Fiction. | Jewish pilgrims and pilgrimages—Israel—Fiction. | Jews, American—Israel—Fiction. | Jewish way of life—Fiction. | Immigrants—Israel—Fiction. | Israel—Emigration and immigration—Fiction. | Israel—Fiction. | Jewish fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3611.I87 Q47 2016 (print) | LCC PS3611.I87 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 / 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Mandel Vilar Press
19 Oxford Court, Simsbury, Connecticut 06070
www.americasforconservation.org | www.mvpress.org
“When one is asked a question he must discover what he is.”
GEORGE HERBERT
A Priest to the Temple
Collected Works: 226
Contents
PROLOGUE—A Decisive Moment?
ONE—Holders of Foreign Passports
TWO—Walking in Jerusalem
THREE—Sabbath Peace
FOUR—Bayit Ne’Eman
FIVE—Centers and Margins
SIX—New Jerusalem?
SEVEN—Accompanying the Coffin
EIGHT—Wendy and Noah: The Aftermath of Desire
NINE—Shared Dreams, Shared Eternity
TEN—“Good Night World”
ELEVEN—Dr. Hideckel
TWELVE—Meeting Atarah
THIRTEEN—Purim: Until You Don’t Know
FOURTEEN—A New Chance
FIFTEEN—Rituals of Incorporation
SIXTEEN—Confronting the Question: The Seder
SEVENTEEN—Self-Counting
EIGHTEEN—Forty-Two Journeys
NINETEEN—Teiku
Glossary
Acknowledgements
PROLOGUE
A Decisive Moment?
Il n’y a rien dans ce monde qui n’ait un moment decisif. (There is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment.)
—CARDINAL DE RETZ, quoted by HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON in the introduction to The Decisive Moment
To me photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression.
—HENRI CARTIER - BRESSON, in the introduction to The Decisive Moment
“Who is asking?”
“No one’s ever questioned that. I’m the one who grills the subjects,” Wendy responded.
“So we’re reversing it now,” Jacob Lamdan added, smiling. “How did you get to your dissertation topic?”
Wendy looked at him and sighed gently, trying to suppress the queasiness she’d been feeling since the plane’s takeoff in New York, still with her in the air, now somewhere over Europe. “I almost didn’t. I’m studying newly religious American Jews in Jerusalem, to see how they discuss changes they’ve made in their lives. What they feel they’ve gained, what lost, what is constant, what radically new in their religious incarnation. I can’t believe I’m finally on this plane; I only got a dissertation Fulbright late last spring, after being rejected from everything else. So,” she said pausing, both hesitant to declare her pride in an as-yet-unwritten project and proud of her achievement thus far, “I guess it was basherte.” Her use of the Yiddish word was forced for a third-generation American in her twenties; it was solely to impress Lamdan, a professor of Talmud at Princeton, where she was a graduate student in Religious Studies.
He gazed at her, sitting next to him, closer together than they would be anywhere other than the cramped seats of an international plane flight. “I have a hard time with this thing fate. If everything is so basherte, why am I here, when so many others who deserve to be alive much more, are not? I can’t accept that all is foreseen. Humans have free will. Sometimes, we make terrible mistakes.”
Wendy’s left arm was on the armrest of the seat to his right. She could see the indelible mark of the six blue digits on his left arm even in the hazy dimness of this not-yet-morning hour. “But you’re religious? Do you really mean there’s no basherte, no . . . greater power . . . behind it all?”
He was surprised by her question; students weren’t usually bold enough to challenge him. Most held him in awe and approached him with reverence, distance. Lamdan never had Wendy in class; even though she was a student in his department, she didn’t have the Hebrew background to take his type of courses. Had they been somewhere else, he would probably never have thought to answer her seriously.
“No simple answers, young lady.”
She decided, glancing sideways at him, not to let go of the matter. “The people I’m studying don’t seem to think so. The prevailing view is that once you make a leap of faith, it’s all easy.”
“Halivei, would it were so. Listen, I’ll tell you a story.”
Wendy liked the soothing cadences of his voice, the soft accent his first languages, Yiddish and Hungarian, lent to his English. His voice and tone were melodic, as though he would begin to chant a sacred text at any moment. She had never sat so close to a professor; their knees were aligned, virtually touching. His frail skinny body, forty or fifty years older than hers, wasn’t attractive. His stomach was practically concave, his skin pale and his clear blue eyes as sharp as the laser of his intellect, able to bore into unprepared students and terrify them, she had heard from departmental chatter. His soft smile and the crinkles at the edges of his eyes made her want to imagine what he’d looked like as a teenager, at ease, before he was taken to Auschwitz. Her qualms about being on the plane, whether she’d be able to do this project, how it would be to live in a foreign country, seemed insignificant and minor when she thought of the difficulties he had faced in life. She was ready to listen.
“There were two men, a robber and a rabbi. The rabbi was famed for his beauty, so much that he would stand outside the ritual bath as women left it and tell them to look at him and wish for children as beautiful as he.”
She listened and felt entranced by the lyric singsong of his voice telling a story. But she couldn’t stop her rational self from asking questions. “What kind of person would do that? It’s so . . . arrogant?”
“Maybe. Or, he knew the impact of his beauty? In any case, one day he was bathing in the Jordan River, and a robber jumped in after him, an incredible athletic leap. From afar, the robber thought the beardless rabbi was a beautiful woman; perhaps he wanted to rape her. When the robber got close to him, the rabbi said, marveling, ‘Your strength should be for Torah.’ The robber said, mocking him, ‘Your beauty should be for women.’ The rabbi said, ‘I’ll make you a deal. You like my beauty? Come, repent, use your strength for Torah in my yeshiva, and I’ll marry you to my sister, who is more beautiful than I.”
Wendy, intrigued, asked, “Did the robber take the deal?”
Lamdan continued, “Absolutely. He went and studied, and married the rabbi’s sister.”
“So, the robber saw the light. That’s it?”
“But he hasn’t been a thief for years now, right?”
“This is where the story gets interesting. The robber says, ‘How have you benefited me? I was called “rabbi,” master, among the thieves, and here I’m called “rabbi” too. You’ve done nothing for me.’ The rabbi became depressed about the robber’s anger, and the former robber became sick, physically ill. His wife, the rabbi’s sister remember, asked her brother to pray for her husband so she wouldn’t be a widow, and his nieces and nephews, orphans.” Lamdan looked over at Wendy and added, “The rabbi refused.”
“That’s terrible. Shouldn’t he have some responsibility for his student, his brother-in-law?”
Lamdan shrugged.
Wendy demanded, “What happened? Did the robber get better?”
“He died.”
“And the rabbi?”
“He mourned him. He died soon after, grieving for his friend and student.”
“But it was his fault; his insult led to the man’s death.”
“Yes, a hundred percent,” agreed Lamdan.
“But . . .” Wendy was frustrated, “Why? A rabbi tried to change the life of a thief and then threw his past back in his face. I don’t see a lesson.”
Lamdan said, gently, softly, in his European inflected accent, “It’s not simple. It seems to be a lovely narrative; one man convinces another to change. It turns tragic. Being religious, asking others to be . . . it’s not simple either.”
“In the narratives I’ve come across, subjects say, once they decide to be religious, everything else falls into place.”
“Your task should be to question that.” Lamdan looked at his seatmate. “Find the places where they doubt. Being a returnee is never simple. Even when someone has been religious a very long time, something can come along and disturb him.”
Wendy said, “I see.” She added, “That is part of what I am trying to do, to see how people talk about themselves and the changes they’ve made in their lives, to capture the fault lines and fissures in their identity.”
“Be careful. A rabbi caused a tragedy by throwing the past at his student and friend. You are asking people to tell their stories.”
“Yes?”
“Be aware of the effect you have on others.”
Wendy was unsure what it was that he was implying. The passengers around them were sleeping, the plane was dark, and she was sitting incredibly close to him. He added, “It takes training to get someone to speak about his life. That’s why we value psychiatrists; they help their patients create healing narratives. You aren’t trying to heal people, but the power you have in asking them to tell their story, it can’t be measured. You don’t want to remind a person he was once a thief, in the language of the story.”
Wendy shrugged her shoulders quickly. “You’re making me nervous. I’m talking to people but I’m not . . . well, I’m asking their life stories, but . . .” she stammered.
“I’ll tell you my story. I began life as a Hasid; I learned with my grandfather. I was a prodigy; wealthy men would come and give me a lei, a coin, for reciting Gemara. When I was deported, I kept learning and teaching others in the camp. My learning wasn’t the same; I could never go back to what I did as an innocent child. Before the war, when I learned with my grandfather, I heard the voices of the souls who commented on the text float out of the page and fill the room. After the war, instead of the Gemara niggun of study I used to hear, I’d hear the screams of my grandfather and the others who were murdered. I study the same texts, but I take a critical approach now. I had to see the text differently. This helped me remain in the framework of tradition, but without the mute relationship to the text I had in my early life. I needed to be critical to stay religious, to remain accepting of a God who could create a world in which evil wields such great power.”
Wendy decided silence was the best response.
“Religion is never an all or nothing proposition. There are cycles, ups and downs. The story I told you, the rabbi and the thief, things are fine until the rabbi insults the thief. Those careless words result in both their deaths. For me, religion . . . there’s no basherte . . . there is something to hold on to. I have faith in God; it’s a relationship. I can feel angry at God, furious, resentful. My wife has been gone almost a year now; she suffered so much at the end. I don’t know how or why a merciful God could inflict a painful illness on someone who had a lifetime of suffering before her teens were over. I can’t answer all my questions, but that doesn’t mean I can’t ask them, can’t be thinking and religious. I need my faith as an anchor; it . . . I can’t have faith in humans; I need another power. And Israel . . . you’ll see, spending a year in Israel; every day there is truly a miracle.”
“I guess. I’ve been thinking more about how it will be to be writing my dissertation, finally, launching my academic career. Much less about being in Israel itself, odd as that sounds,” she confessed. She didn’t want him to see her as ungrateful for her opportunities, so she hastened to add, “I am taking ulpan this year to improve my Hebrew. I’ve done French and German, but haven’t had a chance to work on my Hebrew yet.”
“A good start. Try to do some learning too this year.”
“I’m a graduate student; of course I’m learning.”
Lamdan laughed. “No, I mean lernen, in the Yiddish sense of the word, learning Jewish texts. It isn’t central to your dissertation, but . . . you might find what you need, as a Jew.”
“Maybe. I liked your story about the rabbi and the thief.”
“There are many more where that came from. Look, you’re a bright person; spend some time thinking about who you are, a Jew. You have time now, as a graduate student, without the burdens of teaching and family responsibilities.” He paused, taking just a bit too long to look at her, the glance more penetrating than she preferred. She remembered hearing something about how female graduate students fared under him, but wasn’t sure what it was. She tried to move away from him slightly but couldn’t go far because she was wedged into the cramped seat of the plane. “You are asking things of others, but the questions may turn back to you, Wendy. Sometimes questions help you decide who you are. Or might be.”
The lights went on in the cabin and an announcement about when breakfast would be served came over the plane’s speaker system. Their heads had been quite close together, speaking softly so as not to disturb the surrounding sleeping passengers. They were both startled by the light and began blinking, as if they had shared some kind of intimacy that seemed less appropriate in the illumination.
Wendy was at a loss for words now, in the light.
“Do you mind getting up?” he asked. “I need to daven shaharit.”
“Nice to talk to you. Thanks for the advice,” she said, rising from her seat and moving into the aisle.
He followed her and rose also, stepping into the aisle. “May I ask you a favor? I have a bad back and can’t reach up. Can you get my tefillin, that blue velvet bag, out of the overhead bin?”
Wendy nodded and reached above her, pressing the latch of the compartment in. As she did, she felt his eyes on her chest, close. She shifted to the right, away from him, and reached up to find the bag. Fortunately, it was at the edge of the compartment. She plucked it out quickly and handed it to him, closing the hatch. He hadn’t done anything inappropriate; maybe it was her imagination, feeling vulnerable and exposed, reaching up. I should stop being suspicious of people, she thought. But her musing continued, as she gazed at Lamdan. Sometimes suspicions were warranted. Even in the Talmud, two men trust each other for years, and then with a few words, betrayal.
“Thank you, Wendy,” he said and called out in Yiddish to a passing Hasid in black hat, peyot, long black jacket, and pants. The man replied in
Yiddish and nodded, as Lamdan started following the man to the end of the plane, where Wendy could see a group of men beginning to gather in the limited space, to don tallis and tefillin.
Watching, she felt left out, alone. Not that she wished to be one of them; but it seemed cozy, the little group of men, sharing the same activity, binding themselves with the black leather straps to God, to their faith. It was something she could never be part of, though she did see a woman in the back, standing at a respectful distance from the men. She had blonde curly hair, very frizzy and thick like a mane ringing her pretty round face, holding a prayer book and intoning her own prayers. The woman’s face looked like something out of a Dutch painting, Rembrandt or Vermeer, precise but lighted well, the light from the windows of the plane landing on the white of the prayer book, which then seemed to reflect up to her face. What had Lamdan said about the Torah being a source of light, bouncing out and being reflected back? A painter would depict this scene well, she mused, showing the holiness coming off the books into the faces. Though noting the woman’s loveliness, Wendy still had to conjecture cynically whether the fervor emanating from her face at prayer could last over time.
Her gaze turned to Lamdan himself. Wendy was suddenly embarrassed by the unnatural proximity to others inside the plane, seeing religious men so fervent, so close up. Lamdan looked sincere, binding himself in his tefillin. As he had departed with the Yiddish-speaking Hasid, he said to her, “I can’t study with them, but I can pray with them. That’s the most important thing.” She wasn’t sure quite what he meant. She wanted to connect it to what he said about his need to question the tradition, yet be nurtured by it. Critical in study, comforted in prayer; it seemed like a nice balance.
The men at the front of the plane bound themselves in their leather straps, kissing the boxes, putting them on their heads, opening their prayer books, their expressions changing as they opened the books—she couldn’t tell exactly why or how. They all looked raw, exposed, like someone had rubbed off the outermost layer of skin, camouflaging true expression, and now their emotional selves were on public display. The face of a man about to come during sex came into her head. She tried to get rid of it—such a profane analogy—but she saw in the daveners the same fervor, concentration, rush of emotion—the total being in the moment so that nothing could intervene to break the focus. Usually during sex she kept her eyes closed, but sometimes she liked to see her partner’s face, to fathom who he was, what he wanted.