After smoothing the white tablecloth purchased at the shuk that she found on the bottom shelf of the linen closet, Wendy brushed past her bookshelf and paused, looking at a row of paperbacks. She wanted to find that scene in the novel, the meal ringing people together to say, “Life stand still here,” with Mrs. Ramsay. Was that what Shabbat was, an attempt to create a moment of illumination, a making of the moment something permanent, the “cathedral in time” that Heschel described in his The Sabbath she’d read in Intro to Religion? Wendy thought of her LitHum teacher at Columbia, Anna Dalgrav, and how she read the dinner party passage to the class one winter afternoon, almost as a performance, in her soft yet mesmerizing voice, enabling them to hear the words of Woolf’s vision as the winter sun descended in the sky through the window of her late afternoon classroom. The spectacle through the window of ambient light crowning the red sunset saturated the students’ perception of the passage that day. The book still had her underlinings, and Wendy easily found the scene she wanted.
“Here, inside the room, seemed to be order and dry land; there, outside a reflection in which things wavered and vanished, waterily.
“Some change at once went through them all, as if this had really happened, and they were all conscious of making a party together in a hollow, on an island; had their common cause against that fluidity out there.”
When Wendy read this, she began to sob. All was fluidity in her life—she had no common cause with the guests, they could never feel something together as a group. Her aloneness seemed more palpable with every one of the eight plates she placed on the table and accompanied with their silverware and glasses, napkins and a Kiddush cup Noah had brought from his apartment. This Shabbat dinner, a failure before its inception, would provide no bulwark against any piece of the outside world. Table set, she went to lie on her bed and sob. The Sabbath siren went off while she was prone, clenching her pillow and kicking her feet in the air like a schoolchild. “No lights tonight,” she thought, not wanting to offend the Sabbath observers by lighting after the prescribed time, thus profaning the Sabbath. She remembered that she didn’t have candles anyway. Noah had been planning to bring them when he came back to walk her to shul. So much for the change Mrs. Ramsay had produced with her command to “Light the candles,” Wendy thought as she dragged herself to shower and dress.
When the first guests—the non-synagogue-going Isaac Babel scholar Todd, followed quickly by Orly and then Nir—rang the bell at the front gate of 5 Mishael, Wendy was composed enough to greet them with a semblance of cheer.
“Where’s Noah?” were Orly’s first words, once coats were hung up, and they were sitting on the couch waiting.
“Still at shul I guess,” Wendy replied to Orly’s arched eyebrows.
“You didn’t go with him? Have you returned to our dark side now?” Nir added.
Todd put his arm around Wendy and said, “She’ll always be on the dark side, n’est ce pas?” in the French of his Montreal childhood, an affectation that could be annoying when Wendy wasn’t charmed by it despite herself.
Wendy returned the arm around Todd, enjoying his familiar solidity, the warmth of his itchy wool sweater, and said, “If you have your way, Todd,” laughing for the first time all day. Did he have to be gay? Life was so unfair, she mused, when boyfriends who were suitable might be gay, and gay men who might be suitable couldn’t be boyfriends.
Noah arrived next with Jason and Dara. Even though they hadn’t been at the same shuls, they had met up at some point on the walk and arrived together. She had given Noah the key to let himself in with the groceries and told him just to keep it till he returned so she wouldn’t have to be bothered with going out to the gate on a chilly night and he wouldn’t have to ring. Wordlessly, he handed Wendy the key once inside.
Orly cheerfully called out, “Do I have to ring a bell or something? Noah, give Wendy a Shabbat Shalom kiss?” Wendy heard this from her bedroom where she was depositing the key in the drawer of her nightstand. She gave Orly a look upon returning to the room, and Orly said no more. Miraculously, the notoriously unsubtle friend seemed to realize that she had spoken out of turn; no one else commented, though Todd patted Wendy’s back and asked what he could do to help.
Noah replied, “We’re just waiting for Yehoshua, but maybe we should start without him. The davening and dancing at the Kotel can go on so long, and it’s a big walk.”
Jason added, “He wasn’t sure he could come anyway. He thought there might be a farbrengen, and he wanted to be close to the Old City. He said if he got an invitation closer by, he’d do it.”
Wendy pouted, “But . . . that’s so rude. We invited him. He should have told us if he’s not coming. I set a place for him!”
“Well, maybe Elijah will come eat, now,” added Orly helpfully.
“Until then, we should start,” Noah said, with what Wendy noted as an overtone of harshness. It didn’t quite set the tone that she would have wanted to welcome people to her house. This was the first time she was having a dinner for anyone and she had seen it as a milestone of sorts, a path to adulthood: the cooking and organizing and inviting details that others generally did. Usually, she was a passive participant in these affairs, a guest. Now she was actively trying to create this dinner in her own home. And the whole thing sucked, despite all her efforts, because she didn’t want to be around Noah.
“So why doesn’t everyone find a seat?” Wendy asked, gesturing to the table.
Dara asked helpfully, “Where are the hosts sitting?”
Without glancing at Noah, Wendy said, “I’m here at the head, and Noah will be down at the other end,” where I can glare at him and inquire why he put me through this, she thought, hoping he would notice the hostility in her glare. Noah did not seem to notice and cheerfully gestured to Jason to sit on one side of him and Todd on the other. This annoyed Wendy since she had wanted Todd next to her, as her friend. Orly sat next to Todd, and Nir between her and Wendy. Dara sat next to Jason, across from Orly, so the seat next to Wendy, intended for Yehoshua, remained empty. Wendy’s nearest dinner companions at the table were Dara, who still annoyed her, and Nir, whose main point of interest was his hulking body, not his conversational skills, which were at best limited in English, though he understood what others said, so Wendy would not be finding much to engage her with these companions at her sides.
Since it was her apartment, Wendy believed she should have jurisdiction over the portion of the evening devoted to religious ritual. Noah, on the other hand, believed that his having cooked the vast majority of the dishes to be eaten should give him an elective sway over the religious proceedings. Noah said, “Let’s do Shalom Aleichem,” and Wendy immediately started to sing the tune she knew, the only tune she could sing for this song, from her days at Camp Kodimoh. No one joined in. Abruptly, she stopped.
Then, Noah started from the beginning with another tune that all joined with.
Wendy sat, listening to the others sing around her own table.
She did have to admit, Noah’s tune was snappier and peppier, and the singing was more interesting with the repetition of each verse three times unlike hers where it was sung once. It made her mad that even religion-defying Nir was unafraid to join in to what she thought of as a tune from the enemy faction. Orly looked at Wendy and shrugged as if to say, Okay, so you lost that round. Your tune wasn’t as nice, but let’s get on with it. Wendy knew Orly would feel guilty later when she realized that her singing meant she was on Noah’s side and Wendy had been hurt. When the song was over, Noah immediately began to sing Proverbs 31, the hymn to the “woman of valor.” Growing up, Wendy’s father always read this in its entirety in English to all the assembled at the table. She liked the maze of Byzantine archaic phrases in an old-fashioned English that was quaintly unfamiliar—“who considereth a field and buys it,” “who looks well to the ways of the household,” “girds her loins with strength,” “who eats not of the bread of idleness.” She knew exactly what the Hebrew was
saying, but it was still an unfamiliar song and tune. Before launching into the melody, Noah and the others—for she was beginning to see them all as more his allies than her own—could have asked her if this was how she wanted it done. Out of defiance, she decided she would recite it in English after they finished, even if it lengthened the proceedings.
“B’sha’arim ma’asekha.” The last words of the hymn concluded and hung in the air.
“My father always read ‘the woman of valor’ out loud to my mother in the English she would understand on Friday night. Since this is my Shabbat table,” she intoned with a glare at Noah though the others did not seem to note her emphasis on the “my” not “our,” “I’d like to do that.”
Here, Nir balked. “Oof, what is this, Wundy? You said the prayer already. Nu, aren’t we going to eat tonight?”
Dara, the Reconstructionist rabbinical student, came to Wendy’s defense. “Nir, this is Wendy’s family tradition. It may not be meaningful to you but it is part of her way of connecting to Judaism and creating an evocative panorama to look out on through her lens of Judaism.” Wendy could not believe she would ever be so grateful to Dara, pretentious though her prattle might be—panorama?—but she was going to win this round. Wendy began to recite from memory, “A woman of worth who can find?” and closed her eyes to concentrate fully on the words and block out stimulation from her other senses. It was eerie; she felt as though she were channeling her father, reciting his words in his voice. She also thought, oddly, of her college professor Caroline Van Leeuwen, who would close her eyes when making a crucial point. Wendy liked the feeling of leading others, instructing them, that she sensed in reciting this passage out loud, trying to project her voice as sonorously as her father’s. She liked this sense of continuing something that surely her parents, so far away, were also doing now. She was connected to them and giving something of her family to the others in the room.
When she was finished, Noah again took on himself the prerogative of doling out the ritual parts. “Jason, do you want to make Kiddush for us?” Noah asked. Before Jason could answer, Wendy said, “I’d like Dara to do it.” At this point the guests were clear that Wendy and Noah were either like a much-bickering long-married couple who are together for the pleasure of being in an argument, or that they really were arguing and not together. None of the guests were interested in watching the argument play out or in taking sides. Watching the arguments of other couples was like accidentally coming across a dead mouse in your kitchen; you knew it had once been alive with a beating heart and blood coursing through its veins, but saw it now unnaturally stiff. You did not want to have to bend down to remove it, but just wanted it to be gone, for someone else to take it away, without your having to get near it and actually touch the petrified body.
Todd jumped in, saying, “I’d like to do Kiddush, if that’s okay with everyone?” Wendy nodded at him gratefully, and Noah passed him the full cup of wine he’d been holding, about to give to Jason on his right, now given over to Todd on his left. Todd added, “Can I have a bencher?” and Noah handed him a small booklet with the blessing for the wine and Grace after Meals, which he had in his apartment from a wedding of one of the teachers at Wisdom of the Heart that students had been invited to. Wendy often forgot that Todd was a rabbi’s son; though he wasn’t currently religious, he was great at filling in these socially awkward moments. Todd began to chant, knowing the prayer by heart, not needing the book, but wanting to read it so as to be sure to emphasize each word. Nir drummed his fingers on the table to visibly demonstrate his impatience with this religious ritual, until Orly surreptitiously reached up to clasp his hand and hold it still so the drumming would cease. Todd finished the prayer and took a sip from the cup, took the bottle of wine from in front of Noah, and poured more of it into the cup he had blessed. Then he took the cup and poured some into the glasses of each of the guests near him, and gave the cup he blessed to Orly to pass to Nir and Wendy farthest away. Wendy smiled at Todd with immense gratitude, wishing she had a smile like that to give to Noah because she was pleased with something he’d done. All were sipping quietly until Noah broke the silence by humming a niggun. Jason and Dara joined in. The others sat at the table until Orly said, “I brought the challah from that amazing bakery behind the gas station, and I have been dying to eat it all day. Can we say Hamotzi?”
“You lead us, Orly.” Wendy was particular to specify, mentally tallying the score, two for her side with Kiddush and Hamotzi, “but I think some people want to wash.” Thus signaled, Noah, Jason, and Dara got up to ritually lave their hands. Wendy did not want to wash, to distance herself from Noah, but she knew that as hostess she needed to fetch a clean towel for the washers, so she went with them to the kitchen and foraged in a drawer until one was located. The three began to wash their hands, and as Wendy was going back to the table, Todd got up to join the washers.
Wendy wanted to cry out, “Todd, stop, please don’t. I thought you were on my team,” but instead patted his arm in what she wanted to be a gesture of appreciation that she hoped he would recognize as such. She returned to the table and said loudly and pointedly to Nir and Orly, “Sorry this is taking so long. We’ll be eating soon,” and Nir said, “I’ve experienced worse; don’t worry. Anyway, it’s not your fault dossim have all these . . .”—Orly completed his sentence—“rituals.”
“‘Poolhan’ okay, ree-tu-al,” Nir added, exaggerating how ridiculous he felt the word and action to be.
Noah, Jason, and Dara had come back from washing and seated themselves at the table. Dara started a humming tune, slow, soulful, full of melancholy, and Wendy was again annoyed, this time at the change of mood it brought. At least the other tunes, with the exception of the one she herself had initiated, were upbeat and peppy. This was like a dirge. Mercifully, Todd returned to the table hastily, and Orly raised the cloth napkin from the challot and intoned the blessing. She broke off pieces and even sprinkled salt over them as she’d seen others do at this ritual countless times, and placed the pieces on her own plate, which she passed around. The whole loaf was dismantled within moments. Orly returned her plate to her place; there was now no other serving dish to put the pieces of the remaining challah on. All wanted another piece; no one wanted to tear into the next loaf. Noah said, “Wendy don’t you have a tray to put slices of challah on if we slice it up?”
“No, I don’t. But why don’t we just pass this around?” She lifted the loaf and ripped off a hunk of the braid. “I’ll get the hummus from the fridge. Sorry, I forgot to put it out.” Wendy went to get the condiment, and when she returned the formerly large braided loaf had been reduced to a few shreds and pieces. She felt saddened, the whole golden shimmering loaf gone, devoured, only crumbs and lopsided chunks remaining behind. All were passing the hummus around, trying to get some on their challah. Orly asked, to the table, “So how was everyone’s week? In my house we used to do a ‘highlight of the week,’ Friday night, sharing whatever was most exciting or meaningful.” She looked around and said, “Noah, you’re the host. Why don’t you go first?”
He looked at Wendy and said, “We should serve the soup before we start since there isn’t much else on the table now.” They had both forgotten to get more salatim, the de rigueur first course in Israel; Noah wanted to serve the soup to cover for this omission. Wendy wanted to make him squirm, so threw out, “Noah, I’ll serve the soup, and you start,” in what she hoped was a sweet enough tone to mask the hostility she felt. She wanted to talk not about her high, but her low of the week, having Noah tell her he was passionate about someone else.
As she went to the kitchen to get the soup, Dara followed. They weren’t far enough away from the group to really have a conversation, but Dara said, “You know, Wendy, whatever is going on with you and Noah, you’ve invited us as guests. I’m sure what you are dealing with—I’m not going to pry”—she took the laden bowl of steaming yellow broth with the round matzah balls drifting on its surface along with slices of carrot
and parsnip—“you can do without an audience. Try”—Dara started walking to the table retaining the precious liquid—“to make sure your guests are comfortable, that it’s not awkward for us.” As her back was almost to Wendy she added, “Just saying.” Wendy continued to dole out the soup, and Dara returned to fetch the bowls, along with Todd. She was annoyed with Orly for not getting up, but it was probably for the best. There was no door or privacy between kitchen and dining room, and Wendy did not want to start crying in front of Orly, which she felt she was in danger of doing.
When all had been served soup, Wendy returned to the table, not having heard what Noah had said was his highlight. Orly turned to Wendy and asked, “So you were with Noah when he got this pamphlet?”
“Yes. Was that the highlight, Noah?” she asked in a tone she hoped wasn’t too laden with the animosity she felt. He looked and her and nodded, embarrassed, and his face went back to studying the soup, probing the best place to position his spoon to cut into the matzah balls which were on the hard and solid side, as his family made them, not fluffy and airy, as from Wendy’s Grandma Essie’s recipe. Wendy added, “Yeah, this guy just got out of his car and made a beeline for Noah. Do they just go around all day doing that, picking out random people and handing them pamphlets to get them convinced there is something unique about the experience?”
“Yeah, that happened to my friend; waiting for a tremp in the army, some dos walked up to him and gave him a pamphlet,” Nir commented.
Jason asked, interested, “So what happened?”
“Klum, nothing. He kept waiting for a ride.”
“So what’s the point of the story?” Dara asked, perplexed.
“He got a pamphlet, zeh huh zeh, that’s it.”
Noah let his spoon rest on his bowl and said to the group, “It was a message to me, and it meant something,” looking pointedly at Wendy. “Seconds on soup anyone?” Nir raised his bowl to signal yes, and Jason said, “Please.” Wendy added, “Me too if you don’t mind,” and Noah came around to ceremoniously take her bowl from her, giving her a sweet smile as he did so. Jason got up to help Noah serve.
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