“I don’t know. Even if it is part of a ploy, Noah was still the one selected out of the crowd. That should mean something,” Dara said, but added, “but I can see how rationally it doesn’t make sense if it is a plan to give some people the sense that they are being singled out. Still, we’re in this spiritual city. I’d like to think there is still some mystery in the world.”
Todd, with his spoon in the air added, “That’s the point, no? We have things we want to think, that Noah has been singled out, and those that are true. We don’t know whether or not this is a technique of recruiters or a real phenomenon.” He took a mouthful of soup and said to Wendy, “I didn’t know you could cook; this soup is awesome.”
Before Wendy could disclaim involvement in its manufacture, as she wished to, Noah said, “I made it; thanks Todd,” and gave him a big gaptoothed smile and the most charming facial expression he could offer. Wendy was not in the mood to watch this and would have to warn Todd that he would be banished from her sight were he to take up with this guy. She didn’t see anything getting that far, but still. Noah went back to his host role and said, “Let’s continue highlights of the week.” He turned to Jason on his right. “Jason?”
Jason, spoon in mouth, looked startled and then, spoon removed, pleased. “Okay, I’ll try not to make this too long but”—he looked at all assembled and Wendy somehow felt she was looking at him for the first time, noticing his excited brown eyes, the pale porcelain skin that set them off by contrast, his delicate hands. She wasn’t interested in him—he was Dara’s guy—but she just hadn’t spent any time studying him in detail until now. “So I am privileged to be learning full-time this year,” Jason said, as he looked across the table at Orly and Nir, “and I do realize it is a privilege, not something I take for granted, and my highlights are those of students, learning things that are really . . . just make you connect. In Atarah Hideckel’s parsha class this week, she talked about duality in Jacob. This portion of Toldot, generations, concerns itself with the question of whose values will prevail, those of Isaac or those of Rebecca? Each wants to see the way he or she wants things to be: Rebecca, that Jacob should be blessed, and Isaac, rooting for team Esau. But more, whose values—those of Isaac and his Abrahamic heritage, or Rebecca the Aramean, which means ‘cheater’—will prevail in the next generation? The question is really, Whose child is this? Abraham’s or Laban’s?
“What is it about Jacob that enables him to be the fit recipient of his father’s blessing? When asked by his mother, Jacob is capable of donning a costume and impersonating his brother, taking on his characteristics. Jacob is someone who is prepared for what comes his way. He is not fixed and static, but able to change in response to the demands of a situation. Jacob, as a result of his disguise and gaining Isaac’s blessing, prepares years later to encounter Esau for the first time since their separation twenty years earlier. Jacob procures a gift offering for Esau, prays, and gets ready for battle. Yet what happens with Esau? There is not a confrontation, but a kiss and Esau’s acceptance of the blessing Jacob offers. The real confrontation comes the night before when Jacob is alone and a ‘man’ comes to him. The text states clearly that it is an ‘ish,’ a man, yet the angels who come to Abraham earlier are called ‘men’ as well, though they are clearly angels. In any case, Jacob wrestles not with Esau but with this unknown and unnamed entity. So, though he prepares to confront Esau, what he ends up struggling with is not Esau. Commentators suggest it might be a messenger of Esau, Jacob’s conscience, a dream projection. Whatever it is, Jacob is able to confront it, though it isn’t what he prepared for.
“That insight is my highlight of the week, a sense that if we prepare for and approach a problem from a variety of perspectives, we will be able to prevail over it. For most of us, what we may ultimately have to deal with is not the thing we prepared for. And the results are not what we would expect either. Jacob is shalem, whole, only after he has injured his thigh in the wrestling. Jacob, like all of us, is a character marked by duality, with qualities of both Abraham and of Laban. Yet, Jacob is able, ultimately, to listen to both his parents; ‘vayeshma Yakov el aviv vi’el emo,’ the parsha ends by telling us; he listened to them both, his father and his mother. For Jacob to take on some of the characteristics of Laban to continue the Abrahamic line was a hard but necessary step. In obeying both his parents, he has proven, with his ability to access aspects of each of their heritages, he is truly theirs together.”
Noah jumped in, “Jason, wow. That is such an important message: to be willing and able to cope with what life throws you in order to be ultimately shalem. Don’t you agree, Wendy?” Noah looked at her with pleading in his eyes.
Wendy coolly said, “I don’t feel like I know enough about the text to make a comment but,”—she paused—“you know”—she looked around the table—“I can identify with Jacob, becoming wounded from his unexpected encounters, confronting an adversary he did not expect.” She stood up. “Noah, let’s clear the soup and serve the main course.”
Dara’s injunction to make the guests comfortable had not been heeded; they all felt awkward now. As one, each person got up, bowl in hand to help clear the soup. No one remained seated and they went into the kitchen as a group.
While they were finally clearing the table at the meal’s end, Wendy and Todd were alone in the kitchen as she rinsed off the dishes and put the food away. Wendy handed Todd a rinsed dish to dry off and asked, “Do you think you could walk Noah home tonight?”
He looked at her with a puzzled frown, taking the dish in his toweled hand. “He’s not sleeping over? Isn’t that the deal with a dinner party—once you successfully cook and entertain, the hosts seduce each other doing dishes, licking the food residue off each others’ fingers?”
“Noah is . . . we’re not together. We had a big fight today. I wanted to call off this dinner, but he insisted that it was too close to Shabbos.”
Todd looked at Wendy with concern as he laid the plate on the counter. “Are you okay? Do you want me to stay so we can talk?”
“No. I’ll call or e-mail my friends in the States after this.” She glanced at her watch. “Someone should be home by now, it’s afternoon there.”
“Why do you want me to go with him? Just to be sure he is out of here?”
“If you offer to walk with him I won’t be alone with him. Also . . .”
“What? Wendy?” He looked at her again, serious. “Does this have anything to do with Sam?”
Wendy didn’t know how to comment, so waited for Todd to cover the conversational standstill.
Todd added, rinsing a bowl in the sink, “It’s tough to be a survivor. The Biblical Noah was never the same either—after the flood, he drank and let his children see him naked; some commentators even say the sons molested their father.” He looked at her. “Was there something that happened between Sam and Noah? I never saw Noah as Sam’s type.”
“I’m not at liberty to talk about it—he is very confused right now.” She started to get tears in her eyes. Todd was busy drying and didn’t see them, so she was able to wipe the salty liquid away quickly.
He looked up. “Done. Dessert?”
“Grandma Essie’s apple chocolate chip cake. Every time it is served, someone asks for the recipe. See it over there?” He started walking over to where it was sitting on the counter.
She said, “Hey, take the plastic wrap off? Thanks. I’ll bring the bowl of fruit; you take the cake. Okay?”
When they delivered the desserts to the table, Dara asked, “Do you have tea, Wendy?”
“I can heat up some water.”
“I only wanted it if you had hot water already made,” said Dara.
“I want coffee. You have?” Nir asked. “I’m a goy. I’ll make it.”
Wendy was fairly sure he wanted the drink only to annoy the Sabbath observers, and was waiting for him to ask whether they could put on the evening news at nine, not realizing that Wendy didn’t have a TV.
Wendy answ
ered, “I can make it.” This statement provoked a raised eyebrow from Orly to Wendy. Wendy knew that by saying she would make the coffee, she was proclaiming herself for the secular team. Wendy had told Orly beforehand that, in deference to Noah, the evening would be shomer Shabbat. “I only have instant, though.”
“I don’t drink bullshit instant coffee. We’ll grab a cup afterwards.” He turned to Orly and she nodded, assenting. Wendy assumed he said this not because he cared either way about the coffee but to continue to irritate Noah, Dara, and Jason by reminding them that he was planning to be mehallel shabbos, to transgress.
Todd broke the awkwardness by saying, “Shall we cut the cake? It smells great and it’s Wendy’s grandmother’s recipe.”
After the guests left, Wendy wrote in her journal: “I’m so angry about Noah, but strangely touched by his story of kissing Sam. He comforted someone as he lay dying, even though the dying man had tried to deceive and seduce him. Noah didn’t think about that, just comforted him. Kindness. But then he told me he loved me when he didn’t, or wasn’t sure, but needed to prove something to himself, not to me. That was selfish. Odd, someone who can be so generous, which his kiss to Sam was, could also be so deceptive.
“The pamphlet—what is that about? Maybe there is such a thing as basherte? It was so strange that the man just walked up to Noah in all the crowd and handed it to him.”
She looked up from her desk at her bookshelf and saw a pamphlet-sized paper on top of some books. She opened the pamphlet—this time to see what was written inside.
Teshuvah tefilah and tzedaka are all paths to transformation.
We each have a neshama tehorah, a pure soul, inside us waiting to emerge like a butterfly from a chrysalis if only we will rid ourselves of the outer filth and let the inner radiance shine through.
No matter what your aveirah (sin), you can repent.
Come learn at the RISE yeshiva and our teachers will introduce you to true happiness and purity.
Call Rabbi B. at (02) 613-6333 to schedule a visit.
Wendy crumpled the brochure and threw it in her kitchen garbage on the way to the bathroom to wash up and get ready to fall into a long exhausted sleep. She didn’t need to turn on the bathroom light, as Noah had taped it so it wouldn’t be shut off by a negligent non-observer by accident and force the Sabbath observers to do their business in the dark. Wendy ripped the tape off the light switch with fury and cast it in the trash. She grabbed her toothbrush and forced the toothpaste to spurt out. As she began to brush her teeth ferociously, she looked clearly in the mirror at her exposed white teeth, so sharp and hard, ready to tear into whatever necessary to provide her daily sustenance.
How could he prefer Sam to me? I’ve never had sex like that, so intense and furious. But then he is so . . . Oberlin wishy-washy—now I’ll be religious because I got a random pamphlet; now I’ll be gay because a beautiful man came on to me. She brushed the backs of her molars. I really wanted to start building my life, being in a relationship, having dinner parties, being a grownup. Now I’m back to being a miserable teenager, alone in my bedroom.
That is what hurts: not being wanted. I liked him—she splashed more water on her face—and he doesn’t want to be with me. I thought it would be something ongoing over the whole year. Wendy squeezed her apricot facial scrub out of the tube and onto her hand and started rubbing the cleanser, filled with small pieces of apricot pits, into her face, enjoying the abrasive feeling of the mushy exfoliant, light brown flecked with darker brown pieces. I’d have a companion to do things with, go see movies, take a break, go to the museum, take long walks and talk. Now, it’s just me and any friends I can corral.
She splashed more water on her face to wash off the scrub. I don’t want to be alone forever. I want to have a boyfriend and eventually a husband. I am interesting, attractive, well read, fun to be with—I hope. I think about others—I’m not too self-centered, am I? What feels so—she looked up at herself in the mirror and now started crying, staring at her face with the tears pouring down—unfair. Noah just handed this down to me. “We can’t go out anymore. I’m still thinking about this guy Sam, and I want to be more religious so I’m breaking up with you.” It was so unilateral; I didn’t have any say. And I guess that’s what hurt most. I thought the sex was so good because it was Noah and me; but it too was lopsided, him wanting to be with a woman, and I was there, but it wasn’t me that he wanted. It hurts retroactively—is that possible? She gave her face a few more splashes of water for good measure and, looking in the mirror again, said, out loud this time, “Why didn’t he give me a chance instead of thinking he was in love with someone else? He’s going to change, but I’m glad I don’t have to.”
Three weeks after the Shabbat dinner, Noah had called Wendy and asked if they could speak. She assented and they planned to meet at a newly opened café on Emek Refaim, Café Mystica.
Thursday night was generally a big evening out for Israelis, but the hour was early, and Café Mystica not yet full. The dark room smelled faintly of incense, and each table contained candles in perforated candleholders to create an effect of shadows on the walls. The walls were a deep shade of blue, a protective and mystical color. A note on the menu, also the same shade of cerulean blue, stated that the walls matched those of synagogues in Safed, the spiritual center of Jewish mysticism. There were low tables and large pillows on the floor, a combination of India and the Middle East. There were also higher tables with conventional chairs for those patrons not willing to sit so close to the earth of the Holy Land.
When Wendy entered Café Mystica, she was looking for the Noah she dated who wore hooded zip-up sweatshirts, T-shirts of various vintage provenances, jeans, canvas Converse sneakers, and a crocheted kipah.
As Wendy glanced around the room to seek out Noah, she saw a woman laying her hands across a man’s body, moving from the head down, kneeling in front of him and concentrating intensely. It seemed odd and sexually suggestive, yet this was a public place and the man was wearing a kipah. She later found out from a waitress that it was Reiki, a Japanese system of healing powers that concentrates the body’s chakras to strengthen the immune system and accelerate spiritual growth. She remembered one of her interviewees mentioning it. She spotted two couples sipping herbal tea in another corner, two women wearing short skirts and tight sweaters on regular-sized chairs, and a man near the end of the room sitting by himself, reading a book. The man was wearing a black velvet kipah over his dirty brown hair, cut short, though showing traces of its former unruliness by poking up in short waves in various directions. He was wearing a clean white long-sleeved shirt with tzitzit (ritual fringes) showing underneath, black pants, and canvas high-top basketball sneakers. When Wendy entered, he looked up from the book he was reading and smiled, showing the gap between his front teeth. His gray-blue eyes gazed at her. As she was about to turn around and wait outside for Noah, he waved at her. She realized that it was Noah.
She walked over to the table and seated herself across from him.
He said, “Wendy, you look great. I’d forgotten how good you looked . . . wow.”
Wendy was wearing a cream colored long-sleeved scoop-necked sweater, fitted though not tight, and a black velvet skirt that went to her knees, tights, and black lace-up granny shoes with a medium heel. Her clothing could certainly be worn by a woman trying to be fashionably modest in dress, but did not match the clothing of a companion with a black velvet kipah. She was wearing earrings and a bit of makeup, dressed for a night out, after a day spent with books and computer in the library.
Wendy began to blush a bit, and then saw Noah hesitating, realizing that maybe he had spoken beyond what are acceptable bounds for an unmarried religious man and woman.
“I didn’t recognize you, sorry. I see you’re dressing the part.” She really didn’t know what to say to the person sitting across from her, the one she’d been so intimate with previously.
“Not completely.” He grinned at her and stuck his foot
out to the side of the table, showing her the pride of his wardrobe: his white Chuck Norris Converse hightops. “I still have my sneakers,” he said.
Wendy grinned back. “I’m glad.”
“Some things need to change and some don’t. I’ve been wearing these since high school. They’re my trademark. I buy a few pairs at a time so I always have a replacement when one gets worn. I brought five pairs to Israel, and these are my third,” he said with the pride of a kid showing an achievement that he wanted an adult to notice.
“Lots of my baalei teshuvah find ways to stay connected to their pasts, while they adhere to the rules of their new way of life.”
“Am I a baal teshuvah? Do I fit with the others?”
“It hasn’t been long enough, Noah.” She gazed at him, feeling so estranged from this man she’d once had great intimacy with. “How are you doing, really?” He looked close to tears, and Wendy said, compassionately, “If you don’t want to talk about this in public, we can go to my apartment.”
He looked at her, stricken, as if she had just bitten, blissfully, into a bacon cheeseburger. “I can’t. Yichud.” When she looked at him blankly, he explained, “An unmarried man and woman can’t be in a room alone together. It’s one of the many fences around the Torah.”
“Really,” she said looking down at her hands. “I didn’t know desire for women was your problem.”
Noah smiled appreciatively. “I don’t know. I had desire for you. I had desire for Sam. I feel like I can’t trust my desires because they might be forbidden. I’d like to live at the yeshiva so my life could be totally structured, but I can’t get out of my lease. I’m getting a stipend from NYU so I can’t just blow off my university classes. I’m confused.” Noah looked as though tears were about to enter his eyes.
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