Questioning Return

by Beth Kissileff

  “Isn’t the yeshiva’s structure the answer to your problems?”

  “I don’t want all of my life to be the dalet amot, the four walls of halacha. I want the structure, but I have to stretch beyond their perimeter. Does that make sense?”

  “What’s most difficult now?” Wendy was proud of herself for shifting into professional interviewer mode and away from anger at being deserted by a boyfriend. Her mind started whirring: I can use this to learn something about the teshuvah process I can’t from regular interviews with people who’ve overcome some of these initial conflicts and stayed in the yeshiva environment. A section on initial qualms and difficulties, what observances were easy or difficult to take on and what was most challenging to give up? She began to rummage in her purse for her pocket notebook to jot down these musings.

  “Do you mind?” Irritation was evident in the tone of normally calm Noah. “I’m trying to do teshuva. Put the notebook away and just be my friend. Please.” Noah accompanied these words with a beseeching look.

  “Just thinking in writing. You know how obsessive you can be when you’re working on a project. I had an idea for my questionnaire,” she said as she slipped the small wire-bound pad back into the purse slung over the side of her chair, and casually pressed her hair behind her ears to expose them to him, “All ears now. Really.”

  “What’s hard at the yeshiva is that I don’t fit in; there’s no class on the right level. I’m not a beginner—I spent a year at Wisdom of the Heart and I have knowledge from university courses. But I didn’t go to yeshiva high school and can’t go into classes with those guys. That is kind of the yeshiva’s focus, beginner and advanced. Today, I talked with Rabbi B.—I don’t even know his full name; everyone just calls him Rabbi B., the rosh yeshiva. He tries to get to know all the students, so he can have a personal influence on their rise. He told me I should quit grad school, and the yeshiva would give me the same stipend I was getting from NYU. He has a PhD himself, American history maybe, and taught at Yeshiva University before making aliyah, but now says academia is a dangerous place, full of narishkeit. I hope the structure of the yeshiva will keep my passions, my illicit ones, at bay, at least temporarily.”

  “‘Passions are true heathens.’ My favorite line from Jane Eyre. Those heathens will stick around even at the yeshiva. If you’re around guys all day, are you attracted to anyone?”

  “Honestly, I haven’t had many sexual feelings since I started going there. I’m tired when I get home after ten at night after being both there and at the university.”

  “You can’t repress yourself forever. You’ll have to deal with these issues eventually. I’m telling you this as a friend.”

  He replied, “Hmm.”

  “Let me tell you a story. When you told me that word, yichud, I remembered where I heard it before. Did you ever want to know how I got access to Yeshivat Temimei Nefesh? It is rather odd that they’d let a single woman talk to their students, isn’t it?”

  “I did, but I guessed they liked the prestige of being written up in a dissertation. What is the story?”

  Wendy decided there was no reason not to tell all, so she began, “Well, you’re not the only guy I’ve kissed in Israel, Noah.” He winced at this, which she was glad to see because it meant he still could have jealous feelings even if he was the one who’d broken up with her. “The first Shabbat I was here, a guy, a baal teshuvah, who’d been at the dinner I was at, walked me home. He came up to use my bathroom, and . . . One thing led to another. I went to speak to Rabbi Gibber and told him, not about a specific student or what exactly happened, but kind of hinted that I knew personally that students who are on the path may veer from it and not be able to talk to their rabbis. So . . . if they let me do an anonymous survey but with follow-up interviews with randomly selected students, they might learn things. Find out what they couldn’t otherwise.”

  “Do students know the rabbis might see their responses?”

  Wendy hesitated. “Well, no, we haven’t discussed it. It just says on the form that it is for me, but I agreed to show it to the rabbis. I guess I’ll have to decide what to show and what not to.”

  Noah crossed his arms. “Isn’t that, like, unethical, to tell someone you are doing something that only one person will see when really others will too? Aren’t there, um, protocols, for research on human subjects?”

  Wendy crossed her arms too. “Noah, it’s my dissertation. Let me figure that out. It also has to get done, and in order to do that I have to get to my subjects, you know,” she said with obvious exasperation in her voice. “Whatever it is I need to do for that, I will. Okay? I need to write this thing for my career, remember?”

  “Just be careful when dealing with people, Wendy.” He looked at her. “They have feelings. You’re asking questions of human beings, not of your career.”

  “Like you are such an expert on feelings. Come on, Noah.” She was weighing the cost in humiliation of admitting to him the depth of the sorrow and anguish his breakup with her had caused. She decided to tell him: “Noah, I was really hurt by you. I . . . don’t think I would ever be in love with you, but . . . I liked what we had. I didn’t want it to end.” She breathed out. “I just wanted you to know that.”

  “Wendy . . .” he exhaled and then inhaled. “I really am sorry. I wish it weren’t this way. I . . . I just don’t know what I want. I shouldn’t have told you about Sam.”

  “But then our relationship would be a lie.”

  “I didn’t want that.”

  Wendy looked at him and said, “Time to figure it out, Noah. You know, baal teshuvah is literally ‘master of the answer,’ and the opposite is hozer be’sha’ailah, returnee to the question. Leaving the security of the answers.”

  “That gets at my problem. Do I want the security of the yeshiva or the unknowns of the academic world, a life of questions?”

  “Strange. I had almost this exact discussion with some one a year ago, in Princeton. He also had an issue of living with freedom or security, though in a totally different context.”

  “Really,” said Noah.

  “Yeah, my friend Jay, a grad student in Talmud, was offered this position as the editor of a well known rabbi’s papers. It was a guaranteed position, with a good salary, but he was starting his dissertation and wanted to do his own work. The logical thing to do would be to take the secure job. He didn’t.”

  “Okay, so?”

  “He told me this story from the Gemara, about two people in the desert with only enough water for one to live. What to do? Do you both drink and both die, or let only one drink and live? I thought they should both drink so neither of them has to watch the other die. But the Talmud says, if you own the water, you are entitled to drink it. For Jay, it meant he was entitled to use his efforts and abilities for his own work. It was a hard decision because he gave up a good salary and security.”

  “Where is he now?” queried Noah.

  “Penned up in a tiny carrel in Firestone Library writing his dissertation.”

  Noah looked at Wendy. “I know it is my life and I can live it the way I want; I’m just not sure what I do want. Do I want to be gay and have intense passions and be an academic and write, or do I want to be in the yeshiva and know for sure that I am living my life properly, doing mitzvot, maybe be a rabbi and teach and help people?”

  “One of my professors once asked, when I went in having no idea what to write my paper about, What is most compelling?”

  Noah looked at her blankly.

  “Not in a sexual way, just what excites you, moves you. For instance, for me, the idea of trying to understand why some people change their lives and become baalei teshuvah and some don’t and why some are attracted to one type of community and some another is just fascinating. I’ve always wondered: can people change? This is my chance to find out. I have this friend Nina whose sister Debbie, now Devorah, became religious. Debbie was always worried about her looks and what people would think of her. When she became r
eligious, she was still the same, except now she worries about how her sheitel looks and if her sleeves are long enough. That’s what fascinates me—people can make radical changes and yet retain a certain core personality.”

  “I’m worried about whether I’ll be good enough or write a decent dissertation. You’re lucky you have this Fulbright. People think your work is good. You’ll get a job. I don’t know what I want or if I’m good at it.”

  “The only way to find out is to keep trying. Your department gave you funding this year. They could have just said, ‘You’re on your own; go get this background and come back when you’re ready,’ but they didn’t; they’re supporting you.”

  A woman wearing an Indian print shirt and skirt came over to the table and spoke in Hebrew too rapid for Wendy.

  When she left, Wendy asked, “What was that?”

  Noah explained that the woman was offering palm and tarot card readings. She wouldn’t be able to work in a few minutes because there would be a speaker on the connections between healing herbs and descriptions in rabbinic literature of the plants used in the Temple for incense in the back of the café. He added, “Are you sure this place is kosher? Tarot cards and palm readings?”

  “There are other guys wearing kipot here, and . . . oh, over there, by the cash register, the t’eudah, the kashrut certificate,” she confirmed, proud of herself for this knowledge she’d gleaned from her baalei teshuvah.

  “Heshbon, bvakasha,” Noah said as the server came toward them. She brought them their bill and they paid. As they left, they saw a crowd on the other side of the restaurant, gathered in rows of chairs. The owner began to introduce the speaker. The crowd was mixed, religious and secular, and almost all young, though there were a few singles in their forties and fifties, of both sexes.

  Wendy said, “It’s too bad my Hebrew isn’t better. I’m curious. I haven’t seen many places for secular and religious to mix in Israel.”

  “You and I are mixing,” Noah added, as they walked out the door and down Emek Refaim towards Rehov Mishael, Wendy’s street.

  “Noah,” Wendy said when they were in front of her house, “if you want to come in, you’re invited,” she said. “We can keep the door open.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Your decision. Let’s get together and talk again; you can help me understand the teshuvah process from a different perspective.”

  “I have to learn to use my strength for Torah.”

  Wendy looked at him blankly.

  Noah explained, leaning against her doorframe, the light from the bulb above the door illuminating his clear gray-blue eyes which were more prominent in his face now that his hair was so much shorter. “You know the story of Rabbi Yohanan and Reish Lakish? Reish Lakish leaps into the Jordan when he sees Rabbi Yohanan. Yohanan tells him, ‘Haileich laTorah,’ your strength should be for the Torah. So Reish Lakish does teshuvah, marries Rabbi Yohanan’s sister, and becomes a rabbi. One day, another rabbi has been kidnapped by a group of bandits who demand something impossible. Reish Lakish says, ‘I will kill or be killed.’ He is the only one of the rabbis not afraid to confront the kidnappers. He uses his knowledge of criminal activity to preserve life, to the point that he is willing to give up his own life for another.”

  Wendy tried not to feel a surging of desire, which intensified as she listened to his gentle voice, the magic of attraction still at work with her, despite all she knew about him. Passions really are true heathens, still at work, Wendy grasped, though their breakup had hurt her.

  Wendy looked at Noah, sadly. “The culmination of the teshuvah process is the willingness to be a martyr?”

  Noah tapped the ground with his foot impatiently, but also with passion. “No, he has found a way to bring all of himself, every aspect, to serve the Torah, to serve God. He is using every fiber of his being to save the life of this other rabbi. It is something he, and only he, of all the rabbis, is uniquely qualified to do.”

  She looked at him meaningfully. “I know you won’t let me hug you, but I’d like to.”

  Noah stretched out his arms in the air in front of him, “Consider yourself hugged.”

  Wendy did likewise, hugging the air in front of her.

  NINE

  Shared Dreams, Shared Eternity

  It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of this world.

  —ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL, The Sabbath

  As she walked with Orly and Dara through the Friday night hush of Jerusalem’s streets on the way home from the Hallel Yah synagogue, Wendy reminded herself how startled she’d been her first Shabbat, at the way the Sabbath overturned the usual bustle of the city’s streets. No cars zooming about, or bicycles careening. No kids playing. Silence permeated the streets.

  “I’ve interviewed people who decided to stay in Israel, change their lives around completely, after one Shabbat,” Wendy told her friends. “They just wanted to continue having Shabbat here.” They were coming from Hallel Yah to the apartment of Dara’s boyfriend, Jason, where they were joining a group of other Americans their age in Israel for the year at a Sabbath dinner. It was the end of January, and they had to walk carefully to skirt the puddles from Jerusalem’s rainy season.

  Dara said, “I wish I could do that, just let myself be swept away and say, okay, Shabbos. I want it and will change everything else in my life to have it.”

  Orly asked, “Can’t you?”

  As they entered the apartment building on Be’erot Yitzhak Street, Dara said, shaking her head sheepishly, “I’m too practical. I want to support myself. I hope as a rabbi I can fuse my passion for Judaism with making a living.”

  Inside the building, the stairwell was lit by lights that remained bright with a Sabbath timer until later that evening. Conversation stopped as the three walked single file up four flights. The door was ajar and they heard voices inside.

  Dara called out, “Jason, it’s me and some guests,” and a man with an apron ran out to give her a Shabbat Shalom hug and a peck on the cheek. “Good Shabbes, welcome. Can’t shake hands since mine are a bit of a mess,” he said, looking at the tomato seeds on his own hands.

  “Thanks for having us,” said Orly.

  Jason added, “Make yourself at home. Dara, can you help me finish the salad?”

  Orly asked, “Do you need any help?”

  “If there was room for more than a person and a half in our miniscule kitchen,” he laughed. “Go, mingle while we wait for the everyone.”

  Dara followed Jason into the cubicle-sized kitchen while Wendy and Orly continued down the narrow hallway of the apartment.

  The hallway ended in a dining room. The entire space was anchored by a table with a white cotton tablecloth and surrounded by metal folding chairs. There was no standing room, as there was barely room between the chairs and the wall. The table had piles of paper plates, cups, napkins, and plastic ware on top but hadn’t been set. In the center, a large bulge was covered by a tie-dyed cloth. Wendy and Orly heard people talking but couldn’t see them until they carefully stepped into the room and saw an open doorframe leading into a sitting room. There were two chairs and a couch big enough for two small-boned individuals. Conveniently, all three people in the room were standing anyway. Wendy didn’t know them, but as she walked in, one of the two men said heartily, “Shabbat Shalom.”

  “Hi.” Wendy gave a generalized wave to the three. “I’m Wendy and this is Orly. I went to college with Dara. How did you get here?”

  The woman, with masses of curly red hair swept off her face with a headband but tendrils still clinging to her face, laughed. “It’s complicated.” The two men with her laughed as well. “Do you want to know?”

  Wendy was used to hearing Americans in Jerusalem talk about odd meanderings having brought them to a particular spot, usually by the hand of God. Would this story be of that ilk or would it have a diff
erent nuance, coming from someone in a more liberal community? Were the stories the same, just the places people chose to end up different? She wished she had some paper with her to jot that down. Must remember, Narrative arc—how does it vary? Do they all reframe things so their lives fit a particular narrative pattern?

  “Sure.”

  The redhead began, “Short version. I was living in Australia. My father died in the States. I was in my thirties and single. Both my parents were dead. When I was little, I used to ask my mother to give me something to dream about as I went to sleep every night. I decided I wanted a baby in my life, to create someone new, to give someone else dreams. As I was pregnant, I needed others to nourish me and began to get really involved in the Jewish community. Then, I decided to go to rabbinical school and learn how to lead a community like the one I found. I came here in August, four weeks after I gave birth.”

  “Where is the baby?” Orly asked.

  “Right there.” The woman pointed at a baby carrier with a handle that was sitting in the corner enveloping a sleeping infant. The baby’s hair was a blonde fuzz, and the lashes of her closed eyes were dark against her porcelain skin, each feature etched carefully.

  “She’s beautiful. What’s her name?” Orly asked.

  “Eliana. It means ‘God has answered me.’”

  Wendy wanted to ask the woman about mechanics. Who was the father? Did it happen the natural way or with a turkey baster? How did she manage to be in school, study, and write papers with a baby?

  One of the other men began an introduction, “Hey, I’m James, this is Rich. How about you? How did you get here?”

  “I’m here to write my dissertation,” said Wendy.

  “I’m a journalist, working on a book about immigration and my family,” Orly added.

  “Family. I wish mine would visit. I wanted to show them Israel. They won’t come; we’re meeting in Europe in February. It’s just another way they are putting down my career choice. All they say is, ‘Why can’t you just go to law school and then be synagogue president? You won’t have to worry about how to pay the rent.’” James sighed.