Questioning Return

by Beth Kissileff

  “Let me read you Yehuda Amichai.” He opened the book:

  Once I sat on the steps by a gate at David’s Tower. I placed my two heavy baskets at my side. A group of tourists was standing around their guide and I became their target marker. “You see that man with the baskets? Just right of his head there’s an arch from the Roman period. Just right of his head.” “But he’s moving, he’s moving!” I said to myself: redemption will come only if their guide tells them, “You see that arch from the Roman period? It’s not important: but next to it, left and down a bit, there sits a man who’s bought fruit and vegetables for his family.”

  “Uri, this text really gets at what annoys me about these recruiters for the yeshivas. They care about students as bodies to recruit, not individuals. Amichai’s approach seems more . . . humanistic?”

  Uri shut the book and said, “Caring about people, in all their complexities. Both of us feel that. I wasn’t trying to be critical of your work before. I was trying to get you to be honest about the range of human motivation.”

  “Apology accepted. What is that poem called?”

  “Tourists.”

  He put his accent back on, “Okay Uri’s tours. Next stop the Cardo.” In his own voice he continued, “Ghosts, remain here at the Citadel of David to await the redemption, when fruit and vegetable eating Jews become more important than Roman arches. We move on.”

  They walked hand in hand through the narrow alleys, the sun shining on dappled and textured Jerusalem stones that were put in place less than twenty-five years ago but had the look of eternity, as though they had always been there. Wendy was reminded of Princeton, with its Oxford-imitating, artificially aged stones and leaded glass, to give century-old buildings an injection of medieval permanence.

  As they walked, Uri pointed out rectangular white ceramic tiles embedded in the stone and inscribed in Hebrew, Arabic, and English. “See this? We’ve transitioned from the Armenian Quarter to the Jewish one. We are no longer on Saint James Street, named for a guy whose head is supposedly in the cathedral here named for him but whose body is in Spain. Now, we are at Or Ha-Hayim Street, the light of life. The Christian problematic of head severed from body, which we are still feeling the effects of in Western culture, has been converted back to a Jewish one.”

  They were coming to a spot with massive pillars, beginning below street level and extending up. Wendy said, “I know this is the remnants of a Roman main street but is it something else too?”

  They descended some steps and Uri led her to a stone bench facing the Cardo. He gestured for her to sit. It was oddly quiet at this late afternoon Sabbath hour, as though all the residents were deep in the temporary hibernation of their Sabbath naps, their lairs the apartments here, which all had iron bars over their windows, fortress-like. The Jewish quarter seemed medieval now as much as ancient: stones, iron, fortresses.

  With confidence, Uri opened his poetry book to a page marked with a yellow Post-it note. “Cardo is the Latin for pivot, the pivot around which the city turns. Here is a poem of Amichai’s that reminds me of this spot.” He declaimed:

  Jerusalem is full of used Jews, worn out by history,

  Jews second-hand, slightly damaged, at bargain prices.

  And the eye yearns toward Zion all the time. And all the eyes

  Of the living and the dead are cracked like eggs

  On the rim of the bowl, to make the city

  Puff up rich and fat.

  “Here we have the city, puffed up, this incredible street still standing after two thousand years, yet for a long time the Jews themselves were expendable. This was only built after Rome took over and expelled the Jews in the year 70, Common Era. Look over there,” he said, pointing behind them, “See that huge arch?”

  “The big stone rainbow? What is it?”

  “The remains of the Hurva Synagogue. The Jordanians blew it up in ’48, to rid themselves of traces of the used Jews, worn out by history. The title of the poem, by the way, is ‘Jerusalem Is Full of Used Jews.’”

  “Why hasn’t the synagogue been rebuilt?”

  “Good question. We’ll discuss on-site.” As they walked he explained various opinions on the ruins of the synagogue. “Some wanted to restore it to the way it was originally, some to build something new. The American Jewish architect Louis Kahn was commissioned for the design. A third group wanted it to remain as is, a reminder that, though the city is rebuilt around it, the world remains less than whole.”

  Wendy interrupted, “How much did you prepare for this tour guide role? Maybe you should start a new therapy, taking patients around and talking to them about how their emotions and problems can find an objective correlative in the objects around them. A depressed person comes here to a ruin, a person more in need of rejuvenation, to a rebuilt part of the city. Therapy on tour.”

  “Too New Age. Back to the rainbow,” he added as they were now standing underneath the large stone arch.

  “I’m listening,” she said and yawned, like a bored student.

  “Come on, this is interesting,” he said eagerly. “I don’t know how professional guides keep whole groups entertained. I’m boring you and you’re just one person.”

  “No, no,” she lied emphatically. “The significance of the rainbow, continue.”

  He got up on a stone ledge of the destroyed synagogue and leaned against the arch. “In Bereishit—sorry Ge-ne-sis”—he exaggerated his pronunciation of the English name to be sure she understood—“God makes a promise to Noach that there will never be another flood, that water won’t be used as a weapon. As a physical manifestation of that pact, God put this disabled bow in the sky. In Hebrew, ‘bow,’ as in ‘bow and arrow,’ and ‘rainbow’ are the same word, ‘keshet.’ Some commentators say the rainbow is a symbol of the divine willingness to disarm. In a non-aggression pact between God and humanity, God tips the bow upside down.”

  “That sounds like something Atarah would say.”

  “I’ll assume that’s a compliment.” Wendy nodded when he looked at her. “Now, Amichai’s poem on “Jerusalem 1967.” “Jerusalem stone is the only stone that can feel pain. It has a network of nerves.”

  “Imagine the pain felt at this site, stones being blown up,” said Wendy.

  “But here we are trying to find beauty, despite pain.”

  “Are we?”

  “You don’t find this beautiful, the starkness of the stone against the softness of the white clouds and the azure sky? The understanding that this place is enough, as is. It doesn’t have to be taken back to the past or brought into the future, but just be enjoyed.”

  “There is a kind of resignation: we don’t have to change this place, but will leave it as it is,” she commented.

  “Right. In any situation, coming to a mature acceptance is vital.”

  “Resignation is difficult. I always want to analyze, understand, fix, change. I can’t just let anything be,” Wendy told him.

  “Sometimes it is healthy to let go, consign yourself to emotions. They have their own power—I see it every day with patients.”

  “Sometimes I might like to let things be. I can’t though.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe you can help me change?” she said, surprising herself by how girlish she sounded, surrendering, interrogative, her voice lifting and lilting, as she spoke.

  “Do you want to?

  “I think so.”

  He leaned towards her and kissed her softly on the lips, gently and carefully. When he pulled back to look at her, he said, “To emotions.”

  She leaned forward and whispered, “To emotions,” as she kissed him back.

  “You’re an effective tour guide, Uri. I never expected this.”

  “Which?”

  “Feeling so . . . connected. To you, to the city. Everything is becoming more linked for me. A network of nerves underneath the stone. That’s what I need to feel, in my life and my dissertation. It’s tough—I prefer being analytical observ
er to emotional and vulnerable participant. I want my dissertation to be like that—precise, rigorous, carefully etched, solid, but with reticulations of nerves and emotions running through, to keep it from being completely hard. I have such a high standard of what I want it to be. It won’t be as perfect as I dream.”

  He leaped off the ledge to stand next to her. “Keep trying! Next stop? Uri’s Tours this way,” and beckoned with his hand.

  They walked through the Old City, down steps, through the checkpoint, and arrived at the final stop, Robinson’s Arch. Uri declaimed in good tour guide fashion, “We began this tour with an attempt to shift our perceptions, to notice the people feeding their families, engaged in nurturing matters, rather than Roman arches. We proceeded to a Roman shopping arena where we saw the dangers of overlooking the people to focus on architecture. Then we went to the ruins of a synagogue built first in 1700, rebuilt in 1856, and destroyed in 1948 and being left as it is, a demilitarized bow in the midst of the city.”

  He waved his arms and continued, “Now, tour group, we are at Robinson’s Arch, the first interchange in history. An interchange is for alternate streams of traffic to each go where they need to, without intersecting. It was part of the Temple Mount, and this wall here is the continuation of the more famous Western Wall.”

  “I don’t get it. Why isn’t this a place of reverence rather than an archaeological park?”

  “Question of questions. Why indeed? Let’s see what Amichai has to say.” He removed his Amichai book from his bag and opened to a page marked with a Post-It note.

  Jerusalem is a port city on the shore of eternity . . .

  Yom Kippur sailors in white uniforms

  Climb among ladders and ropes of well-tested prayers.

  And the commerce and the gates and the golden domes:

  Jerusalem is the Venice of God.

  He looked at Wendy expectantly. She looked back at him. “Still don’t get it.”

  “The ways that Jews, Yom Kippur sailors, can travel is through ‘well-tested prayers.’ We need to tread well-worn ground to reach eternity. It can’t be on newness but on entrenched places and ideas that we communicate with the divine. We use an established system, but it’s harder because each individual still needs to journey, to make it his or her own.”

  “Just explain the poem,” Wendy said, crossing her arms in frustration.

  “We pray at the Western Wall because it is where we have always prayed . . . It is the accessible part of the wall. It isn’t intrinsically more holy than these walls, or the tunnels underneath the Kotel. Jews over the years have prayed at the Kotel so it has been endowed with holiness.”

  “Human agency is enough to invest a place with holiness. So if you and I decide that the Hurva Synagogue is holy because we kissed there, it will be holy now?”

  “If we can convince others. It’s a dynamic process. Different aspects of the religion become important at different times, in response to different needs.”

  Wendy stood on her tiptoes and reached to implant a kiss on his lips. And another. She couldn’t imagine anything more romantic than sitting here among the ruins of all the vast layers, imagining the criss-crossing of the pilgrims going to the Temple on pilgrimage, the emotions they would have had communicating with the divinity.

  “I’m glad you took me on Uri’s tour. It showed me the unexpected, the subterranean poetry, lurking at every turn. Thanks.”

  He kissed her back. “I’m glad you liked it. I’ve never done it before; it’s something I’ve imagined, but it was actually quite spontaneous. I picked out some of the passages I liked, but hadn’t figured out exactly where and how to read them. You inspired me.” He smiled at her.

  “Next stop?” she said.

  He glanced at his watch. “When Shabbos is over, we can take a bus into town and get a bite to eat. I have my bus pass for when the buses start running.”

  Wendy said, “I wish I had my camera.”

  “Oh.”

  “To remember this.” She waved her arms about. “To let someone else see what I do. I wish I could be a photographer and force people to look at the world with my perceptions. It’s a bit of a violent desire actually—Here, you must see it like this. I will make you have the same sense of perspective and focus, and you must know what belongs at the periphery and what at the center—I’ve never told anyone this before.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve never met someone I thought would be interested,” she said, and smiled at him.

  They gazed around at the stones, pieces of friezes, columns, moss peering up from between the stones, even flower buds poking upward from the ground at this beginning of spring. “Do you want to sit for a minute?” Uri asked. They moved to find a spot where the flat stone was big enough for them both to sit side by side.

  “Wendy,” he took her hand and looked into her eyes, “I’m glad you’re applying to stay. But don’t do it for me. I’m in flux; I don’t know where I’m going religiously and I want to figure it out on my own. It wouldn’t be fair to involve you.”

  “You did all this to break up with me?” Wendy said defensively.

  “No,” he said, patting her hand, “I just don’t want you to get too invested in it.”

  “I don’t know where I’m going religiously either. I like Shabbat; it’s comforting, peaceful. I like holidays too. Things are so much richer when they are part of the texture of a whole country, not a few minority people, valiantly upholding odd customs. I’m not sure how or if I’d incorporate any of what I see here into my life on my return. The longer I stay here, the more of it may seep into me, oozing languidly into the rhythms of my life, so I want to continue. What I like most about Shabbat here is it doesn’t feel . . . forced.”

  “We’re all Jews by choice,” Uri said.

  “Huh?”

  “We choose what to observe and think. It is a choice to believe in the power of halacha to coerce you.”

  “Oh.”

  “We’re choosing each other now.” He reached toward her, to embrace her and kiss her on the lips, in the midst of the ruins of the past.

  SIXTEEN

  Confronting the Question: The Seder

  The play of the afikomen on the Seder night is a way of acting out the question of the presence or absence of God in history, and the disposition to confront oneself with that question which is so essential.

  —MARC OUAKNIN, Haggadah

  On the night of the seder, Wendy was staring at the painting across from her. She was inside the dining room of friends of Uri’s parents, Judy and Charles Spicehandler, two weeks after Uri’s tour. A large canvas, its dimensions shaped by the mystical number seven, as it measured seven feet by seven feet, to create a flowing energy field. At its center was a depiction of Sigmund Freud; in the background, objects were in a circle, at various angles, like meteors streaking the painting. The other floating items included his couch, his pipe, some of the totemic statues he surrounded himself with, a pile of his books on fire as the Germans burned them in Vienna, and a pair of his glasses. Oddly, there were also pieces of matzah and parsley and a Haggadah, which had a bloodied flayed rabbit with tawny feet and the Hebrew letters yod-kuf-nun-heh-zayin on its open pages. Freud’s books ringed the edges of the images, randomly flying as well, next to a wooden spool with a string attached to it. The artist, Oren Laniado, titled it (In)Query. Wendy couldn’t take her eyes off the artwork. She was seated across from it, and its yellows, greens, reds, and blues seared into her mind and pulled her deeper into the inquiry. There was something of the painter Chagall, yet the colors were different, pared down, reduced to the essentials, all primary colors and their close cohorts.

  There were manifold objects in this Yemin Moshe home to attract Wendy’s eyes. She noticed the vaulted ceilings and the brickwork above the curved windows. It was dark, but the view across to the walls of the Old City and the Citadel of David was spectacular, modern electric lights caressing the ancient stones. Each room was filled with mu
seum quality art and elaborate Judaica—menorahs grouped tastefully together on the wall here, tzedaka boxes on a shelf there.

  On the dining room table, the bouquet in the center was large, though not enormous enough to be called ostentatious. It contained white lilies, with their luxuriant aroma, tastefully arranged, but not too high so the guests could see and talk over them. The china had gold trim and the silver was monogrammed S for Spicehandler. The white damask napkins were carefully laid and pressed. Wendy hadn’t ever been to such an elegantly arrayed table in a private home. The table itself was a length of glass, modern and at the same time elegant, with tall steel-backed chairs in a matching modern style, the fabric on the seats coordinating perfectly with the Oriental rug underneath. She could imagine the scene photographed for a lifestyle magazine, Yemin Moshe Living.

  It made her nervous that Uri’s parents had such sophisticated friends—what were the parents themselves like? Would their hostess, Judy, be on the phone to Uri’s mother—who had been her best friend growing up in London—when the holiday ended, to tell her what Wendy was like? Wendy hadn’t thought about that when she accepted the invitation. She saw a new side to Uri, at ease with the whole elegant scene, from the Laniado Freud painting across the wall to a painting by Sigmund’s actual great-grandson, the painter Lucian Freud. There was a painting in the sunken living room by an artist whose work she knew she had seen at the Israel Museum. Alex Katz? R. B. Kitaj? Moshe Gershuni? A modern Jewish or Israeli artist—she knew that much if the name itself escaped her.

  Wendy would have to find an excuse to get up, go to the bathroom, and poke around, exploring the magnificent nooks and crannies of the home. When she had walked around this neighborhood earlier in the year, first with Orly after the lecture at Mishkenot Sha’ananim, and later by herself, she never imagined that she would one day be inside one of these homes.