“Ladies first.”
“And Uri, I’m glad you came tonight, but understand, I just want to hold you and sleep next to you, nothing else.”
“Perfect.”
A few days later, Wendy was sitting in Atarah’s Tuesday evening class at Wisdom of the Heart. When she came in, she spotted Judy Spicehandler sitting alone and went to sit next to her. It was a nice feeling for Wendy to have a connection to someone in the class. Odd that she should know someone Judy’s age when most of the people here were closer to her own. They were mostly Wisdom alumni who’d made aliyah, and in between earning a living and raising kids, wanted to keep up with their studies. They would be good material for her second stage of interviewees—Rahel’s cohort, she realized. But they weren’t all strictly Orthodox. Should that matter? How to take in all the gradations of religiousity? Wendy jotted some notes down.
Judy hadn’t looked up from her knitting when Wendy sat down. Now she looked over to her side. “Wendy, hello. Nice to see you. I’m sorry you weren’t able to join us last Shabbos.”
She wanted to be sure to praise Uri to Judy. Wendy said, “Uri was so sweet. He brought all this food for Shabbat dinner, his own pots, and a tablecloth. The gorgeous flowers were from your florist. Thanks for recommending her.”
“They were nice? Delphine is the best florist in Yerushalayim, you know.”
“Absolutely. Just stunning.”
Atarah placed her hand gently over the microphone and called out, “Testing, testing. Okay?”
The class responded, “Yes,” with their usual enthusiasm. Wendy remembered hearing Atarah say that she refused to teach classes which were compulsory because she wanted the students to attend of their own volition.
Atarah began, “Our parsha this week is Emor. I want to begin with a linguistic peculiarity in the enumeration of the holidays. Leviticus 23:15 reads, ‘usefartem lachem,’ and you should count for yourselves. I want to explore the idea of why this is a commandment directed to the individual. Here, the counting is in the plural, but in Deuteronomy it is singular. We know that in terms of halacha, counting is an individual obligation. If one of us were to cross the international date line and go to Australia during this period of the omer, one would need to complete the sheva shabbatot temimot, seven full weeks, the latter part of the verse emphasizes. If a person misses a day by crossing the dateline, he or she would individually still count the full forty-nine days and celebrate the holiday according to his or her individual experience of time, even if it is not the same as that of the rest of the community.”
Wendy raised her hand, and Atarah called on her by name. “Maybe I am missing something, but if holidays are communal celebrations, why would an individual celebrate at a different time? It doesn’t make sense.”
Atarah responded, “That is the paradox. Our holidays are called ‘mikra’ei kodesh,’ holy times of gathering, but without the individual performing the commandment we can’t have those gathering times. The significance of the individual is overwhelming in our tradition—one is never compelled to give up one’s life for another, which is why having children is only a mitzvah for men, not women. Birth is risky, and no one can be compelled who doesn’t wish to take the risk. Or, there is the case of an accidental murderer who goes to a city of refuge to keep the family of the deceased from taking vengeance. Even if the murderer is needed by all of Israel, like the case of King David’s chief of staff, Yoav ben Zeruyah, the individual shouldn’t give up his life for the collective, according to Maimonides. The final word on this is the Mishna in Sanhedrin, which teaches that every person is obliged to say, ‘The world was created for my sake.’ We need strong individuals to have a community.”
Judy leaned over to Wendy and whispered, “I’m so glad you asked. I didn’t fully understand it either.” She gave Wendy a big smile, which Wendy returned.
After the class, Wendy went up to Atarah’s podium at the front of the room and waited behind the other students, a cluster of ten or so, who also wanted to speak with their teacher. When it was Wendy’s turn, she said, “Thank you for answering my question.”
“Glad you were satisfied with my answer; it’s a recurrent problem. How was your Pesach? I heard you and Uri were at the Spicehandlers’.”
Wendy blushed at the mention of Uri’s name. “The Spicehandlers were such gracious hosts and it was a wonderful seder. Do you know their painting In(Query) by Oren Laniado?” Atarah nodded yes, and Wendy continued, “It set the tone for the whole seder. The artist was there and his partner, and we discussed the power of questioning and truth embodiers, satyagrahi, in a society . . .” Wendy paused in her description when she saw that another student was trying to get Atarah’s attention so she stopped speaking.
Seeing the three other students in line behind Wendy, Atarah said, “Why don’t you give me a call if you want to have a longer conversation.”
Wendy added, “I’ll look forward to that. Before I go, I wanted to share some good news I got today. I got a Lady Touro fellowship for next year. So I’ll be continuing with your classes.”
Atarah gave her a beatific smile and said kindly, “There are other reasons to be in Jerusalem besides my classes! Fabulous news for you, Wendy. Mazal tov!” She added, “Call me so we can speak more,” before turning to the next student waiting to ask a question.
Wendy decided it was her turn to plan a date to celebrate the milestone of handing in her literature review, with Uri’s help. She didn’t want to do something ordinary, like a movie or dinner, but something different, that Uri would appreciate, that would build their relationship. A date that was the equivalent of his Uri tour of the Old City. Strolling away from the bus stop in the center of town, where she was switching buses from one that originated at the university library to one that could return her to Mishael Street, she saw a poster in English and Hebrew for a free outdoor dance performance. The municipality of Jerusalem was sponsoring an outdoor dance performance at the Sultan’s Pool on Lag B’Omer, the thirty-third day in the period of seven weeks between Passover and Shavuot, a time of counting to heighten the anticipation of the Torah’s being given. The first thirty-three days of the omer period, beginning from the second day of Passover, are for mourning; then on the thirty-third day weddings and public celebrations like live musical performances were permitted by Jewish law. The municipality always sponsored some kind of large public event to compete with the bonfires and barbecues held by citizens in every open space. When she called to ask about it that night, Uri was free and amenable to the plan.
The evening of the performance, Wendy packed up a picnic supper and found a blanket in the apartment that looked already grungy enough to be suitable for sitting on. She had procured hummus and pita, some bourekas, a small assortment of olives and cheeses, potato chips, an Israeli salad, a carrot salad, and some cookies from the extravagantly expensive take-out store on Rahel Emeinu Street near her house.
She put all the provisions in her backpack, along with paper goods and water, and walked over to the Cinematheque near the Sultan’s Pool. Uri would meet her here and they were to walk down to the performance area together.
“I hope you’re not expecting anything as good as Uri’s Tour of Jerusalem,” she said greeting him with a hug. “I’m no professional tour guide. I was actually nervous about planning this date since you set such a high standard.” She looked at his blue eyes, wiry hair, and beautiful smile with those great white teeth, the detail she’d noticed about him first, even in costume. I really like him; actually, I’m totally smitten, she admitted to herself. Just getting a glimpse of him walking down the hill to see her had lifted her spirit.
He took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Nothing wrong with amateurs. I won’t hold it against you if the performance is no good.”
“I packed a nice picnic, so no matter what, we’ll eat well.”
They walked down to the performance area and spread out their blanket, making a claim on their space. Wendy set out the food. Uri
clinked their ales together and said, “To picnics,” and took a good swig. Putting a fresh boureka in his mouth, he added, chewing, “I like the uncivilized aspect of a picnic.”
Wendy looked at him, puzzled.
He continued, “Food is one of our great civilizing elements. To take away the table, and the manners, and the fussiness, just to eat, on a blanket, what could be better? It’s so basic.”
“That’s what I like about dance, its essentialness. No external props, just the unvarnished human body, contorted like a sculptural form.”
“I didn’t know you were such an aficionado.”
“I’m fascinated with how bodies tell stories. The way a man holds himself, the way a woman walks, convey meanings beyond language. It’s amazing to see how different cultures use dance to access some aspect of . . . the beyond, whether that means divinity or something else. Or just to create a spectacle.”
There was movement on the stage, as though the performance was going to begin momentarily, but the audience did not pay attention; they were eating, talking, and shelling sunflower seeds and pistachio nuts. They were enjoying being outside on a nice day at the beginning of summer, when the weather remained entirely pleasant, before the searing heat of the summer. A spotlight was on the open stage, without a curtain, and the dancers trooped out and arrayed themselves across the stage. They were all wearing sleeveless leotards in jewel tones with footless tights that covered the entire length of their legs and emphasized the musculature of their physiques. The dancers were clad in sapphire blue, topaz yellow, emerald green, ruby deep maroon, coral orange; the featured dancer in the center wore an opalescent shimmering garment with many hues reflected in it. Each leotard had an arrestingly strong hue; together they were a fiery combination. Wendy wondered how these disparate colors would create a harmonic collage of motion.
The music began and the once-boisterous audience was now hushed. The dancers circled around each other and finally paired off, each male holding a female. The women appeared to soar around the stage in the arms of their partners. Wendy wasn’t sure why she was so drawn to the stage. It could have been that the dancers’ trained bodies were so lithe and graceful; even in movements that were intentionally jerky, the bodies created their own kind of poetry. She was moved by the beauty of using the body to create art, the most ordinary of vessels elevated so stunningly, with such careful training.
After a few minutes of intermission, a man appeared on stage alone, his hair closely cropped but most of his gleaming pate bald. He was dressed in well-pressed khakis and a white button-down shirt, wearing loafers. He looked like he just stepped from a high-end clothing ad featuring dancers who leapt and whirled in their chinos. He began to address the crowd, in Hebrew, so Uri simultaneously translated.
“Erev tov, shalom. I am chief choreographer Adir Mekarker. We are so pleased to be able to produce for you tonight a work of my troupe, the David Troupe. Thank you to the municipality of Jerusalem for sponsoring. There are a number of other sponsors I won’t mention now, but they are listed in your program and we extend our utmost thanks to them.
“Our troupe is based in Tel Aviv in the winter and spring, and New York in the summer and fall, though we perform throughout the States and Europe. We will be leaving Israel in a few days; this is our last performance of the season here.
“Our troupe is named for King David. Not David the warrior, fighting Goliath with a slingshot, or David the harpist playing for Shaul, or David the psalmist. We represent the David who went dancing before the ark of God, naked, cavorting and leaping in a holy whirl with all his might. There is a paradoxical modesty in David’s movements—he stood before the ark dancing alone before his God, though witnessed by throngs.
“The next piece we will be performing is called Forty-Two Journeys. It alludes to the forty-two stopping points the book of Numbers mentions for the children of Israel as they wandered in the desert. This time between Pesach and Shavuot contains forty-nine days. Absenting the Sabbaths, that includes forty-two weekdays. The forty-two spots on the trek from Egypt to Israel are also correlated to stops in the life of the individual. So, we have in our dance both the journeys of the communal and the individual.
“Though you can see I am not a dati, the choreographer said patting his bare head, “I look at this dance as a cultural exploration of the ways we move and transform ourselves, from the questioning of Pesach and the unknown of the departure, to the shimmering possibility of glimpses of revelation on Shavuot. In a secular key we can call this revelation ‘knowledge,’ ‘understanding,’ or even ‘wisdom’ perhaps.
“Dance is a way of getting access to this wisdom because movement betrays truths that the more conscious functions of our bodies, such as language, cannot. I present to you Forty-Two Journeys.”
He left the stage, and though there was no curtain, the dark made it impossible to see anything on stage. Then, the lights shone on forty-two crouching bodies. They were all in leotards of a deep carnelian red. Were they were blood vessels? Wendy wasn’t certain of the symbolism. She watched as they went through the stages of a human life: immobile, rolling, sitting up, crawling, walking, strutting in front of others like cocky teenagers, pairing off, giving birth, raising children, and aging, moving less gracefully and agilely. Finally, they collapsed and died, going back to their original positions. What was fascinating to watch was how each individual dancer moved differently and looked different. Yet, they comprised a collective, acting in concert, with a visual harmony. Within the large picture, each dancer had to act as an individual to get the look of the group to work.
Watching the stage, Wendy thought back to her first Shabbat in Jerusalem, at Shir Tzion hearing that beautiful male voice soaring above the other voices singing the Kabbalat Shabbat prayers. She had wondered whether, rather than being absorbed into another, it would be possible to have a love that was a partnership, a commingling of two voices that would maintain separate identities but together create a new, united sound. This dance seemed the visual equivalent of that. Wendy had been afraid of being incorporated by something outside herself, swallowed up, her individuality destroyed. Watching the forty-two dancers, she saw that the group wouldn’t exist without the individual bodies and motions.
It was dark by this time. Wendy and Uri had moved closer together, foodstuffs gathered up and stowed to the side of the blanket. Uri had his arm around Wendy; she leaned comfortably against his frame. When the piece was over and it was wholly dark, Wendy continued to lean on him; they comingled in the dusk, creating their own harmony in the crowd.
NINETEEN
Teiku
Teiku. 1. An acronym for Tishbi Yetaretz Kushiot uba’ayot, meaning Elijah the Tishbite will come and resolve all difficulties and problems. 2. In a game, of sport or chess, or in negotiations—checkmate, a situation in which there is not one victor.
—Even Shoshan Hebrew-Hebrew Dictionary, Volume 4, 1449
It isn’t easy to live always under a question mark. But who says that the essential question has an answer? The essence of man is to be a question, and the essence of the question is to be without answer.
—ELIE WIESEL, The Town beyond the Wall
The sun shone in on the mass of egg whites clustered in the bowl, bearing a resemblance to foamy soapsuds. The egg whites were ignoring the repeated ministrations of Wendy and her hand-held eggbeater. They remained as liquid as they were at the beginning, entirely resistant to the efforts she was making to get air into them and cause them to froth. She was in her kitchen on Mishael Street this May morning, trying to make chocolate mousse for the lunch for friends she and Uri were hosting on Shavuot tomorrow. Wendy liked to think of the festive atmosphere to come, with friends, food, song. Her apartment hadn’t been the site of a communal meal since the ill-fated attempt with Noah.
Even if this takes an impossibly long time, I do know these eggs will eventually become a solid mass. They will thicken if I just keep at it, she said to herself, switching the hands performi
ng the holding and the beating position, so each hand would be a bit less taxed and sore from repetitive motion. Yet, manual soreness was welcome, a tangible mark of her exertions. The pain was physical proof that something had been accomplished. She wished she could have the same tangible proof of accomplishment with the abstract work of her dissertation.
As her hands continued to turn the whipping implement, she thought of the fantasies many graduate students and professors harbored about the satisfactions of manual labor, the beauty of accomplishing things with toil and sweat, of seeing the object one is constructing take shape beneath one’s eyes. Connie Budow, the religion department secretary at Princeton, had a number of carved wooden objects on her desk that had been made by a faculty member, his artistic escape from the life of the mind.
But escape could go too far and one could become entrenched, immured, wholly enmeshed in the world of the physical, without possibility of escape out of it into a realm above, where one could reshape things of the tangible world and transform them. And that was what had Wendy worried. Not counting the time she’d spent shopping for ingredients, it had taken an hour already to produce this mousse, melting the chocolate and whipping the eggs and cream and combining them. She still had to make a main dish; the other guests were supposed to bring side dishes and salads. And then cleaning up the apartment for guests, setting the table, making sure there was a clean tablecloth, and borrowing chairs from her landlady, Amalia—all of it took time. Time that was spent away from her work. The worst part was that Uri hadn’t asked if she wanted to host this Shavuot meal when everyone returned from the Kotel in the morning; he had just invited people and informed Wendy. The presumption galled her—would this continue to be his mode of operation, taking for granted that her time was his own to infringe upon as he saw fit? If so, that would be it for the relationship, Wendy would make clear to him. She hoped it was a one-time oversight, maybe resulting from a discussion with one of his friends—Your girlfriend’s place is closer to the Kotel, so why don’t we go there to eat?—and Uri’s agreement with the plan.
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