by Naomi Ragen
A few minutes later, his phone rang. He listened briefly then hung up. “It’s too late. He’s gone.”
24
Their lives were good, so very good. They had a beautiful house in the Old City and no money worries. Shlomie spent all his time learning Torah, or so he said. She never questioned him on exactly what that meant, content that he had found something useful to do that kept him happy. She knew that he was learning with Menachem Shem Tov, first at his yeshiva near the shuk, and then when that mysteriously shut down, at Shem Tov’s home in Beit Shemesh.
Shlomie was more than content. He was thrilled to have been admitted to his holy teacher’s inner circle, feeling immensely flattered and uplifted when he was invited along to the group’s raucous prayer sessions in dark forests at midnight, visits to saints’ graves in Meron and Safed, and intimate sessions around Shem Tov’s own table, where their holy teacher shared stories of his latest miraculous exploits, which his Hassidim confirmed, swearing they had witnessed these things with their own eyes. And when Shem Tov remarked that government bureaucrats had sinfully shut off his funding, Shlomie happily wrote him a monthly check to help further his holy teachings, never asking what he did with the money. It was tithe money, a tenth of their income, which all came from the interest that accumulated on his wife’s inheritance less what they had paid for the house. They still had plenty left over, he told himself.
Daniella didn’t mind that Shlomie tithed their income even though he wasn’t working. Tithe money was considered the extra amount God gave you, so it never actually belonged to you anyway. You had to donate it to a worthy cause. But once she actually did say to Shlomie, “Shouldn’t we spread our charity money around, not just give it all to one person?”
To which Shlomie replied, “We give it where it will do the most good. To support a tzadik increases peace in the world,” he assured her.
She was pregnant again. Toward the late months of her sixth pregnancy, when she was feeling especially weary and heavy, Daniella began to begrudge the amount of time Shlomie was spending away from home. “You always used to at least help me with getting them to bed and with the shopping. Now you don’t do anything! Do you know what it’s like to lean over a bathtub with a pregnant belly and give children a bath one after the other? The children are forgetting they have a father.”
“Reb Shem Tov says that in a truly pious household, there is a division of labor. The man learns and the woman cares for her household. A man has more important things to do than soaping down a washcloth or picking out tomatoes in the shuk,” he told her loftily in his newfound voice of religious authority.
What could she answer without sounding like a woman who had lost her moral strength and betrayed her core values? Besides, this was what everyone in their new circle of friends believed, so who was she to question it? But as much as she tried to find joy in doing God’s will and solace in lofty spiritual thoughts, little by little the tiny drops of bitterness and resentment against her husband seeped through all her defenses.
The baby was born around Passover. Shlomie was overjoyed with his new son, wanting to name him Menachem. But Daniella put her foot down. It was the first child born since her grandmother had passed away, and she wanted the child named for her. She was surprised that usually mild mannered Shlomie was adamant. She was even more profoundly surprised when she found herself fighting back viciously.
“Who has done more for you—and for your Reb Menachem, for that matter—than my granny? You are both leeching off her money. Off my money. I’m giving my son a name, and if I were you, I wouldn’t fight me on this one, Shlomie! You’re not as indispensable as you like to think.”
He was shocked, chagrined, insulted. But he shut up about the name.
In the end, they called the baby Eliahu—the closest they could find to Elizabeth. Everyone marveled at how much the baby looked like his father. “Just like Yitzchak looked exactly like Abraham, so no one could doubt he was his son, even after Sarah had been forced to live with Abimelech,” people would say, shaking their heads at the amazing likeness.
Shem Tov, on whom they bestowed the honor of acting as the baby’s sandak, was also struck by the striking resemblance between the baby and Shlomie. And in his heart, an irrational hatred for the child was planted.
“Now he’s offended,” Shlomie hissed to Daniella, shrinking under Shem Tov’s cold stare as they announced the baby’s name.
She shrugged. “I’m sure he’ll get over it in time for you to give him his next big check, Shlomie,” she said dryly.
For all the lovely catering, it was a rather sad event, she thought. Joel and Esther had just had a baby, so they couldn’t come. Her father had called at the last minute with regrets to say he had the flu and couldn’t make it either. Daniella suspected it wasn’t so much his health that was doing poorly as it was his finances. He, and especially his grasping new wife, didn’t want to spend the money on airfare and a hotel room. As for Shlomie’s parents, they once again begged off. The only time they’d visited their grandchildren in Israel was when Shoshana was born. She couldn’t really blame them. Shlomie never called them, didn’t remember birthdays or anniversaries. They bored him. As for her mother, they were still not on speaking terms.
She felt sad that she couldn’t invite Essie and Yochanon and all their other good friends. All communication with people from Yahalom had ceased after their stealthy departure. As she looked around, she realized that the only people they associated with now were somehow connected to Shem Tov and his yeshiva. She didn’t have a single friend of her own.
Not that she had much time for friends. Having six children did not change Shlomie’s habits. Despite numerous promises, he was still never home. Daniella’s bitterness turned toxic. They often had shouting matches so loud it frightened the children. But she didn’t care anymore; she just couldn’t cope. The venomous things that were said in these fights over ordinary, everyday disagreements turned so shockingly ugly that even Shlomie began to worry enough to seek marital advice.
Shem Tov listened carefully, his eyes narrowing as he looked over Shlomie Goodman, a man with a beautiful wife, a beautiful home, and no money worries. Impulsively and without calculation, he simply said the first thing that came into his head: “What’s wrong with you? Why don’t you just stay home in the evenings and help your wife with the children?”
Shlomie was taken aback. He hadn’t expected such an answer. He’d expected Shem Tov to side with him, to encourage him to continue dedicating himself to study and prayer. Could such a simple solution really be the answer? he wondered. But like everything else Rav Menachem told him, he felt bound to follow it to the letter, as if it had come from God Himself.
Daniella was at first skeptical, then pleasantly surprised as Shlomie steadfastly stayed home night after night to help her with the children and the house. He bathed them, helped them with their homework, even folded laundry!
And so began a new period of calm in their marriage. The hard feelings she harbored for Shem Tov turned to gratitude when she realized it was his mentoring that had turned her husband around and saved their marriage, allowing her to recall the other wonderful things that he had done for her and her family. “We were right to make him our rebbe,” she told Shlomie one night, to his delight. The reconciliation soon led to another pregnancy. Both of them reveled in their newfound happiness, considering it a reward from God at their efforts at achieving domestic harmony.
Finally, they had achieved all their goals, Daniella and Shlomie thought, rejoicing. They had found their way to the pinnacle of holiness in the holiest city on earth, the dream of every true believer in the God of Abraham. Not only that, they had also been blessed to have found a mentor who would lead them through whatever difficulties and hard decisions they would face for the rest of their days! He would make sure they never strayed off the righteous path, that they never took a wrong turn or faltered, earning punishments. They, unlike most people, would have someone holding
their hands who had direct access to the glorious ways of the Divine. He would ensure that their children had the best education possible so that they, too, could live the holiest and most blessed life possible on earth.
Soon, Menachem Shem Tov and his Hassidim were spending two or three evenings a week in the Goodman home, welcome guests of their grateful and generous hosts. Shem Tov had never been in such a luxurious home. While some of his followers, like Kuni Batlan, also came from well-to-do families, no one he knew had this kind of money. Often, he would pick up crystal bowls, turning them over to see how they refracted the light, or run his fingers over engraved silver goblets and delicate silver place settings. But before long he turned his attention to the mistress of this wondrous abode, the source of all its wealth and ease.
Although she was in her thirties, three years older than him, Shem Tov found Daniella Goodman slim, pretty, and young-looking. She wore expensive, handmade blond wigs, artful makeup, and modest but expensive and fashionable dresses in jewel colors, which made her seem positively glamorous. He couldn’t help comparing her to his own frumpy, overweight, prematurely matronly wife.
Once Ruth Shem Tov, too, had been a lively, pretty girl, a child of parents with considerable means. But early on in their marriage, he had forbidden her to wear makeup or to cover her hair with anything other than a simple scarf. He also saw to it that her dresses were from the proper stores in Meah Shearim and that she didn’t spend too much on them.
Truthfully, they didn’t have much to spend. Before he was thrown out of the building near the shuk, Menachem Shem Tov’s main income had consisted solely of the amounts he got fraudulently from the Ministry of Religious Affairs for padding the enrollment lists at his more or less fictional kollel. Now, he was reduced to managing on the amounts he collected from followers like Shlomie and various other believers as payment for advice or handwritten amulets and blessings. This was sometimes supplemented by money his wife’s mother secretly sent them behind her husband’s back, which Menachem pretended not to know about, continuing to forbid his wife any contact with her family.
Sometimes, when Shem Tov looked at Ruth, he felt the bile rise up his throat. He felt resentful that he had married a girl from a rich family and yet had been deprived of his due, unlike other, lesser scholars who had all their needs met by their wealthy fathers-in-law. Had this not been promised him? But her father had betrayed his word. For this, it was only right that she suffer. Still, the fact that she looked like the wife of some poor pious drudge, not that of an exalted rebbe and wonder worker, embarrassed him. There were even times he admitted to himself that he had married beneath him, never considering that he might have had something to do with the fact that his pretty, stylish bride no longer dressed attractively and had ballooned from secretly eating sweets, her only respite from her husband’s total control.
Fat, slovenly, and browbeaten into submission, Ruth no longer interested him. He needed a woman on his own level, a beautiful, pure, intelligent woman he could mold anew.
Thus, sometimes in the middle of a lecture on purity, holiness, and godliness, Shem Tov secretly raised his eyes, seeking out Daniella Goodman. She sat in the kitchen, her eyes lowered modestly, a rosy touch to her creamy, perfect skin. Why would a woman like that want an idiot like Shlomie for a husband? he often thought, reflecting on the unfairness of life as he looked at Shlomie, his devoted disciple, the man who stood between him and all that was out there, almost within his grasp.
The baby was born in the spring, twelve months after Eliahu, an easy birth and a healthy little boy. This time, there was no argument. They both gratefully agreed to name him Menachem.
Daniella wanted so much for Joel to be at the brit. “Please come, Joel. I want you to be sandak! I miss you so much! I want you to see my home, my children. It’s been so long!”
This time, to her happiness, he agreed to come and bring his family.
The brit was held in their home. Menachem was such a dear baby, with beautiful pink skin and lovely blond curls. Everyone commented on his beauty.
“He already looks like a mensch,” the mohel agreed.
Shlomie and Daniella smiled at each other. “Our little Menchie,” Shlomie said.
“I’d like Joel to be sandak. I promised him.”
Shlomie turned red. “It would be a terrible insult to Reb Shem Tov!”
“But he was already sandak to Eli!”
“As long as he is here, we can’t possibly honor anyone else above him.” His voice softened. “Please, Daniella, after everything the Messiah has done for our family … I’ll talk to your brother.”
She shrugged helplessly.
Shlomie approached Joel.
“Is that really you?” Joel asked him, looking over the getup, the long, untrimmed beard, the wild payot.
Shlomie smiled at him kindly, not thinking the worse of him. He understood. An eagle flying high above instills awe in everyone who beholds it. He had become that eagle. He quietly explained the situation to Joel, who had no choice but to graciously give up the honor he had not asked for but had been gratified to receive. But the slight hurt him deeply. The rebbe—if he had any kindness or wisdom at all—should have understood this and insisted that the child’s uncle take precedence over himself, he thought, looking over Menachem Shem Tov with greater scrutiny.
Arrogantly, Shem Tov took his place at the front of the room, holding the baby in his lap with careless ease. Daniella and Shlomie were thrilled as they watched him lay his holy hands on the baby’s delicate little head, using all his magical powers, his knowledge and wisdom, to call down the blessings of angels, which would ensure their child a safe and happy future.
Later, Joel approached his sister privately.
“Daniella, what is going on here?” Joel cornered her.
“What do you mean?” she countered, immediately defensive.
“Has your husband gone completely mad? He dresses like a bag lady and behaves like one of those street-corner prophets they put into insane asylums when they become annoying enough. He doesn’t work. And as far as I can see, he doesn’t do anything to help you either. He’s never with his children. Why do you put up with it?”
“Look, Joel, if he was getting his Ph.D. and I was supporting him and he was working hard on his thesis, you wouldn’t have a word to say against him! But because he is learning Torah and has elevated himself spiritually, you criticize. We have other values. You know that,” Daniella argued, trying to banish her own misgivings, recognizing the truth in his words.
“People who study for a Ph.D. eventually graduate,” he said dryly. “How long can you go on this way? It’s insane.” Esther put her hand on Joel’s, restraining him.
“Look, Daniella, all Joel means is that things seem so changed now,” she said gently, affectionately linking her arm through Daniella’s. “The children look so different. Those long payot. And the girls, such haredi-looking dresses. Like Beit Yaakov girls.” She laughed. “We’re surprised, that’s all. We’re concerned for you and for them. Is … everything all right?”
Daniella abruptly removed her arm. “What are you trying to say, Esther? That we’ve become too God-fearing? Too religious?”
“I didn’t mean to … All I was saying is that since the last time I was here, the children seem so, I don’t know, unlike themselves.”
Joel came to his wife’s aid. “I noticed that, too.”
Daniella ignored the larger question, focusing on the details. “They are going to schools in which all the children dress like that.”
“I wanted to speak to you about that also. I was talking to Duvie about what level he was up to in English, and he said his school doesn’t teach English. That they don’t even teach Hebrew. They learn in Yiddish. Yiddish! What’s that all about, Daniella?”
“These are the best schools for our children. Our rebbe picked them out personally for each of them. We are very lucky to have his guidance and blessing.”
Joel shook his hea
d. “Where are your friends, Daniella?”
She looked startled. “Since we moved, we’re not in touch.”
“But your new friends from this neighborhood?”
“I don’t have much time for socializing.”
“I don’t see a single woman here, except for Shem Tov’s wife and Esther. What is happening to you, Daniella? Why so isolated?”
Was this true? she wondered, but she answered him resentfully: “Why are you trying to make me feel bad on such a happy day?”
“I’m just worried, that’s all.”
“I’ll tell you what you are. You are both jealous! Because I am living the better life, the holier life, and you are just going on day by day, typical Orthodox Americans who are more American than Orthodox. Worrying about your next cruise to the Bahamas,” she replied cruelly, without even knowing why. It was as if after begging him to come, all she wanted now was to push him away. She couldn’t stand seeing her life through his eyes.
Their words cut viciously into her newfound confidence and pleasure in her life. It was true she had no friends, but she didn’t need them! She had her children, her husband, and Reb Menachem and his Hassidim. As for the children’s schools, their new way of dress … She was part of something special, holy, and good. Joel, with his corrupted values, would never understand that. She was sorry she ever invited him. She would have to distance herself from her family, from their discouragement and bad advice.
Joel and Esther cut their trip short, leaving a day after the brit. He left Daniella a short message on her voice mail: “I don’t know what has happened to you but it scares me. I am always there for you, sister. Be careful of your new friends.”
She never called him back, and didn’t say good-bye.
25
They discovered to their chagrin that Menachem Shem Tov had fled the country two days after the children were brought into the hospital. He could be anywhere by now, Bina thought in despair. Through Interpol, they found out he had entered Canada but had left again two weeks later. He was now in Namibia.