One American Dream

by Bernard Beck

  Harry telephoned his parents. He told them that there was something important that he and I wanted to discuss with them, and they arranged a time to meet.

  “Let me handle this,” Harry said with a worried look as we rode up in the elevator, “they are very formal, and they insist that there’s a proper way to do everything. I think I know what they want to hear.”

  I could hear the anxiety in Harry’s voice, but I let it pass without comment. Maybe, I thought, it will actually work out.

  When we were seated in the living room, each in our accustomed places, Harry told his parents that he and I would like to get married. He explained carefully, and a bit deceptively, that even though he and I were planning a very small wedding, it was important that his parents invite my parents to their apartment so that they could all participate in the planning of the wedding together.

  Harry explained, with a proud smile, and a quick glance at me, that he intended to learn how to get more deeply involved in Jewish ritual, and that he looked forward to experiencing, with my family, the increased intensity of Orthodox observance.

  While Harry was speaking, I watched Mrs. Berger, hoping for a clue as to her reaction. She seemed pleased and had just the slightest hint of a smile. But then Mr. Berger said the words we feared most. He spoke slowly, clearly, and distinctly, so as to avoid any misinterpretation.

  “Harry,” he said, “based on what you have just told me, I must tell you that I disapprove of this marriage.”

  Then calmly, without emotion, he explained, “Unlike Ruthie’s parents, and the Orthodox in general, our status as Reform Jews is not something that happened by accident of birth, it was a conscious decision that my parents made after great study. We, in this family, have chosen to be Reform because it represents the future, and I would not be faithful to our family’s values if I allow our only son to slide backward into the superstitious Judaism of the past.

  “Judaism,” he said with increasing passion, “is a rational religion that has always adapted itself to the present. Judaism, throughout the centuries, has been a leader in forward-thinking social responsibility. This is the twentieth-century, and I will not let my son marry someone whose family values are stuck in the Middle Ages.” He rose and stood proudly, ramrod straight, right in front of me. “Ruthie, you and your family represent the past. It is interesting as history, but it is not life. We are in the beginning of the twentieth-century. The world is ahead of us, not behind us. We Reform Jews live in the present and look forward, you Orthodox Jews live in the past and look backward.”

  “Ruthie, Harry,” he said, “listen to me carefully. This marriage cannot be allowed to happen, and I promise to use all my energy to stop it.”

  We saw ourselves out of the apartment, down the elevator, and out into the street. Harry was shocked and furious, I was surprisingly calm. It was almost as if I had expected this. Nothing that Mr. Berger had said in the past made me think that he would act this way. And yet, I was almost relieved. The conflict that I had dreaded would never materialize.

  We left the apartment and walked down Fifth Avenue, looking in the store windows without seeing. Eventually we ended up at the Forty-Second Street Library. We had spent so many happy hours there that that’s where our feet automatically took us. We sat on the steps, in our usual spot, among the lovers, between the lions, warmed by the spring sun. We didn’t speak. In fact, we had hardly spoken since we left the Bergers’ apartment. We sat for a long time in silence—holding hands.

  “A penny for your thoughts,” I finally said.

  “No, you go first.”

  “OK,” I said, “I think we should move in together.”

  “I was thinking the same thing, but I was afraid to say it because I was afraid it would shock you,” Harry said.

  “I don’t shock that easily,” I laughed. “Remember, I write romantic fiction. I have thought about every possible attachment.”

  “Wait,” Harry said, laughing, “am I going to be in your next story?”

  “Not unless you do something really out of the ordinary.”

  “Do you think we should tell our parents?”

  “No.”

  “How can we do that? You still live at home.”

  “Yes, but my mother wants me to go to City College rather than Brooklyn, and she said that they will help me get an apartment. So it looks like I’m going to be living uptown in Manhattanville, way above Harlem. It’s probably an hour and a half by train from Brooklyn so I’ll be pretty much on my own, and they will never just drop in. Once they get me the apartment, you can move in.”

  “But you’re a virgin.”

  “Not for long!”

  “It’ll be just like being married.”

  “Just like being married.”

  “Can you cook?”

  “No.”

  And just like that, we had a plan.

  Although it had seemed exciting and romantic when we had first discussed it, the actual act of moving in together was still a big step, even in those racy times. And, although I was the one who had suggested it, I was getting cold feet. For a while, I tried to tough it out, but then, as I had always done with all of the decisions that I had previously made in my life, I consulted my grandfather.

  I wasn’t sure how to introduce the subject, and so I decided to just jump in. I went into his bedroom and closed the door behind me. And then, without taking time to think about the consequences, I laid my cards on the table.

  “I need to ask you an important question, but it is about sex and marriage and forbidden things. Before I say anything more, I want to know if I have your permission to ask, and before you answer, I want you to know that I won’t be upset if you say no.”

  “It’s hard for me to know whether to say yes or no until I hear the question,” he said, looking up from his books.

  In spite of my anxiety, I smiled to myself—this had always been my grandfather’s typical Talmudic answer to every question that I had ever asked.

  “That’s fair,” I said. “Here’s the introduction: my father told Harry that he would only give his permission for us to marry if Harry became Orthodox. Becoming Orthodox is not a black and white situation, and I’m afraid that, no matter how hard he tries, Harry will not be able to become Orthodox enough to satisfy my father. There is no test, you know, so it’s all going to be up to my father to judge.

  “There are only two possibilities,” I said in my most Talmudic tone, “one is that my father says yes, which I have my doubts about, and the second is that he says no. If he says no, then it is likely that Harry will never be able to satisfy his standards. That is the end of the introduction. Now comes the hard part.

  “Harry and I have decided to get married even if my father says no. But, since I’m far from turning twenty-one, I will need my father’s permission in order for us to get a marriage license.

  We could wait two more years, until I’m twenty-one, and then get married without his permission. But two years is a very long time for us to wait. Harry has already given me a ring so we’re engaged, and nobody waits two years after their engagement.”

  “So what’s your question?” my grandfather asked.

  “Harry and I might want to move in together. We would still have to wait until I was twenty-one to be legally married, but we would live together as if we were legally married, but without the license.”

  “So you’re asking me for permission?”

  “Well, sort of.”

  “That is something I cannot do,” he said with finality. And then, seeing how his answer had deflated me, he motioned for me to sit down.

  “Your question,” he said, closing his study book, “is not a new one. In the thousands of years of Jewish history, this question has come up many times. In fact, there is a whole book of the Talmud devoted to questions pertaining to marriage. The name of the book
is Mishnah Kiddushin. As you know, the Mishnah is the book of original laws on which the debates in the Talmud are based, and Kiddushin means marriage. So the name of the book is The Laws of Marriage. But the laws are only the beginning. The important part of the book is in the Talmudic discussion that follows the Mishnah in which the Rabbis debate the interpretation and application of the laws. I am not very familiar with those debates, but I am sure that we can find an answer to your question there. Unfortunately, I don’t have those books here, so we’ll have to go to the study hall at the synagogue and read them together.”

  I felt somewhat ambivalent about bypassing my parents and consulting my grandfather, but he had always been my ally in my battles with them, and I hoped that he would be able to find a way for me to do this. Or, alternatively, that he would tell me that it was absolutely forbidden. I was fully prepared to accept his verdict either way. It, therefore, surprised me that he seemed so eager to help me find a way around my parents’ authority.

  __________

  Mein Liebe Rivka,

  Today I was finally able to take charge of Ruthie’s life. That man Harry asked her to marry him, and Jack, of course, refused to give them permission. He is such a shtarke, so full of himself that he completely said the wrong thing. He still has no idea how to be a parent. He should have agreed. That’s what I would have done. Agreed and then tried to push them in the right direction. He is an ignorant fool, and this has gone too far. I cannot let him do any more damage. He has no idea how to be a Jew.

  But God has heard my prayers, and now I finally have an opportunity to change Ruthie’s life, and Jack won’t know until it is too late. I will get her out of the house and away from that ignoramus. They want to get married, and I can influence how they do it and also how they live their lives from now on.

  I promise you Rivka, Ruthie will be a frum woman, and she will raise frum children. I will find a way for Ruthie to get married and become truly Orthodox. I have already taken the first step.

  I wish you were here, but, even now, I feel your hand guiding me.

  May God protect you and bless you.

  __________

  My grandfather and I walked up Fifty-Fifth Street to Fourteenth Avenue and then to Fifty-Second Street to the synagogue. The study hall was in the basement. When we came to the side entrance where the study hall was located, I stopped. Women never went in there.

  My grandfather took my hand and led me down the steps. When we came to the door, I refused to enter. My grandfather looked at me angrily.

  “Ruthie, why are you stopping?” he snapped.

  “Women are not allowed in there.”

  “Nonsense!” he said. “We have work to do. You and I. They do not permit anyone to remove the books from the library, and I want you to read it in the original yourself. This is your problem and even though we will work on it together, it’s up to you to decide what the right course of action is. Now come in here,” he said, taking my arm.

  The study hall consisted of three rooms. The entrance from the street led down a few stairs and into a long hall. There were closed storage cabinets on both sides of the hall where the special prayer books that were used for the high holidays were stored. Straight ahead were the restrooms and the stairs leading up to the main sanctuary. To the right was a wide corridor that led to the small chapel that was used on weekdays. On either side of this corridor were study rooms. These rooms were lined from floor to ceiling with bookshelves. Each room had two long tables on which were spread open books. There were men sitting at the tables studying.

  Their studying took the form of discussion and debate, rather than silent reading, as in a library. Two or three people participated in each discussion, and there were many discussions going on simultaneously so the noise level was quite high. There was a great feeling of energy and enthusiasm in the rooms.

  The men in the study hall looked up when I came in. They were surprised. In their memory, no woman had ever been in these rooms.

  My grandfather stood defiantly at the door. “My granddaughter, Ruthie, has work to do. We need to use a table.”

  The men cleared their books from one end of the table. “Here, Reb Ben-Zion, sit here,” they said with deference.

  I expected them to leave, but they didn’t. I expected them to be offended, but they weren’t. They pretended to be studying while they watched to see what my grandfather and I would do.

  Reaching into one of the book cases, my grandfather brought out a well-used book with a flaking leather binding and yellowed pages. He expertly thumbed through the book until he reached Mishnah Kiddushin, the book on the laws of marriage.

  He turned to the proper page and showed me where it says that a wife can be acquired in three ways: through money, through a contract, and through sexual intercourse. In most marriages, the Mishnah said, all three of these conditions must be satisfied, but in some cases, only one is necessary to make a binding marriage. They all are, the Mishnah went on to say, usually part of the same agreement because they all depend on the bride’s consent. The first part, money, is a gift from the groom to the bride. Today, Ben-Zion explained, it is usually the wedding ring. The second is the Ketubah, or marriage contract, which guarantees the bride certain rights. And the third is sexual intercourse, which must be voluntary. A marriage that is not consummated by voluntary sexual intercourse may be annulled even though the other two elements are present.

  “In some cases,” my grandfather said, looking up from the book, “like in war, or in times of national or personal crisis, a wife can be acquired by sexual intercourse alone. For example, if a man is going off to war and doesn’t have time to go through the formal wedding process, he can just have sexual intercourse with his wife. In that way, if he was killed in battle, she would inherit his estate. The sexual intercourse must be voluntary and the other elements, the wedding ring and the marriage contract, must follow as soon as possible.”

  “Well, at least I’ve got the ring,” Ruthie said as she took the little red box that held her engagement ring out of her purse, “that’s the money part. We can’t get the Ketubah without my father, so that just leaves sexual intercourse. So, are you saying,” I asked quietly, “that if I have voluntary sexual intercourse with Harry, that will be enough to fulfill the requirements of a Jewish marriage?”

  “It’s possible. But I am not telling you what to do, or even what is permitted. I showed you the Mishnah, which is the book of declarations. Now you must read the comments and discussions that the Rabbis had about this Mishnah. And then you must read the comments on the discussions that more recent Rabbis made. It’s all very complicated, and you will see many opinions and contradictions. In the end, you must make up your own mind. That is the reason that you’re here. I could have recited the Mishnah for you at home, but I could not have told you the contents and language and spirit of the Talmudic discussions. Some of the arguments are easy to understand, and others are open to interpretation. You have to read them yourself, and you have to decide what to do. I am willing to return with you as often as necessary until you have absorbed enough information to make a wise decision.”

  “Is this what I should tell my father?”

  “What decision you make, and what you tell your father, are up to you. I won’t try to sway you at all. That is between you and your father.”

  But my grandfather had planted the seeds of dissent, and I was fertile ground. Even though we spent the time reading the discussions in the Talmud, I, under my grandfather’s guidance, had already made my decision.

  Three major events occurred that first weekend in August. First, on Friday, I sent the final draft of my finished book to Mr. Davis. I had been submitting sections of the book as I completed them, and he had liked them, and then in July he had had his staff retype the entire manuscript and send it back to me for my final author’s corrections. Now I had sent back the completed final draft. This
time, I was pleased with what I had written.

  The book had evolved into a series of vignettes, all revolving around the characters in the original story that my grandfather had told me. I had realized that my strength was in writing stories, rather than in research, and so I had reconceived the book as a series of interlinked short stories. Harry and I were now much more pleased with the results.

  That Friday night, for my last Sabbath at home before moving to my new apartment, my mother prepared a festive “Bon Voyage” dinner. My mother cried, my father was solicitous, and, just for this occasion, my grandfather, who normally never said anything at dinner, told a story.

  “The Torah,” he began, “tells us that God appeared to the great patriarch Abraham and told him, ‘Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.’ But Abraham’s father Terach had already traveled a long distance to get to Charan. The Torah says that Terach took his family, including Abraham, and Lot, and Sarah, Abraham’s wife, ‘and they set out together from the city of Ur of the Chaldeans for the land of Canaan, but when they had come as far as Haran, they settled there.’ So the family had traveled from Ur, where Abraham grew up, to Charan. We don’t know where these places are anymore, but the fact that the Torah tells us about these journeys is a lesson that travel is good. It teaches us that it is a mistake to stay in one place and wait for life to change. You have to make your way, and make your own changes, just as our families did when we left Europe. So it is important for you, too, Ruthie, to be like Abraham and to make your own way—to make your own changes. God was with Abraham when he left his home, and God was with us when we came to this country, and I know that God will be with you when you start your new life in New York.”

  The second event was on Sunday. Early in the morning, my parents loaded up their car with my clothing and books and typewriter, along with a small set of kosher dishes and pots and pans, and delivered them to my new apartment on Convent Avenue. Together with their chauffeur and maid, they carried the boxes up the three long flights of steps. While my mother and I made the beds, hung curtains, and personalized the apartment, my father and the maid thoroughly scrubbed the kitchen to make it kosher. They spent the day getting the apartment ready, and they didn’t leave until dusk. The last thing my father did was to hang a mezuzah on the entrance door.