by Shlomi Tal
“Don’t get irritated Emi. Think positively. Perhaps the solution the professor spoke of was only found yesterday evening, and they did not have time to let us know. At least we enjoyed eating breakfast like royalty.”
“What do you mean by ‘they didn’t have time let us know’? It was close to midnight when we left Paris! Are you telling me that they didn’t know this till midnight? They could have called and left a message that they would deal with it, and we could have already gotten back to Paris. You run, work, sleep in the car like a homeless person—something like this takes all the joy out of work.”
“We’re on our way to the embassy now. When we get there, we’ll check it out. We’re here right now. Be positive, Emi, my friend. After all, if we weren’t here, we would be running around somewhere else. Instead of sleeping at home in my bed, I slept in the car. I also have a close girlfriend here, but look at me. I haven’t even called her.”
“You and your collection of girls. When will you grow up, Yiftach? I just hope Tzipi doesn’t find out one day, I’m afraid she’ll blame me, and rightly so, for cooperating with a lecher like you.”
“Cool it, Emi, calm down. Think positive! You only live once.”
At the embassy in Brussels, they all shrugged it off. No one took responsibility for “the disgrace,” as we described it vigorously to anyone who would listen.
“Do you know how heavy our workload is in Paris? I don’t understand why you didn’t inform us that everything had already been arranged!” I am yelling, standing angrily, refusing to sit down, banging on the table with my fists. Emi tries to placate me, although he is even angrier than I am. The administrative officer and security officer of the Brussels embassy exchange glances and blurt out a weak apology.
“Please understand Yiftach, we are severely understaffed, and this is actually your responsibility. I apologize and regret it. Perhaps we didn’t think it through to the end. Now, calm down, let’s go and eat lunch. It’s my treat.”
We refuse, not exactly politely. We don’t register our protest with the ambassador because he is busy. We decide to raise the matter with the CDSE in Paris on our return. As soon as we arm ourselves with the required documents, the secret DIP that has to be sent to Israel tonight, and the machine for which we came to Brussels, we depart for Paris without saying good-bye to anyone.
On our way back, we decide to take a break and stop for a late lunch as soon as we cross the border to France, just before getting on the fast highway to Paris. We are both still angry about what happened, and we are finding it difficult to deal with their “mistreatment and exploitation of us,” as Emi defined it over lunch. Lunch was a hearty meal in which I gave free rein to my appetite, but Emi carefully avoided eating anything except for a few fresh vegetables and a banana.
When we leave, I break the deafening silence. “Emi, come, let’s forget what happened in Brussels. We have to carry on. It’s enough. Let’s put the way we were insulted and mistreated out of our heads. It won’t help us to be angry. After all, we can’t erase what happened, so the important thing is that we carried out the mission successfully and the machine is here in the car with us. It’s best that we change the subject and talk about other things. So, Emi, what are your opinions on the institution of marriage as it exists today?”
I stop for a moment and look at Emi, who shrinks back in his seat as I continue. “I think that marriage has to undergo a revolution. The Jewish religion has ‘the Jewish family’ as its structural foundation. The state inherited this thinking from the Jewish faith and determined what constitutes a family and what doesn’t. But today we ask anew, what is a family? Is a family necessarily structured around a monogamous couple? Are there, perhaps, other ways of behaving in the sphere of love? Shouldn’t the whole concept of sexuality finally be opened up for serious, in-depth discussion—for study without shame, guilt, or social stigma? If the entire field of relations between the sexes were to be revitalized with new ideas and a broader approach, wouldn’t love shower all the wonders it can generate on the human heart?”
Emi remains silent. He stares ahead glassy-eyed, still angry, and sips a cup of hot tea he brought to the car. “Leave me alone, Yiftach, let me relax from this morning’s fiasco. You know I don’t like talking about such matters.”
“I have just eaten like a pig, and if I don’t talk, I might fall asleep at the wheel. So with your permission, I will continue my lecture. I am not a Biblical scholar like you, so I’ll talk about what is close to my heart. If you don’t feel like listening, that’s fine. I think aloud to keep alert and not drop off to sleep. We have another hour and a half’s drive till we reach the embassy. So it’s like this: you are familiar with the nightly drama that plays out in couples’ bedrooms everywhere. The man gropes around feeling for the woman, who pretends to be asleep or stays up late, hoping he will finally fall asleep before she comes to bed. This is one of the most disturbing truths about couples’ relationships: with the passing of the first joyous years of living together, most men want more sex than their female partners. Sometimes it’s the opposite. Don’t tell me this isn’t so, Emi! I know it’s like that with me. When Tzipi and I first got married—pay attention! I am saying this in a refined way, in your honor. So, when we were newlyweds, we had sex every day, at least five times a week. Now, we fu— Sorry! Now we make love once or twice a week. There are lots of reasons. No strength, fatigue, children, and now we have Irit, Tzipi’s friend, staying with us. The two of them keep each other busy, so Tzipi doesn’t have time for me, and I am preoccupied with this war way over my head. There are always other reasons. But after I have been to bed with Chantal, Tzipi gets a generous ‘bonus,’ and it’s already happened to us that when I would come home from seeing Veronique, fucking Tzipi was passionate and powerful. Believe it or not, the relationships with Veronique, and later with Chantal, only made our marriage better.”
“Do you want to tell me that Tzipi doesn’t sense that you have ‘quickies’ on the side, after which she suddenly gets special treatment in bed?” It appears that Emi is listening to me after all, even though his angry expression doesn’t change. He is still sipping tea slowly.
“I don’t think so. Tzipi probably thinks I suddenly get horny. I don’t believe she suspects anything, and don’t you expect me to ask her. I think the main thing is the effect. She gets a lot of love from me and rewards me with twice as much. That’s the purpose and also the result.”
Emi comes back to life as he goes to Tzipi’s defense to attempt to save her honor. “Tell me, Yiftach, what if you discover that Tzipi, like you, has someone on the side for exactly the same reason as you? If she decides one day that she needs excitement and reassurance and all the bullshit you are trying to sell me, what will you say then?”
“I never thought about it. When you put it like that, I don’t know how to respond. I am trying to listen to my inner voice, and I can’t seem to reach a definite conclusion. Let me think it over, and I’ll answer you some other time.”
Emi straightens up in his seat and finishes his tea as he continues looking ahead at the never-ending highway. He says, “Do you see, Yiftach? Take note! You only think of yourself. You’re an irredeemable egoist. Your satisfaction, your requirements, your life… And what about Tzipi’s happiness? What of Tzipi’s needs? Her life? When you married, you undertook, under the terms of the Ketubah (the marriage contract), to satisfy her needs and clothe her, and especially to make her happy. Does that concern you or, do you just think of yourself?” Emi is now yelling in a head-on attack.
“I’m not an egotist at all, and I don’t only think of myself,” I say defensively. “I acknowledge Tzipi’s full right to contentment just as I recognize any person’s right to happiness. There are so many obstacles facing love. I see how ignorance reigns in our lives when it comes to love and sexuality, as I have discovered in exhaustive discussions with Veronique and more recently, with Chantal. People don’t have a meaningful dialogue, nor do they have enough ins
ight when it comes to the world of love. I’m not referring to ‘performance,’ but to a deepening understanding that deals with what we all have in common, and what sets us apart—the way we understand each other’s worlds, with the ability to be there, to love, and to contribute without fear or shame, without guilt, without haste or the need to prove anything. That is the secret of the mating cherubs on the Ark in the Holy of Holies.”
“Where did you drag up this surreal story about cherubs mating on the Ark? Since when are you such a great Biblical scholar?”
I respond placidly, gratified that I have succeeded in getting his attention. “You are the religious one of the two of us, even if only in your past. Go and look up the stories of the mating cherubs on the Ark, and then tell me what you find.”
“Okay, I’ve made a note of it.”
I don’t believe Emi will really check it out. I don’t stop getting on his case, even though his body language screams, “Leave me alone!!”
“How do you define love, Emi? And think carefully before you tell me!”
Emi is silent for a long while. I concentrate on driving and Emi stares ahead. Once more, he sinks back in his seat, thinking a little, then says in a calm, quiet voice, with his eyes half-closed, “Love is a sense of harmony with someone. A profound sense of unity that makes us want to be together with that someone or something, whether it’s a person, a favorite food, a garment, or even God Almighty. Loving something means wanting to be united with it, because I sense that we are, in fact, one. It’s as if deep down, we were always intended to be joined, and the fact that we are separated is a temporary fault that needs to be repaired. From there, passion is born: from the desire to close the chasm between the different external experiences and the inner sense of belonging together and being united. I feel that I am supposed to be independently connected to this depth.”
Emi grows silent as I drive. I shift my gaze and glance at him, and I see that my friend is deep in thought and withdrawn. “Wow! Emi, where did that come from?” I am astounded at my friend, who always says the subject doesn’t interest him and he refuses to discuss it. Now pearls of wisdom are coming out of his mouth, and they are a joy to my ear.
Emi pays no attention to me, and continues as if he never even paused, “…So the commandment ‘And you will love’ opens with the conjunction ‘and.’ This love that the Torah speaks of is not a commandment, but rather a state of awareness that arises from what appears before it in the text. And what is said before it? ‘Hear O Israel.’” Emi pauses momentarily. “‘The Lord is our God, the Lord is One.’ The joyous acknowledgment and recognition of the unity of all existence open the segment, and only after it, the rest follows: ‘And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.’[14] The Torah calls on humanity to recognize the unity of all existence through reciting the Shema. It declares that existence is one. We should not understand this on an only superficial level. The claim that there is only one God, not many gods, holds that there is one great unity at the bottom of our experience of reality, not a multiplicity of separate forces. This premise states that the diversity we think we see is but an illusion.”
“Do you really believe all that?” I marvel aloud. “I have never heard you express your thoughts like that!!”
“You asked a question, and you got a real and candid answer. I want to remind you that you haven’t actually answered my question about Tzipi’s happiness. You still owe me an answer.”
As if to indicate that the conversation is over, or that he is tired of the never-ending argument with me, Emi reclines the back of his seat, turns his head to the right, closes his eyes, and falls asleep. Poor guy, I think to myself, he drove all night to Brussels while I slept like a baby. He deserves a little shut-eye.
I insert the tape of the Mendelssohn violin concerto again. The music floods the car as I continue driving, deep in thought about the subject Emi raised in our conversation. Truly, with my hand on my heart, I think, what do I feel when I imagine Tzipi in bed with someone, moaning, groaning, and enjoying sex like she does with me? Or like the sounds Chantal makes when she is in bed with me?
About a week later, when I find myself alone with Emi at the embassy, he says:
“Yiftach, do you remember our conversation on the way back from Brussels about the Holy Ark? I checked it for you and found—wait. I’ll show it to you, I noted it down.” Emi pulls out a page written in his dense handwriting and say, while consulting his notes: “It would be more convenient for the religious world if these things were not written in the Mishnah (the Repetition of the Torah), but what’s to be done? It is written—and not only that. There is another subject in the rabbinical world that causes embarrassment. This world always preaches modesty in sexual matters, yet it is a fact that the Talmud says very openly that in the center of the Holy of Holies, in the Temple in Jerusalem, on top of the Holy Ark that contained the Tablets of the Covenant, two cherubs are carved in gold. What are these cherubs? The Bavli Talmud, in the Yoma Tractate—and here I am quoting from page 54:1—interprets and relates that two figures of angels, one male and the other female, are sculpted as if they are making love. The male organ is enveloped in that of the female. Not only this, but the tradition says that during the festivals, when it was customary to go on pilgrimage to the Temple, the priests would reveal the sexual act of the cherubs to the whole nation to illustrate the intensity of the passion of divine love. Now, I read to you from the text:
Said Rabbi Katina: ‘When the people of Israel make their pilgrimage, the priests roll back the curtain and show them the cherubs in close embrace, and tell them, “Regard their love for the place is like the affection between male and female.”’
I found that in the Bavli Talmud in the Yoma Tractate, on page 54:1. I swear! To a formerly observant Jew, it seems completely surreal. Apparently, they censored it for us when we studied at yeshiva because the rabbis there didn’t know how to deal with it.”
Tuesday, October 16, the Moshe Sharett Israeli School, Paris
Encounter with the Angel of Death
Since the outbreak of the war, Major Yossi Ben-David, from the military attaché’s office, has been working around the clock. The military attaché and his deputy, the IAF representative, were recalled to Israel when the fighting began, and Yossi has been left on his own to handle all the assignments. Yael, the wife of the press officer, was drafted to help him; although she had no idea what the duties of the military attaché involved, she did her best to help Yossi. He was busy outside the embassy, enlisting reservists, gathering military and civilian equipment acquisitions, and dealing with the freight from Orly, and he had to dispatch the reserve duty soldiers on call-up orders to Israel as quickly as possible. Yael coordinated HQ work and served as a liaison officer when Yossi was urgently required elsewhere.
Yossi Ben-David did all the work by himself. He got the lists of reservists in France from the Ministry of Defense in Israel. Most of these reservists, who had been touring in France, came to the embassy on their own initiative and asked for help to return home and join their combat units. Some were students studying in France, and many were trying their luck in a new country. Yossi got their addresses from Israel; when there was no address, he sought them with the help of the consulate, if they had registered there, or by other varied means, the best of which was the “friend brings a friend” method. Israelis connect, and there were many in France who knew one another. The first priority was to enlist men of all ranks from the air force and the armored divisions. The vast majority of reservists who were found agreed to return to Israel immediately, although some needed their arms twisted to go back and help the war effort. Yossi’s other, no less important, job was to come to the airport every afternoon, sit in the El Al cargo depot, and decide which freight to give priority to. The embassy and El Al did have one 707 passenger plane every day, including Saturdays and holidays, but their cargo capacity was limited. Every representative of the
military or civilian units in Paris sought first priority for their freight. Everyone knew after the first day of the war that the air force had first priority for equipment. Yossi decided what freight got second priority, was third in line, and so on. Yossi also had the authority to define the equipment: “motor parts,” “agricultural gear,” or any other definition he found suitable. Eddy Benayoun, the customs broker, provided the supplier’s invoices and bills of lading to legitimize these cargo items. The embassy and El Al were lucky that the customs officials at Orly did not examine any of the freight being sent to Israel, instead, accepting the declarations of the customs broker and El Al on the documents without checking them.
Yossi has daily arguments about cargo, principally with me, since my responsibility is to send unaccompanied diplomatic mail, mainly equipment that the Mossad agent dispatches as it is required. Cargo from the expelled African embassies has accumulated in Paris—mostly non-essential items that have not already been sent to Israel. In addition to the daily passenger flight, a cargo plane arrives from time to time to collect the essential items that have been backed up because of a lack of space and the non-urgent stuff from Africa, on the basis of available space.
Yossi’s third responsibility involves appearing at the check-in counter of the El Al flight to Tel Aviv. The counter opens at five thirty in the evening. While the passengers are being checked in, Yossi ensures that all the reservists needed by the IDF authorities in Israel receive first priority to board the aircraft. At the end of the procedure, Yossi and I sign confirmation for takeoff for the El Al station manager; the latter, after receiving our approval, dispatches the plane to Israel. At eight thirty or nine in the evening—as soon as he finishes sending the reservists to Israel—Yossi returns to the embassy. He sends an urgent telegram with the names of the enlistees so that the IDF representative can prepare to receive them at Tel Aviv airport, where they draft them on the spot and send them directly to their combat units.