An Unorthodox Match

by Naomi Ragen

  “What is he saying?” she asked Dvorah.

  “For the boys, ‘May you be like Ephraim and Menashe,’ and for the girls, ‘Like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah.’ May God bless you and guard you. May God show you favor and be gracious to you. May God show you kindness and grant you peace.”

  She tried to imagine what it must feel like to have your father’s hands rest softly on your head, to hear his voice whisper those blessings over you every week. The room, despite the crowd of people, was hushed for a moment. The silver goblets gleamed in the soft candlelight along with the silver-handled bread knife and the gold threads in the embroidered red velvet cover that rested on two enormous homemade loaves of braided egg bread.

  “They call the bread challah, after the show bread in the ancient temple,” Dvorah whispered. “The whole table is supposed to represent the tabernacle, to raise up the animal act of eating to something holy, something spiritual. That is the whole point of the Shabbos. You take an ordinary day and turn it into something special. You ennoble time itself. They say a special spirit enters into a person on Shabbos.” Her eyes shone.

  The rest of the meal, Dvorah supplied a running commentary. There was the kiddush, the sanctification of the wine—wine, that alcoholic beverage used in Roman orgies and that destroyed people in bars and nightclubs. Here it was measured out carefully in a silver goblet, sanctified, everyone allowed only one sip. And then there was the communal singing: the song blessing the angels who had accompanied the men home from the synagogue; the song of the husband blessing his industrious and faithful wife whose worth was “above rubies.” And finally, there was the ritual of pouring clean water from a two-handled cup twice over your hands to sanctify them before they touched the bread, the staff of life. Only then did the meal begin.

  The food was endless, platters of sweet fish eaten with scarlet, tongue-burning horseradish; steaming bowls of chicken soup, thick with noodles and vegetables; platters of brisket, roast chicken, potato kugel, carrots and yams sweetened with honey. And as they ate or the plates were being cleared away, the men and boys were called upon to share some insight into that week’s portion of the Torah read in the synagogue. “A Shabbos meal without some words of Torah is like eating ham,” Dvorah whispered into Lola’s amused and startled ear.

  “Dovid Hamelech, one of our tzadikim and gedolim, was nichshal. We hold that God judges his tzaddikim k’chut hasahra. For such a great man, even the smallest sin the sotan is mekatreg. Chazal tell us, Dovid did teshuva. There was a kapara and the shechina returned. We should all be zoche to such a thing.”

  “What language is that?” she asked Dvorah. She hadn’t understood a single word. Yes, there were some English words and the construction of the sentence, its grammar, seemed like English, but nothing else.

  “It’s Yinglish.” Dvorah smiled. “This is the translation: ‘King David was one of our greatest saints and kings, and yet we believe that God judges even His saints to a hair’s breadth. And Satan, the prosecuting angel, went after him. But David repented, and God forgave him. May we all be worthy of such forgiveness.’”

  “How did you figure that out?”

  “Remember when we first met? You couldn’t understand what I was saying either! It’s like immigrating to any new country. Eventually, you figure out the local idiom.”

  These little lectures were sometimes followed by lively discussions, in which even the girls joined in. And finally, before the last course was served, the entire room lit up with song. The tunes were simple and repetitive, with choruses sung over and over, so that by the middle of each song, even she could remember the tune and repeat some of the foreign words. Some of the children accompanied the music with special hand gestures that went around the table, like a wave at a football game. Others tapped in rhythm.

  It wasn’t just a meal, she thought. It was a big family celebration. A celebration of family, the kind that opened its doors and its heart to let in strangers, embracing them. And they did this every single week! She tried to imagine what kind of life that would mean, what the rest of the week would look like if you knew every Friday night there would be this wonderful coming together, this abundance, this nourishing spiritual experience.

  How different Friday night and Saturday were in the real world: the mad search for connection in bars and discotheques among strangers, everyone running around showing off their bodies, fueled by too much alcohol as the deafening boom, boom, boom of music and the blinding strobe lights made it impossible to hear or talk to anyone. How many times had she been driven to desperate hookups just to escape? And how many times the morning after had she looked in the mirror feeling degraded and dehumanized? And all that was considered “normal.” It was what people did. And this family, this dinner, would be considered “fanatic,” “ritualistic,” and therefore, “dangerous” and “abnormal.” How ironic was that?

  By the time dinner was over, it was almost midnight. She felt exhausted as well as uplifted. The rebbitzen embraced Dvorah and then turned to her. “You had what to eat?”

  “Too much!”

  “Don’t be a stranger, Lola. You are welcome back anytime. And may the God you don’t believe in heal your wounds.”

  Her hug and kiss were warm and genuine.

  Everything God does is a chesed. And what about what had happened to Josh, to the love of her life? How could that possibly have been a chesed? But if there actually was a God, a person could never see what He saw, because He could look into the future until the very end of time. What if Josh had never taken that hike but had ALS and was destined to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair, dying slowly as he endured terrible suffering? Or what if he had survived the fall and had brain damage or been a paraplegic, never able to hike or run again? Perhaps that would have been better for me, she thought, but it would not have been his choice.

  But that was a cop-out! Deal with the fact that a young life had been uselessly cut short by a silly accident and that human life was filled with dangers and chaos. But if that was the case, wasn’t it better to feel that when that chaos engulfed you, there was a benevolent God ready to help you through, rather than the emptiness of an indifferent universe?

  All the way home through the dark, quiet streets, she felt the flicker of something she had not known for many months. A tiny twinge, a small tap, almost unnoticed, began to beat inside her. She recognized it. It was the tiny tattoo of hope jump-starting her flatlining spirit; hope that it was perhaps possible to forgive, to live again in this imperfect and dangerous world.

  She had never seen those people again. Soon afterward, her life with Dvorah had also come to an abrupt end, taking a complete and total turn. But the experience that Friday night had changed something inside her, lighting a tiny pilot light.

  Now, holding this invitation, looking forward to joining Yaakov and his children at their Shabbos table, she felt herself fill with a thrilling anticipation that that tiny light was finally going to burst into flame.

  21

  The letter from her mother was sitting in front of her door. Pinned to it was a note of apology from a stranger who said that it had been mistakenly delivered to someone who lived in his building, and that he had found it lying in the hallway. He apologized for taking so long to find her. The postmark was months old.

  She put it down on the kitchen table unopened. Of all the luck! On a day when she was feeling so happy, this was all she needed. She stared at it for a while, and it stared back.

  There was nothing to be done. Her mother probably thought the worst already because she’d gotten no answer. She made herself a hot cup of coffee with cinnamon, sat down in her favorite chair, and tore open the envelope.

  “Dearest Lola,” it began, the name scratched out and LEAH written over it. She sighed.

  I got your letter. You say you’re sorry for getting rid of every way for me to contact you—your phone, your computer. You say you think maybe I was worried because for A MONTH I HAD NO IDEA WHAT WAS GOING
ON WITH YOU. Ya think? Good guess! Try hysterical. But honestly, I don’t know if your letter makes me feel better or worse than not hearing anything at all.

  What can I say? This is all very strange stuff, and you know how I feel about it, so there is no use pretending I’m okay with it. On top of that, two weeks ago, Ravi picked himself up and took off for India. I’m not sure when or if he’ll be back. He read your letter and said he agreed with you about Americans polluting their souls and about the sleaziness and stupidity turning the world into Pottersville. He said that your letter made him think about his own heritage. And so, he is back in India (okay, I’m not blaming you, but gee whiz!).

  I spent quite some time steaming mad at both of you. And then I started to think that some part of me is just missing. Maybe it got loose and fell off when I hightailed it out of my bedroom and sped off to California. Or maybe I was just born without it, like some people were born with four toes. I just don’t believe in God. In any God. I think that kind of faith is either a curse or a gift. And if it’s a gift, my name was left off the Christmas list.

  I just don’t get it, and I never will. I see the world and everything that goes on in it, and it all seems so really human to me—the way people live and love and cheat and fight and kill each other. It seems so random. If there were a good and compassionate God, it would be more orderly, make more sense, no?

  But you were never like me. To you, the sun setting every evening wasn’t something you took for granted. You’d drag me over to the window or outside to the backyard, astonished, pointing to the sky, proof that God had a set of brushes and the sky was His canvas.

  I’ve come to accept that we are different. How that happened, go figure. I thought you’d be my clone, and I tried to raise you like I wished I’d been raised. You say I raised you to believe in freedom and that this is your choice and I should be happy for you. That first part is true enough. But when you have a child and they choose to reject everything you believe in, let’s see how happy you’ll be. Let’s see how happy you’ll be when they just give up on all their dreams and ambitions. You weren’t just dreaming your dreams, you know; you were dreaming mine, too. And now I’m left with nothing, nothing at all.

  This family you are volunteering for, that’s sweet. But don’t fall in love with those kids. They are some other woman’s family, and they will never love you the way they loved her. You’re young. You have plenty of time to have your own kids.

  I understand that you are learning new things, seeing a different way of life and because you are you, you’re full of enthusiasm. But let the mother you think knows nothing and is pretty much useless tell you this: people are just people. Nobody is a bigger saint than the next one; they just hide their true selves better. Sooner or later, you’ll figure out for yourself that this community you’re madly in love with and want so much to be a part of is just like the rest of the world.

  Even if that isn’t the case, why do you have to be such a fanatic? Don’t you have any right to your own past, your own dreams? Why do you have to hate everything you once loved and be willing to leave it behind because you think you’ve found something better? I don’t understand why you can’t just be yourself and take on more things. Why can’t you curl up with Vogue or Marie Claire or People on your Shabbos? What would be so terrible? Especially since on Saturdays you’re now stuck doing nothing, for Pete’s sake! (I don’t know how you aren’t going stir-crazy.) Why does everything have to be either-or, with slammed doors and vicious piñata-bashing until everything you once were falls out? And let me remind you, if you’ve forgotten, that who you once were was pretty damn awesome! You practically ran that marketing department, and the company would have gone public if their CEO hadn’t been a sleazy shyster. It’s not your fault the product was shit, so stop beating yourself up over it! (See, I didn’t even mention Andrew, may he rot in jail, the rutting, cheating loser!)

  So Ravi writes me he’s seen his daughter, and she’s changed so much. She won’t call him baba je (Daddy) anymore; that’s what she calls her stepfather. But still, she means a lot to him. I think his heart aches. He’s so much like you, so confused about where he belongs. But if he starts growing his hair again, I’m not taking him back. Why is it that the people I love most love this invisible God more?? I don’t know how someone seemingly normal can be involved in such bizarre stuff.

  Okay, so I’m rambling. I’m not a writer like you, and lately, I’m not thinking straight. All these ideas go around and around in my head, especially at two in the morning. What can I do? I smoke a joint. Take a sedative. Drink a beer. The hell with meditation. All that does is make me concentrate on how fat my stomach is getting. I just try to get through one day (or night) at a time.

  So, where was I? Okay, your letter. You say you want me to give you absolution (sorry, wrong word). Okay, I forgive you for anything you’ve done to me. But what I can’t and won’t forgive is what you are doing to yourself. You had some hard breaks, kid, it’s true. And I wasn’t Mother Knows Best. And your father was a brilliant heel. And your beautiful, kind fiancé fell off a cliff. And your rebound boyfriend turned out to be a fraud and a pig. Trust me, I get all that. I may be a high school dropout hairdresser, but I’m not a complete moron.

  But you know what? You’ve also been so incredibly lucky: you are beautiful and smart and have a great degree. You experienced real love with a truly good man who adored you and was faithful to you and wanted to marry you. How many people can say that? So lightning didn’t strike twice and your latest guy was a bust. But don’t give up. You’ll find another Josh. Don’t change everything about you he loved. Go back to your old life. Don’t do this for me. Why should you care what I think? I never cared what my parents thought. Do it for yourself.

  You’ll never be happy with these strangers. They’ll never appreciate you and never accept you unless you hide your true self from them. That’s their problem. What are you going to do—hide forever, deny yourself forever? And what if you slip up? What then? Get thrown out (my dream scenario, I admit) and start all over somewhere else? Do you really have time for that?

  I have this regular customer, Bella, a really nice Jewish lady from New York who retired to Boca Raton, and we got to talking about our kids, and she told me her daughter got involved in one of these baale teshuva programs in college and she turned into a mean, selfish, manipulative crook who’s living on Medicaid, food stamps, and WIC—Women, Infants, and Children nutrition program—even though she’s got a second degree and an able-bodied husband who decided to be a “scholar” and does nothing but sit around all day “learning” except when he takes time off to get her pregnant. Bella says her daughter’s destroyed their family and gotten rid of every friend she ever had because she is so hateful and abusive. Bella says she herself was always very traditional but now she HATES religious Jews. She said before this, her daughter was the sweetest, nicest, most warmhearted, giving, spiritual person. “Becoming a BT destroyed her and just about killed us,” she told me.

  Is that what is going to happen to you? To us?

  If I don’t hear from you, I guess I will have my answer, but it will break my heart. Please, please don’t cut me off. Even if we don’t agree. You are still my daughter, and I love you more than anything.

  Love and kisses,

  Mom

  Leah dove for the phone. Her hand trembling, she dialed.

  “Mom?”

  “Who is this?” She sounded tired and suspicious.

  “Mom, it’s me, Leah.”

  “Lola? Is it really you?”

  “Mom, I’m sooo sorry. That letter you sent, somebody just now brought it over. Mom, I would have called you right away, I promise.”

  “I’ve been through hell, Lola. When you didn’t answer—”

  “I know, Mom, I can just … Listen, that’s not going to happen to us, to you and me, what you said happened to your customer Bella. I’m not going to be hateful and abusive and cut off my family and friends. I’m
not going to go on welfare. I have a business, Mom, my own business, and it’s actually doing very well.”

  “It’s so good to hear your voice. You do sound happy. Are you really happy, Lola?”

  “Sometimes. Most of the time.”

  “I miss you so much.”

  “I miss you, too.” It was really true. For all her faults, her mother was irreplaceable.

  “Can you take off some time, come down to Florida? I’ll send you a ticket.”

  “It’s not the money or even the time. There is this little girl, and she’s been sick. I don’t want to leave her at the moment. Can you come out here?” There was a brief silence. “Mom?”

  “How can I stay in your apartment in Boro Park with all those fanatics all over the place? I’ll wear the wrong shoes, or pants, or my lipstick will be the wrong shade, and they’ll stone me.”

  Leah opened her mouth to deny it but then thought better of it. There was more than a little truth in her mother’s fears. She tried to imagine Cheryl Howard with her bleached-platinum hair, tight jeans, and crop top on these pious streets and shuddered. And as much as she tried not to let her thoughts wander in that direction, she could not stop herself imagining how it would affect her, ruining her own reputation. As far as BTs were concerned, the less their nonreligious parents showed up, the better off they were. Even without that, getting accepted was no walk in the park.

  “Mom, I want you to come! You don’t have to stay with me. You can stay in the city, and I’ll come to you. We’ll spend time together.”

  “You’re ashamed of me, right? In front of your new friends?”

  “I’m new here, I want to be accepted,” she said honestly.

  “Yeah, and if I show up, they’ll know the truth about you, right?”