“So why did you leave?” Tamar asked.
“Isn’t that enough of me for one night?” she said a bit impatiently, then sighed. “Okay. I left because of the man in the picture on the coffee table. But that’s another story… You were going to ask me about the man in the picture, weren’t you, Tamar? Peter Gibson. This is his apartment too. One of his apartments, I should say. He’s got a wife in the other one, and Lord knows maybe a few more like me someplace else in the city. I’m his mistress. His concubine. Like Zilpah or Bilha, the wives of Jacob no one remembers, although they had most of the kids… I’m not ashamed of it. No, I’m not ashamed of anything I’ve ever done in my life, except maybe all those years I spent in Orchard Park letting myself be stepped on by a bunch of hypocrites who think they own the keys to heaven… And if I have any advice to give you, Tamar, it’s don’t do anything for them! Don’t sacrifice. Don’t make any choice because of those uptight, narrow little eyes and brains. Hold up your head. Be proud…”
She paused, running her hands through her hair. “And now I’ve got a question. It’s for you, Jen. How could you move into Orchard Park? How could you let yourself become one of them?”
Chapter seventeen
Jenny ran her fingers through her long, dark hair. “But this isn’t about me. It’s about Tamar.”
“It’s something I’ve always wondered about myself,” Tamar said suddenly. “Your choices have always confused me! You became more and more observant, but then you left Ohel Sara. You enrolled in college, but at the same time came back to learn at the most religious women’s seminary in Orchard Park. Why? What happened to you?”
“If you both really want to know, I’ll tell you. What happened to me was the great Rebbe of Kovnitz.”
“My father? My father changed your life?” Hadassah said, shocked.
“When I met your father that Purim, he was like… he was more than just a person. He was like a transforming act of nature, like a change of season. That first time I was at your house, he seemed… now you’re
both
going to laugh—I know it! He was Santa Claus to me! What can I do? That was my frame of reference, coming from my family.”
“Actually, that’s hysterical,” Hadassah said, smiling, her eyes grim.
“I never told you this, Hadassah, but the day after Purim, I came back to see him. Just walked in. I knew you wouldn’t be there because it was your piano lesson time. And your father put everything aside and just listened to me. He made me feel as if I were sitting on Santa Claus’s lap, asking me what I wanted and what I needed… But it was more than that. He wanted to know in the deepest sense about my life… how I felt. He was really interested. He listened to everything I said, just nodding, not asking questions or anything. And I know I must have been very careful not to tell any family secrets. I didn’t want pity. I hated it! But when I was all done, he asked me… he asked me if me and my brother had enough to eat.
“I was just… floored! This was my biggest secret. It was something I hadn’t even admitted to myself yet. My mother worked, and sometimes, many times, there was no food in the house. I always told myself it was because she didn’t have time to shop or cook. But of course it was more than that. She just didn’t have enough money. There was never enough food. I remember feeling so shocked, because the moment I heard him say it I knew that it was true. I was so amazed that he’d figured that out! That he knew more about me than I did myself! I didn’t bother to deny it. And the most amazing thing was, I wasn’t insulted, which I definitely would have been had anyone else asked me that, like a teacher or one of you. Why was that? . . .
“Well, a few days later I opened the front door, and I found five containers of milk just sitting there! Little glass bottles, chilled and wet. Fresh looking. I took them in and opened one. All the cream was on the top, and I just licked it off. To this day I remember how it tasted: scrumptious! Pure luxury.
“You know, that milk kept coming for years. Then baskets of fruits and vegetables started arriving twice a week. And on
Fridays, a whole Shabbat meal—roast chickens still warm, kugels, salads, challahs, wine, cake… Just left silently at our doorstep. And before the holidays, boxes with new clothes would come, for me and my brother. I saw you wondering at all my nice clothes, Tamar. But I couldn’t ever tell either of you.”
“I can see why,” Tamar murmured, amazed.
Hadassah pursed her lips tensely.
“At first my mother was very huffy—really ‘I’m no charity case!’ about it. And when I mentioned that I thought your father might have something to do with it, Hadassah, she went storming down to tell him off. But when she came back, she seemed calm and, well, sort of relieved. She said your father explained to her that the Hebrew word for charity was
tzdakah
, which comes from the word
tzedek
, meaning justice. He said that people didn’t really own anything, since everything they had was given to them by G-d on a temporary basis. He explained that according to
halacha
, a person had to give ten percent of their earnings to those who needed it because this part of their earnings wasn’t really theirs, but was lent to them specifically to give away. So when a person who had money shared it with a person who needed money, it wasn’t an act of pity, but simply an act of justice: he was giving away what didn’t belong to him. To my mother, a diehard socialist, this made perfect sense. She thanked him and left.
“I know you’re both listening to what I’m saying, but do either of you have even an inkling, a small clue, as to what all this meant to me? Probably not. It’s hard for anyone who has spent her childhood with a father and a mother to understand what it feels like to be fatherless. It’s like being left adrift in the middle of the ocean. You can’t plan anything; nothing will sit still. You just drift and float, and you can never be sure you won’t lose your other parent too and drown completely. And you think an awful lot about dying, about the soul separating from the body.
Heaven. Hell. G-d. Earth. You are one messed-up, miserable little person.
“When your father looked at me that first time, Hadassah, I felt as though someone had dragged me to shore and put solid ground under my feet. From then on, whenever I had a problem, or didn’t understand something, I always went to him.”
“How come I never saw you?” Hadassah challenged.
“You didn’t see me because I went through the synagogue entrance straight into that little office of his on the first floor. That was his idea, so I shouldn’t have to explain anything to you.”
“His idea?! And he had time for you?” Hadassah whispered, amazed.
“Whenever I came, day or night, he was always surrounded by people, always busy beyond belief. I never realized until years later how strange it was that he never turned me away or even kept me waiting. Whenever I’d show up, he’d just tell everyone that there was an emergency and they’d clear out. And then he’d send for me and close the door. He always seemed so calm, as though he had all the time in the world and was happy to spend it with me. He made me feel… important. I always thought you were the luckiest girl in the world to have him for a father.”
Hadassah flinched involuntarily, her mouth going suddenly bitter around the edges. “The
tzdakah
part doesn’t surprise me. But that he gave you all that time…”
“And you he turned away?”
“No… yes… well, not really. I just stopped asking after a while. I guess I just got tired of fighting my way through the Hasidim… And at a certain point, I didn’t really want his advice anymore…”
“You’re a lot like him, you know.”
“Come again?!”
“You’re tough. You believe what you believe. And in your own way, you’re searching for beauty and truth.”
“I am nothing at all like him, or like any of them,” Hadassah said curtly, shifting uncomfortably on her seat.
“Anyway, I once asked your father why he was being so kind to me when I wasn’t even a relative or anything. He said I was wrong, that if you went back far enough, everyone was related because they came from Adam and Eve. He said not only was everyone in the world related, but we were all interconnected, and that just one person doing one good or evil deed could tip the scales toward joy and heavenly reward or toward war and disease. We were all responsible for one another.
“And that was when I understood the real beauty of faith: Believing in a G-d who was one, made it possible to believe that human beings, the universe, the birds and animals, trees, flowers, mountains, sunsets… everything was part of this ‘oneness,’ all of it good, all of it interconnected and meaningful. I wanted to be part of that. Remember that time I hugged the Torah?”
“I bet you never discussed
that
with my father,” Hadassah said, snickering.
“As a matter of fact, I did. I told him what you said, about it being wrong for girls to hold the Torah. He said you were mistaken. He said the only reason women didn’t go up to the ark and hold the Torah during services was because then all the men would look at them, and their thoughts would be turned away from G-d because men are so weak when it comes to women. He said he thought it was a truly beautiful thing, and he was sorry you didn’t join us.”
“I didn’t need to hug any Torahs.” Hadassah shook her head. “
It
was hugging me. To death. I was being suffocated by old parchment…”
“I always thought you were so lucky to have been born into such a beautiful set of traditions. But now I understand the other side of it. I suppose I was lucky in a way. My mother not being religious and all, it gave me so much freedom of choice.
My mother brought all kinds of other things into my life you two didn’t have in yours: art, music, movies, plays, literature. I had total freedom of choice to take whatever I wanted from religion, from Western culture. I didn’t see that there had to be an either-or situation. Why I couldn’t just take the best from both worlds? So in the middle of ninth grade, in all innocence, I went into the office at Ohel Sara and told the secretary that I needed PSAT scores for college. She looked at me as if I’d announced I was pregnant! ‘Don’t let Rabbi Erlicht hear you,’ she whispered. ‘This is not allowed. Not allowed.’ ”
“I tried to warn you…” Hadassah sighed.
“I remember. I was flabbergasted! My American core, that idea that a person is a free agent, allowed to pursue life, liberty, and happiness, was outraged.”
“Did you ever tell me any of this?” Tamar asked. “I don’t remember it.”
“I never told you, Tamar. I thought you might be on their side, or maybe not want to be friends anymore if I told you I was going to switch to public school.”
“So why didn’t you switch?” Hadassah asked.
“I was registered in public school and everything, but somehow I wound up talking it over with your father first. His reaction was very interesting. On the one hand, I can’t say he ever approved of the idea of college. But on the other, he didn’t try to talk me out of it. Instead he advised me to switch to a more liberal yeshiva like the Hebrew Institute of Flatbush. He said I would get into a better college than if I went to a public school.” She grinned. “It was the most persuasive argument he could have used.
“HIF was an expensive yeshiva prep school with a basketball team and cheerleaders… The tuition cost a fortune. But your father said that if it was a question of my going to public school or going to HIF, he’d make sure I had what I needed to go to HIF.”
“I would have loved to go to HIF! The boys had sports cars and the girls wore minis… My father would
never
have
dreamed
of sending
me
there,” Hadassah murmured resentfully. “Did you like it?”
“Uh-huh. Loved it! College prep courses, special SAT classes. Hebrew literature taught by good-looking Israelis… But—don’t laugh!—I sort of missed all that Ohel Sara thundering about
tarbus hagoyim
, short skirts, and talking to boys. At least you knew where you were at Ohel Sara, what was expected of you. But at HIF, it was almost the opposite. It was: Let’s try to show how normal, how American, we can be and still be Orthodox. I can understand your father in a way…
“In my senior year, I was accepted to this special freshman program at City University’s graduate center, right off Fifth Avenue, across the street from the Forty-second Street library. Stanley Milgram was teaching psychology, Leo Steinberg art, Irving Howe English literature… The names didn’t mean that much to me then, but later I understood how famous each was in his field and how unheard of it was to have them lecturing freshmen. City college freshmen, at that. I was so excited about starting college. But just before I graduated high school, your father asked to speak to me.”
“Here it comes.” Hadassah sighed. “He tried to talk you out of it, right?”
“I don’t know what you’d call it. But I’ll never forget what he said: ‘
Maideleh
,’ he told me, ‘you are walking into a battle with an enemy much more powerful than our people faced with Roman centurions or Spanish inquisitors. Rome and Spain said: Become one of us or die. But America just shrugs and says: Look how much fun we’re having, sure you don’t want to join the party?’ He shook his head slowly and closed his eyes. ‘Even the Jews of Orchard Park who think they are in a safe little valley, living such traditional, religious lives, their children too are listening
to the distant party music coming over the mountains…’ ”
She glanced at Hadassah, who caught her eye and shrugged, swinging her foot listlessly. “He said: ‘The children are going beyond the mountain, to universities with American names and green leaves on the walls. They’ll get jobs with big American corporations. Their bosses will ask them to come to play golf on Shabbos. At first they’ll find an excuse. They’ll go to shul instead. And then the boss will ask again, and they won’t have an excuse and they’ll do it and feel guilty. And then they’ll convince themselves it’s not so terrible after all, a little game. That they are still good Jews despite a few minor sins. And finally they’ll stop feeling bad and guilty and start feeling abused and defensive. And in the end, they won’t feel anything at all. They’ll just be good Americans. And they’ll marry other good Americans and light Chanukah candles and give to the UJA. And their kids, who might or might not be Jewish depending on intermarriage, will just forget about the candles and give presents, and forget about the UJA, and give to the United Appeal. Millions and millions of them will just disappear. The synagogues will be big and empty. Community centers and day schools will close down. Like those piles and piles of shoes in concentration camps, there won’t be anyone left to fill them.’ ”