Acts of Faith

  My father’s Puritanism was so all-pervasive I tried my best not even to think about her, lest he be able to read my thoughts.

  The house seemed strange without Deborah. She had scrawled only a few lines to Mama saying that “all was well,” but the kind of letters we exchanged were far more candid. I was waiting on tenterhooks to hear the next installment of her romance—as I hoped it would be—with Avi the pilot.

  Every so often I called my dorm to see if there was any mail. But all I got was the occasional picture postcard from my seductress. Anyway, I immersed myself in study, mightily attempting to efface Ariel from my thoughts.

  Sometimes Papa would knock gently on the door. Then, after saying that he hoped he was not disturbing me, would sit down and try to help me find a topic for the thesis I had to write as part of the requirement for graduation.

  Most of his suggestions involved mysticism, for which there was a “Lurianic” tradition dating back to the Middle Ages. Though some of the most important books on the subject, like the Zohar, were, by custom, if not formal legislation, forbidden to be read by any man beneath the age of forty, my father was convinced that he could persuade the dean that mine were “special circumstances.”

  I would merely nod and offer him some of the peanut butter crackers and ginger ale that Mama saw to it were always on my desk. I did my best to camouflage the truth that I already knew what I would like to write about, and whom I wanted to be my supervisor.

  At summer’s end I went to see the dean to engage in special pleading. As usual, he welcomed me heartily. As usual, I assumed it was merely because of my father’s eminence.

  “I’d like to do a thesis under Dr. Beller,” I said, trying not to squirm.

  “A truly erudite man,” the dean remarked. “But I never knew you had an interest in archaeology—”

  “Oh no,” I interrupted. “I don’t mean Rabbi Beller. I mean his brother at Columbia.”

  “Ah.” Suddenly he was less enthusiastic. He stroked his beard, uttering sounds like “Mmmm” in several different octaves.

  At last he spoke distinguishable syllables. “That Aaron Beller’s such an epikoros, such a wicked genius. And yet what honest scholar can deny he has the greatest mind his brilliant family has produced in generations.…”

  “Yes, sir,” I responded. “That’s why I picked his course. You can see from my record that I got an A.” I waited anxiously as the dean reverted to more interrogatory grunts.

  At long last, to my surprise, he leaned across the desk and smiled.

  “You know something, Danny? Maybe if Beller takes you on, he might just find your piety contagious. You might actually win him back to the fold. Don’t worry, I’ll make a few phone calls and arrange it.”

  “Thank you.” Elated, I stood to go.

  “But I warn you,” the dean called after me. “This man has a gift for mischief. Don’t let his personality bewitch you.”

  “No, sir,” I answered.

  “But then, the son of the Silczer Rebbe won’t let his faith be shaken,” the dean said, with a confidence that disquieted me.

  The topic Beller and I had settled on was “Sexual Sublimation as a Factor in Religious Faith,” a title whose first word we agreed to omit when we presented the topic for approval to the University Degree Committee.

  The obvious point of departure was Freud’s heretical monograph “Future of an Illusion,” in which he sees the origin of religion in the suppression, or at least rechanneling, of that primary driving force in life—libido. I could, after all, testify firsthand to the power of the Evil Inclination.

  My research, ranging from Plato to Freud and beyond, brought me ever closer to Beller’s essential view that “religion” arose from the guilt-inspired need to invent a patriarchal Supreme Being.

  I guess I got carried away, since the curriculum required ten thousand words and I gave Beller nearly twenty.

  I also became a regular guest at his apartment—with Ariel, of course—still, I was in a state of high anxiety when we met a week after I gave him my first draft. Fortunately, he put me out of my misery as soon as he could.

  “It’s first rate, Danny. Quite frankly, I think you’ve got the nucleus of a book here. But I’ve made some marginal notes where you can cut out the more controversial ideas so that this draft can be certified ‘kosher’ by the dean.”

  It was good advice, for my paper as it stood was riddled with heresy.

  Late one evening when we were sharing the last of a bottle of white wine, I asked tentatively, “Aaron, can we talk?”

  “Sure, Danny,” he replied. I think he sensed what was coming.

  “Knowing what I know—I mean, the things I learned from you—I can’t go through with it. I mean … ordination.”

  I waited nervously for his reaction.

  “Daniel,” he said slowly. “I’m glad you’ve initiated this, since now I feel ethically justified in speaking freely.”

  He paused and then said gently, “I’ve always thought that you had qualms about becoming a rabbi—especially when it came to succeeding your father. I can’t see you spending the rest of your life sitting in Brooklyn, writing Responsa on medieval quibbles. To me it would be a waste of a good mind.”

  I was embarrassed at the way he could read my thoughts. And yet, I felt a kind of incredible relief.

  I realized that his course had been a pretext for my excavating my deepest feelings, which had all my life oscillated between fear and resentment of my father.

  The most frightening discovery was that not only did I not want to be the next Silczer Rebbe, I wasn’t even sure I could become a rabbi at all.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I said in desperation.

  “It was all said by Hillel two thousand years ago: ‘If I am not for me, who is?’ Danny, it’s your life.” He paused, reflecting, then frowned.

  “Still, who am I to give you advice?” he said finally. “I confess to having occasional spasms of doubt. I mean, my own father and two brothers are all rabbis. Maybe they’re right and I’m wrong. They’re able to accept that ‘our’ God had some inscrutable purpose in allowing six million of our people to perish. But I ask what kind of unspeakable sins could those Jews have committed to deserve complete annihilation? Martin Buber tries to explain it by saying that God went into ‘eclipse.’ But that’s where faith and I part company.”

  His face had grown flushed, and it was clear he had said more than he had first intended.

  “Sorry,” he remarked. “I think I was riding my hobbyhorse over the speed limit.”

  “No,” I assured him. “You’re putting into words exactly how I feel. Only what do you tell your patients when they discover the truth about themselves and it’s almost impossible to bear?”

  Aaron smiled and answered quietly, “I say—see you at our next session.”

  33

  Deborah

  After thinking she would die, Deborah had finally survived the debilitating bouts of morning sickness that had plagued her during her first trimester of pregnancy.

  She now felt well enough to contemplate the realities of motherhood with a touch of equanimity. And even a scintilla of happiness. She was carrying Tim’s child—something of him that no force on earth could take away.

  Then the tragedy occurred.

  The news came as they were starting their evening meal in the dining hall. A tight-lipped, solemn-looking Air Force colonel appeared and asked to speak privately with Zipporah and Boaz. Both of them went chalk white as they followed him into a far corner.

  Though the officer was speaking too softly to be heard, everyone in the dining room already knew what message he was bearing. Their fears were confirmed when they heard Zipporah’s shriek of anguish.

  She continued to howl, so completely out of control that when Boaz tried to embrace her, she flailed her arms to keep her husband away.

  Dr. Barnea was already at their side. With another member, he helped walk Zipporah to the clinic.


  The rest of them sat immobile, as if turned to stone.

  Deborah whispered to Hannah Yavetz, “Avi?”

  She nodded somberly. “There was an air strike on a guerrilla base in Sidon. I heard it on the radio. One of our planes was hit by antiaircraft.”

  Oh God, thought Deborah, dizzy with shock.

  They sat in silence. In a matter of seconds, they had been transformed from communal farmers into a congregation mourning without words.

  Twenty minutes later the doctor reappeared, himself on the verge of tears. All crowded around to hear the report he delivered in hoarse and halting tones.

  “Avi was hit and wounded badly. Yet he didn’t eject even when he got back over the border. He wanted to land the plane …,” his voice now broke, “so someone else could fly it.”

  Many of the kibbutzniks, men and women who had known Avi since birth and grown up with him, covered their eyes and wept softly.

  “He didn’t have to go,” Hannah murmured bitterly.

  “What do you mean?” Deborah asked.

  “He was an only son. In the Israeli Defense Forces, only sons are never put on the front lines. Avi had to get special permission.”

  Deborah nodded mutely.

  “I know he wasn’t scared to die,” Hannah continued. “But he’s destroyed his parents too. Now they have nothing.”

  The kibbutz literally cared for its members from cradle to grave. At the antipodes from the children’s quarters, in the distant southwest corner, was the cemetery.

  Here in the presence of his extended family—augmented by his wing commander and fellow pilots—Avi Ben-Ami, aged twenty-five, was laid to rest. A volley of rifle shots was fired, as a simple coffin draped in the Star of David was lowered into the earth. There was no rabbi. And except for a brief eulogy from his Commanding Officer, the service was perfunctory. The grief was real.

  A pall was cast over the kibbutz for weeks. Deborah felt the urgent need to unburden her thoughts to someone beyond the closed community.

  And so she sat down at her small wooden desk and began another long letter to Danny, this time recounting how the death of a single soldier could sadden not only a community but an entire nation. For the whole country had seen Avi’s picture on television that evening. And in a real way they shared the Ben-Amis’ sorrow.

  She had been writing for about fifteen minutes when there was a knock at her already opened door. She was not surprised to see Boaz and Zipporah. Since the death of their only child, the couple had established a routine to enable them to face each long night. At nine-thirty—right after the television news—they would walk the kibbutz grounds until they had exhausted themselves enough to sleep.

  “Anyone home?” Boaz asked, trying to sound lighthearted.

  “Come in,” said Deborah, herself trying to sound casual.

  “No, no,” he answered. “Besides, there isn’t room in there for all of us. Come and take a stroll. It will do your little one good to get some fresh air.”

  She nodded and rose. Standing up was growing a bit more difficult now, but she went out with them.

  Deborah knew she had not been invited merely to make casual conversation. In the past weeks, Boaz and Zipporah had become near-recluses.

  “Deborah,” Boaz began, “we’ve been working up the courage to speak to you.…”

  “ ‘Courage’?” she interrupted.

  “Well, yes,” Boaz continued awkwardly. “But if you examine our situation and yours, I think we could be of help to one another.”

  Deborah forced a smile. “At this point, I can use all the help I can get.”

  “The way I see it,” Boaz continued, “your baby will never have a father—and Zipporah and I will never have a grandchild. If we could somehow put the two broken pieces together, we might make all of us whole again.” He paused and added, “As far as possible.”

  “What …,” she began hesitantly. “What would you like me to do?”

  “Would you consider giving the child our name? I mean, we wouldn’t ask you to call it Avi or Aviva. Could you just let him be a ‘Ben-Ami? Then we two can be Grandma and Grandpa.”

  Zipporah added almost apologetically, “That would actually be good for the baby.…”

  Deborah threw her arms around them both. “Thank you,” she murmured, tears welling in her eyes.

  “No,” Zipporah protested. “Thank you.”

  Early one May morning, Deborah went into labor. Since there was no phone in the srif, her roommate, Hannah, rushed to wake Dr. Barnea, who muttered sleepily, “Wait till the contractions are three minutes apart and then bring her to the surgery. I’ll get the nurse.”

  In the last three months of Deborah’s pregnancy, Hannah had gone with her to the natural childbirth classes so she would be able to help her control her breathing.

  The pain was worse than Deborah had imagined. Each time the spasms came, she clenched her teeth and tried—vainly—to avoid uttering imprecations. In one of her ever-decreasing moments of remission she gasped to Hannah, “Goddamn Eve—look what she did when she ate that apple!”

  The kibbutz had a small but well-equipped operating room, so Dr. Barnea and his two part-time nurses could perform emergency procedures like appendectomies and set broken bones. And, of course, deliver babies.

  At 8:15 the doctor deemed the crucial moment to be at hand. The nurses wheeled Deborah in, with Hannah at her side offering words of encouragement.

  At 8:27 the crown of the baby’s head emerged, and moments later Hannah called out excitedly, “It’s a boy, Deborah. You’ve got a lovely blond boy.”

  The medical staff called out almost in unison, “Mazel tov!”

  Deborah was euphoric.

  Later in the day, she and grandparents Boaz and Zipporah shed tears together.

  “What are you going to call him?” Zipporah asked.

  Deborah had given it much thought and had decided that if it were a girl she would call her Chava, after her father’s first wife. She could not fathom her own motivation, but had an inkling that she might still be trying to please him.

  There was no question, however, that if it were a boy she would give it the closest Hebrew equivalent to Timothy, which meant “honoring God.” The choice came down to Elimelech—“My God is King”—and Elisha—“God is my Salvation.” Deborah settled on the latter.

  On May 22, 1971, Elisha Ben-Ami was circumcised and entered the covenant between God and His people. His last name commemorated a dead man who was not his father. His first honored one still living who would never know Eli was his son.

  Deborah oscillated between elation and helplessness. There were times even in those first intoxicating days when she would sit mutely, awestruck at what she had done.

  For while Eli had been inside her she had survived moments of self-doubt by thinking, “Everything will be all right as soon as my child is born.” His living presence turned rosy fantasy into a yowling reality.

  Naturally, all the kibbutzniks were supportive and congratulatory. But, to everyone except Boaz, Zipporah, and Deborah herself, Eli was just another of the many babies who were always welcomed with affection.

  The tidal wave of love that Deborah felt was something that she longed to share with her real family, her mother at the very least, and Danny, to whom she had at several moments during her pregnancy come close to confiding her secret.

  And yes, she admitted to herself, there was an irrational part of her that still yearned to tell her father. Though she believed she had severed all emotional ties, the little girl in her still wanted Papa’s approval.

  But would he ever welcome the prodigal daughter into his fold again?

  34

  Daniel

  I was the last of the candidates to fall by the wayside.

  That was my only distinction. In our first year, Label Kantrowitz had had some kind of nervous collapse. It was especially tragic, since he had a wife and two children. Word had it he was teaching back home in a Baltimore yesh
iva and still suffering from migraines and high blood pressure. But I was pretty sure there was more to it than that.

  There were two more dropouts near the end of our third year, when we still had more than twelve months to go toward ordination. About these our teachers were silent, vouchsafing merely that they had some “inner difficulties.”

  Unlike Kantrowitz, the two late defectors were not sons of rabbis, and Label’s father was merely the principal of a small yeshiva, not the leader of a community.

  None of them was heir apparent to the Silczer Rebbe. None of them would break a “golden chain”—and his father’s heart.

  I wondered what Papa would do. He had led so meritorious a life and prayed so long for a successor. Why should this pain be visited upon him from on High?

  There, I stopped myself. How could I dare to presume that my loss of faith had been caused by some unearthly power? I was not a modern Job who had failed the test. I was a human being who no longer could believe in the dictates of his religion.

  Yet how could I face my father knowing that he regarded my forthcoming ordination as a perpetuation of his own life and dedication? How could I pronounce the words that would destroy him?

  I was grateful when Beller appeared unannounced at my dormitory to give me courage.

  “Why am I doing this?” I agonized.

  Beller looked at me and, in what I presumed to be his therapeutic tone of voice, softly asked, “Exactly whom do you think you’re doing it to?”

  I cast down my eyes, confessing, “To my father.” I paused and then repeated, “I am doing this to hurt my father.”

  I looked up and asked in anguish, “Why, Aaron, why should I want to do that?”

  “Only you can find the answer,” he whispered softly.

  “Do I hate him?”

  “Do you?”

  How could I answer such a terrible question—except with the truth.

  “Yes,” I murmured. “Something in me wants to punish him. Look at the way he treated my sister.”