Acts of Faith

  For Tim it was like nothing he had ever felt before.

  Deborah was too frightened to respond but she wanted this electric moment to endure forever.

  At that very moment Rav Moses Luria entered the room.

  Tim instantly leapt to his feet.

  There was only a single lamp still burning—the one that Timothy was hired to extinguish.

  For an agonizing moment the Rav looked at them, then spoke with a preternatural calm.

  “Nu, so what is this, children?”

  “It was my fault, Papa,” Deborah quickly insisted.

  “No, Rav Luria,” Tim contradicted, “it’s mine—completely mine. It was my idea to read Hebrew to her.”

  Eyebrows raised, the rabbi asked, still softly, “Hebrew?”

  “Tim’s been taking lessons from Mr. Wasserstein.”

  Rav Luria pondered for a moment and then, still miraculously restraining his temper, spoke. “It’s admirable that a Christian wants to read the Bible in the original. But for what exact purpose, I ask myself. And why did he choose Deborah as an audience? I would gladly have arranged for someone on my yeshiva staff to tutor him. And so finally I ask myself, ‘What is really going on?’ ”

  Timothy’s self-castigating conscience made him speak again. “Rav Luria,” he said bravely. “I started everything. I’m totally to blame. Please don’t pour out your wrath on Deborah.”

  “Wrath? Young man, this situation calls for more than wrath.” He paused, and then added, “So if you’ll just leave your keys, we can say good night. And good-bye.”

  In a state of shock, Timothy withdrew a key ring from his pocket and placed it on the table. The metallic jangle seemed to desecrate the Sabbath silence. He glanced at Deborah.

  “I’m sorry, Deborah. But I’m sure your father will believe that you were …”

  “Good night,” the Rav said emphatically.

  Now father and daughter were alone. She stood barely illumined by the glow of the single lamp. He remained in a darkness so deep that he was almost as invisible as God.

  She was terrified, sensing the fire that raged in him. She was certain he would lash out—if not physically, at least verbally.

  He surprised her.

  “Deborah,” he said gently, “I was wrong to be angry at you. I should blame myself. I know that you’re a good girl, and there was temptation. That is how the Evil Inclination entices us to sin.”

  “I didn’t sin,” she whispered.

  The Rav looked heavenward with a gesture of his palms. Then, he peered at his daughter and said quietly, “Go to bed, Deborah. We’ll discuss this when the Sabbath’s over.”

  She nodded mutely and walked up the stairs. They always creaked, but tonight the groaning floorboards seemed like tiny voices all accusing her.

  She went to her room, and slumped fully clothed onto her bed. She had no illusions about her father’s seeming lack of anger. She knew when three stars shone tomorrow night, he would excoriate her. After all, she deserved it.

  She had desecrated her parents’ home, profaned the Sabbath, and disgraced her family.

  But there was more. Counterbalancing all the sin was a kind of physical reverberation of the excitement she had felt when Timothy had touched her.

  As he drank his morning coffee, Rav Luria revealed no trace of anger at the previous night’s events. He and Danny left early for shul, leaving the women to follow in half an hour. Deborah dreaded the thought of what her mother might say when they were alone. From Rachel’s expression and the timbre of her voice, Deborah could tell that Father had reported everything. But Rachel did not say a word.

  At last the day was finally extinguished. From where she had taken refuge in her bedroom, Deborah heard the door slam downstairs. She did not have to wait much longer. She got up, splashed cold water on her face, and descended.

  The Rav performed havdalah, the rite that marks the end of Sabbath. The sacred and the profane were severed. The angels of the Sabbath had departed. And the world, with all its imperfections, reappeared.

  From force of habit, Deborah immediately followed her mother into the kitchen to start all the mundane washing up—the last remnant of the Sabbath presence. She was certain that her father would come in and ask to speak with her alone. But he did not. Instead, he vanished into his study.

  It was nearly an hour later when he emerged and called quietly, “Deborah, will you come in please.”

  She was not unprepared. She had spent the last twenty-four hours desperately searching for a way to expiate her sin and assuage her father’s anger. Yet she well knew that it would have to be a sacrificial gesture.

  The instant she entered the study, she blurted out, “Papa, I’ll marry Asher Kaplan—”

  Her father calmly waved her to sit down. “No, my darling. Under the circumstances, I would not ask Rav Kaplan to consider such a match.”

  Deborah sat mute, growing increasingly colder and light-headed.

  “My child,” the Rav continued slowly and deliberately, “this is all my fault. Foolishly, I always thought you’d be upstairs when he came by.”

  He paused and then murmured, “I think it best that you should go away.”

  Deborah was stricken. “Where … where do you want me to go?”

  “My darling,” he said, looking at her sadly, “I’m not talking of Siberia. I mean the Holy Land. ‘Jerusalem the Golden.’ After all, but a few months ago, did not the Almighty choose to reunite the City of David—and in only six days, no doubt so the Israeli soldiers could rest on the seventh? I think you should look forward with happiness to your new life there.”

  New life? Deborah thought to herself. Is he exiling me forever? She sat still for a moment, then asked hesitantly, “What would I be doing?”

  “Rav Lazar Schiffman, who runs our yeshiva in Jerusalem, has agreed to find a family for you to live with. You’ll finish school.”

  Her father leaned forward on his desk and looked at her.

  “Listen to me, Deborah. I love you with all my heart. Do you think I want you half a world away from me? It pains me, but I’m doing this for your own good.”

  There was another silence.

  Finally she asked, “What do you want me to say, Papa?”

  “You can tell me you’ll forget this Christian. That you’ll breathe the holiness of the Jerusalem air and purify your soul from this unfortunate event.”

  He sighed again and then concluded, “Better go help Mama now.”

  “We’ve finished all the dishes.”

  “No, I mean help pack your things.”

  “When am I going?” she asked, feeling weightless as a leaf in a gust of wind.

  “Tomorrow night, God willing.”

  12

  Daniel

  Once when I was very small, my father imparted to me a special kind of practical wisdom. Having escaped the Holocaust by scarcely a few dozen paces of the jackboot, he offered the following definitions: A sensible Jew is someone who always has a passport for himself and every member of his family. A really intelligent Jew is someone who carries his passport with him at all times.

  Thus it was that, before any of us reached our first birthdays, we all possessed valid travel documents. It was a rite second in importance only to my circumcision, the first being a covenant with God, the second with Customs and Immigration. But never in my wildest dreams did I imagine this precaution would serve to accelerate my own sister’s exile.

  Deborah’s last evening in Brooklyn marked the end of both our childhoods. We spent every moment together, not just to console, but to assuage our pain at the prospect of not seeing each other for months, perhaps years.

  I felt helpless, wanting desperately to do something. And I was glad when Deborah finally whispered to me in such mournful tones, “Hey, Danny, can you do me a really big favor? I mean, it might even be dangerous.”

  I was scared, but determined to help her. “Sure. What is it?”

  “I’d like to write Tim a l
etter, but I don’t know how to get it to him.”

  “Write it, Deb,” I answered. “I’ll mail it on the way to school.”

  “But there’s more chance his family will see it—”

  “Okay, okay,” I interrupted. “I’ll try and sneak it over there tonight.”

  She threw her arms around me and held me for a long time. “Oh, Danny, I love you,” she murmured.

  This gave me the courage to ask, “Do you love him too?”

  She hesitated for a moment and then said, “I don’t know.”

  It was a little after two A.M. I had waited till I was absolutely sure that everyone, even Deborah, was asleep, laced up my sneakers, and dashed into the empty darkness.

  It was an eerie feeling, running along those foggy, deserted streets, lit only by lampposts casting a kind of vapory light.

  I was right in the heart of Catholic territory, and even the windows of the houses seemed to stare angrily down at me. I wanted to get out of there fast.

  I reached the Delaneys’ house as quickly as I could, hurried onto the porch, and slipped the letter under their front door. Deborah had assured me Tim would be the first one up, since he had something to do with early morning Mass.

  Then I sprinted with all my might till I reached our house. After I caught my breath, I quietly opened the front door and tiptoed in.

  I was surprised—and frightened—to hear a noise coming from Father’s study. It sounded like a wail, a cry of pain.

  As I moved closer, I realized that he was reciting from the Bible. It was from Lamentations: “And gone is from the daughter of Zion all her splendor.”

  Even from another room I could feel his anguish.

  The door was slightly ajar. I knocked quietly, but he did not seem to hear, so I pushed it open a little further.

  He was at his desk, cradling his forehead with both hands, reading the wounded words of Jeremiah.

  For a moment, I was afraid to talk, certain my father would not want me to witness him in this condition.

  He sensed my presence and looked up.

  “Danny,” he muttered. “Come sit and talk to me.”

  I sat. But talk did not come easy. I feared that whatever I might say would somehow hurt him even more.

  At last he cupped my cheeks in his hands, his entire face a mask of sorrow, and said, “Danny, promise me—don’t ever do a thing like this to your father.”

  I was struck dumb.

  And yet I could not bring myself to say the words that would relieve his suffering.

  PART II

  13

  Deborah

  To the faithful of all religions, Jerusalem has existed since the beginning of time. Through the centuries, its venerable streets have been trod by pharaohs and emperors, caliphs and crusaders, Christians, Moslems, and Jews.

  It was here, atop Mount Moriah, that Abraham, as a supreme act of faith, brought his son Isaac to offer him up as a sacrifice.

  King David made Jerusalem his capital, bringing there the Holy Ark, for which his son Solomon built the first great Temple in 955 B.C.

  Ten centuries later, David’s descendant Jesus entered the city in triumph five days before His Crucifixion. Here, the many churches—including Ethiopian and Coptic—sanctify His death and resurrection.

  For the ultraorthodox Jews the most important area after the Wailing Wall is the quarter called Mea Shearim. It is a self-made ghetto for the devout—with the significant exception that its barriers are not to keep Jews in, but to keep the heathen out.

  Yiddish is the lingua franca, Hebrew used exclusively for prayers. Women in their sheitels dress in modest clothes, long sleeves and dresses with high necks. Even on the hottest days of summer, men continue to wear heavy black garb and fur hats—and, of course, a gartl circling the stomach to bisect the sacred and profane parts of the body.

  Some of the many Orthodox sects did recognize the State of Israel when it was born in 1948. Some even sent their sons (though not their daughters, as did secular Israelis) into the Army, where they were accommodated in special religious units, so they could study Torah when they were not fighting.

  There are also a goodly number of fanatical extremists like the Neturei Karta—“Guardians of the City”—who do not acknowledge the nation’s existence. Though they live in the heart of the Holy City, they still regard themselves as “exiles.” To them the present Jewish State is a sin which has delayed the coming of the Messiah.

  But all the factions of Mea Shearim agree on one thing: the sanctity of the Sabbath. Woe to the motorist who passes through one of their streets on Saturday—if indeed, the entrance is not already chained. He will be greeted by a violent hail of rocks. For some inexplicable reason, their spiritual leaders do not regard this action as a violation of the Sabbath peace.

  It was to this fortress of holiness that Deborah Luria was exiled.

  There had been a tearful parting at the airport in New York, though unlike her mother and brother, her father wept only within. As she walked among the jostling crowd through the El Al airplane hatch, Deborah recited the appropriate prayer for those traveling by plane:

  If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there …

  If I take the wings of the morning,

  And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;

  Even there would Thy hand lead me,

  And Thy right hand would hold me.

  At first she let her thoughts be diverted by the flight attendants’ efforts to cajole the colorful, chaotic passengers—especially when some of them had declared that very moment as a time for prayers.

  But these distractions were short-lived, and all her thoughts returned to bereavement: loss of mother, father, family.

  And Timothy.

  She could not understand the strange feelings he had aroused in her. Had theirs not been an innocent relationship? Indeed, one could scarcely have called it a “relationship.”

  She wondered what God’s purpose might have been in bringing them together—or at least into such proximity—only to tear them brutally apart. Was it perhaps some way of testing her?

  When the lights dimmed to let the passengers sleep, she could still hear the cries of babies, the murmuring of prayers, and the humming of the aircraft engines. Darkness cloaked her tears—the other noises drowned her sobs.

  At last she drifted off. She did not even waken when the plane stopped in London to squeeze on still more passengers.

  The next thing she heard was the cheerful voice of the stewardess.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, you can now see the shores of Israel. We will be landing in ten minutes.”

  As the loudspeaker system filled with song, “We bring peace unto you,” Deborah felt a sudden thrill.

  This was the Holy Land. The birthplace of her religion. In a spiritual sense, she was coming home after countless centuries of exile.

  As she filed slowly through the door, down the steps to the tarmac simmering from the summer heat, she noticed soldiers everywhere. This was a country under siege.

  What struck her next was that, though she knew everyone was Jewish, not many of the multitude of faces looked like her coreligionists back home.

  Some of the soldiers were darker than the Puerto Ricans she had seen in Brooklyn. Inside the terminal, the passport cubicles were manned by women, some black-eyed and olive-skinned, others red-haired and freckled. Some were even blond as Scandinavians. It was only when she was ungallantly jostled out into the stifling night that she saw faces she could recognize.

  At the end of the fenced-off corridor of people shouting greetings in a carnival of languages stood a middle-aged woman. She wore a dark, long-sleeved dress and kerchief and held up a sign that read Luna. As Deborah neared, the woman called out in Yiddish, “Bist du der Rebbes Tochter?”

  “Yes,” she answered, sweating and out of breath, “I’m Deborah.…”

  “I’m Leah,” said the woman curtly, “Rebbe Schiffman’s wife. The car is over there.”

  S
he turned and walked off quickly, with Deborah one weary step behind, carrying her own luggage.

  It had been a shock to see Leah Schiffman up close. What had seemed from afar like a middle-aged woman was in fact a tired-looking girl in her twenties with lifeless eyes and a pallid face.

  After a hundred or so paces, they reached the car. Deborah had expected it to be a run-down antique. Instead, to her surprise she saw a stretch Mercedes diesel crowned by a plastic tiara that read “Taxi.”

  While the driver put Deborah’s luggage on the roof rack, Leah introduced the other passengers—her sister, Bracha, a woman attired like herself holding an infant, and Bracha’s husband, Mendel, a bearded, studious-looking young man.

  “Shalom,” the couple said together, the first words of welcome she had heard.

  She could not help but notice that the husband conspicuously turned his glance away from her. He would not risk the Evil Inclination bewitching him unawares.

  How much did they know? she wondered. Had they been told about her sin?

  In any case, to survive in this environment she would have to win them over. Or else she would only see their backs, as she now saw that of Mendel, who was engaged in an animated conversation with the driver.

  Halfway to Jerusalem, Bracha’s infant cried out, and the mother began to sing him a lullaby that Deborah recalled from her own childhood. In its way it only intensified her estrangement. But she tried to be polite.

  “That’s a lovely baby,” she offered. “Boy or girl?”

  “A boy, thank God,” the woman answered. “I have already three girls.”

  The taxi windows were open and the scent of pine filled the air. Less than an hour later the shadows of the Judean hills were broken by an oasis of light shining high before them. Though Deborah wondered how the other passengers could remain stonily silent as the holy city of Jerusalem came into sight, no one said a word.

  They reached the narrow streets of Mea Shearim in the dead of night. Here and there a solitary lamp in a window revealed a scholar still rapt in the study of some holy text.