That cracked him up. “Oh, I guess I misunderstood—you’re like a hippie, now,” he said. “That girl from yesterday must be doing some job on you, man. Good for her. Good for you. It’s a healthier way for you to be.”
Good teachers are so busy listening for a sign that you’ve learned what they’ve tried to teach that they almost can’t help but eventually hear it, even when it isn’t there, even when it’s the opposite of what you’re really saying. Flowers heard we where I’d said you. He heard “We’re all just people,” as in, “If we could only get over our superficial differences, we’d all love each other,” when that wasn’t what I meant at all. What I meant was that I was the Israelite Gurion ben-Judah, so I didn’t have to answer to people. What I meant was Adonai doesn’t care what color my skin is, but He does care that I have the soul of an Israelite—He treats me differently because of it.
“So how is that girl?” said Flowers. “June, right?”
I kissed her, I said.
Saying that, my mouth remembered the push of June’s tongue, and I shivered. I knew the memory would wear out with use, and I saw I had to be careful not only about how many times I used it, but when I used it, too. If I hadn’t remembered June’s tongue, I would have stayed pissed about Adonai and my father and the Israelites, and I should have stayed pissed—it was important to stay pissed about those kinds of things, to hold onto the pissedness until it thickened and became useful—but the shiver thinned the pissedness, made the pissedness seem less important. I felt warm, but less dangerous.
“Kissed her!” Flowers said.
We banged fists.
“You figure out what’s the Side of Damage?” he said.
A thing I lead, I said.
“You’re talkin’ like a koan. Got something to show me?”
It’s on the music stand, I said, but it’s only three lines long.
“Don’t say only,” said Flowers. He said, “Right three lines—specially they the openers—that’s big. They the right ones?”
I think so, I said.
But I was mistaken. I hadn’t even swapped love for damage yet, let alone made forever not always.
The right ones follow the table of contents, 496 pages ago.
Esther Salt sat alone on her stoop without a jacket. From a block away, I could make our her shape, but her face was blurry—I couldn’t tell whether or not she looked pretty. Nor could I decide if I wanted her to. It seemed to be an important thing to decide in advance, so even though I was running a few minutes late for my meeting with her dad, I slowed my pace by 50% and kept my eyes on the sidewalk. The problem was I didn’t know which kind of love was truer: the kind where some girls would look pretty to me but I wouldn’t try to be with them because I loved June, or the kind where no one but June would look pretty.
The last I’d seen Esther was seven days earlier and she’d been pretty in the way Natalie Portman would be pretty if I took a time machine to the set of The Professional in 1994, when Portman was young enough to be my girlfriend, yet I somehow failed to realize Portman wasn’t Mathilda, budding schoolgirl assassin, but rather the actress playing Mathilda. I.e., the last I’d seen Esther, I’d believed she was meant to mother my sons. I had just finished studying in the study with the Rabbi and there were still a few minutes to kill before dinner. Esther was playing backgammon with a couple of her sisters, Kinneret and Ayelet, at the dining room table. I pulled up a chair and, quick as a slap, I felt like a shmendrick who’d screwed up his life—Esther wouldn’t look at me, or even say hi.
It is true that I’d quit having conversations with her ever since she’d broken up with me, but it wasn’t because I hadn’t wanted to have conversations with her—I had only quit on my mom’s advice. She’d told me Esther would feel how gone from her I was and then decide to get back together with me. I didn’t understand how that plan could work if Esther didn’t try to talk to me first—if she didn’t even try, how could she know for sure that I refused to have a conversation with her?—but I trusted my mom and I’d stuck to the plan.
Kinneret said, “Gurion, do you know how to play sheishbeish?” Sheishbeish is backgammon, and Kinneret was the kindest and eldest of the Rabbi’s seven daughters. She had purple eyes and always bit her lip while squinting at me nicely from across the table at dinner whenever I asked Esther to pass me food and got ignored.
A little, I told her. I’ve played a couple times.
“Have you played with the cube?”
What cube? I said.
“What cube?” mumbled Esther, eyes on the board. “The doubling cube,” she mumbled. “It’s only half the game.” She was talking to herself as if she didn’t really want to say anything, as if not knowing about the doubling cube was so stupid to her that no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t hold the contempt back—like the contempt was so fierce that it was able to force its way out of her mouth against her will.
“I know the cube!” Ayelet said. She didn’t say it mean, though—she said it excited and, right after she said it, she touched her right cheek to her right shoulder and made a pop-eyed crazyface and a hissing sound. Ayelet was seven, and very shy, and that was what she’d do when her voice came out louder than she’d planned. Esther used to do the crazyface hissing, too, but not because she’d been loud—Esther was never loud. She’d do it whenever we were alone, staring at each other and saying nothing, wondering what we were supposed to do next, which would have been kiss if she wasn’t Hasidic.
“When you play with the doubling cube,” said Kinneret, “you can form strategies of intimidation. Do you want to learn?”
“It’s fun,” said Ayelet.
“There’s no time to teach about the doubling cube,” said Esther. Teach about—she wouldn’t even put the him between the words. “Ema said five minutes til dinner.”
“Ema said ten minutes,” said Ayelet.
“Yes,” said Esther. “She said ten five minutes ago.”
“Ten means twenty when it’s dinner, anyway,” said Kinneret, and then she taught me about the doubling cube, and I saw that Esther was right—it was half the game. At the beginning, the cube didn’t belong to anyone, and either of the players could pick it up and use it. You used it to double the stakes. The best time was when you were at a slight advantage. If your opponent accepted the double you offered, the cube belonged to her, unless she decided to re-double. If she decided to redouble and you accepted, the cube became yours again. If at any point a double was offered and the player it was offered to didn’t take it, that player had to forfeit the game. I liked the cube.
We had dinner.
“She said ten five minutes ago,” was the last thing Esther had said that evening, one week earlier, six days before I fell in love with June.
I arrived at the stoop before I could decide which kind of love was truer. I arrived at the stoop and saw Esther looked pretty—Portman-pretty, not Mathilda-pretty—and I saw that the truer love was the kind where you don’t want to be with any other girls even when they’re pretty like Natalie Portman.
Because Esther had already called me the night before and I didn’t care anymore whether she wanted to get back together, I started a conversation with her. I said, You’re shivering.
“I’m cold,” she said.
I said, Why aren’t you wearing a jacket?
She said, “Can I wear yours?”
What’s wrong with yours? I said, taking mine off.
“It’s inside,” she said.
I said, Why don’t you just get it? I said, I’ll get it for you. I said, Wear this while I get it.
I held my jacket out to her.
“Why are you so mean to me?” she said.
Mean what? I said. I just offered to get your jacket for you, I said. And I offered to let you wear my jacket while I got yours. I said, Why don’t you just wear my jacket?
I blinkered my jacket.
“I can get my own jacket,” she said, leaving me holding my jacket out for no one.
br /> I waited a minute for Esther to return before giving up and going inside. I hung my jacket on the coat tree.
Rabbi Salt sat at his table in the study, poring over Zohar. “You too, Gurion?” he said. I thought of the loss of faith in me he’d revealed in his letter to Brodsky, but then he rose and squeezed my shoulders and by the time he’d let go, the thought had disappeared. And that’s how I preferred it, for everything between us to be as it seemed. “I’m asking you,” he said. “Have you been conspiring with my wife? Are you being used? It only takes two, you know—a conspiracy—and she’s already got my doctor in her pocket. She wants to make a conspiracy, she doesn’t need you, boychic. So what? Is she trying to make a patsy of you? Does she think she can make of Gurion Maccabee a patsy? How dare she even.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about, but he wanted a straightman, so I played one.
I said, I’m no patsy!
“And the coffee?” he said.
Usually I brought a carafe to the study with me, but on the way to the study I’d heard Esther in the kitchen and skipped it.
I don’t know from nothing about no coffee, I said.
“Exactly,” said the Rabbi.
That was the end of the routine.
The Rabbi said, “Seriously—do you not want any coffee? I tell my wife I drink coffee with you so late in the day because it would be rude to leave you drinking it by yourself, and that used to be true—that used to be why I drank coffee so late, but now, come Wednesday at six-thirty, I find that I hanker for coffee. It’s like the story of the Shabbos Non-Smoker, but in reverse… You know that story?”
Yes, I said.
“Yes you want coffee or yes you know the story?”
Both, I said.
“Let me hear you tell it,” he said. “In the kitchen.”
We went to the kitchen for coffee, and Esther was at the counter eating grapes. Her father said, “What a nice-looking bunch of grapes.”
“Try one,” she said. She plucked a single grape from the bunch, handed it to him, then went to the living room with the rest.
“Do you want it?” said Rabbi Salt.
No, I said. Then we fixed coffee and I told him the story he’d asked for:
The Shabbos Non-Smoker was a Hasidic tzadik who smoked two packs a day, except on Shabbos, when he smoked no packs a day, because lighting fires is a kind of work and working breaks the Sabbath. Because the man never smoked on Shabbos, he never craved nicotine on Shabbos. One day he was arrested in Eastern Europe. He was held alone in a basement cell for years, awaiting execution. Every so often, a guard would bring him his meals, but none of the guards would tell him what time it was, let alone what day. The guards wouldn’t speak to him at all. To stay sane while awaiting his execution, he needed faith, but to maintain faith he needed to observe the Sabbath. To observe the Sabbath, he needed to first know when it was, and because he didn’t crave cigarettes on Shabbos, he knew when it was, so he stayed sane til they hung him.
The story was a bobe-mayse, but it got told a lot. There were two different, conflicting, points the storyteller could use the story to make. The first point was that the Sabbath is one of the greatest gifts Adonai gives us, and we should never forget it—that even while you await execution, the Sabbath, if you honor it, will provide you with a level of peace and dignity that you couldn’t otherwise experience.
The second point the story could be used to make is that it’s foolish, possibly even sinful, to place the Sabbath, or any religious practice, ahead of your life—the storyteller who wants to make this point stresses that the Shabbos Non-Smoker was executed despite keeping the Sabbath; that had the man not been so faithful to the Sabbath, peace would not have come upon him; that had peace not come upon him, he might have taken a guard out and tried to escape, which would have, even if the escape were unsuccesful, at least depleted the number of enemies of Israel. The implications of this second point are that it is not sane to strive for the kind of sanity that will allow you to await your own execution peacefully; that if faith brings you peace and comfort, you’re a sucker—that you must struggle to make sense of faith; that Adonai would prefer killing you Himself to having you die at the hands of men, and that he wants you to fight for the privilege to be killed by Him; that to risk likely death at the hands of men in order to save yourself from assured death at the hands of men is to act the way Adonai wants you to act—that He will like you better if you risk your life to save your life, and He will therefore be more likely to help you if you do so.
And so it is always better to force the issue. It is always better to place your faith in your ability to save yourself from men than to have faith that Adonai will save you from men. To be favored by Adonai, you must first truly love Him, yet to truly love Adonai you must love your life more than Him.
In the kitchen with Rabbi Salt, I drove the story toward the second point.
He said, “You’ve made it your own.”
Not good? I said.
He said, “It’s a bobe-mayse—it’s not scripture.” = “Do what you want with the Shabbos Non-Smoker.”
Back in the study we drank coffee, read Rashi.
Eventually the Rebbetsen knocked and said we had twenty minutes til dinner, but the Rabbi closed his Chumash anyway. “What was this business with the grape before?” he said. “My daughter’s upset with you?”
He and I never talked about Esther and I, but I knew the two of them did, so I decided it wouldn’t be ratting to talk about us.
She’s upset, I said, but she won’t be for long. I said, We weren’t speaking for a while because we broke up and I didn’t want to break up, but now I understand it’s much better that we broke up, so we agree now and should soon be able to speak again.
“I see,” he said. “And what made you change your mind?”
I said, I haven’t told Esther yet, and I don’t know if I should, but I’m in love with another girl. Eliza June Watermark.
Rabbi Salt said, “She goes to Aptakisic, this Eliza?” = “Is she as much a shiksa as her name would seem to indicate?”
I said, She’s an Israelite. Her parents aren’t, but she has an Israelite soul.
“She has a Jewish soul?”
You say that like it’s a weird thing to say. Her soul was at Mount Sinai when Torah was delivered. If that’s weird, then fine, but that’s what it means, and everyone agrees that that’s what it means. Her soul was there at Sinai when Torah was delivered, and therefore she has an Israelite soul.
“But how do you know she has a Jewish soul if she doesn’t have a Jewish mother?” said Rabbi Salt. “How do you know that her soul was at Mount Sinai?”
I said, I converted her.
The Rabbi grabbed his lapels and laughed.
It’s true, I said.
“For the sake of argument, let’s say you, Gurion Maccabee, did have the power to perform a conversion on someone,” he said. “This person you say you’ve converted is still a child, meaning she still lives with her Gentile parents, and therefore no one in the community would consider the conversion legitimate.”
I said, Well, my parents aren’t observant—their household isn’t kosher, we don’t keep Shabbos. Still, you’d never deny that I’m an Israelite.
“You’ve been provided with a strong Jewish education,” he said.
And I am happy for my education, but if having a Jewish education is what makes a person an Israelite, the vast majority of Israelites would be Gentiles.
“You’re right,” said the Rabbi, “the family and the education are beside the point in this matter. A Jew born a Jew is always a Jew. It’s simply not the same for Gentiles.”
I agree, I said. I said, But June’s an Israelite, not a Gentile.
“If her mother is a Gentile, then June is a Gentile. It’s very simple.”
I said, But her soul—
“She can have as much Jewish soul as Barbara Streisand, yet she’s been born into a Gentile family, so she’s not a Jew
until she’s been converted and the conversion is recognized by the community. That’s how it is.”
I said, I don’t know that that’s true.
“Then why did you attempt to convert her, Gurion? If you believe she’s Jewish regardless of what your community thinks, why even bother?”
Are you angry at me? I said. I said, Your voice just got—
“I’m not angry,” he said. “Frankly, I’m a little worried.”
I said, We’re having a conversation—don’t be worried. I’ll convince you I’m right.
“You won’t convince me, Gurion. It’s you who needs convincing—that’s why I’m worried.”
I remembered his letter, the end of his letter, the part where he wrote that I needed repairing, that Brodsky could fix me… I was talking to a man who’d believed I’d been broken, who’d believed I’d stay broken were I kept in the Cage for over two weeks, and now, ten weeks later, I was still in the Cage. What now did he believe? What now did he imagine he was he doing here with me? Charity work? No, I thought. Not charity work. Remember who this man is, I thought. This is Rabbi Avel Salt. Your favorite teacher ever. He has always had your back, never been condescending; he’s not acting condescendingly now, so calm down. Were he condescending now, he wouldn’t voice his doubts to you. He’d let you live in what he thinks is a fantasy, rather than trying to end that fantasy. He’d say, “Fine, June’s an Israelite, if that’s what you think.” And that’s not what he’s doing. Instead he’s voicing doubts. But doubts aren’t certainties; they’re not assertions of wrongness, just questions of rightness. Doubts you can deal with. Doubts you can remove. That’s something you’re good at.
I was sure I would convince him.
Zipporah, I said. I said, What about Zipporah? She was raised by Gentiles, and it doesn’t say anywhere that Moses converted her, let alone in front of any community, yet no scholar has ever said that she wasn’t an Israelite, not even before Torah was delivered—and he married her before the Torah was delivered, had kids with her before—
“Different times,” said the Rabbi.
That’s never the right answer, I said, and you know it. I said, Anyway, times weren’t so different. There was no king in Israel then, and there’s no king in Israel now.