The Rabbi

Why Rachel left behind her large house in the Kansas City suburbs, handsome military vet husband, German shepherd, pool parties and baseball games, television, and movies, and chose to live in the Meyerwitz’s basement apartment, to get terrorized teaching first-grade wild yeshiva boys, and go on dates with middle-aged, socially off, kollel bachelors beats me. It’s like what my predecessor, the former rabbi of the shul used to say, “You have to be out of your mind if you want to become frum.”

“I made you some cookies. The ones you like.”

Rachel walks over and places a tin tray on the table.

“Thank you, Rachel.”

“Is there anything else I can get you, Rabbi?”

Rachel longs for something. I know it, I could see it in her eyes.

“No. No, thank you.”

Snow covers the streets tonight. Houses are swathed in Christmas lights. A few have menorahs peeking hesitantly through their windows. I stop at the street corner, reach into my coat pocket, pulling out a jug of milk. I spill some on the ground. Glittering yellow pinpricks of light materialize out of the dark, distant galaxies streaking toward me. The cats bow their heads and sip at the pool of milk. No questions about what bracha to make, no marital crises to reconcile, and no requests for blessings. If only my congregants were this easy. I watch the cats lap up every last drop.

The house is quiet. All my children have grown up and moved on in the world. I walk up the creaky wooden stairs, past the empty bedrooms, and stop at one. My daughter Tzippora had slept in that room. We never knew what happened to her. … Little Tzipporalah … Our little bird … Where did you go?

I place my hands over my eyes and recite the Shema, and then I lie in the dark, listening to the growls and hisses of the radiator. My hands grope the empty air where my wife Sarah once lay.

Oh, Sarah. She smelled of the kitchen. The mother of my eight children spent most of her life running around the neighborhood, delivering meals to the poor, baking kugel for the local firemen, giving five to six lectures on female modesty, and picking up and dropping off the kids at cheder. Whenever we spoke it was short and sweet, but never romantic. The only thing close to romantic—the romance which I’d gleaned from the few movies I’d seen secretly when the family went off to the Catskills—was Sarah complimenting my Shabbos tie, a black Calvin Klein tie with white spots that looked like a hundred eyeballs floating in outer space. She was plump, perhaps unhealthily, and her body had lost shape from the many pregnancies.

Sarah wasn’t like that when I first saw her. That was a different Sarah. I hid in the Bais Yaakov auditorium balcony as she performed an all-girls play of Bostanai. She lay on the stage, red silky hair spilling from underneath her delicate head.

Now the mornings are getting darker, I can barely see the faint rays of sunlight when I take my tallis and tefillin and head out into the cold. As I walk, husbands wave goodbye to their wives, embarking on their long laborious days of misery.

“Good morning, Rabbi.” They say to me. To which I return with a forced smile.

“Rabbi! Rabbi!”

I turn. It’s Ike, a sad man. You could tell from his ridiculously oversized green down coat and mustard-colored pants that he was a “Harry.” Unlike the typical middle-aged father who’d don a black wool dress coat and a solid non-iron Charles Tyrwhitt shirt. The “Harrys” are outcasts, has-beens, hovering between worlds, incapable of fully accepting the hardening tenets of the yeshiva and unable to concede to the revisionism of modern Orthodoxy. They send their kids to our schools while simultaneously exposing them to an old American culture that once had a place in yeshiva but no longer does. The Yankees, Catcher in the Rye, Tintin … Perhaps Alistair MacLean … No longer would any of those be found in a yeshiva man’s home.

“Good morning, Ike.”

“Rabbi, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he says breathlessly.

“It’s OK, Ike, take your time.”

“My-my son, you know my son?”

I don’t.

“Yes of course.”

“My son Sammy.”

The kid must be in Gehinnom, getting taunted his entire childhood for his secular name.

Ike, nose running, adjusts his glasses and continues, “Can you find time to speak with him, he refuses to go to yeshiva, and says he doesn’t believe … He also …” Ike glances around, then in a whisper: “He … he’s been going on the internet … my-my computer has K-9 and everything … it’s only for business … but the kids are smart these days … and he’s been … terrible things … terrible …”

“Sure sure, this afternoon I’m available”.

“Things have been so hard with him, my wife cries every night … why is this happening to us?”

I’m half-asleep, and I try to piece something together. Nothing comes. All I could think about is my daily noon power nap on the soft pages of my Gemara. “Hashem yishmor, Reb Ike, Hashem yishmor.”

His face lights up. He clasps my hands nearly in tears. “Yasher kochacha, Rabbi! Thank you!”

Yasher kochacha, it’s shkioach. What a “Harry!” I try not to pass judgment on people, “judge all men with the scale weighted in his favor,” but Ike’s weak demeanor made it difficult for me. It doesn’t shock me his son is on the outs.

Davening. I love to pray. These days most people don’t have the patience to sit still and mumble 3,000-year-old texts. When I was a boy I’d go with my father every morning at the crack of dawn to shul. I felt safe there. In my teenage years, I’d cut English studies and hide in the shul basement. There I met my first true rebbe, my master, a nameless old man who taught me all that I know. He sat in the corner next to the boiler room wrapped in a tallis and tefillin.

People said he was crazy. A lunatic. Even dangerous. “He’s brilliant, but has dangerous ideas,” warned the rabbi (my predecessor). To me, he was a tzaddik, a man who walked side by side with God. He said very little, but what he did say in that heavy Galitzianer accent, was burned into my soul, “Your greatest friend is your evil inclination, my son. He is what drives you. Without him, you would have no desire to know, to walk, to talk, to smile, to study. The Zohar teaches, after the sages temporarily uprooted the sexual urge, the chickens stopped laying eggs, and no new teachings were taught in the study hall.”

“Do we have 10? Do we have?” Nachum is the gabai. He’s extremely overweight and has a short scraggly beard, that no matter how many years went by never grew an inch fuller. Nachum randomly snaps into fits of rage, especially when he catches the kids eating the Danishes and candy intended for Shabbos. He was the gabai when I was a young congregant here, he still had that half-beard only less gray, and would throw temper tantrums. He’ll still be yelling at 6-year-old kids when Moshiach Ben Yosef and Dovid come, mark my words.

“Rabbi, should we start?” he asks. I look around. Mister Katz, 90 years old, sits in the corner, wrapped in his prayer shawl, head tilted downward asleep. He fought in World War II, flew a bomber over Tokyo and had been saying Kaddish for his bombardier for 70 years.

Beside him a 15-year-old yeshiva boy pretends to read one of those Navi books for dummies, yet is more interested in its large color illustrations of Dovid slaying Goliath than reading the actual text while picking his nose. Hertzfeld stands a few tables away, glancing at his very large BlackBerry. I’d have banned phones from the shul if it wasn’t for him. He was a nursing home mogul and the wealthiest in the community. I can kiss that new Sefer Torah donation goodbye if I enacted any decrees pertaining to phones.

Meyer shuckles to and fro, not the normal shaking, no, he vibrates like he’s having a seizure, as he reads obscure kabbalistic pre-prayer prayers at an obnoxiously loud pitch. His yarmulke’s big enough to cover an entire sukkah and his once white shirt a deep yellow. Next to him is his 11-year-old son. I feel sorry for his son. He looks very scared. Quite frankly if that was my father I’d also be.

“Rabbi?” Nachum inches away from my face, his coffee breath with a tinge of herring—he must’ve scarfed down before anyone showed up—creeps into my nostrils.

“Yes-yes begin.”

When I close my eyes to pray, I can’t say I only pray to God. I don’t think anyone can.

It’s hard to speak to that which you cannot see or feel. I pray to my ancestors, all of whom were great titans of the Jewish faith, I pray to my rebbe, I can see him dipping his wizened hands into the rusted washing cup. Then I see Sarah, not plump Sarah who smelled of onions and musty Rashi letters, but Sarah with long legs, and beautiful red hair. She’s dancing in the dimly lit auditorium on the makeshift stage. When I reach the end of my prayer, I see my lost one. She’s small, in the backyard, riding her red tricycle next to the skeleton of our Sukkah. I whisper to her, “Dear Tzipporalah, all I ever wanted was to protect you, to love you, nothing more, nothing less. I never meant for any of this to happen.” She doesn’t listen. She turns her back on me and rides the tricycle down the driveway. “Are you alone? Are you afraid? Do you think of me? Of your mother? Do you know that she passed?” She disappears around the bend.

“Rabbi? Rabbi?’' Prayer has ended. I’m lost in my thoughts. Rachel stands over me, in the dark, empty shul.

“Ah, Rachel.” I clear my throat. She’s very beautiful in the time machine that is the dark, giving you glimpses into what was.

“What is it, Rabbi? You can share anything with me”.

“Why aren’t you at work?”

“I came to pray, that maybe Hashem would send me a new husband.”

I chuckle. I just can’t help it.

“What-what is it?”

“Oh no, nothing. Nothing. I apologize. I was thinking about something unrelated.”

She smiles at me. I feel the warmth radiating from her lips.

“I must go, Rachel, I have to take care of something, Hashem grant you what you’re looking for.”

I rise.

“Amayn, Rabbi. Are you sure you’re OK?”

I look down at her as I wrap myself in my scarf.

“Yes, Rachel, yes ...”

Moans of the dying. I walk down the long white halls. The nurses nod at me as I pass, some even stand. They murmur “Hello, Rabbi, hello.” I mutter tired greetings in reply.

“Why did Hashem do this to me, Rabbi?” Jacob is a Holocaust survivor. One of the last of those old Jews from Groysverdan who used to come to my shul. He now has pancreatic cancer. “I always kept the faith! And the pain! The pain! It’s too great!”

I sit there. Speechless. A nurse enters. She’s roughly 6 feet tall. Strands of golden hair hang from her scrub cap. She has ocean blue eyes and high cheekbones.

“I just have to check the pressure.” She bends over. Oh, I could barely remember anymore. I could barely remember Sarah’s body back in the early days. Back when I cowered in the dark of our hotel room, hands quaking, struggling to remove her wedding gown.

“OK, you’re good, Mister Jacob!” she says.

“When will I get out of here.”

“If you keep up the good work, you’ll be out of here in no time.”

Before leaving, she flashes me a heart-melting smile, a smile that could end all wars and make the lambs and lions lie down together.

“Rabbi.” I return to the cold reality of the green-tiled room. Jacob barely has the strength to speak.

“Rabbi, all I ever wanted was to come on time to work.”

I gaze out the window as he speaks, at the the snow-blanketed street.

“To drive those kids to cheder. To help them study. To help them do what I couldn’t do, Rabbi.”

Snow. I used to love the snow. Snow meant no yeshiva. Snow meant Hanukkah was coming. It meant being ambushed by the Sephardim from Torat David.

“And now it’s all over, Rabbi.”

Snow looks nice, but when you touch it, it’s cold.

“It’s all over.”

I open my mouth, closed my eyes, and began to sing a song. A Carlebach classic. I hear now they don’t let the boys sing him anymore. Hopefully, Laybel Hoffman the menace who writes for the Balobatishe Bletter isn’t around. The last thing I need is gossip about me singing heretical tunes for the dying.

“Lift up mine eyes unto thee mountains.”

Jacob goes silent. I can’t go high, my voice is deep and gravelly, but I inject all my heart and soul into every nigun I sing. Rebbe in his rich Galitzianer Yiddish, would say, “Don’t sing with the voice, sing with the spirit, with the inner spirit. If you do, if you sing with every fiber of being that is inside of you, you can part the tides and summon the heavenly hosts. In Lemberg there was an elderly widow, Glucke, may her memory be blessed, who would sing as she hobbled to the orphanage with a basketful of fresh bread and pastries every erev Shabbos, and the angels, hundreds of heavenly angels garbed in the white kittels, would escort her, listening …”

Jacob closes his eyes.

“From whence, from whence will my salvation come”.

A 13-year-old Tzippora, she’s in the kitchen, crying, screaming.

“Lift up mine eyes unto thee mountains.”

I slap her across the face.

“From whence from whence will my salvation come.”

She’s older, maybe 15, face spectrally white, hair a shade of blue. Some unfriendly man with tattoos is with her.

I open my eyes. Jacob’s are still closed. Maybe he sees them. His parents, his brother’s, his sister’s, grasping the barbed wire fence.

“My salvation cometh from the lord ... forger of the heavens and the earth.”

Tzippora’s closet is empty. Her clothes and shoes gone. A note on the desk bidding us farewell. Sarah lies on the floor shrouded in black, roaring, tears and spit.

“Hmmmmmmm ... Hmmmmmm ... Hmmmmm ... “

I sing the song again but only humming this time. Only humming.

I can hear Jacob humming along weakly.

“Hmmmmmmm ... Hmmmmmmm ... Hmmmmmm ... “

A tear runs down his cheek. I amble to the bed and wipe it away.

“Hashem have mercy on us, Rabbi. Hashem have mercy.”

I look up. The tall nurse with blond hair lingers in the doorway, her blue eyes moistening. Maybe it’s the song. I don’t know.

Ike’s son sits across from me in my musty-smelling study.

“What’s your name?”

“Sammy.”

He’s scrawny-looking. The yeshivas didn’t feed the boys very well, most days you get drumsticks and mashed potatoes, and on Thursdays cholent if you get there before the stampede. A small yarmulke hides in his forest of greasy dandruff-peppered hair.

“Listen, Sammy, I’m going to be honest with you, I don’t want us to beat around the bush. Your father told me what’s going on, he said you’re not going to yeshiva.”

Sammy bites his fingers. They’re dirty.

“My father doesn’t get it.”

“Get what?”

“What it’s like.”

I smile at him.

“Maybe I’ll get it. Try me.”

Sammy sighs. “We sit indoors all day and learn Gemara, for like seven hours.”

I loved the Talmud when I was young. Nowadays I’m lucky if I get through three lines before falling asleep.

“It’s so boring.”

“Is there anything you like about yeshiva?”

“Besides recess? No. Nothing. My rebbe says a lot of these weird things.”

“Can you share them with me?”

“Um ... like he says how you go to Gehinnom if you play outside too much and if you watch movies.”

“Do you think he’s right?”

Sammy shrugs.

“I don’t know. But like I don’t even know for sure if …”

I nod at him to continue.

“If there’s a God and all.”

“Did you ever ask your rebbe about that?”

“Yeah like one time. He said there’s proof, but it doesn’t add up for me. And I feel bad about it but …” He stares at his chipped and dirty fingernails.

I’d been here before … why my Tzipporalah … My little bird …

“I hear … it’s confusing out there.” I peer out the window, at the snow-coated cars. “Do you wanna do some exercise with me, Sammy? It’s time for my daily stroll.” We walk in the Irish neighborhood. I didn’t like walking in the Jewish area. Mostly to avoid the Laybel Hoffmans of the world. Sammy is surprised at how fast I could go.

“You see? Just because I’m a rov doesn’t mean I can’t exercise or ‘chill.’”

Finally, we hit the bay. Sammy’s panting and keeling over. He has no posture and looks like one of those cheap lulavim the scammers sell outside of Greenbergs, that type that bends limply the moment you shake them.

“Rabbi, can I ask you a question?”

“Yes, Sammy.”

“Why can’t we eat pig?”

I wasn’t ready for that one. Nor did I ever understand the precept myself. I vaguely recall the Rambam’s rationalist explanation, but it would only make him doubt it more. I stroke my beard, my eyes avoid Sammy’s, and fix on a boat tossing and turning with the gentle waves.

“I ... I ...”

“Is it true because they’re dirty?”

“Um. I-I don’t know Sammy.”

A seagull lands a few feet away. “There is a great deal of mystery to this universe, Sammy. What do we know? Us mere beings of flesh and blood.” I reach inside my pocket and pull out a bag of bread crusts. I always keep them handy. “Here, feed the bird.” Sammy sprinkles the crusts on the sidewalk. The bird flaps over and pecks at them. What a happy thing.

It’s late at night when I finish all my duties. I walk toward the front steps of the house.

“Rabbi.”

I spin around. Rachel stands in the shadows.

“Ah, Rachel. How is-is everything alright?”

She steps into the harsh glare of a streetlight assailing her red painted lips and makeup-caked face.

“I brought you cookies.”

I glance at my slightly cracked chosson watch.

“It’s very late.”

“Please, Rabbi, please take them.”

“I have so many already,” I reply feebly.

Rachel drops the tray to the floor. The cookies spill across the white snow. Some of them are menorah-shaped, others smiley faces, I could swear one is a heart.

“I give up.” She cries. She breaks into tears. I look around uncomfortably. Every shadow is Laybel Hoffman from the Balobatishe Bletter with his stupid little Parker pen and yellow notepad.

“What? What’s the matter, Rachel?”

“Nothing. Nothing.”

I kneel beside her. The snow stings my knee.

“Now, now ... what’s wrong?”

Her large brown eyes look up at me. I can see the flames burning inside them. Her lips grab onto mine. She kisses me. It feels like an eternity. Her hot breath, wet lips, her breasts against my chest. A 19-year-old Sarah, skin milk white, hands over her breasts, ears glow redder than her hair, sitting on the bed. The white wedding gown is crumpled at her tiny feet. Her eyes wide.

I tear myself away from Rachel. Shock. “RACHEL!” I tower over her.

“I’m in love with you, Rabbi.”

I shake my head. “No, you’re not.”

“I’ve been for a long time, Rabbi.”

“NO! ARE YOU MAD? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?”

It takes me a few seconds to regain composure. “You’re lonely, Rachel. And loneliness makes you do foolish things.”

Her mouth twitches. Her eyes blink rapidly. She pulls herself to her feet. I hurt her, I knew it. She bends down and picks up each cookie, placing them carefully back in the tray, and without a word or glance in my direction storms off into the night.

What is this madness we live in? Why, Hashem? Why? I think as I stare into Tzippora’s empty bedroom. Her dolls still lie on the floor, covered in dust. Sarah and I left the room untouched ever since that fateful day. If only I could speak with her. Have one last talk. Explain it all again.

The study is cold. The desk groans under my thick Talmud Berachos. I slip on my reading glasses and start to learn. “Just as there are three watches in the heavens, so too there are three in this world.”

I knew it by heart. My rebbe made me memorize the entire tractate. You could stab a needle through all 64 folios and I could tell you all the words that had been pierced.

“When the dog barks, that’s the first watch.”

Rebbe told me that when night falls the demons rise up from Sheol, the underworld, and that the dogs can sense them. He knew it all, that man. After I returned from my studies in Israel, he was gone. Some said he moved to Mexico, others told me he was in Canada. I never was able to track him down. If only he was here when we had Tzippora.

The wedding gown is crumpled on the gray-carpeted floor. Young Sarah sits on the bed, hands obstructing her breasts. I move closer. Her face is different, the features are Sarah’s but with Rachel’s tangled hair and overdone makeup.

The phone on the night table rings. She picks up.

“It’s her.” A harsh voice whispers.

I gasp and snatch the phone out of her hands. At first just the sound of waves rolling up on some distant white shore and then …

“Tatty? It’s-it’s me … I’m loving it out here, the sun makes me feel better. I quit all that, got clean. I even attend some Torah classes now. Like mystical stuff, the people are very open minded there. Oh I went surfing with this really cool guy. I know you’re freaking out, but he’s not like that. He’s Israeli, used to be in the army. He’s not frum or anything, but he’s got good middos, you’d really like him.”

“Tz-Tzippora! TZIPPORALAH! My sweet sweet child.” I sob. “Where are you? Let me-let me come visit. I promise that’s all, I’m happy that you’re happy. I won’t make you keep anything, I won’t yell at you. I’ll bring your blanket, you know that little pink blanket you love, and we can go bike riding together. Remember how I took you to the boardwalk on Chol Hamoed?”

I awaken to the phone ringing, my face pressed against the soft folio. I lift my head, and a string of saliva comes with me. I close the Gemara. The clap of the pages emits a cloud of dust that swims in the lamplight.

“H-hello?”

There’s a long pause. All I hear is heavy breathing. Could it be?

“My-my little bird is that you?”

Then a gruff voice comes through the speaker holes, “Rabbi, there’s been an accident.”

The sirens pierce the night. She lies on a cot, tubes protruding from her arms, a bandage covers her face.

“We found her in the middle of the avenue. Must’ve been lying there for three hours. She had cookies with her, a whole tray of ’em, menorahs, probably was going to some Hanukkah party.” The volunteer EMT says as he plays with the black crisp yarmulke on his silvery thick hair.

I nod and look down at Rachel. Her face unmoving, partly covered in a white bandage. I remember Tzippora, on the floor of an abandoned warehouse, needle in her arm.

The ICU waiting room is the nicest place in the hospital. They have great magazines about scientific breakthroughs and technology, and now and then when I’m certain no one is looking I’ll comb through one of those fashion publications. I sit in my chair and wait. On the TV, a black-and-white video plays. Children ice-skating and building snowmen. A family crowds around a Christmas tree. Nice music plays over the video. A nurse calls to me, interrupting my escape into a simpler world. I jerk my head upward. It’s the same blond nurse from the other day.

“Hello, Rabbi.” She smiles at me again. I can see the lion and lamb lying together in a green pasture. Their noses snuggling.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

“She has no chance of getting her vision back.”

Doctor Gindi was tall, dark, and handsome. A Syrian Jew, the kind who only wears the Yarmulke on Shabbos and when eating. He says everything with the utmost sincerity and an undercurrent of grimness. Doctor Gindi delivered five of my children and took care of my wife until the very end.

“The truck went right over her.” He squeezes my arm. “Haven’t seen you in a while, Rabbi. How is everything?”

It feels strange, but I smile a giant smile. I’m oddly happy.

“I’m good, Doctor ... I’m good ...”

Doctor Gindi’s eyes had this knowing look. Like he figured it all out. It could be it was looking death in the eyes every day. It could be the handsome face and impressive white coat.

Who knows.

“Your wife was a very special woman, Rabbi. I’ll never forget how she would walk here every Friday with the hot koogel. Really. Special … special …”

The leukemia didn’t hinder Sarah’s unshakable faith. “If it’s the will of the Aybeshter,” she would say with a warm smile. In the hospital, she ensured the bikor cholim was well-stocked with all the unhealthiest haymishe delicacies and persuaded local singers to come to sing for her fellow patients.

I sit beside Rachel, staring at the monitors, beeping. I fall asleep for quite some time. When I wake, the sky is red, and large flurries of snow are falling outside the window.

“Rabbi ...” Rachel gasps. I nearly vomit. Her bandage has come off ... Rachel’s left eye is sliced down the middle and her nose is completely crushed.

“Rabbi ... am I dying?”

“No, Rachel ... You’re safe now.”

“Wh-what happened to me?”

“You ... a vehicle hit you.”

For a moment she’s silent. Then she laughs. “Baruch Hashem, I’m alive! Gam zu L’tovah ... Right, Rabbi?”

I nod.

She reaches out toward me with her mangled hand. I’m frozen. Her eyes. Flames. I let her touch me. To my surprise, she’s able to squeeze mine with great strength.

“You know ... all I ever wanted was to take care of you. You look so alone … and you’re so good … you deserve someone to …”

I feel a lump grow in my throat.

“You’re the best person I’ve ever known.”

My eyes suddenly are burning. My legs heavy.

“Look at me ...” She whispers.

I look at her. For a small moment, despite the split eyeball and cracked nose, for a heartbeat, she seemed … beautiful. Then the monitors go into a frenzy. Her hand slides off mine and hangs over the bedside. Nurses. Doctors. She’s already dead. They pretended she isn’t.

“Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, the True Judge,” I whisper. I light a candle and place it on the window sill. I stare past the dancing flame, at the snow falling behind it. I stare at the snow long enough that it turns into an amorphic white haze. Then I wrap myself in my scarf and leave.

Outside, cars honk, children make their way to school, and husbands say goodbye to their wives, embarking on their long laborious days of misery.

I lean on the hospital’s white concrete walls, and close my eyes. I feel the snow tickle my face. For once the snow feels good.

“Lift up mine eyes ... unto thee mountains.” I sing. I sing quite loudly. I don’t have a care in the world.

“From whence, from whence will my salvation come.”

I open my eyes. There in the hospital entrance stands the nurse. She’s removed her scrub cap and her golden hair is falling over her shoulders and down to her waist. Tears escape her ocean-blue eyes and roll gently across her soft cheeks. I look at her. She looks at me. Perhaps in another life we were lovers? Perhaps she has the same soul as my daughter? Perhaps she was one of those angels who would escort the elderly widow, Glucke, through the streets of old Lemberg, listening to her sing? What do we know? Us mere beings of flesh and blood. I turn and walk down the block. Humming. Only humming.

The End