Divinely Expired

Sexual Abuse. The Unspoken Parts. On xoJane.com

2012-12-10T16:43:00.000-05:00

LIKE IN THE WEBERMAN TRIAL, I WAS A VICTIM OF SEXUAL ABUSE WITHIN MY HASIDIC COMMUNITY, AND HERE'S THE TRUTH OF MODESTY COMMITEES

Seedy Business (fiction)

2012-08-15T06:00:00.000-04:00

I was on the way to meet face-to-face with my victim in McKinleyville, California. I was expecting a comfortable flight to a very uncomfortable meeting with the person whose imminent death I had caused, when some sweaty, white guy sat down next to me while yelling at his BlackBerry. “Seriously, I have to fly economy because you jackasses fucked up!” He was trim and clean cut but on the heavy side, beads of perspiration rolling down his forehead, reminding me of Chris Christie.

“Sometimes we end up in places we didn't plan, eh?” I said.

He didn’t even glance at me. “Fuckin’ A!” he mumbled. He turned to the flight attendant’s cleavage. “I’ll have a scotch. Neat.”

“Fuckin’ A!” she said under her breath. Karma is a bitch, and I love her.

*

One day earlier I was sitting at the rebbe’s tish. It was during shovavim, that time of year when our private parts take center stage in all sermons.

“The sperm is the energy of the body and the light of the eyes,” the rebbe was saying. “When too much is ejected, the body is destroyed and life is lost. Those who spill their seed often, old age comes upon them; their power fades, their eyes darken, and a bad odor is emitted from their mouths. The hair on their heads and eyebrows fall out. The hair of their beards, armpits, and legs grows thicker and their teeth fall out. And many other troubles apart from these come upon him.”

I was trying to feel the thickness of my eyebrows in the dark as the rebbe’s voice hammered away inside my head.

“We now know from experts that this sin is a leading cause of death.” With only a few hours between my last incident and my next one, my time on this world seemed limited. “And not only is it a sin and a danger to yourself; it’s a danger to the world,” the rebbe wailed, while his five hundred congregants sobbed along with him. “Right now, at this moment, there is someone dying from cancer because of your lack of self-control. As we have seen during the Holocaust, when God strikes with anger, he strikes the guilty and the innocent alike.”

The thought of someone dying of cancer because of my masturbatory habits made me uneasy. Whoever it was, that poor person had no idea what hit him. I wasn’t going to masturbate ever again, that was for sure, but my conscience was eating at me. I owed the cancer-stricken victim an apology. And their family too. For spilling the seed that wasted their loved one. I wanted to explain that I had no malicious intentions. I had just wanted to, you know, relieve stress. I really had no idea.

The rebbe finished the sermon and the lights came on. All around me, people were wiping their tears, looking cleansed and sin-free. Cancer was soon to be a thing of the past.

*

I took another shot at making conversation with sweaty-guy. “What are you going to McKinleyville for?”

“Ugh, some bullshit thing,” he said.

I wondered if he too was going to visit his victim. I looked at his eyebrows. They were thick. I leaned in closer to smell his breath, but I wasn’t close enough. I leaned in closer. “Get offa me, ya faggot!” he yelled. He tried to move as far away from me as his armrests allowed, but it was too late. I smelled his breath, and it reeked. This man has a lot of blood on his hands, I thought. I shouldn’t be talking to him.

*

I knew my victim was from McKinleyville, California, because God told me so. I contacted God through his preferred method. I called upon him by the words of King David in Psalms, and he replied, as usual, in Sign Language. First it became cloudy, which was a clear sign. It is how all godly communications begin. The first letters of certain verses started glowing, which signified the name of the town and the name of my victim. “Lynn Mirocol” I clearly read out from Psalms, Chapter Two. I have always been skeptical of people who claimed that God has spoken to them, until the day I found myself on a plane to McKinleyville sitting next to a rude and sweaty mass-manslaughterer.

*

Just as I expected, Lynn lived in a modest house with a white picket fence, and as I expected, she was sitting in a gazebo chair reading Dying With The Lord: A Christian Guide For The Terminally Ill.

“It’s OK, sir,” she said softly. “There’s no need to apologize. It’s God’s will.” I tried to respond, “Yeah, but…” She was having none of it. “Come on, you were just a kid.” Her son Pat, in a ponytail and camouflage shorts, sat shirtless at the other end of the white porch smoking Capris and pretending to read Truckers Digest. He was clearly eavesdropping on our very private conversation.

“You know, son,” Lynn said softly, “Jesus died for our sins as well. God chose him. God wanted him near him. He chooses the really special ones to spill his fury at for the sins of people.” It might have been the painkillers talking, but it made perfect sense. She was one of the innocents from the rebbe’s sermon. I should ask the rebbe about Jesus.

As I left her home, her son followed me to my rented Toyota Yaris. “Listen, you jackoff,” he called to me. “If you ever lay your hand below your belt ever again, I’ll fucking hunt you down and cut your sorryass prick off for good.” He was a foot taller than me, his piercing, bloodshot eyes told me he was dead serious. “That’s my mother right there, and she’s dying because you couldn’t keep your hands off your cock. Now get the fuck outta here.”

All I wanted was to go home and masturbate again. Maybe Pat would get cancer and die.

_________________________________________________________________________________
Thanks to Shulem Deen of Unpious.com for editing this story. Thanks to Meagan Dwyer, Pearl Gluck and all those who listened to and read all the earlier versions and offer their constructive criticism.

In Case You Weren't Wondering

2012-08-14T00:12:00.000-04:00

Hey Fellas,

It's been a while.

For those of you who worry about me, don't. Because...just don't. I'm fine. Really, I'm great.

Now that I got that out of the way. Some of you have been asking me in person and via email why I haven't written in a while. First of all, thank you, it feels great to be wanted and appreciated. Second, I've been very busy and my life has taken a dramatic turn for the good which keeps me busy with work and other projects. The time spent away from here has also given me a new appreciation for the written word and has also made me realize my poor writing skills. But before you start with all the "oh c'mon! you're a great writer, blah blah blah, let me give you a hug..." I'd like to tell you that it hasn't stopped me from writing, instead it just made me work harder to improve my writing as you can plainly see here. My vocabulary has improved, and my writing process more thought out and deliberate. I blame it on consuming mass amounts of works by Etgar Keret, David Sedaris, Shalom Auslander, and Joel Stein.

What I'd like to say is....

Hold on! I don't like to say "what I'd like to say." That phrase annoys me, the people who use it annoy me. If you'd like to say something, say it. There is absolutely no need to inform me before saying what you'd like to say, that you'd like to say it. Once you have said what you'd like to say, I automatically assume that that is what you liked to say.

Now here's what I'd like to say...

Ugh! Fuck it!

Alright. Alright. I have been working on some pieces for a while. I have a real full-time job which doesn't leave me much time to write the way I want to. But I promise I will finish them and post them soon.

Until then, take care of yourselves, take care of those in your families who love you unconditionally, do something sexy, and dress like you have something to say.

P.S. Nah, forget it. It's fine the way it is. I can always edit it later.

GOD NO! Penn Jillette, YES!

2011-08-22T00:35:00.000-04:00

I just finished listening to the audio version of Penn Jillette's new book God No! Signs You may Already Be an Atheist, And Other Magical Tales. OK, I didn't really finish it, but I finished the chapter where he writes about our little dinner we had at Traif last year. He tells the story better than me, and I laughed harder hearing the story from him than the laughs I get when I tell the story. But it also made me emotional and teary eyed.

Penn shares my - and my friends' - stories with his readers, what that experience has taught him, and what he took away from it. Now I feel it is my chance to share what that night meant for me.

Let's get the obvious out of the way first. First of all, I had dinner with a celebrity. Not just any celebrity, but one I greatly admire. So that is pretty cool in itself. What's even cooler, is that I am in his book, and that he cleverly placed a classified ad for my services in it.

But being able to name-drop "I had dinner with Penn Jillette" and the fact that his honorable mention might make me a few bucks one day, are nothing compared to the lifelong impact Penn has had on me before, after, and during that dinner.

Long before I had the honor and pleasure of being in his presence, his words of wisdom entering my psyche through my iPod, computer screen, and television have had a deep impact on me. George Carlin taught me that it is OK to poke fun at the crazy shit people you love believe in, and that if something is sacred it's probably bullshit. Richard Dawkins taught me what is real and what is not, and Hitchens taught me how to talk to religious people and have fun doing it.

But Penn Fraser Jilltette taught me how to be a good human being. When I worried "who will take care of me if there is no God?" I wasn't only worrying about my health and general well-being, what worried me most was how I will be able to retain my morality and humanity, I was afraid that without God I will become a thief a rapist and a murderer. Yes, reading Dawkins' take on morality in The God Delusion was somewhat comforting, but nowhere near as comforting as knowing an Atheist who's moral values will help me sleep better at night knowing I'm not going to wake up a psychopath. That fear vanished when I became acquainted with Penn Jillette.

Throughout my journey out of the Hasidic world I found myself searching for good goyim. Having been told my entire life that all - even religious and especially Atheist - goyim are nothing but evil and filthy murderers, thieves, and idol-worshiping adulterers, I needed to prove to myself upon accepting the goyishe lifestyle that I was wrong. It didn't take long for me to find out that I had been lied to, for I became friends with many wonderful goyim and found the love of my life in a drop-dead-gorgeous Irish-Catholic shiksa from Arkansas.

But what about those evil Atheists who believe in nothing?

Well, the stripper helped. But for all I know, she could have been an abusive crack-whore mother who went from the club to shoplift from Walmart and whatnot. But my solace came packaged in a loud 6' 10' Atheist goy from Massachusetts.

Penn Jillette is one of the nicest, sweetest, most compassionate and empathetic person I have come to known. His sense of right and wrong is clear, and his morals are sound. During the three hours I spent with him over dinner, I learned lessons on how to treat another human being. As surprising as it might seem to some, I learned how to treat women. His unsurprisingly loud argument with a fellow diner over using condoms showed me a person who is incapable of harming another human being no matter what. Known to everyone as the loudmouth and foulmouthed talker, he became known to me as a listener, a listener to other people and their feelings. His presence is one of love and warmth. Writing this I find it difficult to articulate specifically what it was he said that had such a deep impact on me. Maybe it was my expectations of him versus the reality of who he is. Maybe I was - and still am - star-struck. But I like to believe it was because I have just met the "nice atheist" I have been looking for for so long.

Penn might be an Atheist, but he believes in being good. God might not exist, but who needs him when there's Penn Jillette?

Me and Penn

No Thanks, Mom and Dad

2010-12-11T19:57:00.001-05:00

“What am I paying tuition for?!” my father’s shrieking voice echoed through our home. He sat opposite me at the table brutally kicking my legs from under it. My mind was unavailingly trying to escape the physical and emotional pain and make sense of it all.

“What do you do in cheider?! Do I work all week only for you to klutz?!” He was breathing heavily, obviously very disappointed and in a lot of pain. I began to cry, my legs ached and so did my heart. Like most children, I didn’t want to disappoint my father.

It was Shabbos afternoon, and he was testing me on my studies, as he did every week. I was ten years old, and just started gemureh. It was bad enough with mishnayos, but now with gemureh my torment was increasing at an alarming rate. Gemureh was hardcore hair-splitting, the stuff that old men with droopy eyelids and long white beards had been fussing over for millenia. I had other things on my mind, though; the laws of prayer quorums and the high priets’s rituals on Yom Kippur aren’t exactly every ten-year-old’s area of interest.

A week earlier, I told my father that I needed a new gemureh.

“Take one of my old ones,” he said.

“But I’ll be the only kid in class with an old gemureh,” I said, “I’ll look like a nebech.”

He wasn’t impressed. I had to admit, though, he had a point. Given my past record, he didn’t think I’d be using it much, so why buy me a new one? I’d promised myself that as soon as I started gemureh, I was going to change; I would begin paying attention. But I suppose I could no longer be trusted. I’d made that promise to myself – and to him – before, but didn’t live up to it. My enthusiasm for a new gemureh, however, was real. I wanted to study well, and I thought a new gemureh would help. And I desperately needed to stop the hard toe of my father’s shoe from banging against my legs.

My teachers and parents preached that studying our ancient laws and sacred texts would improve my life. But the Torah and Talmud didn’t explain dick for a ten-year-old like myself. The week passed slowly and with every hour my anxiety grew, along with the fear of my father’s fists.

When Shabbos afternoon came, there was nowhere to hide. My brothers and I knew that my father would soon wake from his chulent nap and summon us to his interrogation room. We always wished we were sick so that for one blessed week we’d be spared. We tried to distract ourselves by playing games quietly. Playing loudly would awaken our parents and wouldn’t serve us well during the examination. To relieve the tension we joked about my father, imitating his voice and his outbursts, but that all came to an end when the lion woke and showed up at the playroom door.

“What are you doing here?” he bellowed. “Are you ready to be tested? Why aren’t you studying?”

Here it comes, I thought. It was like facing Dr. Mengele at theselection; none of us wanted to go first but we all knew our turn will come, and it did.

My father’s question hung in the air unanswered, and for many years I wondered about it. “What am I paying tuition for?” What for, indeed.

Now that I’m older, and a father myself, I think I know the answer: It’s what everyone did. Public image is perhaps the most important thing in the Hasidic community. What would people think of parents who didn’t send their kids to school? My parents demanded reward, as if I owed them for changing my diapers. As if they had

the right to bill me for the food I ate at their expense.

Why did my father pay tuition? Why did my mother feed us? Why did they have us in the first place? The most likely answers: They had children because they didn’t want to die alone. They had morechildren because it made them feel like better Jews. They changed my diapers because it made them feel like good parents. They wanted me to study because they wanted me to be their personal nachas-machine.

These days, when I see a parents with children, I see only selfish motivations. Religious or secular, adults make babies only for their own benefit. They nurture their kids in a way that makes them, and not necessarily the child, feel good. My father’s violent behavior was probably not the norm. But when I come across short-tempered people, I fervently hope they stick to wearing condoms. If they get aggravated waiting in line at Starbucks, how will they handle annoying babies? Think about that before ejaculating, and pull out.

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People Who Are "Raising Awareness"

2010-06-29T16:31:00.000-04:00

We all have people who annoy us. The more pretentious of us get more easily annoyed than others, but we all have someone in our lives that annoy the living shit out of us. On my shortlist of annoying people, are the ones who "raise awareness."

We all know these people who are out there raising awareness. Like my neighbor, who I found out one day that she's out there raising awareness. I don't know what the hell she's raising awareness for, but she's out there, and she's raising awareness. After a few weeks I looked out my window and saw a brand new mercedes in her driveway. Now I don't know what she's been raising, but that car does not look like awareness, that looks like she's been raising money. Awareness doesn't cost sixty grand; this is a fucking mercedes, not awareness.

But, I'm glad she's not yapping in my ears anymore. Instead, she's out there, far away, raising awareness.

That joy didn't last long. Now she's on my fucking TV. Raising awareness, of course. And her mercedes is outside my window, reminding me every day, that she's out there, raising awareness.

Beware. Just sayin'.

From The Huffington Post: Ex-Hasid Pokes Holes in Holy Rollers

2010-06-09T00:45:00.000-04:00

Ex-Hasid Pokes Holes in Holy Rollers

by Jessica Pilot

"People trust Hasids... I know how this works... In the five years that I studied Yeshiva in London, I was never asked by customs to open my bags," said ex-Hasid Luzer ("God help" in Hebrew) Twersky, age 24.

Twersky's observation was ironically timed given his state when I talked to him, descending the stairs of New York City central booking. He had just spent a night behind bars for driving with a suspended license. His point, however, is still a valid one. It is central to Holy Rollers, a movie by first-time Director Kevin Asch that is loosely based on the true story of a ring of drug smuggling Hasidic Jews in the late '90s.

In Holy Rollers, Jesse Eisenberg plays Sam Gold, a 20-year-old Hasid who finds himself involved in the illicit ring after his arranged marriage falls through, ostensibly because of his family's financial situation.

"Relax, mind your business and act Jewish" is the simple advice offered to him before boarding a plane with a suitcase full of ecstasy. Using religious identifiers as camouflage is a concept Twersky can relate to. Though he left his wife and two children along with the rest of the Hasidic community almost two years ago, he still maintains his beard and payos (side curls). While Twersky's religious cloak is not being used to traffic narcotics, the motivation is the same -- disguise.

"It gives me an edge in social settings... and with women," he slyly remarks. Twersky and his wife were both chaste when they wed. Since the start of his self-imposed exile, Twersky has been tempted by religiously forbidden fruits, much like Eisenberg's character in the film. He's had relationships with seven (shiksa) women, "not counting a few one night stands."

While Twersky can obviously relate to the film's motif -- "The frustration with the restrictions of Hasidic life and the temptation of the outside world is something I can identify with" -- not much else about Holy Rollers' picture of Hasidic life seems accurate to him. This is something he has been quite vocal about. He engaged in a Twitter war with the film's producers after seeing the trailer. He finally confronted Asch during a Q&A session following a private screening hosted by the Consulate General of Israel. It was a debate that I found to be far more enlightening than the movie's drab 89 minutes.

"The so-called Yiddish accent -- 'Baaaaah-ruck Haaashem' -- is a desperate attempt to make Hasids look like fanatics with zero intellect. It is not an accent I've heard anywhere in my life besides in bad movies," noted Twersky.

The act of putting on Tefillin (a Jewish religious article used during prayer) was done incorrectly. "It's supposed to be wrapped seven times."

And a scene in the synagogue that showed women and men sharing a room is not kosher in the Hasidic sphere.

Twersky's gripes don't stop with the film's fallacious portrait of the religion -- for him it's personal as well. "Talk about a lawsuit," he muttered after noticing one of his friends as an unwitting "extra" in the movie.

The discourse was enough to make one wonder why the film's producers didn't spring for a Hasidic or an ex-Hasidic consultant during the writing and production of the film. Strangely, the answer seems to be that they simply didn't care. "To be blunt, I created my own [reality]," was Asch's roundabout answer to Twersky's question. "In my research the lines blur and we were able to live within that blur. I always go for emotion over logic."

This might have been an acceptable response if the film had in fact succeeded on an emotional level -- but the tone and characters ring false. The script, by Antonio Macia, feels like it was written by extracting a Yiddish dictionary of every Jewish cliché and folksy latke reference. The story comes as an afterthought. The portrayal of the Hasidic community is cartoonish, a "character story," as Asch offered, that makes only the most feeble attempt to get inside the head or heart of any of its characters. As a result, it's hard to say whether Holy Rollers is a bigger insult to the Hasidic community or the art of cinema. It's an experience that neither club drugs nor prayer could save.

To Twersky the fact that a black hat can be deceiving is the only true insight that an audience can take away from Holy Rollers, and it's one he's not necessarily sure he wants them to have.

For a man who just spent 19 hours in jail, as he had when we talked, he was in a good mood. It showed. Peyos neatly coiled, still dressed in his Hasidic garb, he excitedly updated his Twitter followers and 539 Facebook friends via Blackberry. "You guys should spend a night in central booking, it's quite an experience!"

His head cocked, a smile playing on his lips: "It's been a long night. I need a coffee and a cigarette. And I've got to see my Shiksa."

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My Mind's Shadow

2010-03-28T16:16:00.000-04:00

As a child, I was told that God is everywhere. And I would always ask myself, “Is He in the bathroom too?” According to my parents, the bathroom was an impure place,tumeh, a place where one’s most private body parts are exposed, the only walls in the house that ever saw a fully naked body. Well, if God is holy, would He be in the bathroom?

I never got an answer, perhaps because I never asked it out loud. Now, fifteen years later, I feel like I know the answer.

I spent most of my life trying to satisfy the God who shadowed me everywhere. If He didn’t follow me into the bathroom, He was waiting right there when I came out. And I noticed it. I felt it. He always knew what I was up to. He was with me in shul while trying to concentrate on the davening. He was with me at breakfast. He came to bed with me at night, and was even with me in my dreams. He never intervened though, he just stood there and watched. The most He would do, when I wasn’t conscious of His presence, was tap me on the shoulder, and when I’d turn around he’d give me that sadistic wink, as if to say, “I’m still here, buddy.” Wink.

Fuck off, I’d wanted to say. When I wasn’t too scared of Him.

Two years ago, still married and living with my then-wife and kids in Monsey, NY, I decided I needed to get away from God. I wanted no sign of Him, no shul, no hats and beards, no mezuzahs, and no negel vasser at my bedside. I hopped into my car and drove for five days. Destination: Sin City.

What happens in Vegas, of course, stays in Vegas. But I hoped that what happens in Monsey, stays in Monsey too. Especially God. I didn’t plan on taking Him with me, and I hoped He wasn’t going to tag along uninvited.

It was a Friday in June when I arrived in Las Vegas. At my hotel on the strip I started to unpack. I deliberately didn’t bring any white shirts, or any of my other Chasidic clothing; I didn’t bring anything that would remind me of God. I tried to tell myself, “It’s Friday, just a regular day,” and blocked out the thought of it being Erev Shabbos. I browsed the web and made my plans for the night. I really wanted to see the fountains at the Bellagio from the movie Ocean’s Eleven, and of course the strip clubs. Applying the bathroom logic, I was pretty sure a strip club would be Godproof. There would be naked women there; it seemed like a safe place.

I finished planning, and headed for the door.

It was already dark out, and as I stepped outside I felt I wasn’t alone. He was there, with me. He’d been hiding somewhere in my mind during the entire trip from New York, quietly tagging along without saying a word. If I knew he’d been following me I wouldn’t have come in the first place. Cunning bastard. Letting me come all the way to Vegas, waiting for me to unpack, make my plans, tuck in my beard, hide my payess under my baseball cap, and then reveal himself. Fucking psychopath.

But it was just that sadistic wink again, no intervention. I decided to ignore him. He came along to the casino, to the clubs, on my prowls along the strip. I seemed to forget about him in the strip club, perhaps He took off for a bit without me noticing, but He was definitely there when I left.

I began to feel anxious. Vegas wasn’t a good place to piss off God. What if he decided to kill me right then and there? A car accident, a freak fall from the balcony of my hotel room, or drowning me in the pool. Everyone would know I was in Vegas. I felt like scolding Him, now convinced that he might actually have something like that up his sleeve. “Uncool,” I wanted to tell him. “Really uncool.” He might’ve thought it would be funny; a prank He would pull on me, so He could laugh and laugh. I knew I had to give in, keep him happy.

I googled the nearest Chabad House and memorized the directions. “Tomorrow I’ll go to shul,” I decided. The Chabad House didn’t seem far, so I figured I’ll just walk there.

I awoke around noon. It was 105 degrees outside, with the temperature rising, and I soon noticed that I made a terrible mistake. The Chabad House was a little farther than it looked on the screen. It took me half an hour to realize it. I’d estimated (based on the small-ish map on my computer monitor) a twenty minute walk, but when I stopped someone for directions and asked how long it would take to get there, I was told I had another hour and a half to go. I’d come this far, though, prepared to appease God, make Him get off my back for just a bit. And I really couldn’t risk pissing him off now. I kept walking and trudged two hours in the desert heat in a polo and shorts.

I arrived there sunburnt, dehydrated, and ravishingly hungry. The prayers were over, and so was the meal. The rabbi was clearing the tables and welcomed me with a warm “Good Shabbos.” He prepared an entire meal for me, and asked where I was from. “New York,” I said, trying to keep it vague. He realized I didn’t intend to share much, and he left me alone.

I finished my meal, satiated and restful. But I was angry now. Fucking pissed. He’d tricked me! He knew how far the shul was, but didn’t say shit! He didn’t care about my sunburn, He didn’t care about my thirst, He didn’t care about any of it. If he really was so powerful, He could’ve done something. Hell, he could’ve given mekfitzas haderech, or sent an angel – or a rock – to bring me water. But He just didn’t give a shit.

That’s when it hit me. “He never intervenes! Why do I keep on trying to please Him?” If he did exist, he was certainly intent on not showing it. I began to doubt my sanity.

I stormed out of the Chabad House and hailed a cab. “The Mirage!” I almost yelled. I tried to yell louder than God, who was still right next to me in the cab. Although He wasn’t yelling back. Maybe I wished to hear him yell. One-way yelling didn’t feel satisfying. He just sat there, it seemed, with a self-satisfied, almost expressionless look, as if to say, “Did I say something?”

He still accompanied me to the parties that day, but I ignored him. Even now, He still comes with me wherever I go, but I’ve learnt to ignore Him. He stands over me having sex with my shiksa girlfriend, and He even gets into my bacon-egg-and-cheese sandwiches. I still ignore Him and hope that some day He’ll give up.

But yes, He is everywhere, of course, always shadowing me, always the pesky tag-along who doesn’t seem to have an opinion, just there to annoy me. He’s there all the time. Even when I’m asleep. Or in the bathroom.

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The Four Questions

2010-03-22T00:15:00.000-04:00

This conversation is bound to happen sometime in the next couple of days.

"You know Pesach is coming?" my Hasidic friend asks.

"Yeah, and so is Easter" I say.

The signal should have been obvious to him, "this conversation is over". The less obvious signal which he will probably get while he's walking away would be that two years ago was the last time I would have celebrated Pesach, and that this year I will celebrate Ramadan, Easter, and Passover equally. Or, I won't celebrate them equally.

It's fair to say that Easter has no meaning to me. I don't know what the holiday is about, and I don't care. And the same can be said about Ramadan. I don't have any experience with those holidays, neither negative nor positive. I just don't care for them. But that is not the case with Pesach; I have a lot to say about that one. A lot.

It all begins with a hangover. I wake up the morning (afternoon) after Purim with a massive hangover. I have no recollection of the events that took place the previous day, but it feels like I had fun, and that fun was about to be replaced with weeks of misery. In the next couple of weeks I will have to help clean our massive fifteen room house for Pesach, and everything in them. That's right, every single item in every single room. Every toy in the playroom, every garment in every closet, and every book in my father's study that haven't been opened in years. Anyone who has ever lived with me more than a day knows how much I hate cleaning, probably more than any of you hate Rush Limbaugh or Paris Hilton. Don't get me wrong, I love cleanliness, I just hate doing it, and my parents knew it and made me do it anyway. As the weeks passed the pressure grew, every week my mother's voice pitch increased, which increased my headaches, which increased my Tylenol dose, which increased my disinterest in Pesach.

When Pesach finally arrived, everyone has reached their threshold of stress tolerance. The human animals have been kept in cages for four weeks without food and water for their psyche, the cage doors have now been opened, and they all came bursting out looking for prey. And with fourteen manic people in the house, prey was at every corner. Let the show begin. And what a show it was.

Act 1: The father comes home from shul with a throbbing headache from all the work and praying of the day shouting, yelling, and screaming at everyone and about everything that's not to his personal preference, the seder table, the pillows, the matzos, the maror is not sharp enough, and whatnot. Mother walks into the room and tries the proven relaxation method of yelling over the father trying to calm him down. I always played the role of the nudge. Let me explain. There are three types of people, the shlimazel, the shlemiel, and the nudge. The shlimazel is the person who carries the bowl of soup and drops it, the shlemiel is the person he drops it on, and the nudge is the one who asks what kind of soup it was. I played the nudge, but I really cared about the stuff I was nudging about, much like Donny in The Big Lebowski.

Act 2: A repeat of act 1, but with the table already set, a few props added, and a very hungry cast.

And then came The Four Questions. Going around the table, everyone big and small, young and old, repeated last year’s questions. Questions no one cared about, questions that didn't make any sense, questions that will not be followed by answers further in the Hagadah, and questions sung by a two-year-old that has absolutely no clue what and why he is asking them. Questions that begged for revision year after year, and questions that I last asked two years ago.

So here is my revised version of The Four Questions, which I might or might not ask this year.

1. Why on all the other nights of the year we eat a tasty, nourishing, and easily digested meal at 6pm, and this night we eat two hours of Hagadah as an appetizer and constipation-inducing matzoh?

2. Why on all the other nights of the year we eat tasty veggies as a side dish, and this night we eat torturous horseradish as an appetizer?

3. Why hasn't anyone thought about cooking the potatoes in salt instead of the messy method of dipping them in salt water before eating?

4. Why on all the other nights of the year we sit straight up on our chairs while eating and drinking, and this night we eat and drink in the most uncomfortable position ever attempted by human beings after the fetal position?

One more question: What the fuck?!

The Day I Got My Curls (aka "upsherin")

2009-11-01T08:31:00.000-05:00

The first thing in my life I remember is my upsherin.

I wasn't excited at all, my mom pretended to be excited and even tried to convince me that I was excited. "You're getting a kippah and peyos, and the rebbe will show you the aleph-bais and you're going to lick the honey, and then you'll hand out sweets to all the kinderlach, isn't that exciting?" She said wondering at my expressionless face. "Not really" I thought "big deal." It wasn't a big deal to me at all, I had no interest in meeting other kids, and I had no interest in going to chaider. "Whatever, everyone gets an upsherin, I'll get one too, so let's get it over with" I thought.

My father wrapped me in the tallis to guard my eyes from the impurities of the streets on the way to chaider, and we went into a car and headed to the chaider.

My father wasn't a talkative person, he didn't really bother explaining the whole ordeal to me, and I didn't bother asking. I didn't really give a shit, and I had to do it anyway. What else should I have said? That I don't want to have an upsherin? So I just kept to myself and went with the flow.

I was sitting on my father’s lap in the back seat wrapped in a thick wool tallis. Back then there were these Turkish taleisim, and they were thick and heavy, my father had one of those and I was completely covered in it like a corpse. It was hot, the material was rough and scratchy, and I was uncomfortable.

I wanted to free myself from the tallis not only because it was uncomfortable, but also because like every three year old I wanted to look out the window. And besides, it was very hot in that heavy wool thing in July and I needed some fresh air. I tried opening a way through the tallis, but my father closed it immediately. Years later when I was older I was told that on the first day of your life that you will learn torah, you should start it in utmost purity, therefore kids are dragged to chaider suffocating in a heavy wool tallis. Have you guys ever heard of blindfolds?

By the time we got to chaider I was obviously even less excited about the whole upsherin thing. I didn't give a rats ass about the whole thing, I just wanted it to be over. I was sweating, aggravated, impatient, and uninterested.

Part of the reason of the lack of excitement on my behalf, was that I haven't been giving a shit weeks before the upsherin already. I didn't study the aleph-bais nor the verses that I was supposed to recite at the upsherin, it just didn't interest me, my toys and my bed were way more important to me than getting payos and learning aleph-bais. I didn't care about losing my hair, I didn't care about going to chaider, I didn't care who my rebbe is going to be, I didn't care what my kippah looked like, these things just didn't matter to me. The only things on my mind were whether my payos looked nice, my new white shirt, my bed, and what's for dinner.

I'll never forget that breath of fresh air when we got to chaider. My father freed me from the tallis restraints/gag/blindfold and I opened my eyes and lungs for the fresh air. I still remember the smell of that room, it wasn't a very pleasant smell, but it was a lot better than my father heavy wool tallis that he wore every day and hasn't been washed since it left the factory in Turkey.

I barely caught my breath and I was already being dragged to the tortures ceremony.

The rebbe sat me down on his lap. I remember he was nice and sweet, and I felt bad for him that I just wasn't interested in what he had to say. "What's your name tzadik?" he asked me nice and soft. I was thinking, "Don’t you see I'm trying to read that wall poster there?" I was analyzing the room, the people in the room. Hell, I wasn't going to let anyone ask me questions before I know what's going on around me, right? The kids in the room all seemed bored as hell, the rebbe didn't smell very fresh either, the only guy who seemed to know what he's doing was the janitor Dollack who was cleaning the other half of the large room. I was uncomfortable.

"Did you forget your name? Oy yoy yoy! Should I ask your father your name?" He tried that old school sweet-talk that annoys the living shit out of even a three year old. I gave up. "Luzer" I said, thinking "let's just get this over with." "Wow, Luzer. What a nice name" the rebbe said. Yeah right.

I didn't know the aleph-bais very well, to say the least. My father was clearly not proud of me, I felt bad that I didn't care about the same things he did. But I got to lick the honey anyway, which was gross, because the container of honey on the table where I assumed the honey on the paper came from matched the rebbe's cleanliness and freshness. Ewww!

The kids in the class came to life as soon as I started to hand out the pekelach. Chaider yingel schmaider yingel, we all like lollipops and candies. At least I had one thing in common with these kids who I will spend the next ten years with.

It's finally over, and we're going home. I can't recall whether I was bound in the tallis on the way back or not, but it doesn't really matter, it was almost over. At home my mother again tried convincing me how great it was in chaider and how great it is to have payos. "Yes it is" I said. "Would you just leave me the fuck alone!?" I thought. At some point she did, and that is when I finally got to go back to my matchbox cars.

What a great way to begin life.