[Humor]

Yoshke sat in the swivel chair in his office, and stared at his computer screen. He was thinking about this week’s hotline recording, and he did his best thinking while looking at his screensaver. Five shiny golden brown challahs and two slices of gefilte fish floated across the screen in random patterns for a few seconds. Then the screen began to fill with more challahs and more fish of all sorts: large braided egg challahs, unbraided water challahs with large crusty slits across the top, small bilkelech, along with slices of carp, white fish, salmon, and for an added touch, a few bowls of chrain. The gefilte slices each had a perfect orange carrot slice on top. The carrot was the graphic artist’s idea, but the chrain was Yoshke’s.

He loved watching his screen saver, it commemorated his most brilliant feat yet, when he had only five challahs and two packages of Flaum’s smoked fish at last year’s demonstration against the Aroinim, and the demonstrators were about to pelt him with eggs, because they mostly came for the food, and he didn’t have enough. He had to call his brother Yanky who worked at Flaum’s, whom he still wasn’t speaking to, at least not with words, since the days when they both worked for their father as carpenters (as they had liked to call themselves, although all they did was install kitchen cabinets). But he was desperate, and within minutes Yanky was there with a van full of challahs and gefilte fish. Since they weren’t speaking, they mimed.

“You’ll owe me one, you mamzer,” Yanky had mimed.

“Yeah, yeah, hock a chainik,” Yoshke mimed back. “You don’t know what means a vierdjin birt, you beheime.” For vierdjin birt Yoshke locked his fingers over his crotch. For beheime, he put up his index fingers to indicate horns.

Shimon walked in and snapped him out of the pleasant brotherly reverie.

“Hey, Petrishkeh,” Yoshke said. It was an old nickname that stuck somehow. No one could remember how or why. Some said it was Greek for something. Although Shimon thought it was a vegetable. Maybe a Greek vegetable.

“You came just at de right time,” Yoshke said, moving his mouse to dismiss the screensaver. “Tonight is bedikas chumetz and I still need to buy anoder box of Pupa-Tzelem matzohs. So I need your input on dis quick.” An audio editing program was open on the screen, with sharp up-and-down green lines on a black background representing the latest recording. “Give a listen,” Yoshke said. He pressed the green “Play” button. The speakers on both sides of the monitor gave a single crackle of static before Yoshke’s voice came through.

“Be’ezras hashem yisburech. Dis is de shiur for parshas Tzav, Erev Peisech, tuf shien aiyen. For last week’s shiur press zero, pound, then 11219, pound, and then 3122, pound. To hear de shiur in Yiddish, press—“

“Nu, do fast forward, I don’t need de hakdumehs,” Shimon said, grabbing a copy of Der Yid laying on the floor. Or was the floor laying under Der Yid? Shimon wasn’t sure. Philosophical questions gave him a headache, which was why he liked Yoshke, who said simple things, like, “Both Aron and Zalmen Leib are hypocrites. Woe unto them.” Shimon sat down in a folding chair and laid the paper on the desk, his knee bobbing up and down as he flipped through the pages to find “In Oilem Hapolitika,” then turned to Moishe Yida Deutch’s editorial column.

Yoshke paused the audio. “Why you reading dat now?” he yelled. “Petrishka, you of little faith, I need you to listen!”

“I’m listening, I’m listening!” Shimon yelled back, quite obviously listening only with his nose. He sniffed. He thought he smelled chicken soup and ayer lukshen from the apartment downstairs.

“Shoin, I’m making it a little furder. Just hear it out, ok?”

Shimon yawned as he scanned the page he was reading. “Nu,” he said and tried to remember if it was Thursday yet, so he could get a slice of gala with a plate of chulent from Grill on Lee.

Yoshke pressed the green button again.

“Dis week, b’emes, I wanted to talk about someting else. But I want first to say someting dat I tought earlier dat it’s very important to hear. And it’s very deep, umik umik mini yam, it’s a gevalidge important ting to hear, and you should listen carefully. I want to say dis:

“Gebentched are dose who are aniyim in spirit, becuz dey really, b’emes, have malchus shumayim.

“Gebentched  are dose who mourn, all dose who sit shiva, or are in de yuhr saying kaddish, becuz dey will have a real nechume.

“Gebentched are de meek, de eidele yidden, for dey will have de whole earth as deir yerisheh—”

“Wha—What—What’s this?” Shimon looked up from the newspaper. “You sound like moishe rabaynie by Har Grizim and Har Eivul, or something.” Shimon looked at Yoshke through squinted eyes, which he did whenever he looked at something with disdain, or when he thought someone was hogging the kishke at the kiddush shabbos morning.

“What, it’s not good?” Yoshke asked, looking hurt as he clicked the Pause button. “I heard it from Reb Yoichanan der Mikveh Yid.”

“So say you heard it from Reb Yoichanan. Nu, let’s hear de rest already.” Shimon flipped through the paper to find the ads for this year’s Chol Hamoed extravaganzas.

Avremel, Shimon’s brother, walked through the door just then. “What’s going on here?” he asked, biting into a blintze that he held in his hand, or, more precisely, contemplating how much blintze he had earlier and how suddenly the blintze was so much smaller, which led to all kinds of existential questions.

Avremel was a “bum,” who recently started going by the name Andrew. He wore white polo shirts during the week, trimmed his beard, and liked to go clubbing on motzeh shabbos. But Yoshke liked him nonetheless, called him a tayere neshume, one who will help spread his word. Shimon and Avremel once worked together at a fish store, until Yoshke discovered them and said something about making them “fishers of men,” and recruited them for his work. Although truth be told, they simply hated their old boss, who made them work fourteen hour days, and Shimon and Avremel were just looking for new jobs, preferably in cash, so they wouldn’t have to give up their Food Stamps. But mainly they were lured by the promise of easy Internet access, and the fact that Yoshke himself loved to watch YouTube videos.

Yoshke, in the meantime, began to wax nostalgic about Reb Yoichanan der Mikveh Yid, which was the brothers’ cue to tune him out and hum one of Lipa’s latest hits. “You guys don’t remember him,” Yoshke said, “Our generation wasn’t zoicheh to have such a tzaddik. In de end, dey had his head on a plate, so to speak, and it wasn’t even a good plate, just some cheap plastic, dat you buy at Costco, six packs of 200 count, $7.99.” Yoshke did some quick math with his fingers. “Sorry, $9.99. But was dat ah tayere yid, I tell you. You should’ve seen him wit dat chalat’l de color of camel’s hair, and dat layderne pasik he used for a gartel. He was de first who taught me how to do shai tevilos.” Yoshke’s eyes had a glassy look. “And you know what he lived on? Locusts! Yes, haysheriken! Oven roasted, and smothered in wild honey. S’is delishus, he used to say.”

Avremel tapped his foot in syncopated beats as Shimon quietly hummed Lipa’s song of “Yotzmech batchi” from his “Hallel” album.

“But enough about Reb Yoichanan,” Yoshke said, absent-mindedly rising and swaying his hips to the tune and snapping his fingers. When he spoke again it was to the tune of Lipa’s rendition of Wimoweh. “Back to de shiur for dis week’s hotline. It’s really amkus mikol omkim.” And he was just going to sing, “Abi m’laybt, abi m’laybt,” when Shimon grabbed his shoulder and sat him down again on the swivel chair. “Ouch,” said Yoshke, and slipped his hand under his bony butt to massage where it hurt. “Woe unto you,” he added.

“De shiur, for de hotline, Yoshke,” Shimon said. “For chrissakes,” he muttered. “Let’s hear de rest already.”

Yoshke pressed the green button again, and ran his hand through his beautiful long brown locks.

“Raboisai,” the speakers announced, “I want to tell you a real emesdigeh thing. De best thing, is not to resist a rushe. If a rushe gives you a potch on one cheek, turn de oder cheek also. Let him give you another potch. Petch, you should know, raboisai, is good for de neshume.”

Shimon and Avremel looked up at Yoshke, startled out of reading the “Hashuvas Aveideh” classifieds, which had them wondering whether they could claim the wad of “a gressere s’chim gelt” that someone found on Hooper between Lee and Marcy.

“Also,” the voice from the speakers continued, “if somebody wants to sue you and take your coat, or your bekishe, or your three-piece-suit, give him your shtreimel too.”

“Yoshke, Miriam, and Yossi Batchi!” Shimon and Avremel cried in unison. “That’s not a Jewish thing! Turn the other cheek?”

Shimon looked at Avremel and Avremel looked at Shimon.

“You ever heard such a thing?” Avremel asked Shimon.

“Never!” Shimon said stamping his foot on a locust that was just about to hop across the room.

The door opened again. It was Yidel, the least favorite of Yoshke’s twelve talmidim. “I heard that,” Yidel said and gave Yoshke a kiss on the cheek. Yoshke smiled at him, then stuck out his tongue when Yidel looked away. He pressed the green button on the screen again.

“Moirai v’raboisai, enough wit de empty prayers. A yid needs to know how to daven vie a yid. Dis is a real deep vort from Chazal, and if you gonna daven, don’t daven like a goy. When a goy davens, he says a lot of words, but dey mean noting. Don’t be like de goyim, because hashem yisburech knows what you need before you even ask him.

“Dere’s a tefilla, dat I found in an old siddur from one of de rishoinim, dat all of you should know. It’s a gevalidge tefilla, short, and mit aza zieskeit, mamesh noiam haneshumes. It goes like dis:

“Uvieni shebashumayim,
Hallowed be dy name,
Your malchus should come,
De rutzoin hashem yisburech should be done,
In oilem hazeh as in oilem habu,
Give us our parnusseh,
And be moichel our choives,
As we have been moichel the choives of others,
And you should not bring us, loi liedei nisoyoin, v’loi liedei bizoyoin,
And rescue us from de yaitzer horeh.”

Yidel looked at Yoshke, then at Shimon and Avremel, then back at Yoshke.

“One of you here will betray me,” said Yoshke. “I just know it. A bandeh mamzayrem is what you are. I am here to spread de truth. How all de rabbis are lying hypocrites, and none of dem want to listen to me. Dis hotline is all I’ve got, and I think dis is de last one. It will be special. I need a catchy name for it.”

“The Final Sermon,” said Shimon.

“The Sermon of the Last Seuda,” said Avremel.

“Sermon on the Rooftop,” said Yidel, who snuck out the door just as Yoshke was preparing to give him a dirty look.

“That is catchy, though,” said Yoshke. “Sermon on the Rooftop.”

“But we’re not on a rooftop,” Shimon said.

“Woe unto you, ye of little faith,” Yoshke said to him. “Always hung up on technicalities.”

Shimon turned red.

“Just kidding,” Yoshke said to him, and laughed that hearty deep-throated laugh that made his kutchma fall off his head.

The recording went up on the hotline that evening. It spread like wildfire. Kol Mevaser even ran an excerpt.

The next day, early morning on Erev Paysech, Yoshke was summoned by Hisachdus Harabunim.

“Woe unto you, dayunim, rabunim, hypocrites!” Yoshke cried.

“Don’t get so hysterical,” the safra d’dayna said.

“Woe unto you, too,” Yoshke glared at the safra d’dayna.

“And let he who is without sin cast the first stone,” Yoshke added for emphasis. But none of them had stones anyway, they had eggs and potatos from the kimche d’pischa office, but mostly they had eggs, since they were gevashene, and even the Williamsburg paupers declined to take them. The eggs cracked in their hands before they could throw them, and Yoshke stood there alternately laughing at them and yelling, “Hypocrites!” Only one egg, from some small-time ruv from Borough Park who gave hechsheirim easily, hit him smack in the middle of his forehead. And as the egg yolk dripped down over and between his eyes, Yoshke cackled with laughter. He laughed so hard till he cried, and with his hand on his jaw, cried, “Stop, stop! This is too funny, it hurts! Keili, hehe, Keili, hehehe, luhmu azavtuni, hehehehehe!” And he added for emphasis, “Hahahahaha!”

In the end it was indeed Yidel. It had to do with a real estate deal. Yidel needed another thirty grand for a down payment, the closing was the next day, a “major deal,” he told his wife. For thirty grand he told the rabunim everything, and they promised to let his children stay in the moisdos.

The “Sermon on the Rooftop,” as it came to be known, was all over YouTube within days, with the challah and gefilte fish screensaver as the video. Lipa and Michoel Schnitzler called it “inspiring.” Even Lady Gaga got in on the fad, and wore challah and gefilte fish on her head at all her public appearances thereafter.

[First Person]

Let me tell you a little about Yossele. No, no, not the famous one who could sing a mile and even the opera-goyim wanted him to perform for them. This Yossele was a little boy from my neighborhood in Brooklyn. He sat next to me in cheider, once teaching me how to fold a paper into a flapping duck during gemura class. He was a good kid, at heart anyway, boisterous and lively and even wild in some ways. He didn’t have much of a head on his shoulders for studying, but he sure had a mind full of tricks. He hung bags of water above classroom doors, smeared ketchup on the walls and floors, and this one time he managed to lock us out of our classroom by positioning a long bench to lean against the door. A genius for the mischievous, I tell you, but nebech, no mind for even one blatt gemura. When the rebbe — which is what we called our schoolteachers — was busy teaching, Yossele daydreamed with a wry smile, scheming. Dead mice, aplenty at our school, figured in many of his pranks.

We had this one rebbe who was something of a hunchback, so Yossele put sour pickles in his desk drawer. You see, in Yiddish the hunch is called a “pickle”. With this hunchback teacher Yossele had quite a time. The Hunchback assigned Yossele to bring him coffee every morning from the samovar down the hall. Many boys considered it an honor to serve the rebbe, but Yossele detested the assignment. He suspected he was picked because the Hunchback thought of him as not of use for learning, so Yossele would spit into the Hunchback’s coffee each morning. I once explained to Yossele that since the Hunchback doesn’t know of this, it does not hurt him; but Yossele said he simply takes pleasure in watching the Hunchback sipping spittle, with a cube of sugar no less. Nu, so you see what happens when you don’t study?

Well, you think you can predict the future of a troublemaker? Let me tell you what happened to my friend, to Yossele the Troublemaker, as we used to call him.

So I told you about Yossele’s mice and ketchup, but you should know that Yossele was a good boy at heart. He had dark hair and fair skin with eyes as black as the Hunchback’s hat and a wiry frame that fit him just right. He clambered over roofs like a cat, like a cat I tell you! And he could shimmy up a Brooklyn telephone pole faster than any Bell wireman. You know the space between the Moshkovitz and the Hauser house on 49th street? Yes, where Mendele the Chazir sleeps; well Yossele was able to climb up to the roof of the Moshkovitz house bare-handed. No gray squirrel, not a single of those little mokoshen could match Yossele’s agility. But listen to me, this is not the impression I want you to remember him with. I tell you all this because I know you like to hear these stories, the generation you are. Yossele was more than that. Yossele the Troublemaker had a heart and a mind, maybe not for studying, but his heart was good and his mind active for many things, not only pranks. My friends, years later you wouldn’t recognize him. An interesting story he is, I tell you.

Yossele came from what we called a tzibrochene shtib, a broken home. His father was said to be a genius, but the kids all laughed when he visited the school to get Yossele out of the principal’s office. He had an unkempt beard with wild payess, funny-looking eyes, and to finish it off, his beaver top-hat had a floppy brim and was sometimes slightly squished at the top. Some of the kids asked Yossele if his father cooked the Shabbos chulent in his hat. It was said their home looked like an animal farm. Well, I never did see that farm, but from what I know now, I can tell you that many a Yiddishe mother would sign up for that kind of farm if Yossele, in his final form that is, was to be an inhabitant.

We separated at age fifteen. He was sent to a yeshiva in Israel while I went to study in Britain. Every so often I would hear about him. At first, they were just rumors. They said he had turned serious, a charge I could scarcely bring myself to believe. It was said Yossele had been seen walking with his eyes on the ground ahead of him, wearing an Israeli kaftan with a wide-brimmed hat and long payess. A while later, a boy who had transferred to my yeshiva from Israel mentioned he had studied in the same beis medrash as Yossele, and he confirmed the rumors. I asked about Yossele’s mischievous grin I had come to love. Gone. His shtick, gone. His liveliness, only for gemura, the boy said. He himself, the boy reported, had witnessed Yossele the Troublemaker sittingover his gemura for four hours without interruption.

I would have traveled to Israel myself to verify this astounding story, had I been able to, but I had to settle for tales and hearsay. Who would have dreamed it? The boy whose only concern was finding the next best hiding hole for a dead mouse, whose daily pleasure was to watch a man sip his spit, this boy, this Yossele the Troublemaker would turn out to be anything but trouble. What can I say, life is unpredictable, and so I guess it was only fitting that I too, his friend but complete opposite, I, the consummate Good Boy, would turn out nothing like they predicted.

It is all in the stars, some astrologers will tell you; they even predicted the birth of Moishe Rabeini and warned the Pharaoh about him. Now, while you may not give much credence to that story, for me, it really was all in the stars. It happened on a dark, cloudless night; one of those nights where you can spot faint twinkles even in the Brooklyn sky, and I was defending my iron-clad beliefs against a man who claimed to have a doctorate in physics. I wasn’t entirely clear on what a doctorate in physics was, but I carried on the discussion with some gemura-based physics. The man pointed to the stars and asked me, if light traveled at such and such speed, how could the universe exist for five thousand seven hundred and fifty-three years when we can see stars that are millions of light-years away? Nu, what can one say to that? That was the beginning of the end for me. Soon after I was shown the stars, there was no more chümish or gemura for me, and the payess and the levüsh didn’t last long either. But this is not about me. I am telling you this just for the irony of this change, this substitution of fortunes, if you will, between Yossele the Troublemaker and myself.

And so it happened that I was visiting Brooklyn again. It had been many years since I had seen the stars on that dark night, and many years since I had stepped foot in this noisy city. I had spent time in distant continents and far-away cities, gaining an education, a profession and a worldview light-years from the innocent boy that used to ride a red and black one-speed bicycle on the sidewalks of the loping, rectangular streets of Borough Park. I walked the familiar streets, smelled the fresh rye bread from the bakeries on Fourteenth Avenue, heard the buses honking, the garbage-trucks holding up traffic behind them. I watched young mothers strolling around town with baby-carriages holding multiples of infants and toddlers; young men scurrying to and fro, talis beitel secure under their arms. I peered into the faces, tried to see past the bushy beards and wizened faces, to recognize an old friend, a classmate, a neighbor, but they all seemed much too young. The day was warming and I walked a short distance to Prospect Park to sit amongst the trees and sift through the thoughts overwhelming me.

The park had not changed much from how I remembered it from my many lonely walks through its winding paths. Geese paddled lazily in the lake and sparrows flitted about in the reeds on the southeastern side of the lake. Ah, the memories. I regretted the loss of contact with the friends of my youth. Nostalgia flooded in; I felt lost, alone. Nisht du in nisht dort, not a genuine article of my new world and far from the old. I looked up and around. A chassidish family was approaching along the walkway nearby, the woman’s head covered with a shpitzel, her white blouse and long, navy skirt covering the rest of her and she was pushing a double baby-stroller. A man walked beside her, gesturing as he spoke. I froze. That voice! Matured as it had, I knew that voice, knew that wiry frame and those nimble fingers. Yossele! My Yossele!

There was no hug, but he smiled and stepped away from his wife and children and we shook hands heartily. We talked about our youth and years apart, about Israel and Britain, about yeshivas and universities. He told me about his wife and two children and I told him about my latest case-studies. And so we sat on the roots of a tree near the lake and talked about his children’s sleeping habits and grades, and I looked into his serious, twinkle-less eyes; I watched his mouth for those up-curled corners I had once loved, but they had been rubbed away by years of seriousness and marriage, and I listened to his voice. He spoke effusively but seriously. I longed for a tinge of the long-gone mischievousness in his tone. And when it was quiet and I remembered the energy and liveliness of his youth, I looked at him long and hard. Yossele averted his eyes uncomfortably. We walked alongside the water. Soon we reached a little creek and we looked at the water flowing downstream. We were all grown up. Men. We were men now and no longer talked about useless things and silly thoughts, no longer spat in coffees or made flapping ducks out of paper. We stayed a while longer, silently walking alongside the water.

[Arts & Culture]

Several year ago, still sporting payess and a more-or-less Chasidic appearance, I met a girl in Greenwich village who stopped me on McDougal Street to tell me, “I think Hasidic Jews are so fucking cool. Those curls are just so…. PUNK!”

In the words of the very un-punk former presidential candidate Howard Dean: Yeeeaaaaaahhhhhhh!

But if Chasidim weren’t punk enough, there’s now a bona-fide Jewish punk movement, called (What else?) “Punk Jews.”

Officially, Punk Jews is an upcoming documentary series by Emmy-award winner, Jesse Zook Mann. But it is more than just a film: it is a bourgeoning culture of Jews, many of them religious, who are crossing boundaries with their creativity and embracing unconventional forms for creating art and community while drawing inspiration from their heritage and traditions.

While not exactly Chasidic, Chasidim and former Chasidim feature prominently in both the film and the movement. It brings together Isaac Schonfeld’s Chulent crowd,  Y-Love (AKA Yitz Jordan) and his hip hop blend of Yiddish/Hebrew/Aramaic, Levi Okunov’s Chasidic-inspired fashion designs, and Elke Reva Sudin and her “Hipsters and Hassids” art installation.

The project’s website says, “What excites us about Punk Jews are the stories of people owning their heritage, being creative with it, having fun with it – and doing so at any cost.” Right on!

To raise funds for the film, Punk Jews is holding what they call “the party of the summer!” with a range of musical performances and art installations this Saturday night, June 19th at 9:30pm at the Sixth Street Community Synagogue. Click here to view the Facebook page for this event.

They are also campaigning through Kickstarter.com, on which they hope to raise $10,000 by July 6^th. There’s a catch to the Kickstarter campaign: if they don’t reach the desired goal for funds, they get nothing at all. It’s part of the quirkiness of the independent film world crossed with the world of micro-fundraising on the web. As of this writing, they have 18 days left to reach that goal. To watch the film trailer and to donate funds, click here.

[Opinion]

Over the last two years the ex-Hasidic community has significantly evolved. While some may argue that the heyday of Hasidic blogging is over, the advent of social networking sites took its place and allowed for the growth of a much stronger close-knit community. Many of my ex-Hasidic friends meet on a weekly basis, Isaac Schonfeld’s “Chulent” attracts large crowds every Thursday, and Footsteps has grown to a full-fledged organization with dozens of active participants. In addition, there are the many private events (which, based on the invites on Facebook, average two per week) held by and for ex-Hasidim.

Many view this as a great step. As this site has shown, the self-proclaimed ex-Hasidic community has grown more vibrant. Some might even argue that the forming of a community was inevitable; humans are gregarious creatures and we gravitate to those that are like us. Additionally, the difficulties of integrating into secular society encourage many to fall back to a place that’s simple and where others understand them. The reasons for the growth and formation of the ex-Hasidic community are both many and obvious, but having an ex-Hasidic community may have unintended consequences for its members.

I’ve been a part of the ex-Hasidic community for more than two years now. I count some of my best friends among the ex-Hasidic and I enjoy the time we spend together. A conversation at an ex-Hasidic gathering usually follows the same structure as a typical ex-Hasidic blog post. Somebody mentions a situation he or she was in and some obstacle that came along, and that person goes on to explain how the irreconcilable differences between Hasidic and secular culture account for that obstacle. Then a few Talmudic and Yiddish references get thrown around until the storyteller releases a sigh and explains how different we, the ex-Hasidic, are from the rest of the world and how we can never quite be like “them.” This conversation is often enjoyed over traditional Hasidic dishes, usually chulent or kugel (or galeh, if the host is a pro.) Then somebody begins singing a Carlebach song and the cycle repeats itself.

Of course, what I describe above is an oversimplification; not all conversations are exactly as I describe. Many are about sophisticated topics (I recently discussed with a fellow ex-Hasid David Souter’s critique of Scalia’s judicial philosophy) and many are about simple and enjoyable topics that are just good chitchat. Still a prevailing, sometimes implicit, narrative exists within the group, as if to justify its existence. The idea that we are different and forever confined to that feeling of displacement when it comes to any society beyond the one we grew up in.

The temptation to fall for this narrative, how we are forever different and can never quite shake away our past, is tempting. For one, it justifies our struggles. When one struggles and fails at something involving the secular world having an excuse that shifts the blame to predetermined fate can be comforting.

This is not to argue that it isn’t true that there are serious barriers to transitioning from Hasidic culture to secular society. I myself encounter them on a daily basis. What I’m taking issue with is the emergence of an identity that argues the ex-Hasid’s predetermined fate to be confined to the sidelines of society.

This argument restricts us to staying within this intermediate world, and threatens to undermine the self-professed goal of many ex-Hasidim. If the ex-Hasidic truly aspire to break into secular society, the ex-Hasidic community will have to stop focusing on the constraints that exist and instead focus on the potential for such integration. If the archetype of the ex-Hasid as one confined to displacement and struggle is to be amplified by a community of individuals, we stand the risk of turning our struggles into self-fulfilling prophecies.

Some analogies might be helpful here. Take for example the feminist movement. The rhetoric of early proponents of women’s liberation, such as Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem – not to mention the likes of Andrea Dworkin – was infused with the language of oppression and discrimination. But modern feminists managed to go mainstream once they let go of the language of victimization. That is not to argue that early feminists weren’t right; women have been, and to some extent continue to be, victims of sexism and patriarchal oppression. Still, for the movement to go mainstream third generation feminists had to shift their mantras from one focused on oppression and vulnerability to one focused on empowerment and possibility.

When I mention the early feminists – particularly the more inflammatory ones, such as Dworkin – to any woman my age, the most likely response is one of contempt. They despise how those women painted the world as hostile. Of course, any student of history will acknowledge that modern women owe a great deal to early feminists. However, fully achieving feminist goals required forgetting about how hostile the world is to women and focusing more on what it would take to get women into and a part of that world.

The same can be said of the African American community. The first African American president wasn’t someone who followed the rhetoric of earlier black politicians, such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Earlier black politicians focused on the struggles and disadvantages that have faced the African American community. Barack Obama, to those earlier activists’ dismay, modeled his candidacy as being post that generation. Obama focused on how many opportunities he had and how far we have come as a country. As much as historians and sociologists will say that the term is inaccurate, Obama aspired to be “post racial” and it was most likely the key to his success.

The same holds true for the ex Hasid’s attempt at integration into secular society. If we want all those who leave the community, especially the young ones who I’m told might be close to 7-8% of the youth, to stand a chance at fully transitioning to different communities, we will have to give up the narrative of victimhood and disadvantage that seems to be given more and more credence as the ex-Hasidic community grows. Not because those claims are untrue, only because they are counterproductive.

I met a young man over school break a year ago, still with his payess and the full Hasidic garb, who was just getting to know others in the ex-Hasidic world. He told me he wants to leave the community and pursue an education. I told him how I went about getting a GED and applying for college. He seemed interested and enthusiastic. We parted ways, as I had to get back to school and resume my studies. I ran into him again recently, and he told me how involved he had become with an ex-Hasidic group and that he feels content there. I asked him if he made any advances with his studies. He shrugged. Apparently, he gave up on that dream.

I realized then that the more we rebels grow as a community the more we reinforce our own little echo chamber that stifles our progress as individuals. Most of us, like that young man, leave with the intention of finding a new community, be it secular or other Jewish denominations, yet the ease with which we find comfort and community in the ex-Hasidic subculture discourages many from taking on the extra challenge of fully integrating into the outside world. For the young man that I met, getting out there isn’t that important now that he has another place to call home. While some may argue that this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I doubt many can argue that such a state is sustainable. When I look at those who successfully transitioned from Hasidic culture to the secular one, it is primarily those who never embraced the ex-Hasidic label and the identity that comes with it. They never chanted the ex-Hasidic mantra of predetermined displacement.

As the ex-Hasidic community grows and we share our experiences with others we must ask ourselves: Do we want to be the Jesse Jacksons and Andrea Dworkins of ex-Hasidim by continuously focusing on our disadvantages, or do we want to move on? To move on we will have to give up the comfort and reassurance given to us by the ex-Hasidic narrative, and commit to focusing on what it would take to get into mainstream society. It isn’t easy, I can attest to that, but I believe it’s necessary.

[Opinion]

This weekend I read a book called Fiedler on the Roof, a collection of essays about literature and Jewish identity by Leslie Fiedler. I received this book from a cyber-friend who, unaware that Ruchy Fiedler is a pseudonym, imagined that the intellectual/literary critic might possibly be a relative. Although I am, of course, no relative of Leslie Fiedler, I was delighted to accept the book. Not only have the few Fiedler essays I’d read in the past inspired me, but this particular subject matter—literature and Jewish identity—seemed a feast customized for my palate. I couldn’t wait to begin reading. I envisioned finding myself in his essays, my own fuzzy, inarticulate thoughts and feelings made lucid by his eloquent pen.

I envisioned wrong. The essays, for those who relish thorough analysis, are pure pleasure. Fiedler’s depth of knowledge of the 20^th century’s literary greats, especially the Modernists (Eliot, Joyce, Pound) and Jewish-American authors (Singer, Bellow, Roth, Malamud) is inspiring, enviable. But I could not relate to his discourse on Jewish identity. All the discussion about Jewish consciousness in the western world, about reacting to the Holocaust as a Jew assimilated in American culture, about finding a way to deal with inherent anti-semitism in literature that you grew up idolizing, did not resonate with me at all.

I did the little mind quiz I usually do when writing doesn’t speak to me. Is the piece well written? Check. Does the topic interest me? Check. Does its thesis ring true? Check. Do the words have soul? Semi-check. Does the theme relate to my life? I was about to give this one a confident check—how could Jewish identity not pertain to me?—when I realized, no, it actually doesn’t. I am the most conspicuously Jewish Jew: a Chusid. But despite that, or more accurately, because of that, the Jewish identity quandary that Fiedler and Bellow and Roth struggled with is not an issue for me at all.

Once I actually thought about it, the reason was easily evident. A Chasid’s Jewish identity, consciousness, and awareness are confined to his community. He/she is concerned with how the Chassidic, and to a lesser extent, Charedi society views him/her. The “outside” world and all it entails—its culture, likes, dislikes, and norms—are peripheral at most and, in general, entirely ignored. Fiedler and his peers, conversely, were, for all intents and purposes, goyim. Other than their being born to Jewish parents, what differentiated their lives from those of the typical western non-Jew? Finding their Jewish identity within their secular lives was, indeed, a challenge.

Not so for the typical conformist Chasid. He is a Jew before he is anything else. His Jewish identity defines him even more than his humanness.  If a challenge exists at all, it is in finding a secular identity.

Recently, I met a garrulous  acquaintance on the train. She complimented my wig (loudly), then proceeded to touch it and ask me (again, loudly) about the quality of the hair, how often I wash it, and other such questions. I cringed. Nobody on that train appeared interested in our conversation, but I still squirmed uncomfortably, my eyes flitting across the riders’ faces to assess their reactions. I wanted to tell this acquaintance that perhaps we shouldn’t discuss our wigs, that the goyim might think we are weirdos, but I knew she would think I was the weirdo. In fact, I am. She is typical, I, the anomaly.

What goyim think is not a concern of the conventional Chasid; what the neighbor across the street thinks is. Her Jewish identity in the western world is not a thought that crosses the Chasid’s mind; her status in the Williamsburg or Monsey community, very much so. The anti-semitism of T. S. Eliot who writes heart-stopping poetry does not excite the Chasid; the latest rule of the Monroe vaad does. A Chasid grows up in a microscopic cosmos, separate from the world of other Jews and even more so, of non-Jews.

I do not mean to say that Chasidim don’t interact with the secular world around them. Certainly, they do. Chasidim shop in regular stores, use the western world’s transportation, engage in business with goyim, utilize all kinds of technology, are influenced by the world’s fashions, architecture, music, etc. But what they care about—the problems that keep them up at night, the ideas that make their hearts jump, the news that excites them, the thoughts that impassion them—is their tiny community and their place in it. That is their identity: A Jew. A Chusid.

Occasionally, the outside word invades their cocoon. A magazine article critical of Chasidim. The conviction and/or arrest of a Chasid followed, naturally, by outsiders’ negative opinions. Admittedly, when these relatively rare incidences occur, a portion of chassidic society gets riled up, impassioned suddenly by something outside their microcosmic enclave. (Who can forget the effusion of indignation that followed Mark Jacobson’s NY Magazine article about Gitty Grunwald?) But this is the exception, not the norm. In a Chasid’s habitual routine, life—existential contentment and angst—orbits within the borders of  Monroe and its cousin communities.

I often wonder whether this may partially explain the lack of fulfillment of many who chose to leave the Chasidic lifestyle. (I am speaking of the ones who left on principle, the ones who abandoned the lifestyle after agonizing thought, not those who simply drift toward secularity because it is easiest to do so, given their particular situations.) How do they find meaning in the “minutiae” that life consists of?  If the only knowledge that counted was Talmudic erudition, how can he take seriously the glossing and exegesis of Beowulf? If music was something to accompany chores or dance to at weddings, how can she understand the guy who will not marry someone who doesn’t share his taste in music?  If the only people of importance were those who lived around your metaphorical corner, how can you become impassioned, be willing to give of your time, effort and money, for, say, a political candidate? I am not implying that every secular person takes glossing of ancient texts seriously; quite the contrary, only a tiny minority do. My point, instead, is that once one has left has left the world that extends from Division Avenue to Lynch Street in search of a more meaningful life, it is exceedingly difficult to find that meaning, to become seriously enthusiastic, about all the things one has been indoctrinated to ridicule and repudiate.

A Chasid has a unique mindset. He lacks the propaedeutic knowledge necessary to feel passionate about the goy’s world, but he will easily become fired up—either agreeing or disagreeing, but vehemently—over the ditty Fiedler claims is the first Yiddish song his grandfather taught him: “Oi, oi, oi, a shicker is a goy. Shicker is er, trinken mis er, veil er is a goy.” An identity crisis is not a chussid’s affliction. Confident, secure, self-assured, the Chasid is convinced that bishvil li nivra haolam, the world was created for him and his kind. Of course, that world ends at the Williamsburg Bridge.

Fiedler on the Roof by Leslie Fiedler, David R. Godine Publisher Inc.

[Fiction]

“My name is Baila Rothman, I’m from Ohio, I’m sixteen, I’m new here,” I said to each of my roommates when they wandered in to the dorm that night. Deborah Lee had the bed to my right. She was from Birmingham, England. Between her lisp and her accent I deciphered that her father was a reform Rabbi, that she wanted to be closer, much closer to God, like her Grandpoppa was and that I was not to touch anything in her cabinet and never ever lay a finger on her teddy bear. Melanie had the bed to my left. She didn’t tell me where she was from, just looked me up and down with one arched eyebrow and a hand on her narrow hip, before flipping her long sheet of hair over her shoulder and walking out of our bedroom.

Yom Kippur came five weeks after I moved out of my oldest sister Goldy’s apartment and into the dorms, eleven weeks after I stepped off that plane in Tel Aviv. The morning before the holiday, a warm Thursday in October, seminary was closed. I gathered the monthly allowance my mother had sent to me through Goldy and took the bus downtown. I walked passed the shops, eyeing the clothing and souvenirs in the windows. The strange sounds and sights of Jerusalem had become familiar to me in the weeks since I had first landed in this overheated, loud country that I had learned so much about as a child. I knew my way around the uneven streets and my Hebrew had improved enough for me to express what I needed to say.

I stopped in front of Zava, a store with big windows and black glossy walls. It looked like the stores from back home in Ohio. Not that I ever bought clothes at home—my five brothers and four sisters and I only wore hand-me-downs. But I had money in my pocket now. A bell tinkled on the door and the store embraced me in a rush of cold air.

I pushed through the racks of sweaters and dresses, fingering the soft materials with one hand, clutching my balled up cash with the other.

A single mannequin stood in middle of the store on a raised platform, encased in a dome of glass, like a dead bird stuffed up in a display. She wore a pair of black pants and a white sweater stretched over her hard plastic curves. A white butterfly the size of a kite perched on the curve of her wrist, its wings outstretched, a moment from flight.

“Can I help you?” a saleslady asked, peering at me over cat-eye glasses. Her black hair was pulled tightly off her brown face and secured to her scalp with gel, each frozen strand glistening in the store’s lights.

“That sweater,” I said in my broken Hebrew. I pointed to what the mannequin wore. “Can I try it on?”

“Of course, of course,” she said, “follow me.” She flicked through a rack at the back of the store, lifted up a sweater, the same as the mannequin’s and ushered me into the changing room.

Alone with myself and my reflection, behind the curtain, I pulled off my blouse. My body looked like a composite of two different people’s skin – my hands and face deeply browned by the sun, the rest of my body, always covered with modest clothes, a pale pink. My dark hair had grown long and fell to the middle of my back. Behind my dirty glasses my eyes looked changed. My face was leaking more emotion than I thought it did. I didn’t look like I was sixteen years old anymore.

I slipped the sweater off the hanger and put it on, the thin cotton soft on my skin. The cuffs ended in intricate lace patterns and the neck had a band of the same lace. The bright white shone against the tanned skin of my face and hands.

“How is it?” the saleswoman asked beyond the curtain. I stepped out.

“What do you think?” I asked, turning in a circle.

She took a step back and put a hand up to her mouth.

“It should be illegal!” she said, shaking her head at me.

“I’m sorry, what’s that?”

“You look so good, so sexy, it should be illegal.”

I grinned.

“If I pay for it now, do I have to take it off, change out of it?” I asked, catching my reflection in the mirror behind me, smiling at myself.

“No, no, no problem,” she said.

I scooped up my old blouse with its sweat-stained armpits and followed her to the counter, counting out all of the money I had, all the money that my parents had sent me to pay for my shampoo, and bus fare and meals on the weekends when the school kitchen was closed, for the rest of the month.

Theoretically, the sweater conformed to all the laws of modesty. The sleeves came down to my wrists, the neck covered my collarbone and my stomach didn’t show. But it hugged every curve of my hourglass figure.

I walked over to my sister Goldy’s apartment, rubbing the fine threads of the lace cuffs between my fingertips, feeling the hug of the cloth on my skin. The usual brash Israeli catcalls seemed louder. The sweater caught men’s eyes like a sticky flytrap.

When Goldy opened the door for me, I couldn’t tell if her face was red from the heat of the apartment, or anger at what I wore.

”D’you like my new sweater?”

“Where did you get it from?” she asked turning into her small kitchen, pushing up her housecoat’s sleeves on her swollen forearms.

“Downtown,” I said, dropping my voice, suddenly afraid. My nephew Hudi cooed at me from his highchair. I kissed his cheek. He shook his head and hands, laughing, raining applesauce onto the kitchen floor and all over his blonde curls. I jumped back to protect my sweater.

“What are you making? It smells good.”

Goldy tucked a stray hair under her turban, sliding it down on her slippery forehead. She swiped at Hudi’s sticky fists with a rag, looking at me out of the corner of her eyes. What she saw seemed to embolden her.

“ Why did Mamme and Tatte make you leave Burnen Valley?” she asked, her voice unnatural loud. “Why did they send you here, to stay with me this summer, and now, to go to seminary here for the rest of the year? It was about a boy, wasn’t it? Was he good looking?” She turned to me. “Did you– love him?”

I shrugged.

“Do you love him now, still?” She leaned in when she asked me, her eyes looking more girlish and eager than disapproving.

“I don’t want to talk about it, ok?”

“Fine,” she said. “Here, have some apple kugel. Eat up before the fast starts. Yom Kippur is in just a few hours.” She put a piece of kugel on a paper plate, a shadow of juice spreading out around the noodles. “I’ve heard about girls who kiss boys, how they touch them, do immodest things.” She rushed her words, as if she was afraid that her baby would understand what she was saying. “What do they do? They say they’re in love, but it’s only because they look nice. Real life isn’t like that. I even heard other things, other sins that girls do, with other girls. I don’t even understand that, what they do. Do you know about it? Those sins?”

The apple kugel was sweet, the soft noodles layered with cinnamon and crispy at the top.

“Can I have another piece?” I asked, ignoring her question, her judgment tempered by my pride that I knew something she didn’t, that I knew, at least vaguely and in some way, what boys and girls could feel about each other in their sins.

Prayer services that night were held in the school’s synagogue. The women’s section was crowded by the time I had brushed my hair, changed my skirt, put on my heels and made my way across campus. I picked up a leather-bound prayer book and found a place to stand at the back.

The air was thick with hushed conversations as the women waited for the cantor to begin beyond the wooden partition. Student’s faces ran shiny with sweat as they leaned into each other exchanging quick whispers.

“Shhhhh!” “Shhhhhh!” Air pushed out between tense teeth quieted the room, as the prayers began. I closed my eyes to block out everyone else, to be alone with Hashem, as the cantor, invisible to me from the women’s section, started the Kol Nidre prayer with a mournful sighing that raised goosebumps on my flesh.

“Ohy yoy yoy yoy, Ohyoy yoy yoy yoy.” His chanting, so soft, so heartfelt, brought tears to my eyes. I swayed my head from side to side and brought my prayer book up to cover my face.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, “I’m so sorry Hashem, I know I’m messing up, I know I have done so many wrong things. I’m so sorry.”

The next morning, I woke up with my sheets wet from sweat and my stomach scraping with hunger. I would have to wait for nightfall for food or drink. It was a hot day, humid, too.

I splashed cold water on my face and got dressed in my new sweater and a long skirt. The Sanctuary seemed even more packed that the night before, the heat intensified in the closed space. I pulled a prayer book off the shelf and moved forward to grab one of the last empty seats. As I put my hand on the seat back a big girl sank into the chair, her thighs falling over its plastic edges. I turned and found a spot on the wall in the back of the room.

My toes were pinched by my shoes and my sweater stuck to my back, sweat gathering in my underarms and dripping down my sides. I put my prayer book down and gathered my hair up in my hands, twisting it into a knot that fell down my back as soon as it was released. The cantor droned on and on. I looked around. The women at my sides had their eyes closed, tears slipping down their cheeks. They held their prayer books to their faces and hearts, shaking their heads softly.

A mosquito buzzed around my ear and I shook my head violently, my glasses sliding down my slippery nose and flying to the ground. I grabbed them and shoved them back on, and my prayer book slipped out of my hands and tumbled to the floor. I picked it up, kissed the cover, and put it on the shelf behind me and slipped out the doors, making my way back to the dorms, swatting at the mosquito still dancing at the side of my face.

It was a long day. I twisted and turned on my bed, my hair sticking to my neck and face from the heat, the hours gummy and long, sleep catching me for brief moments then pushing me back into the never ending day. When night finally fell, it brought a cooling wind. I went back out and leaned against the outside wall of the Sanctuary with my eyes closed. I could hear the cantor chanting the final words of the final prayers. I held my breath, salivating with anticipation of the food that I could soon eat.

The doors burst open and the women streamed out of the Sanctuary, boisterous and loud in a hundred joyous and relieved conversations. I followed behind the crowd as they entered the cafeteria, avoiding people’s eyes, sure they could tell that I had missed most of services, that I had not been part of their cleansing process of prayer and communion.

“Baila Rothman! Call from America!” the shout went out the next day. I ran for the payphone that stood at the bottom of the stairs. I grabbed up the receiver swinging on the cord.

“Baila,” my mother said, her voice hard and steely. I held myself tight, held my breath in. “Your behavior has become unacceptable. We give you chance after chance and you keep on messing up and hurting people. Disappointing people.”

“What? What did I do now?” I cried.

“Do you hear yourself?” she demanded. “Do you hear your chutzpah?”

I swallowed over a hard rock that formed in my throat.

“Well,” she said, ”This isn’t acceptable anymore. We are not going to send you money to spend on immodest clothing. We’re not going to send you any more money at all. Do you think you are on an all-expense paid vacation to wallow in your sins? No more allowance. You better straighten yourself out. You are on your own now.”

I lifted the phone away from my face so she wouldn’t hear me crying.

“You better snap out of this behavior,” she said.

“Ok,” I whispered. She hung up the phone.

I replaced the receiver and walked out the building into the dark night. I walked, walked and walked like a blind woman, until I arrived in the Old City. I stumbled down the steps towards the Kosel, tears pouring down my face, hoping someone would ask me what was wrong. Nobody stopped me.

I got to the Kosel and pushed forward to put my hands on the stones. I touched my forehead to the ancient wall and cried in a barely audible scream:

“Hashem, Hashem, Hashem. Listen to me, Hashem!”

Someone touched me on my shoulder. Hashem! I whirled around, but there was no one there, only a group of big-eyed American teenagers, baseball caps on their heads, fluorescent fannypacks around their waists, staring up at the wall.

I looked at my shoulder. A white splotch dripped down my sleeve. One of the many birds that nested in the grassy crevices of the wall had pooped on my shoulder.

[Reflections]

Tzomo Lecha Nafshi,

Put away the book. Put it away and listen to Kiddush. Stand up, your father’s waiting. Shhh. Come on.  Nu. Nu!  We don’t talk before grape juice, you’re a big girl already. Kinderlach, let’s wash for bread. Come on, Mommy will help you. One, two, three. One, two, three. No, honey, you can’t tear paper towels on shabbos, you know better than that. Don’t talk now before you eat the challah. Shh.  Okay, who has a nice dvar torah from the parshah? Yes, you will get your turn next. Sit nicely like a big tznius girl. Who knows some nice songs we can sing? Yes, of course I mean shabbos songs.  Stop tearing the table cloth, that’s muktzeh. Sure, let’s sing some niggunim, that’s a great idea. How about Tzomo Lecha Nafshi, I like that one. No fighting. If you fight, there is no dessert.

After the kids are in bed and the meal is over, that’s when I start the conversation. The conversation we’ve had a million times before, the one where we know the script by heart, its ending so predictable. Can we talk about compromising? Maybe I can wear a hat or sheitel just to shul functions? Maybe I can wear one to school events or when we are out together? Is that good enough? Is that a good starting point for compromise, for a discussion? No, it is not. No, because he has already compromised so much by just staying married to me. And just like he always said, one compromise leads to another. First it was cholov akum drinks at coffee shops. And now it is taking off my sheitel. What will we compromise on next? Will I take our children to eat cheeseburgers at McDonalds on Yom Kippur? Will I? Well? And isn’t he entitled to raise his children in the way we had initially agreed?  And my eyes brim over as I think about the new gym he just joined and all the sheitel-less ladies in the hot tubs.  I know this conversation is pointless and futile to begin with, I have no idea why I started it,  maybe I just wanted to feel sorry for myself some more.

Kamoh lecha besari,

The next evening I stare at myself in the bathroom mirror. I run my hands through my hair, over and over again, trying to grasp what it is I am fighting for. Sometimes freedom feels soft and simple, sometimes coarse and tangled. Other times it is just ugly and plain. But it is always mine. It is real, it is something I can pull and feel pain.

The thought flashes through: I should just cut it all off. I should find the red pruning shears and hack off all my hair. The idea overwhelms and satisfies me, it meets the anger head on. That is what I should do. I will show him, he will see where his stubbornness has brought us. He will be hurt and that will feel good.  I am consumed with the details. Where are the red shears? Can I sneak them up here? How long will it take? Can I flush the hair down the toilet or will it clog?

I hear a child downstairs and the little voice breaks through the fury. I cannot cut my hair off. If I ever leave, the custody court must see me as a model of sanity. Models of sanity do not cut off all their hair and flush it down the toilet. I take another moment to fantasize, but now I know my hair will stay on my head. Just like the sleeping pills stay in the bottle, just like the therapists stay uncalled.  Models of sanity control their trivial temper tantrums and they put on a pleasant little face and that’s all there is to it.

B’eretz Tziyah V’ayeif Bli Mayim

I walk into a Chinese wig store on Sunday and buy a furry little animal. It has a fake-skin scalp and the tag says 100% human hair. I look decent and it is relatively cheap. It will be ready for the trash within a year’s time, but for now the furry companion stays on my head, firmly attached with bobby pins. When I come home my husband smiles and nods approvingly. I look nice, he says. I did well. My little ones fawn. Mommy, I love your new sheitel. The Ultimate Compliment:  You look like a princess.

I smile and hug them and wonder how I could have ever considered leaving.  For what? For a new hairstyle and blond highlights? Who would be so vain? A mother could never do that.  And then, of course, there’s always The Greater Good to consider. Would I want my children to go through a divorce, a custody battle, awkward child care arrangements, bitter parents, pompous psychologists? Wouldn’t we just end up arguing about the same things anyway? It would be expensive, outrageously expensive. More than yeshiva tuition, that’s for sure.

But it’s not really about the greater good or custody battles or about what a mother could or could not do. It’s not about their strawberry shampoo scent or the homegrown chemistry experiment or the robot made out of tin cans. Those are all just excuses, feel-good reasons, ways to pat myself on the back for being the dutiful little martyr that I am.

When it’s late at night and I’m honest with myself, I know that I don’t stay because of the kids. I stay because of a movie. I don’t recall the name but an innocent man was imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. He spent years, maybe decades, proving his innocence. Eventually, he won his case and was released.  But once free, he couldn’t adjust. He couldn’t make his own decisions about what to eat, where to live, what to buy. He shot himself within a few weeks because he didn’t know how to live in the outside world.

I am like that man. I know where that Chinese wig store is and I will eventually find my way there again. My sheitel is permanently sown into my scalp and the freedom my soul thirsts for will inevitably turn out to be cheap and synthetic.

Kein Bakodesh Chazisichah Lirois Uzcha Uchevodecha

[First Person]

Rievi and I sit on rocks near the shallow stream, the water cascading over tangles of rocks, branches, and fallen tree trunks, seeking its way, as water always does, to the lowest point. We eat the food we brought along. I take a hotdog and a container of sautéed liver from my black plastic bag, which I got at Mechel’s Takeout on Route 59. Rievi has a sandwich his mother packed for him and a water bottle.

It is only Rievi and me. I had taken the train earlier from Penn Station to Suffern, where my friend Aron Yidel picked me up and whose car I borrowed for the evening. I stopped at a photo store in Monsey to print pictures of the boys taken on our previous outing, in the intermediate days of Passover, at Bear Mountain Park. Outside the photo store I stood having a smoke as the photos were being printed, and out of nowhere Yoely, my former-brother-in-law and now Chief Intermediary and General Pain in the Ass, appeared. He looked astonished, as I must’ve looked too. He smiled warmly. “Amazing to meet you here,” he said. “I’d been meaning to call you, except I have three cell phones, none of which are working.”

I waited for him to continue about the call, but he went on about how amazing it is that he bumped into me here. Eventually he got to the point.

“I’d wanted to tell you before you left, just so you’d know, that Burich doesn’t want to go along. I thought you might want to make other plans, but since you’re here already I guess it doesn’t matter.”

It doesn’t matter? Does anything matter then? “Why—Why not?” I ask, the message by now only like a blunt knife scraping against my skin, causing a minor cut, a bruise at most, annoying but bearable; I’d heard it so many times before about one or the other.

“I’m—I’m not sure,” he stammered, avoiding eye contact. “He had a wedding last night—Zeldy thinks he’s just tired—I’m not really sure.”

It’s been six weeks since I last saw the boys. Thirteen weeks since I last saw Chaya Leah’le. Thirteen months since I last saw Tziri and Freidy, I can hardly believe it’s been more than a year, although occasionally I wonder whether they look different, whether Tziri, going on sixteen, now sports a new hairstyle, how she looks in beige stockings – which the boys told me she now wears since she entered high school. I wonder how Freidy did in the school play she talked about last time I saw her, and whether she still enjoys scrapbooking. One by one, each decided they no longer wished to see me, speak to me, and now, the latest, is Burich. Only Rievi still calls, his sweet old self, always agreeable, bravely putting up a cheerful face even though I know it’s not always easy.

I suggested a hike in the woods to see the waterfalls a mile along the Pine Meadow Trail, off Seven Lakes Drive in Harriman State Park. We’d walked along the trail, Rievi eagerly pointing out the blazes of red circles on white rectangles, jumping over knobby tree roots that brazenly rose twelve inches or more above ground, most likely due to the erosion of soil by the thousands who’ve hiked there before, one of the most popular trails in the park.

As we eat, I point out the beauty of nature, although I was never good at identifying species of flaura or fauna. I don’t know an oak from a pine, a poplar from an evergreen, a cedar from a redwood. Instead I explain the history of the trails, the early hikers who, in the early part of the last century, mapped out the hundreds of miles of crisscrossing trails. I answer his questions about who puts the blazes on the trees, builds bridges over streams, and cuts away fallen tree trunks from blocking the trails. I make him sit still and listen to the sounds of the forest, the chirping of birds, branches swaying in the wind, the rustling shrrrrip shrrrrip of a deer taking off at the sight of us, the sounds of water rushing in the stream alongside the trail.

“Leave No Trace,” is the environmentally conscious hiker’s motto, and after we eat, I tell Rievi to take the trash back to the car.

“Why?” he asks.

“Because we shouldn’t leave trash in the woods,” I tell him. “There is no one to clean up after us.”

“So?” he asks. “It’s only the woods. Who cares if there’s trash?”

“We don’t want to spoil nature,” I tell him.

“Why not? Who cares?”

“Because animals live here. And if we enjoy their habitat, we must respect it.”

He doesn’t seem to understand. It’s not a value he’s heard or entertained before. Just as I hadn’t for most of my life. Hasidim are unsentimental about the environment. Preserving the environment for practical purposes might have value, but few worry about the threatened extinction of the North American Condor or the dangers the logging industry poses to gorillas in the African jungles.

I tell Rievi that we want to preserve the beauty and natural balance of our surroundings. He keeps asking why, in innocence, with no agenda, simply, why? It’s hard to answer a question whose answer you take for granted. I find it hard to explain to a ten-year-old in a few words how much damage can be done to an ecosystem by a few careless acts. More importantly, the child-like wonder forces you to think about things carefully. To a child, concepts must be made simple, but simple answers can be elusive, accustomed as we are to thinking in adult-like, overly complex, overly politicized processes. But I try. I use endangered species as an example he might relate to.

“What if all the jungles of Africa were cut down to use trees to build houses and to make paper? What if all of the African deserts were to become inhabited by people? Where would the lions, the tigers, the elephants, and the giraffes go?”

“In the zoo!” he says with a laugh, although I suspect he really thinks it’s a feasible solution. Is that not what zoos are for?

I tell him of long extinct species, the saber-toothed tiger, the wooly North American mammoth, the dodo, how sad it would be if we didn’t pay more attention to the currently endangered ones.

“I don’t really care,” he says with a shrug. But his expression is bashful, as if he’s ashamed to admit it – perhaps only because he knows his apathy would displease me.

He stops asking, appears to have tentatively accepted the value I’m preaching, or he’s grown tired of expecting a satisfying answer. But his acquiescence isn’t understanding, only blind acceptance. He’s tired of challenging the notion, tired of wielding the power of simple questions, in the same way that he doesn’t challenge other ideas, like God’s existence, the gemara as the fiery word of God passed down to Moses at Sinai, the saintliness of the rebbe, the fact that he must go to school every morning and that he shouldn’t dirty his pants. Some things, a child learns instinctively, aren’t worth arguing about. The adult will always win. They won’t necessarily explain, only insist. It makes me wonder about the values of society in general, and how much we accept blindly because questioning a given orthodoxy is too tiring, too political, perhaps because we don’t think about the issues but adhere to fashionable ideas simply because they’re, well, fashionable.

We trek back the mile or so to the parking lot, where a vending machine stands and I tell him I want to buy a soda. He observes the machine with hungry curiosity. “Can I put in the money?” he asks. I hand him a dollar bill, but the machine doesn’t take it. “Haha,” he laughs. “It’s spitting it out.” I give him another bill, a crisp one, explaining that the first may have been creased, or worn out. The second bill takes, and he pushes my hand away from making my selection. “Let me press it,” he begs with the innocence of a child to whom a soda vending machine is a novelty, pressing the button inducing the magic of the soda-can going plop! in the bin below.

We drive home on the Palisades Parkway. He speaks eagerly, without the reticence of some of his siblings, cheerfully babbling about school trips and neighborhood news, content now with the simple enjoyments of a hike in the woods with his father, and now, sitting in the front seat (illegally), just the two of us. He notes the speed on the speedometer, 70 mph, and then the 55 mph sign. He asks about the RPM gauge, and I explain about tire rotations, although I know little about it. “Farchap yeneh car,” he says, and points to a blue Honda Civic ahead of us. He delights as I press down on the gas and switch lanes, while I wonder if I’m setting a good example.

As we get off the exit ramp I take the envelope with the pictures laying near the gear stick, and as I wait for the light to turn green I remove the pictures. “I want to look at these again,” I tell him, and he leans over to my side, stretching his seatbelt, and looks at them with me. We laugh together at the fun and crazy poses he and Burich did for the camera. The light turns green, and I put the pictures on my lap.

“Are you going to look at the rest at the next light?” he asks. The next light is the last before we turn into New Square.

“If it’s red,” I say. He points as we pass the parking lot of the New Square wedding hall at the side of Route 45.

“You can park in there to look at them,” he says. His concern is obvious. He doesn’t want me lingering in front of the house.

I tell him I’ll pull over near the bus garage, right after the turn at the traffic light.

“Ok,” he says. I sense relief, but I wonder whether I project too much anxiety on him, imagining how I would feel in his place.

“Where should I drop you off?” I ask. “At the Breuers’ or at home?”

The Breuers are cousins, living only one block away. For reasons I am unclear about, that’s the place the children chose for pick-ups.

“Doesn’t matter,” he says, “whatever’s easier.” Then he says, “Near home, at the corner is fine.”

He says it as if he doesn’t want to trouble me; in truth, he probably doesn’t want the ever-present band of yentas to stare. But as we approach the corner his expression shows sudden anxiety, almost fear. A group of neighbors are at the corner chatting, mothers in turbans and housedresses with baby carriages and young children at their sides. The Yenta Club, it appears, has shifted to the corner.

“Better at the house,” he says nervously, eyes fixed on those who might see him with his non-Hasidic father.

At the house he grabs the bag that held his sandwich and the envelope with the pictures and hurriedly fumbles for the door latch. “Bye,” he says quickly without looking at me, eyes scanning for passerby. He closes the door and steps onto the curb, glances back at me quickly, unsmiling, as I wave to him. I watch him run up the pathway. The door slams shut behind him.

I pull away, stepping lightly on the gas, and I see a familiar blur passing behind a car parked upward on the road alongside the curb. The blur comes past the car, and it’s Burich on his bike, zooming down Reagan Road with all the energy of an eight-year-old, oblivious to my presence. I think to honk, but before I have a chance he’s zoomed past. I see him in the rearview mirror, still going full-speed down the sidewalk. I drive ahead a short distance and make a u-turn. I come back down Reagan Road looking for the familiar round shape of his head, the payess trailing behind struggling to keep up, arms in an outward swagger, with which I’d seen him grip the handlebars so many times before. He’s not outside the house, nor do I see his bike at the door, which means he didn’t go inside. At the corner, a group of boys of various ages rest on their bikes and huddle around in conversation. I scan their faces for Burich. He isn’t among them. He isn’t around anywhere. He was here a moment ago, and now he is gone.

[Fiction]

He felt the vibration on his waist. He removed the phone from its holster and glanced at the caller-ID screen. The number was unfamiliar, and so was the voice. But what it said send a shudder rippling down his spine.

— The Vaad wants to see you, tomorrow 8:30.

* * *

Theirs was the typical cyber relationship, almost clichéd. As if mischievously plotted by the rabbis-against-the-Internet solely to prove their point. The two, yoss613 and estyF, were initially arch-nemeses on one of those Internet forums for skeptics, where they debated everything from God to sex. They kept the tone dispassionate and impersonal. But to the keen-eyed, it was anything but. The way they singled each other out, the back-and-forth quipping, the banter, the twisted compliments were all evidently induced by the blue and pink of their respective handles.

Then they moved on to private messaging. Was it he who asked for her email with the pretext of forwarding a litany of items to buttress this argument or another, or was it the other way around? He couldn’t recall, and a recollection was immaterial. A reply followed, and a reply to the reply, with the subject line a gentle reminder of how it all started. One thing led to another, from photo sharing to phone calls, until it felt about ripe to take it in person.

They lived in the same neighborhood, only a few blocks apart, but for the rendezvous they picked a place in another part of the city, at a non-kosher diner. They were not going to eat there, naturally. Just for the shelter such a place offered. The aroma of abominations exhausted out to the street acting as insect repellent to keep persona non grata at a safe clearance. Okay, maybe they’ll have a cup of coffee, or dessert, or something else on the treif-lite menu. But no meat; their kosher stomachs lacked the enzymes to digest authentic treif.

He was hesitant and fearful at first. What if they get caught? What if the waiter perceives this bizarre couple as lost like a hooker in a church and points it out to them like the Good Samaritan he is? What if a patron regards them spectacle enough to warrant videotaping and YouTubing? He could always hide his payess under a baseball cap, and she could uncover her wig and wear an outgrown blouse, masquerading for your regular Joe and Jane out for a Sunday brunch. But it’s more than a pair of jeans. There are so many pitfalls. At the heimish restaurants everything is casual. But here, he doesn’t know how to order, how to tip, or how to hold a fork.

Lunch passed peacefully. No outsiders walked in on them, and no insiders observed their presence as strange, at least nobody made their observations known to them. They promised next week again; maybe at a different place; maybe in a park, on an isolated bench, hidden behind trees. She would bring along some home baked goodies, thoughtfully wrapped, put in her purse. He would nibble some and praise her talent. She would dismiss it as freezer surplus, and he would protest they really are delicious, and she would blush.

One evening he received a text, “free tom. wanna come 2 Met?” It made him so excited, he couldn’t sleep. It feels good critiquing the arts. It feels modern, enlightened, rebellious. He fantasized how they’d amble about the magnificent building; how they’d smile to each other, giggle. Hold hands, maybe. He would let his fingers gingerly creep up to her side feeling for her hand. Depending on her reaction he could either excuse his jerky limbs or squeeze tight. Like lovers. Like normal people. Like all the other pairs wowing the exhibitions.

Is this what love feels like? Were they even in love? She hadn’t said that she loved him, and he hadn’t suggested; he wouldn’t dare. He couldn’t concentrate on anything; he was preoccupied with the thought of her the whole day, not to mention at night.

He had never felt this way about his wife, except during their engagement, when he hid a photo of her in a slit in his Shabbos hat box on the top shelf of his yeshiva dormitory closet. And then at night, under the sheets, he would cradle it, caress it, kiss it, and ogle it to the dim neon blue shimmer from a CD player display. So pretty, white bright smile, straight coiffure reaching the shoulders, next to himself in front of an arching bouquet. And during the long yeshiva days, when he couldn’t find the brains to focus, he would slink into the dorm, and take the photo with him to the bathroom.

He now welcomed back the passion, rid of adolescent innocence and laden with wicked sinfulness. The awareness of his misconduct made it all the more exciting to him. But something went awfully wrong at the museum. Were they noticed? Were they followed? Was the whole thing a trap? Did she frame him? Everything was possible and nothing was confirmed. He got notice by a third party that it has ended; it’s over. A combination of a husband too loving, a father too manipulative, and a neighborhood too vigilant. He dreaded the Vaad getting involved, and what he feared hath come upon him. She must have given up his cell number, along with God knows what.

* * *

It’s 8:00. Half an hour to go. He’d better get prepared. He staggered over to the freezer, fumbled for the bottle of Smirnoff, icy cold. He rolled off the cap; it slipped through his fingers and fell to the ground in a soft clink. He gripped the bottle by its neck and poured into a plastic cup, panting out loud as the liquid gurgled through the narrow protective nozzle. He brought the full cup to his nostrils, inhaled the fumes, and downed it in a single swig. Taste or style didn’t matter now; just pure chemistry. He wanted the toxin to rise, rise quickly and addle his brains. Garble his shy nerve signals. Infuse his veins with artificial impudence, with courage. Behind his keyboard he was the fearless warrior, but in person the craven little wimp showed, and he needed the alcohol to inflate his balls.

He arrived five minutes early to the vestibule of the kiddush room. A young man instructed him to wait until called. He found a box of seltzer to sit on. It was dark, except for the weak twilight coming through the glass in the door. He conjured up images of horror stories of the Spanish Inquisition he read a long, long time ago. Dingy chamber, black tablecloth, black candles flickering, masked interrogators, torture devices, blood, groans, agony. They’re going to yell at me, he brooded, harass me, threaten to tell my family, break me to pieces. They’re going to press for information, give up names, inflict more suffering, split more families.

The door buzzed. His heart skipped a beat. He turned the knob, and inhaled deeply. He closed his eyes, and pushed the door open. A bright white light pried his eyes open. A long fluorescent bulb hung over an oblong table flanked on both sides by men with an assortment of beard shapes and colors. On the table there was nothing, except for one gizmo with a tiny blinking green light that looked more like a device for recording than torturing. He couldn’t name all the men. There was Rabbi Balestiger with browline glasses. To his right, a jowly face with a plucked out beard, adorned with a thick mustache that reminded him of Mr. Potato Head. Seated next was Rabbi Humpman, hunched over from carrying the weight of community gossip. And across him, a younger man, smiling politely; saliva droplets on his goatee reflecting light; probably has a spitting problem.

— Sit, Rabbi Balestiger gestured to an empty chair across from him.

— Do you know why we called for you? The rabbi asked.

— I, um, can imagine, he stammered. Is it about Mrs. Friedman?

— What about her? The rabbi badgered on.

Bastard, he thought. He is trying to wriggle out a confession before breaking me down, before presenting me with incriminating evidence. Hell, before the interrogation even started.

— Well, we were, um, we were, you know, kind of close. He smiled with irritation, and looked around the room to measure the impression.

— How close? Mr. Potato Head chimed in.

— What do you mean by how? He feigned vagueness.

— You tell us what how means, Rabbi Balistiger shot out in an effort to regain control of the proceedings.

— Okay, fine. So, um, we talked. And we went out together. I know, it wasn’t right. I regret it.

— Where’d you first meet her?

— On the Internet.

Humpman and Spitzer exchanged sneering looks. Ah, on the Internet, how wonderful.

— Are there many women on the Internet?

— It’s not, like, just one place, the Internet, but yes, there are many women browsing.

— You see her on the Internet and you go sin?

— We weren’t exactly intimate.

— Gevalt! She is a married woman!

— Like I said, we weren’t…

— I don’t care what you said! He pounded a clenched fist on the table. The recording device jolted, and Humpman straightened his back.

— You are a liar, Balistiger shouted. Think you can dupe me? I know everything you did!

— Why the show-trial, then?

— You need help, Balestiger said now in a voice crackling with paternal concern. You have a problem.

— He protested. I don’t have any problems.

— The biggest problem is refusing to acknowledge that a problem exists, the rabbi said basking in his own witticism.

— We’ve designed an approach for repentance, and you are going to comply, Balestiger continued, his smirk stretched into a full smile now.

* * *

They cracked down hard on him. He was forced to give up his PC, cancel cable service, and agree to periodic home inspections. They made him come to shul thrice a day, and attend Rabbi Balestiger’s lectures every morning. And in the long summer afternoons, he would take his laptop out to the back lawn. He would sit down on a stump and contemplate the many young sprouts shooting forth from the coppiced tree trunk. He would connect through a neighbor’s unsecured WiFi, and joe11219 would scour the chat rooms for pink handles.

[Fiction]

It is early in the morning, the Hampton air is still grey and soft with the end of night. The boardwalk, stretching along the beach’s edge, is empty. In front of me, the Atlantic Ocean rolls up, slapping the sand. There is no other sound. Only a single light shines from one window, at the very top of a hotel to my right. The other buildings are still and dark. Everyone is sleeping.

My hair is tucked under a turban, and I’m wearing a housecoat, stockings and my white flats. Already, the sweat is spreading under my arms and the heat is heavy and thick.

I step off the boardwalk, my shoes sinking into the soft grit of the sand. I walk to the water, like a duck, my feet pushing against the pliant beach, moving ahead. The closer I get, the stronger the breeze is, tickling the sweat on my forehead.

It’s too hot. It’s too hard to walk. I pull off my shoes. I roll my stockings down my legs. There is no one around to see me as my bare toes sink into the hot sand.

The water is delicious. It envelopes me in a cool hug, slipping off all of my anxieties, the nervous rush of my insomnia. My worries for Uri, teaching in the West Bank, that are constantly there, rubbing like sandpaper against my skin, dissolve. I bob around in the waves, grinning, laughing. My clothing is a dark puddle behind me, my laughter, the waves splashing, the only sound for miles.

***

I’m at breakfast with my sister Mali and her four little girls, when the hotel manager comes up beside us.

“For you, ma’am,” he says, eyes wide, placing a small envelope in my hand.

“What is it?” Mali asks, as she wipes a trail of red jam off of Gila’s little chin. She tries to sound calm, tries to pretend like she hasn’t just had a vision of Uri, my husband Uri, blown to pieces by some bomb like Michoel Stauss or Avi Dryer.

I raise my eyebrows and shake my shaitel off my shoulders. I am not nervous. The Rebbe sent Uri on his mission. Uri is safe. He can come to no harm.

Inside the envelope is a crisp card. “Hotel Blue, Penthouse Suite,” it says, in a heavy blue ink. “The Rebbe will see you at 10:20 pm, tonight.”

I drop the card into my lap. “The Rebbe,” I whisper. “The Rebbe wants to see me.”

***

I have been in front of the Rebbe twice before, standing for hours in a line that shuffled forward, receiving a crisp dollar from his hand, his eyes, in that half a second of contact, searing my soul.

The Rebbe looks more gentle than I remembered, his holiness so palpable it fills the room like a warm sun, men in black suits orbiting around him, whispering, shuffling papers. The Rebbe wears the same clothing he wears in every of the hundreds of photographs and paintings and videos I have seen of him: a black suit, a white shirt and a hat. But he looks different to me here, now, so close. More magical. More divine.

I stand at the door of his suite as he dismisses the men with a small wave of his hand, a final sharp directive to his shamash hovering behind him. We are alone. The Rebbe and me. My heart thumping like a hammer against my ribcage.

“Come,” the Rebbe says, and smiles at me. That smile soaks into me, through my skin to my bones.  I follow him to the white French doors that fall open at the touch of his hand, revealing a balcony, empty but for a gleaming telescope, pointed at the dark sky.

“Look, maidela,” he says softly, beckoning me to his side. I bend down and put my eye to the glass of the telescope. A soft pressure on my shoulder, a hand, sending waves of electricity pulsating over my skin. The touch so unexpected, so dream-like, as if Hashem himself, reached down from the heavens to rest his hand on me.

“Look,” the Rebbe whispers, as the stars spring into focus, clear diamonds sparkling in the velvet sky.

“Look,” he whispers, the pressure of his hand slipping down to my back. The telescope swings down at the ocean, magnifying the white foam on the rushing ocean. A man jumping, a ball being thrown, gleaming in the moonlight, a woman laughing, diving in the waves. It is all as clear and close as figures on a television screen.

I straighten up, eye level to the Rebbe’s collar. The Rebbe is standing so close to me I can smell him, a faint, leathery scent that fills my nostrils and swims into my blood.

“Look,” he says softly, and brushes my cheek with the back of his hand, soft silk on my skin.

***

I take the test even through I hadn’t gotten my period since I was in the Hamptons in early August, and already the leaves have burned orange, and red, and curled on their branches and fallen from the trees.

I am sitting on the floor of the bathroom. I have one hand on my round stomach. I have tried to convince myself that it had grown fat from too many pieces of kokosh cake.

A white bar, a blue cross marking its window, balances in my palm.

This time I send a note to the Rebbe.

There is no response, but the next morning, my sister Mali calls me and tells me Uri is already on a flight home from Israel. “What wonderful news,” I tell her, keeping my voice steady and calm. I put down the phone.

I go to my bedroom and pull a girdle up under my skirt, so it presses down my on belly. Then I go to the cleaning closet and take out all of the bottles and sponges and wipes. I get to work making the house clean for my husband.

At midnight, I am scrubbing the walls of the shower with a bleach soaked rag, and Uri has not yet arrived. There is one moment, the smell of bleach so strong in my nose my head spins, that I balance the bottle in my hand and wonder how painful it would be to send the clear blue stuff down my throat. How quickly death would come. But then I notice a hair curled around the drain and I get back to work.

Morning finds me scraping ketchup stains off the stovetop. I am still alone. I haven’t seen Uri since Pesach and yet the day after he lands in LaGuardia, he’s back on a place, back to the West Bank, without even a phone call to me. Mali tells me she had heard from her brother-in-law, who learns with the nephew of the Rebbe’s shamash that Uri had left. She said the Rebbe had called Uri, the Rebbe himself, directly, that’s why he came back to Brooklyn. Now he is gone.

I sit on the chair by the phone, my skirt stained, my tichel slipping back on my hair, my girdle cutting into my stomach, my hands open in my lap. Outside the window, the light dims and darkens and night falls. Still I sit, my body a block, glued to the chair, heavy and hard.

The phone rings, slicing through the silence. Slowly, I lift my hand and bring the receiver to my ear.

“Basi?” The voice is deep and male and unfamiliar. “This is Rabbi Moskowitz, from Moshav Menacham Mendel in the West Bank.”

I nod silently.

“Basi? I have some – news. There was an attack, here, a car bomb, Uri – Uri is gone.”

The phone falls out of my hand as my body slides off the chair and falls to the floor, a scream rips out of me, an animal cry tearing out my chest. The tears pour out, the cries fall into the dark room, an endless thunder of pain slamming through me.

When the cries slow, hours, days, years, an eternity later, the quiet fills up my home. My body sinks into the linoleum, every muscle loose, my breath slow and empty.

In the sudden clear stillness, I feel a kick, as my baby flexes its muscles against the wall of my womb.