Questioning Return. Beth Kissileff

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СКАЧАТЬ spoons, napkins, Kiddush cups, salt, challah board, and cutting knife. All was arrayed for the eight people who would just about fit into the space.

      Wendy walked around, laying a plate here, a napkin there, counting to be sure there was enough of everything. The rhythmic repetitiveness of this task, the assurance that there was a place for each person, felt soothing as she placed the items around the table. She felt recaptured by pleasant childhood memories, since table setting had long been marked as Wendy’s chore, a good task for the youngest in her family. She remembered Friday afternoons of her youth when she and her mother set the table together before her brother Joel, sister Lisa, and father Arthur returned from school and work. These moments provided an intimacy for Sylvia and Wendy to talk, quietly, peaceably. The week over, setting the table delivered them to the relaxed zone of weekend time, unfettered them temporarily from the tensions and constraints of the week. Wendy felt nostalgic for those Friday evenings of her youth. I should have called my parents earlier today, when it was early morning for them and they were still home, she thought, reflecting on her own youth and home as she readied that of someone else for family togetherness. Other than calling them after her arrival, Wendy hadn’t given much thought to her family, busy as she was preparing herself for her new life, figuring out what things she would need to be comfortable in this new country. Something about the onset of the Sabbath tugged at even her frayed and dispassionate feelings about her parents. It wasn’t—Wendy thought, noting how Shani looked so pleased to see her grandmother, as she came in to inspect their work on the table—that she didn’t love her parents; she did. It was that she wanted them to be people other than who they were, people who were more thoughtful and intellectual, who had opinions on things, who read the New Yorker for the writing and stories as she did, not for the gossipy, short Talk of the Town pieces, cultural listings, and cartoons. Wendy wanted them to love her for who she was and wanted to be, and it seemed currently that she was in the business of disappointing them mightily, ever since she announced that her grad school applications would be in the field of religion and not law. Wendy saw Shani hug her grandmother and speak to her in Hebrew, and so remained lost in her thoughts about whether, even though she missed her parents now, they would ever change their disapproving attitude enough to allow her to feel closer to them.

      Asher came out of the bedroom, cleanly shaven, dressed in the Israeli male Shabbat uniform of white short-sleeved button-down shirt, black pants, sandals, and white crocheted kipah with a navy and turquoise-blue diamond pattern around its rim.

      “Haven’t you benched licht already, Shani?” Asher said, looking at his watch. He steered the three women to the living room corner where a small table covered by a white cotton runner with a lace embellishment held two sets of candlesticks. A third set was quickly produced. Before Wendy had time to protest, Shani said, “We’ll each light and then say the bracha together.” Wendy’s impulse was to put her hands in her pockets, step away, and disengage, but the skirt Shani asked her to wear lacked a place to hide her hands. Wendy stood behind as first Amalia and then Shani lit their candles. Shani handed her a kindled match, blazing.

      Holding the ignited match, Wendy stepped forward to place it on the wicks. It felt so ordinary, holding flame to wick. She remembered reading an interview in a piece she admired about the symbolism of Sabbath candles to the newly religious, which juxtaposed what women said when asked to speak about their religious observances in an essay written expressly for the school they were attending, and afterwards in a follow-up interview with the sociologist. One returnee spoke in her essay of the magic of lighting Shabbes candles: that the candle detonated an explosion of the sacred into her home. The woman said she felt like a superhero action figure. Wendy had made up a title for her, Wonder Woman of the Numinous, as she herself merely put the candle to the flame, no supernal power summoned. The whole account, written for the school in the article, seemed exaggerated and ridiculous—Pow! Blam! Boom!—an attempt to make a dull life seem more exciting.

      Actually, the article, by exposing the gap between what the baalei teshuvah wrote expressly for the school and what they said in conversation, was a great model of how a researcher got subjects to speak about their feelings about religious practices. Wendy loved the section about conversation, how the speakers sounded like those who had no excitement in their lives trying desperately to seem like they did; it reminded Wendy of girls she knew in high school who were obsessed with soap operas because the thrill in the sensationalized fictional world made the girls themselves more interesting for being absorbed in it, this drama so disconnected from their actual lives. What irritated Wendy most so far about baalei teshuvah was their flatness, like the dull girls in high school; many BT’s were white kids from the suburbs trying to glom on to a newly ethnic identity to give their bland lives some spice. She’d have to write about that—Did baalei teshuvah exaggerate to make themselves seem more interesting? How would she put on exhibit and showcase the various sides of the ways they spoke about themselves? Her notebook was in her bag—could she sneak off to take notes in the bathroom?

      Now, Shani and Amalia covered their eyes and recited the blessing. Wendy stood to the side, having moved over after she touched flame to wick. Reluctantly and slowly, she followed their gestures and summoned her hands over her eyes. She felt like she was back in Hebrew school with someone telling her to read the foreign alphabet, when she didn’t want to make a mistake or embarrass herself, hoping to be as inconspicuous as possible.

      Wendy recited the blessing in an undertone, echoing Shani and Amalia, and quickly removed her hands from her eyes. She gazed at Shani and Amalia, their hands lingering over their eyes, standing in front of the candles, obviously deep in recitation of some kind of private prayer that Wendy was unaware of, though she had lit candles with her mother for her whole life at home. Shani removed her hands from her eyes and gave her grandmother a big “good Shabbos” hug.

      Candles lit, Wendy felt a shift in the apartment. She couldn’t pinpoint its source. The contrast between smoldering candles suffusing the room, and the last glimmerings of natural light outside, or something in Shani’s mood? Now Shani hugged Wendy, all her movements leisurely and unhurried rather than her previous bustling and stress. Wendy was a bit stunned at the hug, this unprecedented level of intimacy for someone she had met moments ago, but she hugged back, mustering her gratitude for the family’s trust in her as a tenant.

      The four of them headed off for the synagogue after a quick glance around the apartment to be sure the food was warming properly and the key was with them. Shani held one of Amalia’s arms and one of Asher’s, while Wendy followed behind the threesome. As they walked through the quiet streets, Wendy was startled at how the city had shut down.

      No cars zooming about the street, or bicycles careening in their lanes. No kids goofing around on the sidewalk. The contrast with the clamor and commotion on the street a few hours earlier was stark. It felt to Wendy like a Sunday morning in the suburbs, an indolence overtaking the residents, no one rushing to be anywhere. A general somnolence pervaded the streets, yet it mixed with an effervescence beneath the surface, a rejuvenation in the calm.

      When they arrived at what they indicated was the synagogue, all Wendy could see was an ordinary cement box, a school building plunked down, without design consultations, in a spot where the Jerusalem municipality granted the land. Asher took Amalia’s elbow and helped her ascend the steep cement steps at the school’s side to the top level.

      Shani turned to Wendy, “It’s probably not what you are used to in a shul.”

      Wendy, heaving herself up the narrow stairs, replied, “Synagogues in the States have to be handicapped accessible. This would never make code,” she said, nearly slipping on the cramped steps.

      “Adjust your perceptions. You’ll see how special Shir Tzion is once you experience the davening,” Shani added.

      Once up the steps and inside, they faced a door, which led to a large gymnasium. They entered separately; Asher stayed to the right, СКАЧАТЬ