Acts of Faith (27 page)

Deborah threw her arms around them both. “Thank you,” she murmured, tears welling in her eyes.

“No,” Zipporah protested. “Thank
you.
”

Early one May morning, Deborah went into labor. Since there was no phone in the
srif
, her roommate, Hannah, rushed to wake Dr. Barnea, who muttered sleepily, “Wait till the contractions are three minutes apart and then bring her to the surgery. I’ll get the nurse.”

In the last three months of Deborah’s pregnancy, Hannah had gone with her to the natural childbirth classes so she would be able to help her control her breathing.

The pain was worse than Deborah had imagined. Each time the spasms came, she clenched her teeth and tried—vainly—to avoid uttering imprecations. In one of her ever-decreasing moments of remission she gasped to Hannah, “Goddamn Eve—look what she did when she ate that apple!”

The kibbutz had a small but well-equipped operating room, so Dr. Barnea and his two part-time nurses could perform emergency procedures like appendectomies and set broken bones. And, of course, deliver babies.

At 8:15 the doctor deemed the crucial moment to be at hand. The nurses wheeled Deborah in, with Hannah at her side offering words of encouragement.

At 8:27 the crown of the baby’s head emerged, and moments later Hannah called out excitedly, “It’s a boy, Deborah. You’ve got a lovely blond boy.”

The medical staff called out almost in unison,
“Mazel tov!”

Deborah was euphoric.

Later in the day, she and grandparents Boaz and Zipporah shed tears together.

“What are you going to call him?” Zipporah asked.

Deborah had given it much thought and had decided that if it were a girl she would call her Chava, after her father’s first wife. She could not fathom her own motivation, but had an inkling that she might still be trying to please him.

There was no question, however, that if it were a boy she would give it the closest Hebrew equivalent to Timothy, which meant “honoring God.” The choice came down to Elimelech—“My God is King”—and Elisha—“God is my Salvation.” Deborah settled on the latter.

On May 22, 1971, Elisha Ben-Ami was circumcised and entered the covenant between God and His people. His last name commemorated a dead man who was not his father. His first honored one still living who would never know Eli was his son.

Deborah oscillated between elation and helplessness. There were times even in those first intoxicating days when she would sit mutely, awestruck at what she had done.

For while Eli had been inside her she had survived moments of self-doubt by thinking, “Everything will be all right as soon as my child is born.” His living presence turned rosy fantasy into a yowling reality.

Naturally, all the kibbutzniks were supportive and congratulatory. But, to everyone except Boaz, Zipporah, and Deborah herself, Eli was just another of the many babies who were always welcomed with affection.

The tidal wave of love that Deborah felt was something that she longed to share with her real family, her mother at the very least, and Danny, to whom she had at several moments during her pregnancy come close to confiding her secret.

And yes, she admitted to herself, there was an irrational
part of her that still yearned to tell her father. Though she believed she had severed all emotional ties, the little girl in her still wanted Papa’s approval.

But would he ever welcome the prodigal daughter into his fold again?

I
  was the last of the candidates to fall by the wayside.

That was my only distinction. In our first year, Label Kantrowitz had had some kind of nervous collapse. It was especially tragic, since he had a wife and two children. Word had it he was teaching back home in a Baltimore yeshiva and still suffering from migraines and high blood pressure. But I was pretty sure there was more to it than that.

There were two more dropouts near the end of our third year, when we still had more than twelve months to go toward ordination. About these our teachers were silent, vouchsafing merely that they had some “inner difficulties.”

Unlike Kantrowitz, the two late defectors were not sons of rabbis, and Label’s father was merely the principal of a small yeshiva, not the leader of a community.

None of them was heir apparent to the Silczer Rebbe. None of them would break a “golden chain”—and his father’s heart.

I wondered what Papa would do. He had led so meritorious a life and prayed so long for a successor. Why should this pain be visited upon him from on High?

There, I stopped myself. How could I dare to presume that my loss of faith had been caused by some unearthly
power? I was not a modern Job who had failed the test. I was a human being who no longer could believe in the dictates of his religion.

Yet how could I face my father knowing that he regarded my forthcoming ordination as a perpetuation of his own life and dedication? How could I pronounce the words that would destroy him?

I was grateful when Beller appeared unannounced at my dormitory to give me courage.

“Why am I doing this?” I agonized.

Beller looked at me and, in what I presumed to be his therapeutic tone of voice, softly asked, “Exactly whom do you think you’re doing it
to
?”

I cast down my eyes, confessing, “To my father.” I paused and then repeated, “I am doing this to hurt my father.”

I looked up and asked in anguish, “Why, Aaron, why should I want to do that?”

“Only you can find the answer,” he whispered softly.

“Do I hate him?”

“Do you?”

How could I answer such a terrible question—except with the truth.

“Yes,” I murmured. “Something in me wants to punish him. Look at the way he treated my sister.”

“Is it only Deborah?” Beller interposed.

“No, you’re right. It’s what he’s doing to me. Why should I have to be a rabbi? Why should I just allow him to slam my life down on an anvil and forge it into whatever shape he wants? Suppose I’d never been born?”

“It’s too late for that,” said Beller with a glint of humor. “Retreating to the womb won’t help you now.”

I tried to reciprocate with a smile but couldn’t quite manage.

“When are you going to tell him?” he asked.

“As soon as I can buy a bulletproof vest,” I jested weakly, then confessed, “Aaron, I don’t know how to do it.”

“Simply tell him the truth. That’s the honorable thing.”

“I know. But I just can’t say it straight out. It’ll kill him.”

Beller shook his head. “Danny, he’s already suffered worse catastrophes in his lifetime—the Holocaust, Chava’s death, and the loss of his first son. I guarantee you. This may hurt your father, but it won’t kill him.”

“You don’t know him,” I protested softly. “You don’t know the man.”

He did not respond.

All during my subway ride to Brooklyn, I agonized over how I would do “the honorable thing.” I had thought of a million subterfuges, lame excuses, delaying tactics—“I’d like to take an extra year in Jerusalem.…” But Beller had convinced me that these would be unnecessarily cruel to both of us.

By the time the train reached Wall Street, I had formulated my text so I could have the rest of the journey to rehearse it.

The late spring evening had been muggy, and even in the relative coolness of the night I was pouring sweat.

It was nearly midnight as I walked slowly down our street, past the silent, darkened synagogue, and up the steps to our house. My mother would have long since gone to bed. A craven part of me hoped that perhaps my father would have taken an early night as well.

I was deluding myself. While the whole world slumbered, he was always working at his desk. I can even recall moments in my childhood when he came to breakfast having spent the entire night completing his opinion on a difficult doctrinal question.

My hand trembled as I put my key into the lock. The door creaked. Would this wake my mother? Perhaps unconsciously I wanted her to be present, to help Father absorb some of the shock, maybe even act as mediator or comforter. For both of us.

A stream of light from the half-open door to Father’s
study spilled across my path. I heard him call affectionately, “Daniel, is that you?”

I answered, “Yes, Papa,” but my voice was so imprisoned in my throat that he left his desk and came to peek out the office door.

He was beaming.

“Well, almost-Rebbe Luria, what a nice surprise. Did you finish your exams early?”

I did not reply. I stood in darkness, hesitant to enter even the slenderest rays of light.

Unable to see my expression, he continued cheerfully, “Come in, come in. I’d like you to hear what I’ve written on proper conversion for marriage. At this hour I could use a fresh Talmudic mind.”

I walked forward slowly, my head bowed. He put his arm around my shoulders and led me inside. I shivered, not merely from the tension, but because his office was the only air-conditioned room in the house—cooled not for his personal comfort, but rather to protect the great tomes of Law. These treasured leather-bound volumes, some—like the Vilna Talmud—more than a hundred years old, had been rescued from Hitler’s clutches at great risk and were now the only “living” testament from the dust and ashes of the town of Silcz.

“Sit down, sit down,” he gestured affably. “Do you want a cold drink? Iced tea? A glass of seltzer maybe?”

“No, thank you, Papa. I’m not thirsty.”

In truth, my throat and mouth were parched. My lips were almost cracking.

He leaned across his desk, peered over his reading glasses, and stared at me.

“Daniel,” he remarked. “You’re looking pale. It must be the examinations, eh?”

I merely shrugged.

“You’ve probably had very little sleep these past few weeks.”

I nodded, guilty and shamed to be so tired in his presence. Among the many qualities of his I lacked was that
enormous energy which enabled him to thrive with a bare minimum of sleep.

He leaned back in his chair. “So,
nu.
” He smiled. “How did they go?”

“What?”

“The examinations. Did you find them difficult?”

I began a sentence, but still lacked courage to complete it. “I didn’t …”

“That’s good,” my father beamed.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You were going to say you didn’t find them difficult. That means you studied well.”

“No, no,” I said quickly—and my voice quivered slightly.

“Daniel,” he said in a worried tone. “You’re not coming to tell me that you … didn’t pass, are you?”

“No, Papa.”

“That’s a relief. It doesn’t matter what grade you got. The important thing is that you passed.”

God in Heaven, after all these years of wanting me to be the best, he suddenly was willing to accept me as an average—maybe even mediocre—scholar. The irony fueled my growing frenzy.

Now I had to get out what I had to say before my heart would beat so quickly that I couldn’t talk at all.

“Father …,” I began, and was further unsettled by the tremor in my voice.

He took his glasses off, and in a tone still solicitous he murmured, “Danny, something’s wrong. I can see it on your face. Out with it. Don’t be afraid. Remember, I’m your father.”

Yes, I am all too painfully aware who you are.

“I didn’t take any of my exams,” I said feebly, and then waited for the thunderbolt to strike. It did not. Once again, Father surprised me.

“Daniel,” he said gently. “You’re not the first to have an inner crisis at a time like this. I think what you need now is rest. Examinations can be taken any time.”

With a mere nod of his head, he signaled his permission
to depart. I couldn’t. I knew that I could never face the sunlight till I told him everything.

“Father?”

“Yes, Daniel?”

“I don’t want to be a rabbi.”

For a moment he did not speak. Perhaps no words existed to respond to such a statement.

“You don’t
want
to? You don’t want to follow in the footsteps of your father and of his father before him?” He paused and asked almost pleadingly, “
Why
, Danny, just tell me why?”

I had come this far—I had to say it all.

“Because … I’ve lost my faith.”

There was an apocalyptic silence.

“This is impossible,” he muttered, shaken and disoriented. “What the Romans couldn’t do, the Greeks, Hitler …”

He did not have to complete his sentence. We both knew that he was accusing me of murder, of killing off the line of Silczer Rebbes.

At last he whispered hoarsely, “Daniel, I think that you should see a doctor. First thing tomorrow we’ll call—”

“No,” I cut him off. “I may be sick, but it’s incurable. My brain is full of demons, Father. No doctor—” And then I added pointedly, “And no Rebbe Gershon … could exorcise my pain.”

It was so quiet I could almost hear the clouds moving across the blackened sky.

Curiously, my father now seemed in total control.

“Daniel,” he began slowly, “I think you should move out of the house. As soon as possible.”

I nodded in submission.

“Take everything you want and leave your key. Because when you leave this room, I never want to see you again.”

I had anticipated all this on the train to Brooklyn. I’d even made a mental list of what I’d pack in my room. But I was not prepared for what came next.

“As far as I am concerned,” my father said, “I have no son. I’ll say
Kaddish
for thirty days, and then you’ll vanish from my thoughts forever.”

He rose and walked out of the room.

A moment later, I heard the door close softly. I knew where he was going. To
shul
to say the prayer of mourning.

For his only son was dead.

I
  spent the next forty-five minutes frantically packing. Along with all sorts of memorabilia, I grabbed some clothes and half a dozen books. Fortunately, my real library was back at school.

Mama, who had been awakened by the sound of our voices, stood there in her robe, looking strange without her
sheitel
, talking to me—babbling really—as if her words could somehow blot out the sorrow of what she was watching. The scene was reminiscent of another played out five years earlier. A drama called The Banishment of Deborah. Only this time Mama was utterly desolate.