Following Ezra (27 page)

He seems to be listening.

“Every thought you have about the
Star Wars
book or the gift cards or the DVDs, put them all into a black lump inside your brain.”

“But I . . .”

I hold up a hand. “Don’t say anything! Did you put all those thoughts in a lump?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have them all in one place?”

“Yes.”

“Did you forget any?”

“No.”

“Now I want you to take that lump and pull it out of your brain, and out through your ear.” I cock my head as if I were doing it myself.

“You’re pretending?” Ezra asks.

“No, I’m serious. Take it out of your brain.”

Ezra follows me, tilting his head and miming the actions of extracting something from his ear. He makes a fist with his right hand.

“Do you have the lump in your hand?”

“Yes.”

“Is it all there?”

“Yes!”

“Okay, now, you see that tree over there?” I point at another large ficus, directly across Beverly.

“That one?”

“No—that one, on the left.”

“Yeah.”

“We’re going to throw the black lump over there.”

“There’s not really a—”

“Yes.” I ignore him. “Throw it over there—ready? One, two . . .”

Ezra stretches his right hand back, and then extends it forward, pretending to throw. He keeps his eyes on the tree, as if waiting for something to happen.

I put my arm around him. “See it over there?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, we’re going to leave it there. We’re not going to think about gifts all week. They’re all under that tree on Beverly Drive.”

“But—”

“Whenever you start to think about those presents you want, put those thoughts under the tree on Beverly Drive. And if you can do that, then we’ll come back next Sunday, the day after your bar mitzvah, and we’ll dig up that lump, and then we can talk about gifts again.”

“Okay.”

“Are you leaving it there?”

“Yes.”

“When will we get it?” I ask.

“Next Sunday, the day after my bar mitzvah.”

“Right!”

I take my son’s hand and we walk toward home.

 

 

What will Ezra’s bar mitzvah look like? Our family began debating that question many months earlier, when Shawn and I had gathered the three boys around the oval kitchen table one evening. She and I have similar—and strong—opinions about the kinds of flashy, ostentatious affairs that have become commonplace, particularly in our part of Los Angeles. What should be meaningful coming-of-age rites have instead morphed into glitzy events centered around parties managed by professional event planners.

We knew we didn’t want that.

At the same time, even the more toned-down celebrations at our relatively down-to-earth synagogue can prove stressful for the children who are marking the symbolic passage to adulthood. I have seen how some self-assured thirteen-year-olds relish the attention (Ami was one). For those who are less confident and more awkward in public situations, being the center of attention can induce panic and anxiety.

It’s difficult to predict where Ezra might fall on that spectrum. It might not even occur to him to feel nervous. Yet his disregard for how people perceive his actions might prove severe. I can imagine my son spontaneously opting to recite the names of
Toy Story
characters instead of chanting his Torah portion, or even just exiting the room altogether—not out of rebellion, but because he doesn’t perceive the occasion’s importance. (I can recall several times when the buzz around a school performance or a play completely escaped Ezra’s notice, while he paid acute attention to the movies—real or imaginary—playing out in his head.) All of that makes a bar mitzvah celebration for Ezra an unpredictable prospect.

Of course, we aren’t making the decision in a vacuum. Our family belongs to a community that has its own customs. The medium-size chapel where we attend services most Saturday mornings is a comfortable and familiar place for Ezra, who has developed his own habits and routines. Early on, he spent time in the child-care program with a teenage aide keeping an eye on him for safety. More recently he sits between Shawn and me in the pews of the chapel, flipping through the animal encyclopedias and
Simpsons
comic books he lugs to temple in his backpack. When he has reached his limit—usually thirty or forty minutes of a two-hour service—Ezra abruptly breaks for the door, then passes the rest of the morning happily pacing in the lobby. Only one time has Ezra endured an entire Shabbat-morning service: the day of his brother Ami’s bar mitzvah. That sunny May morning, dressed in a navy blazer and white shirt, Ezra, then eleven, kept his eyes proudly locked on his older brother, not once attempting to slip out. Though he said little about it, his actions showed that he perceived the importance of the day.

That summer night in the kitchen, Shawn asks the boys what they think will be best for Ezra’s bar mitzvah: a small, private ceremony so that Ezra is not overwhelmed? A service specially designed around him? A weekday ceremony, so that the crowd will be smaller?

“I don’t understand why it’s a question,” Ami says.

Shawn explains that Ezra has a number of options, and that we want to choose the one most appropriate for him.

“He should just have a bar mitzvah,” Noam says.

“He will,” I explain. “We just want to hear from you what you think that should be like.”

“He should do what every other kid does,” Ami says. His tone carries a sense of defiance combined with pride in his brother.

“You don’t think that would be hard for him?” I ask.

“He should do what I did and what every thirteen-year-old does,” he repeats.

Noam agrees. It seems he has never even considered the question—has never pictured any other option.

Shawn asks Ezra what his preference is. He speaks up immediately.

“I want to have a bar mitzvah just like Ami,” he says.

I glance at Shawn across the table. We share a silent look: Do we need to talk more? We know what our three sons want, and now we—and Ezra—have some work to do.

 

 

I understand without much discussion that Ezra’s training will not be like anyone else’s. Most twelve-year-olds in our community—already well versed in Hebrew language and the synagogue liturgy from years in Jewish day school or afternoon religious school—sign up with a tutor provided by the synagogue, who coaches them through a year or so of preparation. Ezra has picked up a rudimentary knowledge of Hebrew from Shawn’s early instruction and several years in his after-school classes. And he has gained some mastery of the synagogue service at a Shabbat program for special-needs children at his Jewish summer camp, another at the synagogue, and from many years of sitting in the congregation, listening even while he peruses his books.

Or so we hope.

It’s his luck—or maybe his curse—to have a rabbi and a writer as his parents. Shawn and I decide to split the tasks of preparing Ezra: She will handle the synagogue liturgy, the Hebrew prayers, and passages from the Torah he will chant for the community; I will help him compose his
d’var Torah
, the speech the bar mitzvah boy traditionally delivers, commenting on the week’s biblical reading.

It is difficult to imagine Ezra standing in one place long enough to lead a Hebrew service. It is even harder to envision this boy—who so assiduously avoids conversations—delivering much of a speech. Preparing Ezra will require—in addition to knowledge and persistence—imagination.

Shawn is a talented and resourceful teacher, but I can’t quite picture how she is going to teach Ezra the seven verses from the biblical Book of Numbers he will need to chant from the parchment scroll of the Torah—a text in ancient Hebrew, without vowels or punctuation marks. I have spent enough time sitting side by side with Ezra at our dining room table, encouraging him through mathematics assignments and social studies worksheets, to know his typical response to any kind of challenging work: a deep groan, a declaration that, “It’s too
haaaard
,” and, often, a tantrum.

But Shawn finds a way. Instead of setting a fixed weekly or daily time to work with Ezra on the Torah reading, she intuitively follows his lead, gauging his mood and energy, and fitting in lessons here and there, in the ten or fifteen or twenty minutes Ezra is willing and able to focus. Like a hunter stalking a deer, she carefully watches our son, somehow sensing the right moments, seizing him, grabbing the photocopied Torah text we keep in a folder on a kitchen counter, and sitting down with him on a sofa to teach a new phrase. Shawn sings the Hebrew words, listening as Ezra repeats the phrases over and over and over. She uses every intuitive strength of Ezra’s that works in his favor: impulsiveness, memory, melodic sense, willingness to repeat. For those few minutes, he repeats after her, adding a few words and musical notes at a time; then, when something inside him decides he’s done, Ezra flees, speeding back to the computer screen or to cuddle with one of the cats.

Whenever he masters a new Hebrew verse, Shawn encourages him to demonstrate what he has learned for his brothers and me. Little by little, I watch and listen as—between videos and meals, homework, and all of the other things that occupy and distract Ezra—he gains a mastery of the material.

Watching Shawn and Ezra sneak off to the sofa or the kitchen table day after day, I begin to wonder how I will ever accomplish my part—helping him write his speech. Shawn reminds me frequently that I need to begin, but I let weeks and months pass without even making an attempt.

Part of my hesitation is that giving a speech is so different from anything Ezra has ever done. The other challenge is the material. The Torah portion that falls on Ezra’s week happens to be a lengthy and dense section of Leviticus delineating how Israelite priests were to handle a variety of skin disorders. Ezra barely has the attention to follow a simple children’s book. How am I going to interest him in a sober treatise on rashes of the ancient Middle East?

When I finally feel panicked enough to sit down with him—on a Sunday evening three months before the event—I try to show him a book that explains each Torah portion in simple language with images for children. I don’t get far.

“I don’t want to talk about
that
,” he says.

I think he is simply having trouble understanding the content. I try to explain it again. Ezra bounces up from the couch and begins pacing the room.

“I don’t want to talk about that,” he repeats.

He doesn’t mean that he doesn’t want to discuss it with me right now; he means that he has no intention of giving a speech about skin diseases.

“But you’re supposed to talk about the Torah,” I tell him.

“I
do
want to talk about the Torah,” Ezra says.

I start looking over the book again, searching for something to attract his interest.

Ezra keeps pacing. “I want to talk about God creating the world in seven days . . . and Adam and Eve . . . and the Garden of Eden . . . and the snake . . . and David and Goliath . . . and Moses and Pharaoh . . . and the Israelites leaving Egypt . . . and Mount Sinai . . . and the Ten Commandments. . . .”

He’s free-associating, just the way he does about animals or Pixar characters. Only it’s about the Torah. Ezra would keep going, but I stop him.

“Wait!” I say. “You’re not going to talk about the
whole
Torah. You have to pick one part.”

He keeps pacing. He looks frustrated, like he doesn’t understand.

“I don’t want to do it now,” he says.

I tell him to think about it.

I realize part of my mistake: trying to get him to sit. Ezra usually focuses better when he’s in motion. The next time I attempt to broach the subject, a few days later, I take him for a walk with Sasha. As we make our way through the neighborhood, I encourage him gently to focus more narrowly on what he wants to talk about in his speech. Finally, he comes up with an answer.

“I want to talk about me, Ezra,” he says.

“What do you want to say?” I ask.

“I want to talk about being autistic,” he says. “How it’s not bad; it’s good.”

“You don’t have to talk about that,” I say.

“But I want to,” he tells me.

“What do you want to say?”

“I want to say about memory and repeating,” he says. “How I repeat a lot and how I have a very good memory.”

I think of Tito, the Indian boy I met years earlier, and how I wondered at the time whether Ezra might ever be able to use words to describe his experience. Later, back home, we sit down as we have so many times, passing the laptop computer between us. Slowly, over time and over a few sessions, a text emerges, a story that only Ezra could tell.

 

 

As the day nears, I feel more and more anxious about the bar mitzvah. It isn’t that I worry about Ezra learning the material. I have watched as he works with Shawn, adding one Hebrew phrase after another to the material he has mastered, until she can pull out the wrinkled photocopy of the
maftir
—the Torah selection he will be reading—and he can chant the entire selection spontaneously.

In the final weeks, we enlist the help of a family friend who will act as a shadow on the big day, in case Ezra needs extra assurance and direction. We set up a makeshift lectern in the dining room, where—when we can get his attention—Ezra practices his parts of the service and rehearses his speech. Shawn and I and his brothers listen and coach, gradually coaxing him to emphasize the words I have printed in bold and underlined on his pages of the talk.

“Slow down!” we keep telling him. “Remember: nice and loud!”

Part of my anxiety stems from my experience of my own bar mitzvah, some three decades earlier. That morning, I sat on the pulpit of the cavernous synagogue between the cantor and my grandfather, facing the congregation. In the middle of the service, forgetting that all eyes were on thirteen-year-old me, I signaled to my mother, seated in the front row, by pointing to my stomach with my right index finger, opening my mouth, and sticking out my tongue: international sign language for “I think I’m going to vomit.” (I didn’t.)