Acts of Faith (6 page)

“It so happens that Lawrence Conroy is about to leave for the College of the Holy Cross to study Medicine. For the past three years he has been assisting us, the Kagans, Mr. Wasserstein, and both Shapiro brothers. Every month each household gives him some money and each Friday they leave out a portion of whatever dessert they’re having that night. If you’re interested, it would take you only a few months to pay your debt.”

Several minutes later, as they were walking homeward, Patrolman Delaney offered his final comment on the unpleasant matter.

“Hear me, Timmy,” he said, “and hear me good. Next time you break some Jew window, make sure it isn’t some important rabbi’s.”

W
hen Deborah was barely fourteen years old, she witnessed a mighty—if unequal—battle between her half sister and her father.

“I won’t marry him—I won’t!”

“Rena, you’re over seventeen,” her father murmured, and then alluded to her older sister. “Malka was married by then. And you’re not even betrothed. Tell me again what’s so bad about Rebbe Epstein’s boy?”

“He’s fat,” Rena said.

Rav Luria addressed his wife. “Did you hear that, Racheleh? Suddenly matchmaking has become a beauty contest! Our daughter believes this fine scholar from a respectable family is unworthy because he’s a little overweight.”

“More than a little,” Rena muttered.

“Rena,” the rabbi pleaded, “he’s a pious boy and he’ll make you a fine husband. Why are you being so obstinate?”

“Because I just don’t want to.”

Good for you, Rena, Deborah thought to herself.

“Don’t want to?” asked the rabbi in a tone of melodramatic astonishment. “How can ‘I don’t want to’ be a valid reason?”

Danny suddenly leapt to Rena’s aid.

“But Father,” he interjected. “What about the Code of Law?
Even Ha Ezer
42:12. Doesn’t it say that a marriage must have the woman’s consent?”

Had this come from anyone but his adored son and heir, Moses Luria would have fumed at having any of his statements questioned. Instead, he could not help but smile with pride. His little boy, not yet
bar mitzvah
, was not afraid to lock scriptural horns with the Silczer Rebbe. For the moment, the discussion was ended.

In the days that followed there was constant tension in the Luria household and whispered phone calls late into the night.

After concluding a particularly lengthy conversation, the Rav marched slowly and deliberately into the living room, where the rest of the family was seated.

He looked at his wife and said wearily, “Epstein’s starting to push. He claims he’s gotten an offer from the Belzer for one of
his
daughters.” The Rav sighed histrionically. “Ah, what a pity to lose such a fine scholar.” He glanced at Rena. “Of course, I wouldn’t dream of forcing you to do anything you don’t want to, my darling,” he said gently. “It’s still completely up to you.”

In the silence that followed, Deborah could sense the closing of an emotional vise on her sister’s will.

“All right, Papa,” Rena sighed weakly, “I’ll marry him.”

The Rav exploded with joy. “Wonderful! This is wonderful news. Is two weeks enough to have the betrothal ceremony?”

He turned to his wife and asked, “What do you think, Racheleh?”

“It’s fine by me. Will you arrange it with Rebbe Epstein?”

The Rav grinned. “I already have.”

Deborah gritted her teeth and vowed that she would never let them manipulate her this way. She could not keep from wondering—would he be so overbearing with his beloved Danny?

Later, Danny vaguely remembered Rebbe Epstein’s visit to his father’s office to iron out the arrangements for the marriage, among them Rena’s dowry and, most important, the date and place of the wedding.

The next part echoed in Danny’s memory forever. To symbolize the sealing of the bargain, tradition bade the parents break a plate. Sometimes—and this was the case that day—several women came with crockery, and when the agreement was announced, there was a loud cacophony of dishes crashing on the kitchen floor amid effusive shouts.
“Mazel tov, mazel tov!”

“Why are they all going crazy breaking plates?” Danny asked his father.

“Well, my son.” The Rav beamed. “There are several explanations. Some say just as a broken glass cannot be fixed, so the agreement between bride and groom cannot be allowed to shatter. There’s also a more colorful tradition. The noise is supposed to scare away the evil spirits that might put a curse on Rena’s marriage.”

Even Deborah, who had been sulking at the prospect of her sister’s unwilling marriage, took part in this and joined the universal laughter that preceded the betrothal feast.

On the Sabbath before the wedding, the rotund Avrom Epstein was honored as groom-to-be by receiving an invitation to the pulpit to read the week’s selection from the Prophets.

As he mounted the podium, a bombardment of tiny missiles suddenly descended all about him. These were raisins, almonds, nuts, and sweet candies thrown from the ladies’ gallery as a gesture of good luck. Most of the women carelessly tossed their handfuls, but Deborah made her own quiet statement, aiming as many nuts as she could at the head of her future brother-in-law.

It remained for Rachel to explain the special Jewish “facts of life” to her stepdaughter. Deborah should not have been present, but she wanted very much to hear, and neither Rachel nor Rena objected.

The essence of her mother’s lecture was a woman’s purity. Or, put another way,
impurity.
The Rav had been scrupulous in consulting with Rachel to determine Rena’s menstrual cycle, so that on her wedding day she would be ritually pure. Now, in minute detail, Rachel explained to Rena how to examine herself every month to determine the onset of her period and its conclusion. Thereafter she would be required to change her underclothes and bed linen daily, and seven days later sexual intercourse would finally be permitted again.

During the fortnight of her spiritual “pollution,” a wife might not touch her husband in any way. Even their twin beds had to be well separated. The rules were so stringent that a husband could not eat food left over from his wife, unless it had been transferred to another dish.

“Do you understand everything, Rena?” Rachel asked.

Her stepdaughter merely nodded.

Rachel reached over and patted her hand. “I know how you must feel, darling. I also wish it was your own mother telling you all this.”

Rena nodded again and said, “Thank you.”

Deborah could not restrain her feelings of resentment at the notion that some day she, too, would be considered “unclean” in her husband’s eyes. For half a month she would be impure, besmirched,
untouchable.

Six weeks later, Rachel took Rena to the
mikva
, the ritual bath, for her first purification. Deborah remained at home to fantasize.

She knew what would be happening, for Mama had described it all beforehand. Her sister would have to go into a bathroom where she would remove all her clothing, watch, rings—even the Band-Aid covering the cut on her finger.

She would then have to wash, brush her teeth, comb all the hairs of her body, cut and scrub her fingernails. Finally, under the severe scrutiny of the matron in attendance, Rena would walk naked down a few stone steps
into a large cistern filled with running water and immerse herself completely.

The diligent attendant had to be satisfied that every strand of hair was submerged. If a single hair remained above the water, the procedure would be invalid.

Rena would have to do this every month for the rest of her childbearing years, which could mean a quarter of a century.

For the next forty-eight hours, Rena was taciturn and nervous. Several times, Deborah even thought she heard her weeping softly in her room. Once, hearing a muffled sob, she knocked, but evidently Rena did not want to share her feelings.

“Look, it’s normal,” her mother explained to both girls. “Getting married is the most important event in a woman’s life. But it’s also a terrible wrench—leaving your parents’ house, going to live with someone.…” She stopped herself.

“Someone you hardly know at all,” Deborah bitterly finished the thought.

Rachel shrugged uneasily. “Well, there’s that aspect, too. But do you know something, Deborah? Arranged marriages sometimes work out better than so-called romantic ones. Compared to others, the divorce rate among the Orthodox is like a little grain of sand—it hardly happens.”

Yes, Deborah thought. Because it’s almost impossible to
get
a divorce.

“Rena darling,” Rachel whispered to her stepdaughter tenderly, “I’ll share a very private truth with you. When my father came to me to propose Rav Luria—I mean Moses—as my potential husband, I was … to be honest … not that enthusiastic.”

She paused, and then, to reassure herself that her confession would not travel, added, “Remember, you can’t tell this to a soul.”

Rena nodded and placed a hand affectionately on Rachel’s.

Rachel continued. “I mean, after all, I was even
younger than you. Moses seemed to me more like a parent than what I had dreamed of as a husband. He was older, he had children … and he was the legendary Silczer Rav.”

She closed her eyes as she reminisced. “But then we met alone. And from the first, I knew that he could read my mind. He understood exactly all the qualms I was feeling. And so he told me a simple story. It was one of the Jewish legends of the mystics—that when the soul descends from Heaven it has two parts, one male, the other female. They separate and enter different bodies. But if these people then lead righteous lives, the Father of the Universe will reunite them as a couple.

“I stopped being upset about marrying somebody twice my age, and began to think of it as my soul finding its other half. From that moment, I fell in love with him. And,” she concluded, “I hope you agree that we have a marriage like an oak tree and a vine.”

All three women stared at one another, speechless: Rachel, astounded by her own unexpected candor; Rena, comforted.

And Deborah, confused and slightly frightened that she knew so little of the outside world.

On the morning of the wedding Rena did not come downstairs, for the Law bids bride and groom fast all day until the ceremonies are over. When Deborah inquired solicitously how her sister felt, she merely answered, “It’s okay. I’m not hungry anyway.”

The relatives and other celebrants were already gathered in the courtyard of the synagogue, when Avrom Epstein, wearing a prayer shawl over the bridegroom’s traditional white costume, appeared at the door and was led by the women to the living room, where Rena waited.

Dancing at his heels was a trio of young, bearded
kletzmer
musicians—fiddler, clarinetist, and tambourine man—all looking like fugitives from a painting by Chagall as they played merrily. The bride stood to greet her future husband.

Avrom gazed at her and whispered, “It’s going to be all right, Rena. We’ll be good to each other.”

He took her veil, placed it over her face, and then left, followed again by his mini-parade of musicians.

Scarcely an hour later, as they faced one another under the wedding canopy set up in the courtyard of the synagogue, Avrom placed the ring on Rena’s index finger and said, “Be thou consecrated unto me as my wife according to the Law of Moses and Israel.”

Then, in keeping with the magnitude of the occasion, each of the seven ritual blessings was pronounced by a different distinguished rabbi, some of whom had come from out of the state for the ceremony.

Yakov Ever, the famous cantor (and recording artist) who had come all the way from Manhattan, chanted blessings over the wine. Finally, the traditional glass was placed on the ground next to the large black shoes of Avrom Epstein.

When he lifted his foot, smashing the glass, the gathered throng all shouted
“Mazel tov, mazel tov!”
and the musicians, now augmented by a double bass and a full set of cymbals and drums, struck up, as the psalm says, “a joyful noise unto the Lord.”

The feast was splendid and, as was customary, segregated, with men and women seated at tables on opposite sides of the room. Only the children had a passport to toddle across the frontiers of gender, and they did so frequently and noisily.

Deborah always seemed to find one or two of Malka’s five children on her lap. She later recalled these as the best parts of the evening.

The young musicians’ enthusiasm was so infectious that Cantor Ever fairly bounded to the microphone to give a vibrant rendition of the most important song at any Hasidic wedding—“All the World’s a Narrow Bridge,” a reminder to the newlyweds that, even at this happy moment in their lives, they are perilously bounded by sadness on either side.

When at last the long meal ended and the benedictions
for the couple were complete, tables and chairs were pushed to the sides and the room was transformed into an immense ballroom.

To the strains of “A Lucky Star, a Lucky Sign,” the two mothers-in-law, Rachel and the full-bosomed Rebbitsin Epstein, began the dance, followed by the newlyweds themselves.