Five Synagogues (a short story)

Five Synagogues (a short story)

by Asher Keren

There are times in life when you just close your eyes and move on, as if nothing had happened. The memories, still fresh, will only haunt if you let them, no matter how much time has passed. That is the fate of a soldier. Yitzchak understood all of this, as he brandished his rifle and walked towards the synagogue down the street and up the hill. He was freshly showered and wearing an IDF uniform just back from the laundry, but he couldn’t disguise the disgust he felt from within. “Shut down your emotions”, he commanded of his brain as if going into battle, and just welcome the Sabbath with everyone else. He repeated his new mantra, “God forgives.”

But people very often don’t forgive. Avshalom and Michal struggled up the hill with their baby stroller, trying to negotiate the new paths that they would come to know better over time. This was their new home, for now. The synagogue would be full of new faces and new prayers. A fresh start. What was important to them was to start building a new life, despite their being evacuated refugees in their own country. They had gone as far north as possible after those days of summer desert heat, crying and praying, as far as possible from their destroyed home in Gush Katif. They knew they could never erase the memories, nor forget the faces of the soldiers that evicted them from their homes. There was hardly any point in trying.

As Yitzchak walked up the hill he joined the rest of the congregants arriving at the synagogue and thanked God that he knew not one of them. “This was the perfect choice to get away from it all”, he thought, “far away from family, friends and evacuees that he had personally thrown out of their homes…. and synagogues.” Total anonymity; although, he knew only too well that Israel was a very small country. Placing his rifle beneath his carefully selected plastic seat on the outer most side of the minyan, he looked into the crowd and into his prayer book and then started to cry, silently and pitifully. Yitzchak could not see the words in front of his eyes.

“Let’s do this slowly”, Avshalom thought, not wanting to be treated like some kind of hero that he obviously wasn’t. After all, he and his friends had lost the battle for their jobs and their homes. His shame was so great that he felt he needed to make acquaintance with his new community slowly, from the perimeter, like a beggar slowly honing in on his new benefactor. He took his plastic seat and placed it behind Yitzchak, touching with his feet the rifle on the floor ahead of him.

While the rest of the congregation welcomed the Sabbath with the ‘Licha Dodi’ hymnal, Michal peeked from behind the curtain of the women’s section. As she clutched her baby, her eyes futilely scanned the entire width of the men’s section, intuitively knowing that Avshalom would surely be on the outside, looking for a way in. “God save us”, she said under her breath as she saw Yitzchak standing in front of her husband, knowing that Avshalom hadn’t a clue, his eyes closed in fervent prayer.

“There are paradoxes of our existence that no man can understand, but to deny them and to cling to only part of the puzzle is sheer lunacy.” Dan was a respected member of his neighborhood, but he was not the Rabbi. Still, his thoughts reflected those of almost half of the community and he had no intention of burying this issue. It was not only current, but critical for the future. If the Israeli government wanted to continue with its insane eviction of Jews from the rest of Judea and Samaria, the lessons of Gush Katif must be made as strongly as possible to every single soldier that had participated in the expulsion and that might be called upon to participate in upcoming evictions. The Givatayyim congregation where he had prayed his entire life must admit no soldier that contributed to kicking Jews out of their homes. Certain acts can never be excused and the fact that his Rabbi had lost all moral clarity on the issue made no matter to him.

Dan had grown up with his Rabbi, had even served with him in the IDF Engineering Corps in Lebanon. He knew that the Rabbi’s son, Yitzchak, had been an active participant in the Gush Katif expulsion. Dan didn’t care. There are acts that can never be excused and he was proud of the fact that his own son had been relieved of his command and had even sat in an army jail for refusing the order to evict. Rabbi Uzi, as he was fondly called, had claimed that the IDF was still holy and beyond reproach, as their chief goal was still to fight the enemy, one of the paradoxes that Dan referred to in his speech before the congregants.

As Dan spoke with his usual fervor, he pleaded to all that the terrible Hillul Hashem, as he called it, would never be repeated again. He was referring to ‘the incident’, as it would forever be ensconced in the small congregation’s collective memory, that had occurred during a Tuesday night evening service in their synagogue a couple of nights before. A soldier had entered to pray, innocently enough by all accounts, being welcomed as a guest by nothing less than the warm handshake of Rabbi Uzi. Before the prayers started, Dan shouted out to the soldier, “You better have not been in Gush Katif last week in that uniform; otherwise, you are not welcome in our midst. This is not Yom Kippur and we will not pray with the sinners!” The soldier, having accustomed himself to these verbal attacks, responded with the typical false arrogance reserved for those gaining their feet in the world of adults and stood his ground. “I received”, he shouted back at Dan, “a Da’at Torah that I must obey orders, no matter how painful. Yes, I was there, and my Rabbi gave me his hechsher to participate. I have nothing to be ashamed of.”

Dan could hold back no longer. “Who is this holy Rabbi of yours that would give you such a Da’at Torah?” Rabbi Uzi struggled within himself for just a second and then made his decision. Taking the soldier by the hand that he had not yet released, he moved him to the bima to lead the congregation in prayers. Looking defiantly at Dan with his piercing blue eyes, he said in a whisper that echoed throughout the room, “I am his Rabbi giving this opinion right here and now”. Giving the soldier a prayer book to lead the congregation in the Ma’ariv service, he patted the uniformed youngster on the back and said, “From this moment until you leave this House of God, I am your Rabbi. You have nothing to fear save God alone. Please lead us in our prayers.”

Had Michal not had to transverse the entire women’s section pushing a baby stroller, she would have run with all her speed to Avshalom as the prayers were concluded. While the others may have worshipped God for granting the holy and restful Sabbath, Miri could only pray that Avshalom would not see Yitzchak’s face. As the congregants systematically deserted the synagogue in a moving crowd, likes bees leaving the hive, Avshalom was no longer in Michal’s sight. Turning her head so that the young and handsome soldier with his rifle strung over his arm would not notice her as he left the synagogue, Michal struggled against the crowd and pushed the stroller into the men’s section. Avshalom was alone, sitting in his seat, his head down and tears rolling down his cheeks. She knew immediately that he had seen him, that Avshalom had recognized Yitzchak exactly for what he was, and will always be, in their eyes. She sat beside him and placed her hand in his, while Yitzchak strolled down the hill, all the while thanking God for his momentary grace of anonymity.

Things in the freshly relinquished Gaza Strip were heating up as former synagogues were burned and homes trashed by Palestinians wallowing in the ashes of their hard earned victory. There was a need to keep things as quiet as possible and the IDF had dispatched soldiers to the new border at the Kissufim crossing, just to remind these thugs and their leaders that entering again would pose no problem for the most powerful army in the Middle East. Yitzchak would cut his vacation early and rejoin his platoon in a day. Before doing so, he needed to check something out first. After the Sabbath he would catch a hitch to Jerusalem, straight to his cousin in the Beit Yisrael neighborhood near the Ultra-Orthodox bastion known as Mea Shearim.

“What do you know of Da’at Torah”, Rabbi Yisrael asked Yitzchak in the dimly lit shtibel that soon would open its doors to the afternoon Mincha service. “I only know that my father, Rabbi Uzi, understands these matters to an extent far greater than my own personal understandings. He was a student of Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook, so he can hardly be accused of making light the relinquishing of the Land, but his considerations are mamlachti first and foremost”, said Yitzchak, referring to the modern Jew’s need to be subservient to the political decisions of the miraculously resurrected State of Israel. “So”, continued Yitzchak, “if this is my respected father’s Da’at Torah, who am I to think differently?” His cousin, who had two years before become a fervent Bretzlaver Hassid, sat quietly and hopefully as Rabbi Yisrael, his new mentor into the teachings of Rabbi Nachman of Bretzlov, looked deeply into the eyes of his lost and wayward cousin, Yitzchak.

“Yet, my dear Yitzchak, you are uncomfortable with this opinion you have received, am I correct? You fear your punishment will be great? This is why I asked you what you know of Da’at Torah, Yitzchak. Do you know what Da’at Torah means to a Hassid, I mean, to a true Hassid?” Yitzchak did not reply. He knew the answer would be forthcoming and even worse, he had no idea what the correct answer was to what had always seemed to him a rather straight forward concept. Da’at Torah to him meant listening to the opinion of Torah scholars, regardless of his own thoughts and feelings. What was the problem? The idea of Da’at Torah was never something that he had really delved into before. He had always just accepted it in the most elementary of forms. What depth could the obviously saintly Rabbi Yisrael add to such an uncomplicated notion?

Rabbi Yisrael, sensing Yitzchak’s confusion, continued on with his explanation. “Yitzchak, I must ask you a rather difficult question, if you do not oppose my doing so. But you must understand, I do not yet know you, nor do I understand to what depths you have taken your Torah studies, although I am sure you are well acquainted with our holy books. Permit me please, Yitzchak, to ask you what you understand of the binding of Isaac, the Akedat Yitzchak?” As expected, Yitzchak just stared at Rabbi Yisrael vacuously, as if the question had appeared from the farthest reaches of the firmament. Before he could even begin to mumble a somewhat intelligible answer, Rabbi Yisrael continued. “Total submission, Yitzchak, total submission. This is what Abraham offered to God. It was not his son that Abraham offered, but rather his ego, his emotions and his intellect as one.”

While this was a pretty standard answer, it still left Yitzchak uneasy for a couple of reasons, the first of which was that nobody seemed to talk about Isaac, or Yitzchak, the one to be sacrificed. As quickly as this thought appeared, however, he understood as well that this part of the discussion was not about him, but about the biblical characters in the story. The binding of Isaac had always bothered Yitzchak’s basic moral temperament and that while he sensed somehow that Rabbi Yisrael could provide an answer to this predicament, he also knew that now was not the time. It would have to wait for later.

Rabbi Yisrael was onto something else completely and Yitzchak felt bound to listen without interjecting his own thoughts. It was different than the discussions he had with his father or with other Rabbis. Just by looking at Rabbi Yisrael and hearing his soothing voice, Yitzchak had already felt differently about Da’at Torah. It was something intuitive more than intellectual; something visceral and not cerebral. Maybe this provided a clue to dealing with the entire Akedat Yitzchak episode, but just as Yitzchak began to allow his mind to wander into these thoughts, Rabbi Yisrael spoke again.

“The binding of Isaac is nearly identical to Da’at Torah, at least to the true Hassidim. Our Masters have taught us, from the story of the binding of Isaac, that one must sacrifice his intellect on the altar of submission to the true Tzaddik. Do you understand my words, Yitzchak?” Yitzchak had understood Rabbi Yisrael’s words only too well, imagining himself to be Abraham’s son submitting himself to the knife of his father’s own submission. As he dwelled on these submissions to submissions, Itzchak’s initial clarity became confused. He looked to his cousin for help but his cousin remained silent. This was not a lesson that he was giving, but rather his mentor, Rabbi Yisrael.

“Your problem, Itzchak, is that you are not truly willing to submit your intellect to another submission”.

“I don’t understand what you are getting at, honorable Rabbi. My problem is that I am not willing to submit to another submission? What do these words mean?”

“Itzchak, Abraham submitted himself to God. In our days to submit oneself to God is to submit oneself to the holy Tzaddik in each and every generation. The Hassid does not submit himself to a concept, Itzchak, but rather to a Tzaddik. We do not believe to sacrifice ourselves, for instance, to the concept called mamlachtiut. Concepts serve one well for a time, but when things change they must be modified, altered and adapted to the new settings. The Tzaddik knows how to do this, so we are not confused, as are your teachers. Do not think for one moment, Yitzchak, that I disparage the saintliness of your father or your other teachers, but you have become confused by their confusion and as Isaac, you have been bound, unable to move. Even worse, my saintly and young Yitzchak, you use the concept of Da’at Torah in a way that confuses you even more because it is lacking in belief, in honest conviction. It is more of an accepted consensus amongst your generation than it is a totally submissive act.” At this, Itzchak’s cousin made his first apparent motion since the conversation began, staring intently at Yitzchak and nodding his head in affirmation of Rabbi Yisrael’s words.

The bus ride down south provided Yitzchak with small comfort. Total and absolute submission of the intellect was difficult enough, but seeing clearly his father’s confusion now as something that he had understood internally when talk of the disengagement first appeared, was too much for him to deal with. He dozed off while the bus continued on to Sderot, the station where he would get off and meet an army jeep waiting and ready to take him to the Kissufim border. In two weeks time he would end his army service and begin a new life. At this point he had felt like getting an operation to change his identity and moving to Jamaica, but he knew that this would provide nothing more than an illusion of escape.

Michal managed her first smile in weeks as there car winded up the narrow approach to Safed. Although she felt a bit guilty about taking a vacation in the midst of her job searching, she knew that she must take some time to collect her thoughts and try to make sense of all that had transpired. She was tired of all the post-mortem arguments of why their attempts to stop disengagement had failed. There were too many opinions out there, too many arguments. No unity and no sense of strength; only confusion. She herself had become virtually paralyzed when she saw Rabbi Uzi’s son, Itzchak, at her Gush Katif home and later at the synagogue of the village they had moved to.

She wondered whether soldiers that had participated in the eviction should be allowed into the synagogues. And she had come to a curious and sad conclusion. There was no apparent holiness to be found in the religious Zionist camp, only disarray. As such, she thought to herself, soldiers like Yitzchak should definitely not be allowed into their places of worship because they would never learn the lesson that needed to be taught. We were unworthy teachers because of our constant bickering and lack of moral clarity. “Keep them out”, she repeated to herself, “or they will learn confusion as well and justify to themselves in their already confused hearts participating in any further evictions.” If the Rabbis and the people could not themselves decide, obviously it was easiest to take the path of least resistance and follow orders.

She laughed within herself as she recalled an old joke she had once heard. It told of a data base at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, whereby the user can enter into the search module the answer to any question he is seeking and the data base will provide the name of the Rabbi giving the precisely desired answer. It made her think of the incredible lack of unity amongst the Rabbis. Somehow, it also made her think in pain of the synagogue of her former Gush Katif community going up in flames.

If only we could invite these soldiers into our synagogues with the full force of knowing that there are rights in this world as well as wrongs. In such a case, a soldier could enter and never leave as he once was. In her weary mind, Michal could see these soldiers almost instantly transfixed and transformed by a world of holy clarity, dignity and unity. After such an experience, she was sure they would never be able to participate in such crimes again.

Avshalom pulled the car over by the side of a small synagogue at the entrance to Sefad. He saw a minyan forming for the afternoon prayer and decided to take the opportunity to pray before continuing on to his uncle’s home, where they would be staying for a few days. As he entered the synagogue, Michal sat in the car with her baby, lazily looking at the scene; a small synagogue in Safed, so far from her old beloved synagogue in Gush Katif.

Suddenly, as if in a dream, her eyes caught the image of Yitzchak. Could it be really be him? He was somehow the same, but also very different. Rabbi Uzi’s son was growing a beard and had turned in his rifle for the large, white kippa of the newly initiated Brezlaver Hassidim. Avshalom had seen him too, and had veered off towards the back of the minyan, while Yitzchak took his place at the bima, leading the Mincha prayers.

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