“No,” she said adamantly. “You’re too nice a guy to have a screwed-up wife like me. Besides, I’m only good when I’m illicit. Anyway,” she went on, “Charlie’s bought me a house in Bel Air and a record company. I’m in Vegas trying to sign up talent. With any luck, I’m hoping to lure Tom Jones into my stable.”
“I’m sure you will,” I said as fondly as I could, thinking how sad this blithe creature really was.
“Oh, yeah, Danny, I almost forgot. Charlie said could you please move out by Labor Day?”
“Hell, I’ll move to the Pierre tomorrow. Will you promise to keep in touch?”
“No,” she said emphatically. “You deserve somebody better than me.”
“Can you at least tell me where to send the Utrillo?”
“Hey,” she said softly, “it doesn’t matter anymore. Sell it and give the money to an orphanage.”
I knew that for the rest of my life I would always wonder if there was any deeper meaning to her final words.
42
Deborah
It was a terrible wrench when, on August 30, 1972, Deborah bade good-bye to the place she would always regard as home, and the people she would always look upon as family.
During her last days at Kfar Ha-Sharon, wherever she walked, friends would stop what they were doing to chat. And every conversation ended with an embrace.
Counterbalancing the sorrow of leave-taking was the inexhaustible joy in her growing son, and the prospect of actually living with him in the same household.
When Steve Goldman phoned her with the news that she had been accepted by the seminary, she was jubilant, regarding it as another small step in the battle for the equality of Jewish women.
It seemed as though half the kibbutz had boarded the old bus to accompany her to the airport. Deborah sat holding Eli in her lap, unable to look back at the azure waters of the Galilee lest she burst into tears.
Not even the magniloquent Boaz could convince Security to let the entire group enter the terminal. He and Zipporah alone were allowed to see her off.
“Now, Deborah,” Boaz admonished sternly. “I have your solemn promise you’ll come back to visit us next summer?”
“I’ll come back every summer, I swear.”
“Let’s take them one at a time,” he replied philosophically. “But just between the two of us I’ll make a special deal with you. You’ll only have to work in the fields half a day, so you can study the rest of the time.”
Eli could sense the sadness of the occasion and began to cry.
“Shush, darling,” Deborah murmured, “you’ve got to be a big boy. Now kiss Grandpa and Grandma good-bye.”
The little boy obeyed and said in a quavering voice, “Shalom sabta.”
Eli was too restless to sit still, so Deborah spent most of the flight as a human pillow. Her only respite came when a kindly stewardess offered to hold “the little sweetie”—not a word that Deborah would have used at the time—while Mama freshened up in the bathroom.
Though exhausting, her son’s insomnia kept her mind from other, far more awesome thoughts.
Like the prospect of going to the university and still managing to be a good mother to her son. And most of all, living once again in her father’s home.
She had left as a naughty girl being punished. Now she was returning as a woman who had suffered pain and tasted the most fundamental joys of life.
Would her father accept her change of status? Would he acknowledge her as an adult? Even if he didn’t, there was rio alternative. Not until she found the means to be independent.
This worried her even more than the classes at the seminary, for she was excited at the prospect of studying Talmud, Torah, and history with the men. She did not think beyond classes to her actual ordination as a rabbi. That was still so many years away, she could not take it seriously enough to be frightened. She already had enough challenges on her hands.
The reality of his sister’s baby only fully struck Danny at the Arrivals area. He rushed to embrace the warm little human being. Deeply moved, he looked at Eli and, keeping his gaze riveted, remarked softly, “He’s got his father’s eyes.”
“Yes,” Deborah whispered.
Sleepy and frightened, Eli began to wail. “C’mon, kid, this is your Uncle Danny,” he cajoled and then asked Deborah, “What does he speak? Hebrew? English?”
“Half and half,” Deborah replied.
Suddenly Eli grew calm. He placed a warm, dimpled hand on Danny’s neck.
Nodding to the porter, his uncle ordered, “Follow us through here. My jalopy is waiting.”
The waiting limousine was so long it looked more like a railroad car.
A blue-uniformed chauffeur held open the door. After making certain that Deborah and Eli were comfortable, he went around to see to the luggage.
As her brother slid in and closed the door, Deborah protested, “Danny, are you crazy? This must be costing you a fortune.”
“Nothing’s too good for my sister,” he replied affectionately. “And as far as money is concerned, my only problem is what to do with it.”
As concisely as possible, he told her of his sudden rise from rabbinate to riches.
To Deborah, her brother’s worldly success and outwardly euphoric manner were very troubling. He seemed to be trying too hard to convince her that he was happy.
“Do Mama and Papa know anything about this?”
He shook his head. “No, I can’t find the courage to pick up the phone. I mean, Papa’s a lot better, but he very seldom leaves the house except to go to shul.”
His facial muscles had now tired of maintaining a smile. His eyes were downcast, and he said softly, “I wish I could help them, Deb. Especially Mama. I’d love to take her to Saks Fifth Avenue and let her buy out the store. But I know he’d despise what I’ve done and wouldn’t let her go. I only wish there was a way …” His voice trailed off.
“Tell me,” she said affectionately.
He took her hand. “Deb, if you could find out anything they possibly might need—for the house, for the school, anything—just let me know. I want to do something, you know—helpful—useful.…”
To Deborah’s astonishment, just as they approached the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway their driver pulled over to the shoulder where a second limousine was waiting.
“What’s going on?”
“I’m afraid this is where the prodigal son has to get off. I can’t show my face in Father’s territory. I feel like Spinoza being excommunicated.”
She grasped her brother’s hand with both of hers. “Listen, Danny,” she whispered fervently, “I’ll make things better, I swear I will. Now, will you keep in touch?”
“You’re gonna have to do that, too,” he replied. “I’m at the Pierre Hotel.”
He fumbled in his pockets and produced a black silken book of matches. “The number’s here. Call me whenever the coast is clear. May I at least take my nephew out sometime and buy him a few million toys?”
“Yes,” Deborah laughed, as they kissed each other on the cheek. As Danny embraced little Eli, he whispered, “Take care of your mother, okay?”
In an instant, he was gone.
As her own limousine drove off, Deborah watched through the back window as Danny climbed sadly into the other car.
43
Deborah
She who had left in silence and disgrace returned now as glorious as Queen Esther.
Deborah and Eli were greeted not only by her parents and sisters, but by dozens of relatives, all of whom wanted to see the child they now eagerly proclaimed to be even more beautiful than his pictures.
When all were assembled, Rav Luria commanded them to silence. In addition to having some residual stiffness in his right side, he still looked pale and somewhat fragile as he raised a toast to the arrival of the newest member of the Luria family … Eli Ben-Ami.
Deborah could tell that her father had carefully choreographed the entire occasion, for no one mentioned her bro
ther’s name.
Had he been killed by a truck instead of exiled, they would at least have referred to him as “Danny, of blessed memory.”
But nothing was said. Nothing.
There was no way she could ascertain whether any of them knew about his golden metamorphosis.
Yet, when the celebration was at its height, Deborah caught sight of her mother sitting in a quiet corner, weeping inwardly for her only son.
No sooner had the last guest departed than the resident Lurias sat down to a late supper.
The Rav smiled at his blue-eyed grandson and, even while the youngster persistently dropped his spoon on the floor to make Deborah retrieve it, said, “Nu, my boy, let’s speak a little mamaloshen.”
Deborah bristled at her father’s proposal that her son chat in Yiddish. In some ways the old man still lived in the ghetto of Silcz, and the phrase “mother tongue” was reminiscent of an age when Yiddish was the language of second-class citizens—the mothers who were not privileged to learn Hebrew.
She, on the contrary, had just come from a land where Hebrew was the language not only of blessings, but of asking for the nearest bus stop.
Though he was far from being like the abominable Rabbi Schiffman, her father was no longer Deborah’s idea of a modern Jew. Yet he was still her father. She would have to learn to separate ideology and affection.
One of her great consolations in taking her son away from Israel had been that at the very least he would learn English. Now she realized that while she was at school all day, Eli would be hearing less English in Brooklyn than he had on the kibbutz. And she did not want him growing up to read the words of Shakespeare or Thomas Jefferson as a foreign tongue.
Dean Victor Ashkenazy—a broad-shouldered man who looked more like a football coach—stepped up to the podium.
He smiled down at his audience, which consisted of perhaps a dozen men and half as many women, then uttered words that Deborah Luria had never dreamed she would hear spoken to rabbinical students:
“Ladies and gentlemen …”
What a long and arduous road she had traveled to reach this moment.
“Before it became an honorific title,” the dean continued, “the word rabbi simply meant ‘teacher.’ Interestingly enough, it only took on its modern meaning during the age of Hillel, which was of course contemporaneous with the ministry of Christ.…”
Yet another word Deborah never imagined she would hear in a Jewish seminary.
“In the Gospel of Mark, when Peter sees a vision of Jesus talking with Elijah and Moses, he addresses his leader as ‘rabbi.’ And historically speaking, the other two Jewish worthies could not claim the same title.” The dean paused, scanning the faces before him.
“A rabbi has no priestly privileges. He is not an intermediary between God and Man. He cannot grant absolution—that is only in the hands of the Almighty. He can command no one. But he must command respect. For he is first and foremost a teacher. And it is his awesome duty to act as a paragon of earthly behavior and of reverence for the Divine.
“Permit me to repeat a very old joke, which is as painfully true today as it was when I heard it as a child.
“Several matrons are sitting on the beach in Florida bragging about their children’s accomplishments. One says proudly that her son is a surgeon. Another boasts that hers is a successful lawyer, and so on.
“Finally, they get to Mrs. Greenberg. ‘So, nu—what about your children?’ they ask. And she replies, ‘Well, my son is a rabbi.’
“At which all the women groan, and one commiserates, ‘Oy vey, what a terrible job for a nice Jewish boy.’ ”
His audience smiled, sharing this uncomfortable truth.
“Of course,” the dean quickly added, “today it’s also a terrible job for a nice Jewish girl. And I’m afraid that the designation ‘job’ is all too appropriate.
“The near-impossible task of a rabbi is to try to keep his or her fellow Jews from giving in to the exhaustion of maintaining an identity in a non-Jewish world, of being a minority that wishes to remain one. Not to mention the sheer pressure of trying to do good in a world in which evil not only exists, but as God tells Isaiah in chapter forty-five, verse seven, He Himself created it.”
He walked to the front of the lectern to be closer to his listeners, and spoke in softer, almost confidential tones.
“That goes to the heart of the matter, doesn’t it?
“For the rest of your lives, no single day will pass when you are not approached by someone—Jew or gentile—and asked the most challenging existential question a man or woman of God will ever confront: ‘Why did our loving, righteous, merciful God also create evil?’
“This is the problem that Job could not comprehend. Nor can the victims of the Holocaust—or its survivors. Our task as rabbis then is to teach men and women how to live in this imperfect world.
“Your studies for the rabbinate will be twofold. One—looking back and assimilating the heritage of millennia of sages, and passing it like a torch in an ancient relay race to the younger generation.
“The second, perhaps more important, is the pastoral function of a modern clergyman—counseling, comforting. Above all, showing the way—in the words of Micah, ‘To do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.’
“I offer you my blessings and good wishes.”
Deborah spent the morning with Moses and the afternoon with Jonah.
Though she had been familiar with the texts from her independent reading, this was the first time she could freely discuss them with a professor and her fellow students.
Their lecturer in Old Testament, Professor Schoenbaum, was an acknowledged hard-liner who had voted against the ordination of women and was known for such gratuitous barbs as, “Even a woman could understand this concept.”
Yet when on the first day it became apparent that Deborah’s knowledge and insight far exceeded her classmates’, Schoenbaum concluded the day’s proceedings with, “I think you could all benefit from following the scholarly example of Miss Luria, who thinks like a real yeshiva bocher.”
In other words, a man.
As she left the building to go home that first day, she was greeted by her faithful mentor.
“What a nice surprise,” she exclaimed, rushing to embrace him.
“I just wanted to be sure everything went okay,” her brother replied.
“Oh, Danny, I love it. I mean I’ve spent my whole life reading Torah by candlelight. Now, all of a sudden, I’m in the bright sunshine with people who share the same values.”
“Was it tough?” he asked, as he took her heavy book bag and flung it over his shoulder.
“Compared to a slave driver like you, Professor Schoenbaum is a pussycat.”
“Well,” Danny said with mock humility. “That was all part of my plan—to harden you for the real battle. Got time for a cup of coffee?”
“Just a quick one,” she replied.
They sat at an outdoor café and drank cappuccinos, as the reluctant prodigy of Wall Street meekly inquired, “Have you had a chance to talk to him? Papa, I mean.”
“No, not yet. I don’t want to hurry things.”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Danny, trying to mask his disappointment. “I guess that’s the right strategy. It’s just that I’d like to know if he … needs anything.”
“To be frank,” she replied, “I think what he really needs is time. But I’ll work on it, I promise you.”
“And Mama?” he persisted. “Did you find out if there’s anything I could get her?”
“Well,”—Deborah smiled—“I think she daydreams about a toaster oven. But it might look awfully suspicious if it suddenly appeared in the kitchen. Why don’t we wait till her birthday and we can give it to her as a present?”
“Okay … good … sure,” said Danny, who seemed edgy and nervous. “But I wanted to do more. What I really wanted was to buy them that bungalow we always rented in Spring Valley. You know, so they could use i
t whenever they want.” He paused and then confessed, “As a matter of fact, I’ve already bought it.”
Deborah took his hand. “Danny,” she said softly, “try to be patient. I don’t think you can buy Father’s love.”
“Yeah,” her brother replied bitterly. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
“Tell me,” she asked, trying to lift his mood, “what do you do with yourself all day?”
“Well,” he replied, “my admirers at McIntyre & Alleyn have set me up with my own desk and secretary, and they’re sponsoring me so I can take the official broker’s test at the Institute of Finance.”
“Ah,” smiled Deborah. “So you’re a student again?”
“Yeah, I’m enjoying that part. Unfortunately, they’re all treating me like the Delphic Oracle—waiting religiously for my next prediction. Hopefully I’ll learn enough to know what I’m doing. In any case, I’ve bought a computer—I need all the intelligence I can get.”
“You must be very busy.”
“I’m not,” he answered morosely. “I don’t enjoy just watching my money earn interest. I’ve got a six-bedroom apartment on Fifth Avenue—and five of them are empty. For some reason I can’t even buy friends.”
“Have you seen Beller?”
“Yeah, I took them to dinner the other night. He fixed me up with a shrink.…”
“And?”
“Instead of exploring my psyche, the guy kept asking me for stock tips.”
“Is that a joke?” she asked.
“Am I laughing?”
He studied her with a wan smile and asked, “It’s such a schlep from here to Brooklyn. Won’t you and Eli come and live with me in Manhattan? I mean, I’d hire a housekeeper—or anything you wanted.”
Deborah wanted very much to say yes, but she needed time to think about leaving the parental embrace she had just regained.
“Danny … Eli’s in a nice play group run by two Israeli girls. I don’t want to uproot him again. I’d like to live at home a little while longer.”
Danny’s tone became more assertive. “Hey, big sister, can’t you manage to break your newfound umbilical cord? You don’t really think I believe it’s Eli’s play group that’s keeping you at home, do you?”