Naomi, The Rabbi's Wife

by Miriam Finesilver

  Yet she found herself unwilling to carry out her plan. For one thing, the garbage can had flies buzzing all around it, and the smell of something rotting came from the area. Melinda was so nice, and the words she had read from these pages . . . She carried the book back to the car, opened the trunk, and hid the contraband material under the towel.

  The rest of the day was spent shopping for groceries, meeting with the contractor who would be doing their bathroom renovation, and visiting Marvin Berman’s widow.

  The poor woman seemed overwhelmed trying to deal with her financial affairs and other day-to-day necessities. It seemed Marvin had taken care of everything leaving Mrs. Berman to feel pampered, at least until he was gone.

  Whether in visiting with Mrs. Berman, shopping, or picking out ceramic tile, never for a moment did Naomi forget the object lying under the beach towel. Like a smoldering coal locked away, any minute to erupt into a huge fire.

  That evening she surprised Daniel with a gourmet meal. The biggest feat she pulled off with the dinner was duplicating a part of their dinner at Luchow’s. Daniel walked in the door, found the table set with their finest dinnerware, lit candles, and sounds reminiscent of the waltz music they danced to on their first real date. Then Naomi came out wheeling a cart. On this cart was a platter of thin pancakes with bright red lingonberry sauce poured over them.

  “Sit,” she commanded her husband, as she poured cognac over the platter and then quickly ignited the food with a small torch.

  Over dinner, Daniel told her, “I know why you’re doing all this. Tonight’s the Emmy Awards, isn’t it?”

  “Well, yeah, but. . .”

  He remembered the year before how disappointed she was when he told her he was not interested in watching something that silly. Now he smiled and said, “If you want to watch it, we’ll watch it.”

  Two hours later they were in the den, cuddled up on the couch and watching the award show while sipping from the cognac left over from dinner. Toward the end of the show it was time to give an award for the best comedy series.

  Naomi no longer kept up with show business news, so was oblivious to the fact that Gary Ruben had been nominated for his new television series. When she heard his name as a nominee, it felt as though a fist had been pounded into her stomach.

  As for Daniel, his attention was no longer on the television, but now on his wife. One minute she had been relaxed, but now her warm body, which had been molded around his, had become cold and stiff.

  “And the winner is Gary Ruben.”

  With the cameras focused on him, Gary quickly stood up, leaned down to kiss the woman next to him, and then sprinted to the stage.

  “I would like to thank my beautiful wife and mother of my little baby boy.” Holding his award aloft, he said, “Francine, this is for you.” Blowing a kiss toward her, he disappeared amidst much applause.

  Naomi gasped for air. Daniel was staring at her as her lips refused to stop their quivering.

  “Naomi, what is it?”

  It looked like fire blazing from her eyes. She would not let him hold her, but pulled away and leapt off the couch. Locked inside the bathroom, she tried to ignore Daniel’s insistent knocking and his pleas. He deserved an explanation—she could give none—she was trapped.

  Not receiving any cogent answer from his wife, Daniel was left to come up with his own explanation for her erratic behavior. “You want to go back to New York. You miss your acting,” he said as he confronted the closed door. “You see all those actors up there, and think it should have been you, right?”

  Naomi opened the door. “Daniel, no, no, I don’t miss acting. I don’t.”

  His body now against the bathroom’s doorframe, he asked, “Then why are you so unhappy, Naomi? Don’t you think I can tell? I hear you at night getting up like you had a bad dream or something. What do you expect me to think?”

  “I love you. I don’t want to go back to New York. I don’t want to ever leave you.” She must find something to tell him. However lame it may be.

  Naomi reached out for Daniel’s hand, at which point their eyes met. “Daniel, I guess watching that stupid Emmy show, it just reminded me how empty my world used to be. It’s not anymore . . . and . . . well, the bad dreams and all, well, sometimes I guess I think about all the years I wasted and I want to like beat myself up for them. I know that probably doesn’t make sense to you, but . . .”

  He pulled her toward him, kissing her on the top of her head. “Jay and I were talking the other day—we try to understand you women, but you have emotions that we can’t even come up with a name for.”

  Together they laughed and embraced, the firestorm had been averted.

  That night, however, she was unable to sleep. So, Gary and Francine had a little boy—how could she not turn that around in her head? How could it not crush her heart?

  Since she now knew Daniel heard when she got out of bed, she chose to try to imitate a rhythmic breathing—let him think she was asleep—while actually praying for peaceful sleep to come.

  What was she to do? If she pursued meeting with Melinda and reading this Christian literature, she could ruin her marriage, but if she did nothing she would most certainly ruin her marriage.

  The next morning, Naomi poured a second cup of coffee while stifling a yawn. Seemed important to continue the charade—let him think she slept soundly the night before.

  Daniel scraped the remnants of omelet from his plate into the garbage disposal and smiled toward his wife. “Are you excited about today?” When Naomi stared blankly at him, he reminded her, “The bathroom guy is coming. Should be here any minute as a matter of fact.”

  “Oh that’s right.”

  At that moment Camino Real’s guard called to announce, “Someone from Henry Tile Company’s here.”

  Daniel apologized, “Should have called you ahead of time. Sorry, Laverne.”

  Naomi, still in her pajamas, ran to the bedroom. “Daniel, I’m so sorry, I should have moved all the stuff out of the bathroom, but I—”

  “Don‘t worry, honey. Go change. I’ll do it.”

  Once Henry had arrived and was all set to begin his work, Daniel kissed his wife goodbye. “Call me if there’s any problem, okay?” Two steps out the door, he turned back. “He comes with good references. You should be okay, but if you don’t want to be alone, maybe you could call Sandy.”

  For a good part of the morning, Naomi kept herself busy, cleaning, baking, and talking on the phone with Sandy. However, she could not dismiss from her mind the book still hiding in her car.

  She popped her head into the bathroom. “Would it be okay if I went out for an hour?”

  Stooped over and scraping off the old tile, he assured her, “Of course, Mrs. Cantor.”

  Naomi drove to Delray Beach and found the same identical spot where she sat before. Today she would move beyond that opening page which had the New Testament scripture. She would turn the page as rapidly as possible, hoping its incendiary words would not poison her.

  On the next page Naomi found a list of questions she was to ask herself, determining how affected she might be from her abortion. Question number five: “Have you ever had nightmares? Shaken by how profoundly her heart answered “yes,” she skipped to the sixth question: “If you do not have children, do you fear you will never be able to have them?” Of course I do. And how are you going to help me with this? You’re just a dumb book, what can you do?

  She chose to skip the rest of these diagnostic questions and instead skimmed the introduction. Some words were as if written with neon ink. She read “abortion ended the unborn baby’s life . . . the woman tries to deny that the abortion killed her child.”

  Like a splash of cold water thrown in her face, she acknowledged what she had tried so desperately to deny. She lifted her eyes up toward the blinding sun and cried out for mercy. When her eyes looked again at the book, she read “The final step in healing is learning to accept God’s forgiveness.”

  “Hi
, Amy, glad you came back.”

  “Me, too.”

  After a few minutes of pleasantries, Melinda said, “Amy, I’m going to start a sentence, and I want you to complete it for me. Ready?”

  Naomi aka Amy nodded.

  “One area of my life that has been affected by abortion is . . .”

  Melinda allowed time for Naomi to ponder this question. Tracing the footprints that led to where she was today, brought Naomi a newfound awareness. If she had not had the abortion, there would be no Daniel today. It all began with the need for forgiveness—it had caused her feet to be velcroed to the sidewalk in front of the synagogue. That’s when out walked the love of her life.

  Naomi tried voicing this revelation to Melinda. “Because of my abortion I decided to go back to syn . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Synagogue. I’m Jewish.”

  “Well, Amy, I grew up Catholic. It’s interesting how God works. After I had my abortion and was looking for relief from my nightmares and the horrible guilt I was feeling, I went back to the Catholic Church. But I couldn’t bring myself to confess my sins to a man . . . you know, to the priest. Eventually I found a place like this center here.”

  The remainder of their hour together served to build a bond of friendship and trust. Naomi had no problem committing to meeting again the following Friday—she actually looked forward to it.

  Melinda said, “The lesson you will be working on for next week will be on the character of God. Since God is the one you’ll be trusting to help you, it’s important to learn more about His character—especially that He is trustworthy. Makes sense, doesn’t it?”

  Naomi calmly nodded while inside feeling a rush of excitement.

  “Amy, do you have a New Testament?” Naomi gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head. “Wait here. I’ll get you one.”

  Waiting for Melinda to return, Naomi’s head was swimming. Now she would have another book to hide. Thinking about Daniel’s reaction if he knew caused her to shudder.

  Melinda reappeared with a hardbound book and handed it to Naomi, whose hands were shaking. “I understand you are Jewish. But, please, it won’t bite you. That’s the way you’re feeling, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  Melinda walked Naomi to the front door. “Two more things: number one, you can call me any time you need to, and number two, there’s a table of contents in the Bible I gave you. It’ll help you. Your workbook is going to have you look up a lot of different passages in the Bible. Okay?”

  “Your Bible or my Jewish one?”

  Smiling, Melinda answered, “They’re the same, Amy.”

  Naomi laid the Bible on the front seat next to her, along with the workbook, but as soon as she found a parking lot a block or two away, she pulled in and hurriedly snatched up the alarming material and in the car trunk under the beach towel it went.

  For some inexplicable reason she felt compelled to drive to the synagogue and say hello to her husband. When she walked into Daniel’s office, he furrowed his brow. “Where have you been?”

  “Oh, I—”

  “Henry called me. He needed to ask you something about the arrangement of the tiles, but you had gone.” Shaking his head in disbelief, he asked, “Why would you leave the house with a stranger inside? I had assumed you were home all week when he was there. Was I wrong?”

  “I had a few errands. You had said he had good references.”

  “Okay. I’m just surprised. I mean you’re the one usually more cautious than me. It’s okay, My-omi. I didn’t mean to get you so defensive.”

  Poor Daniel. I’m always getting him to apologize when I should be apologizing like mad to him.

  It was noon on Monday when Henry came out to the living room to speak to Naomi. She had been staring out the window debating with herself. Should she leave the man alone in the house again or should she go into her car trunk for her hidden books and risk reading them at home?

  “Mrs. Cantor, you want to look at your bathroom?”

  It was beyond beautiful. More spectacular than all the tilework she had seen in all the open houses she had dragged Daniel to visit with her. Rich royal blues mixed with bright yellow and burnt oranges, set in a design worthy of display in a gallery.

  She called her husband to ask if he wanted to give his final approval, but he told her “I trust you. You’re probably the severest critic of them all. You like it, then I like it.”

  Indeed she was excited by Henry’s completed work, but all the more excited that he was pulling out of their driveway now, and she would have the rest of the day to visit her secret library.

  Curled up on the den sofa, she opened her workbook. The first thing it asked was for her to read a chapter in Genesis, and then a portion from Exodus. So strange. These Gentiles read our Bible more than we do.

  She was then directed to read from their Bible—the New Testament. With her hands shaking, she looked in the Table of Contents. She found Matthew and read the genealogy of Jesus Christ: “The Son of David, the Son of Abraham.” From there, she was directed to something called First John. She then read that Jesus Christ was the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

  Naomi became indignant and began pacing from the den to the living room and back. How dare them, trying to say their God is supposed to be my atoning sacrifice. I just don’t think so.

  No wavering this time. These books belonged in a garbage can. With resolve she snatched up these poisonous books. She would take them to an anonymous garbage can somewhere—why not back to the one over at Delray Beach—the one with all the flies.

  She drove back to the beach, the books tossed into the backseat—it wasn’t safe to have them near her. Yet a feeling of dejection swept over her. Ever since seeing the ad on television, there had been a small kernel of hope.

  It wasn’t fair. Why can’t we have a God like theirs? I can see that Jesus started out as one of us, but He’s their God now, not ours. So what am I supposed to do? Convert if I want to have my sins forgiven?

  The car seemed to drive itself. Next thing she knew, she was back on Delray Beach with the car parked and the motor still running. Naomi wept, choking on her tears. She turned her body around and stretched her arms into the back seat, and picked up the books intended to be thrown into the trash heap.

  With the books sitting on her lap, she thought of her new friend Melinda. These books were special to her. Sacred. Naomi had left a pen nestled in the pages where she had last read and opened back to that place. Hot tears splashed onto the pages.

  And there was that word again: atoning. It stood out as if illuminated by a hundred brilliant lights. She recalled the first time she read about animal sacrifice being commanded in their Bible. Moses had said it was for atonement of their sins. When seated around the table at the Temple in Brooklyn, she had asked about this, but no one had an answer. But here was the word atoning in the Bible for the Christians.

  They get atonement, but we have to fast once a year, and even then no one can tell me if my sin is forgiven.

  With a degree of defiance, Naomi turned off the motor. Continuing to sit in the car, she went forward with the next question in the homework. To answer this she would need to read the actual words spoken by Jesus Christ. Letting out a deep sigh, she turned to the Gospel of John. The words surprised her by their tenderness. The Gentiles’ God was reassuring his disciples that he would always be with them. He sounded so kind.

  For the rest of that week, until her Friday appointment with Melinda, each and every day Naomi took advantage of any time she could to sneak away and finish her homework. By Thursday, the first week’s assignment was completed.

  Having fallen in love with what was written toward the end of John, she tried reading John from its beginning. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.” It sounded poetic, but what did it mean?

  She then read, “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.” Her eyes widened and her mouth gaped open. This she understood p
erfectly.

  Friday came and Naomi, fifteen minutes before her appointment, was standing at the receptionist’s desk.

  Maggie told her, “Melinda can see you right away.”

  The counseling session began with Melinda’s opening question. “This one has two parts, Amy. Part one, finish this sentence for me: When I was a child, I pictured God to be . . .”

  Surprising herself by how rapidly she answered, Naomi told her, “A judge. I remember one day in JYO, Jewish Youth Organization, they must have been talking about God or something, and I saw him. He had on a big black judge’s robe, he was up in the clouds, and he had this giant-sized gavel. And I was sure He was just looking to wallop me on the head.”

  Maybe it was Naomi’s imagination, but it seemed Melinda was about to cry. Her eyes had definitely moistened. “Part two of the question is to complete this sentence: Now that I have finished the chapter on the character of God I have learned God is . . .”

  Naomi leaned forward, putting her hands on Melinda’s.” I want your God. Can I have your God? All my life I was warned a Gentile would try to convert me, but the truth is, I’m ready. Your God is so . . . I need Him. Go ahead, convert me.”

  A joyful laugh burst out of Melinda. “Amy, please, forgive me. I’m not laughing at you. It’s just not like that. The God you’ve fallen in love with is your God. The God of Israel. Jesus is your Messiah. If you’ve come to believe in Him, you wouldn’t be converting—you’d still be Jewish.”

  After dispelling other misconceptions and myths Naomi had believed all her life, Melinda explained, “Amy, He died for your sins, not just your abortion, but all your sins. And because He was resurrected, He lives today, and He wants to live inside of you through His Holy Spirit. You can receive Him as your Messiah today and be born again.”

  “And I’d still be Jewish?”

  “Of course. I could lead you in a prayer.”

  This time Naomi was the first to stretch out her hands. Repeating her counselor’s words, Naomi confessed to God that she was a sinner, that she believed Jesus had died for her sins, and was then raised from the dead. With heartfelt sincerity she asked Jesus to be Lord of her life and to give her the gift of His Spirit.