by Naomi Ragen
“It was only the four of us. Someone held up a flashlight. I saw Shem Tov walk toward me.” She stared at the wall, unseeing, her face a blank.
“‘The trees are our wedding canopy. These men are our witnesses,’ he said. Then he took a wedding ring out of his pocket. I was amazed. I couldn’t think anymore. I remember looking towards the headlights of the cars on the road to Tel Aviv. I imagined myself inside one of them, speeding far away. But then I looked up at the dark branches, heard them rustling in the cold wind, whispering, as if they were alive and wanted to tell me something. But I couldn’t hear, couldn’t understand.… Then I heard him say, ‘You are consecrated to me according to the laws of Moses and Israel.’ He tried to slip the ring on my finger, but it was too small. I felt him struggling, pushing it down hard, bruising my knuckle. I wanted to scream, to tell him to stop, that he was hurting me. But I didn’t say anything.” She shook her head helplessly. “I don’t know why. And then, we got back into the car. He drove to the Ramada Renaissance Hotel at the entrance to Jerusalem, then handed the car keys over to Goldschmidt. We both got out and the car drove way.
“He took me inside. No one looked at us twice. Why should they? A Hassid and his wife. He signed the register, took the keys.”
She trembled, hugging her knees to her chest.
“Do you want something to drink?” Bina offered her.
But she shook her head. “I can’t stop. If I stop, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able…” She trembled. “I remember that I felt a sudden numbness in all my limbs. All I kept thinking was: Is this possible? To marry the Messiah? But he already has a wife! But I didn’t ask, because I didn’t need an answer. Jacob married Leah before he took Rachel. Abraham was married to Sarah when he took Hagar. King David was married to Michal when he took Abigail and Batsheva.
“We rode up an elevator. We didn’t speak. He put the key in the door and opened it. Inside, it smelled of air fresheners and clean sheets. He did not turn on the lights.” She rested her chin on her fists, looking into the far distance. “‘Take off your clothes,’ he told me. I couldn’t believe my ears. He said it again, this time more crudely. I felt shocked. But then I forced myself to believe that it was the same as if he’d said, ‘Keep the Sabbath holy,’ or ‘Love thy brother as thyself.’ It was the same; words spoken by a saint are always holy.
“I did as he asked. I stood there, naked, humiliated, waiting.” She put her hands on her head. “He yanked off my wig. ‘This, too,’ he said. He ran his fingers roughly through my hair.
“‘Get into bed,’ he told me. ‘And wait.’
“I did. The sheets were cool and starched. I thought: Why am I here? I couldn’t remember an answer. That’s when I panicked. I thought about jumping up and running away, but my body, it was so heavy, as if my hands and legs were tied to some thousand-pound anchor that had been thrown overboard into a black sea.” She looked up. “I just couldn’t think of a way out anymore. So I lay there, waiting.” She exhaled slowly. “I felt the bed suddenly tremble as he climbed in. His body was so strange, so different from my husband’s. And the way he touched me … Shlomie was always so gentle. But he was like a machine, almost inhuman. Everything he did was hard, hurtful, shameful. I felt him turning me this way and that, like a piece of wood, as if I wasn’t human.”
She stopped talking. The two women sat in silence.
“He did things, unthinkable, shameful things, things I never knew could be done to a woman. ‘Please,’ I finally begged him. ‘Please, stop— it’s wrong!’ He looked up for a second. ‘A man can do anything he wants to his wife,’ he said. ‘Shut up.’
“I was stunned. I had never heard him speak that way, not to me or to anyone. After that, he seemed possessed. I gagged. I ached. It felt, I felt … raped. My soul felt murdered.”
She wept, choking on a grief that poured out of her like a river overflowing its banks.
“Maybe … it’s enough?” Bina said gently, handing her a tissue. Daniella used it, shaking her head vociferously. “No. I want to … I have to…” She composed herself. “Just when I thought, ‘I have to scream or die,’ the bed suddenly lightened. I was afraid to call his name. Afraid he would come back. He didn’t. He was gone.
“And I thought: Please, God, let it all have been a dream. Let none of it have happened. But in the morning when I lifted the sheets, I breathed in what had happened between them.” She pounded her knees with her fists. “I was … so ashamed. So humiliated. But instead of wanting to escape, I thought: I must continue to believe. If I stop now, how will I be able to live with myself? That was the moment I knew I was lost. I couldn’t escape, couldn’t go back.”
“So you gave him final authority in all things, even over your own body, and the bodies and minds of your innocent children. You moved in with him, into that tiny, miserable house, because he wanted you to, he wanted to have you whenever he felt like it.”
Daniella squeezed her knees, distraught. “It’s true, it’s true,” she suddenly sobbed.
Bina got off her chair, sliding her back down the wall; she sat down next to Daniella Goodman on the floor. “You’re a victim, Daniella. Don’t you see that? A victim of mind control. People like that are capable of doing things they would never, ever have dreamed of doing outside the cult. They commit the most awful crimes and they do it willingly, consciously, even enthusiastically. One way a cult leader tests his members’ devotion is by seeing how far they will allow their children to be abused.”
A high-pitched, almost animal sound burst out of Daniella Goodman, a scream of loss heard from lone survivors of genocides or natural disasters. Bina held her by both shoulders.
“Do you understand now? You were his prey. Once he injected his poison in you, your emotions were numbed, he made you passive. You felt you had lost control over everything. And once you felt like that, you really did lose control. You felt helpless, and so you became helpless. You surrendered to Shem Tov because he, and everyone else around you, made sure you couldn’t see any other options.”
Daniella’s body went limp. “Giving in made everything so much easier. It was so simple, so clear,” she whispered. “To resist meant to struggle. I had no strength left. I’m such an idiot! How could I have let it happen to me?”
“People who get involved in cults never know that it’s a cult. Did you know that most prime candidates for cults are smart, inquisitive? They’re leaders, idealists, people who want others’ love and approval. But they are also people who are full of self-doubt, people who fear for the future. People who get involved in a cult never know it’s a cult. What happened to you can happen to anyone at a certain vulnerable moment in their lives.”
“But what I let them do…”
“In the Love Family cult, children were considered possessed by the devil if they cried or spoke out without being spoken to or expressed any need. You see now, Daniella? Even that wasn’t Shem Tov’s idea. It’s classic cult manipulation. Nothing he told you had anything to do with kabbalah or Judaism. Nothing he did to you was even original. It’s been done a million times to people of every religion, race, and belief system.”
“But why? Why did he want to hurt me or my children? Why did he want to?” She wept.
Bina leaned back, closing her eyes. She thought of the many criminals she had met and put behind bars, and the twisted nature of the terrible ways in which they had damaged others. “I wish I had the answer to that. Some people are just born that way. They’re monsters filled with rage. Some express their hostility and aggression by controlling other people, the way Shem Tov controlled you, Shlomie, his wife, his Hassidim, the children. They enjoy it. It makes them feel powerful. But I think he had another motive for wanting to control you, a sexual motive. In order to do that, he had to smash your personality, your sense of identity. You were a mother. He needed to destroy that to make you his own.”
“My God!” Daniella rose up slowly from the floor.
Bina watched her. She no longer see
med like the powerful White Witch who had been such a formidable enemy, but just a weak, pathetic, destroyed victim who, like so many others, had had the misfortune of running into a very sick, damaged human predator. The only true thing Shem Tov had told her about himself was this: he could communicate with demons. They were living right inside his head.
“What am I going to do?” Daniella moaned.
Bina thought for a moment. “I want to tell you a story. A true story. There was a young couple with a baby daughter. Somehow, they met a man they thought was a healer. They honored and revered him as their spiritual father and leader. Over three years, they wound up giving him most of their money. They also allowed him to discipline their daughter, watching as he scalded her with hot water and beat her; and her husband watched him rape the child’s mother.”
“Stop, STOP, I beg you.…”
Bina ignored her. “Both parents submitted to violence and beatings. Why? Because they believed, like you, Daniella, that the purpose of these punishments was to help them grow emotionally and spiritually. They were normal people, Daniella, just like you! Both of them had college and post-graduate educations. Eventually, they escaped and went to a cult victims’ clinic. When the mother was asked why she’d allowed these things to happen, she explained that she’d just moved away from her family and friends, and her husband had fallen ill and required surgery. They couldn’t afford to entertain coworkers or keep in contact with old friends. They weren’t on good terms with her husband’s parents, who were intrusive and judgmental. She lost confidence in herself. She was depressed, anxious, fearful of what the future held.… Sound familiar?”
“How did they … break free?” Daniella asked.
“Their daughter got so ill she almost died, which forced them to take her to the emergency room of a hospital, which filed abuse and neglect charges against them. And guess what? The child had a serious untreated burn.”
There was a stunned silence. “What happened to them?” Daniella asked, tears rolling down her cheeks. “To their baby?”
“The parents got into therapy, which helped the mother with her guilt, which was preventing her from making any progress. You need to make some progress, Daniella. You need to deal with your guilt.”
Daniella sat, transfixed, as if she’d been given an incredible revelation. For the first time in years, a sliver of insight pierced her frozen heart. She wasn’t alone. Her sins were not even unique. And she would never, could never, forgive herself.
“Please, please let me see my Menchie. Please! And afterwards, I promise, I will tell you everything.”
Bina picked up the phone, speaking briefly to Morris. “Come, I’ll take you to him. It’s okay—you don’t have to cuff her,” she told the two policemen who accompanied them.
“Sorry, Detective, it’s standard procedure.”
She put her hand forcefully over the handcuffs: “Don’t!” she commanded.
He blinked, then put the handcuffs back into his pocket.
Bina walked Daniella to the police car. On the ride to Hadassah Hospital, Daniella turned to her. “Please, Detective Tzedek. Can you call my brother, Joel, and my sister-in-law, Esther? Can you tell them for me that I am grateful for all they did and are doing to help me and my children?”
Bina nodded. “Of course. You can’t imagine how helpful they’ve been. But why don’t you call them yourself?”
She shook her head. “I’m too ashamed.”
Bina patted her hand. There was nothing she could say.
They walked through the hospital corridors together until they reached the room where Menchie lay, a beautiful little boy lost in permanent slumber. He looked small in the large, standard hospital crib, dwarfed by beeping machines from which he had long since been detached, medical science having no further tools to help him.
“Go, be with your baby,” she told Daniella Goodman, leaving her alone with her child. “I’ll wait outside for you whenever you’re ready to go.”
Daniella nodded. There were tears in her eyes. “Thank you.”
Watching from the open door, she saw Daniella approach her baby, lifting him in her arms and carrying him with her to an armchair. She sat, cradling the almost lifeless form of what from all accounts had once been a smart, charming, active toddler, a child of intelligence and insight who had seen through the façade to the heart of the beast, perceiving instinctively what none of the adults who were supposed to protect him had been able to see. It was an insight that had probably cost him his life.
Bina watched silently as Daniella Goodman rocked her baby, singing softly. The song surprised her. It was a Sabbath hymn, a song of thanks to guardian angels that accompany the faithful on their way home from synagogue Friday nights.
Shalom Aleichem malachei ha sharat, malachei elyon.
Mi melch, malachei hamelachim, ha Kadosh Baruch Hu.
[Peace to you, angels of peace, angels on high. Who is the King of Kings? The Holy One, Blessed be He.]
The mother held her unmoving, silent child in her arms, her hot tears wetting his beautiful little face, his open, unseeing eyes, his soft lips and chubby cheeks. Up and back she rocked, as if she would never stop.
Whatever human justice would mete out to this woman as punishment for her deeds, Bina thought as she closed the door, it could never equal the lifelong hell she had now entered: the harsh, unvarnished realization in the cold light of day of what she had done to her children.
32
“Please raise your seat backs and buckle your seat belts,” the stewardess said politely but firmly. It was the third time, and the plane was about to take off.
Menachem Shem Tov, with his weak command of English, looked up at her, confused and annoyed.
“Vhat?” he said.
She rolled her eyes, pushing his seat upright and reaching around him to buckle him in.
He closed his eyes, waiting for the moment of liftoff, hardly daring to breathe.
When it came, he exhaled, a small smile of victory playing around his lips.
His plan had been simple. Find a country with a haredi Jewish community that he could sell some sob story to, and get their help and support in avoiding extradition back to Israel and the clutches of the stupid Israeli police.
His first stop, Canada, had almost worked. But now the story and his photo were all over the Internet, and even his newfound haredi supporters had started asking embarrassing questions. It was time to pack up and move on. Namibia was a place with no Jews, but its remoteness was a plus. But he soon got tired of the heat, the unfamiliar food, the lack of decent company.…
Now he was on his way to Peru. He had no doubt he would succeed eventually. But the fact that he found himself in such straits annoyed him to no end, putting a chink into his inflated sense of self-importance and invulnerability.
The only problem was time. But on that score, he felt confident. Daniella Goodman wasn’t about to open her mouth. Neither was his wife. As for Batlan, Hod, and Goldschmidt, if they weren’t in jail already, they soon would be. They’d have no reason to talk, and even if they did, what good would it do them? He’d made sure that their hands had as much, if not more, blood on them than his own.
He leaned back, sighing. To be a fugitive … it was a failure. Where had it all gone wrong? he wondered, his sense of anger and self-pity deepening. It was that woman. Daniella.
He felt a surge of lust at the memory. Her slim, pliant body in bed, so different from that of his fat wife’s. But Ruth had not always been like that. She, too, as a bride … He licked his lips. His desire for Daniella had made him lose control, he thought. Wanting her. Wanting to get her into his house, into his bed anytime he wanted her without all that traveling up and back from Beit Shemesh to Jerusalem. But her children were a nightmare, brought up without the discipline his own children were used to. He had lost control, especially with the two youngest. Menchie, that defiant little wretch, who seemed to see right through him. Whatever he did, the child wasn’t afraid. A
nd then, in the end, it had been too late. If he talked … So he had to make sure the child would never be able to talk again. Batlan, that moron, as usual had screwed up, almost killing the kid and then panicking and calling an ambulance. He felt incensed all over again.
As for Eli, there had been no rational reason for how he had treated the child, except for one: he looked exactly like Shlomie.
He took out a new notebook, regretting he’d left the old ones behind. He’d fled in a panic, telling Ruth to pack them when she came to join him with their children. He wasn’t sure when that would be.
He settled back in his seat. He’d already called the head of the Neshamah Amuka cult, Reb Leibel, his mentor, who had fled to Peru with his entire congregation when the Israeli Police had started investigating him. Much of what Shem Tov had done, he had learned from Leibel, who was a master.
Leibel, born to secular parents on a kibbutz in southern Israel, had become a born-again Jew sometime after his dishonorable discharge from the army, when he was caught stealing and selling weapons. In a newly grown beard, wearing the black suit and white shirt of the pious, he had roamed B’nai Brak looking for a yeshiva to take him in. He had attached himself to several, and on the way had watched with envy the way the rebbe was treated in these congregations, the way money was collected to keep him in a luxurious home with lovely furnishings. How people kowtowed to him, serving him, and hanging on to his every word. In that moment, he saw his future.
Beginning with only a few of his fellow students and their wives, Leibel created a small, proselytizing cult that told followers that his way was the purest way. He made up strange rules about what foods could and could not be eaten that went far beyond the kosher laws, outlawing rice and lettuce and many other things with the contention that they might contain tiny insects, which were forbidden to eat. He imposed a dress code for women that rivaled the Muslims in its severity, and went beyond, imposing the strictures on little girls older than twelve months, and forbidding women to ever remove their stockings, even in private. And the more stringent his laws became, the more he was astonished to see how people flocked to him, begging to be part of his congregation. He started experimenting with his power, seeing how far he could push people to go against their instincts. He married off eleven-year-old girls to thirty-year-old men in secret ceremonies. He took in runaways and had sex with them, before handing them over to other cult members. Discipline was harsh and physical, often requiring medical attention, which was not forthcoming. And the more he did, to his delight, the more his fame spread, and the more a certain type of religious seeker begged to be let in.
