The Devil in Jerusalem

by Naomi Ragen

  He would whine and cry and tell everyone what a great saint he was all the way to prison. He’d say that he was only trying to help this poor family who had asked for his help. That Daniella was the mother and she had watched it all, permitted it all. That it was her fault.

  Would the court listen? Who knew? But Bina was going to make sure that those who judged Shem Tov heard everything she’d heard; that the words of the children echoed off the courtroom walls wherever these men were tried. Their judges would be fathers, mothers, grandparents. She would make sure not a single detail was left out.

  As for herself, she knew she would continue chasing after evil, in spite of the full knowledge that she might never catch up. As a civilized human being in a democracy, she had no choice but to trust in the mechanisms put in place by human beings to administer retribution. It was a weak and flawed system, she knew, but the best one they had to deal with people like Shem Tov and his cronies. She promised herself to be there, every step of the way, watching and waiting, pursuing justice.

  34

  From the testimony of Daniella Goodman:

  It is very, very hard for me to talk about my experiences with Menachem Shem Tov and his group because of the terrible pain and regret remembering brings to me. I wish there was a way I could throw it all into the depths of the ocean so that I would never have to think of these things again. Also, I find when I try to put into words what he, Shem Tov, convinced me to believe, it makes no sense. It makes me sound insane. Reading it over I get frightened and confused all over again.

  Shem Tov told us not to learn the Torah because it was a very old book not meant for the modern generation, and we couldn’t really understand its language anyway. He said that if we read in the Torah, “The donkey spoke,” it didn’t actually mean that but some abstract, Divine thing beyond our understanding, and that abstract things are the real things. You are not supposed to understand it, you are supposed to “feel” those things, he said, like you feel your hand. You needed to put faith above reason and have a lot of desire, and then wisdom would be “revealed” to you.

  The prayer book was also nullified. Its words were meant for lesser beings. We, on a higher level, had our own prayers that needed no words; they were simply a strong desire in our hearts.

  Shem Tov taught me that the most important thing was to have faith. “Faith above reason,” Shem Tov said. Faith in what? In Shem Tov. And I did. I thought he was like Moses. That if he had to, he could split the sea. He was not a human being like others, like myself. He said he knew the secret of how to be like God. After I divorced Shlomie, Shem Tov promised me that if I followed him without question, he would teach this secret to me. But before that could happen, he said, I needed to reject God and reality, to put up a masak, a screen, between us. Only then, he explained, could I begin to receive the light of chochma, wisdom, which was supposed to open my eyes and turn me into a god.

  That’s when I stopped feeling like I wanted to be close to God. I wanted to be God. I wanted to have power, too. I felt shame, horror, and frustration that I wasn’t yet on that level, God’s level, Shem Tov’s level.

  There was a time, right at the beginning, that all these teachings broke my heart. I remember crying uncontrollably without even knowing why. Shem Tov called it “the Pathway of Sorrow.” He took hours and hours to explain to me why this was a good thing, how it was bringing me closer to God. Hod, Batlan, and Goldschmidt and my husband also told me they had gone through this, that every person who is climbing the ladder to holiness must go through this.

  Something happened to me. Deep in my soul, I began to feel the pulsing of something dark, something I had never encountered before. Images passed through my head of blood, death, killings. All the images were monstrously ugly. I would imagine ways in which people could be tortured. I enjoyed this. I enjoyed the hate. Everywhere I went, I imagined the people I saw being crushed and annihilated by evil things, as if lightning from my body could electrocute them. I couldn’t understand what was happening to me. Everyone around me was an annoyance, a hindrance, slowing me down in my progress to pass to the upper levels of spirituality and godliness, in becoming the Creator. I became antisocial, unhappy, cold, distant. I despised everyone and everything. I was frustrated with my children for not being completely integrated in our group, for making trouble, for not accepting Shem Tov’s ways. I was embarrassed to have such children. I felt like a failure as a mother.

  I was turning into a psychopath. I think I even knew this was happening, but I was powerless to stop it.

  All I wanted was the light! I wanted it more than sex, more than my children. I wanted what they call zivug copulation with the “light,” so that the “seed” of the light would grow inside me. I had some euphoric moments, but they were surrounded by a despair that led to complete emptiness. Shem Tov said this was a good thing, that this is the price we pay our Creator for our progress.

  I was all that mattered. I was told this was a positive thing. The “vessel,” that is, my ego, was expanding in order to contain the endless “light” now flooding it. I never questioned how holy light could make you self-centered and evil or how such a light could come from a good Creator who wished us all to love each other and be good. These questions were inside me but never allowed to surface. I spent a great deal of effort to batter them down, to obliterate them.

  Shem Tov taught that we lived in a false world. That everything we had ever known was like a movie, a setup, unconnected to the true reality. Like that movie The Truman Show, everyone was the puppet of the “Creator”—they were just pretending to live.

  From the moment I began to believe that, nothing ever made sense again. I became detached from myself, my core beliefs, my intelligence, my humanity. I was totally without any ground under my feet. I felt I couldn’t believe my own eyes, my own brain. I was told that this was a wonderful thing. It even had a name: “crossing the barrier.” Shem Tov’s circle considered it a fantastic breakthrough, proof of progress. Now I understand that it was probably a psychotic breakdown. I lost track of what was real.

  I found myself fainting all the time. Shem Tov gave me “vitamins.” I realize now they were probably Xanax or perhaps the anti-psych medication some of his other followers were on. All I know is that hell was constantly on my mind, along with the promise of becoming like God.

  At a certain point, I gave up the struggle to find myself again. I thought how much easier it would be to just stop struggling all the time against these new ideas. When I finally gave in, I did feel a sense of tranquillity. A calm came over me. I thought this was proof I had made the right decision. I didn’t know that the peace I was feeling was a kind of death. I had ceased to exist.

  I began to have night terrors, and depression, and anxiety, and suicidal urges, and I wanted to run away, and scream. I feared everything. I took more and more “vitamins,” sometimes a half dozen a day. If I didn’t, I could not get out of bed in the morning or go out of the house. My heart began beating very, very fast, and I started to lose a tremendous amount of weight. It just fell off me. Finally, when I looked skeletal, Shem Tov allowed me to go to a doctor, who took blood tests. I had Graves’ disease, which is autoimmune, the body attacking itself. And that makes sense because among those I hated, I hated myself most of all.

  I lost track of what was going on with my children. I would hear the blows, hear them screaming, crying, in anguish, but I told myself if I interfered, I would only make it worse, it would just take longer and they’d suffer that much more. Each day I hoped the demons inside them would be destroyed and the punishments could finally stop.

  Shem Tov said I was doing the best possible thing for my children. According to him, when God created the universe, He was lonely, so He created man to put in His world. Then He used magic to seduce man, tempting him to climb the tower to God’s throne, which was on top of a huge mountain. When man gets close, the palace guards show him no mercy as they battle to stop him and prevent him from reaching
the throne. But finally when man somehow manages anyway, all his sufferings are explained to him: it was to make him as strong and as powerful as his Creator. That was why I and my children had to suffer.

  Shem Tov hinted that he had finished his climb. He was already sitting there beside the throne, speaking to the Creator as one talks to a close friend in a coffeehouse. That was where the notebooks came in. Every day, Shem Tov would sit beside the throne and write questions in his notebook, and the Creator would answer him directly, and he would write it down. He wrote down everything, then read us the answers. But most of it, he kept secret.

  Even after Shem Tov left, I was wrapped up only in myself. The little bit of humanity that was still left in me was buried so deeply I could hardly find it. That was the only way I could survive day by day. I hadn’t cried for so long. Shem Tov locked up our hearts so that we couldn’t be human. Human beings don’t behave the way I did. I wasn’t a mother, I wasn’t a person; I was nothing, no one, like a wall. I didn’t care about anything. Now, I can’t say the names Eli or Menchie without crying. But then, nothing. I felt nothing about anyone. All I thought about was myself and how I could get out of the mess I had gotten myself into. I did everything I could to prevent the authorities from finding Eli. But when I saw how determined they were, I tried to pretend everything was normal. When they wanted to take Eli for medical attention, I resisted, insulted them, and caused my children to follow suit. I felt I was in the hands of the enemy and my only friends were Batlan, Goldschmidt, and Hod. The police, social workers, doctors, investigators were all enemies.

  The first time I met with my children after I was put in jail, I suddenly noticed how terrible they looked. And suddenly, the wheels in my brain started moving again. Why do my children look like that? Why are they crying? What am I doing here? How did I let this happen? The tiny ember of humanity that Shem Tov hadn’t succeeded in completely snuffing out in me started to burn again. I suddenly remembered the first time Shem Tov hurt one of my children.

  It was soon after our forest “marriage,” after I’d moved in with him. We had tried living separately, he with Ruth in Beit Shemesh and me in the Old City with my children. Shem Tov had forbidden Shlomie to come anywhere near me or the children, and so Shlomie found a place to live three hours away, up north, near Safed. He wanted to visit, but I wouldn’t allow it.

  The children missed their father. Ever since the divorce, they were on a rampage. One day Menchie opened up all the bags of flour and shook them all over the house. Yossi broke all of Shoshana’s dolls. Duvie stayed out to all hours. And even Gabriel started to throw tantrums at the slightest excuse. They were destroying the house, hurting each other, defiant, miserable. I couldn’t bear it. It became impossible for me to manage alone.

  “You will all move in with me,” Shem Tov told me decisively, not a question but a command. “I and the boys will help you to take care of your children.”

  I remembered how Shem Tov and his Hassidim had come to my rescue when Shlomie had disappeared in the Ukraine for a month and the children were sick and I was so alone. I remembered the order, the quiet, the discipline. Yes, I thought. That is exactly what my children needed now after all their upheavals. It was, I thought, the perfect solution.

  A day before we moved, I got a phone call from my brother, Joel.

  “Shlomie’s parents called Mom. We heard you are divorced. Is that true?”

  “Yes,” I answered him.

  “But why, Daniella? What happened?”

  His voice sounded so far away. I knew what I was doing couldn’t be explained in any way that would make sense to Joel, that he would criticize, and I would have no answers. I was in a different world now, light-years away from my brother.

  “I can’t explain it to you,” I told my brother.

  “Try!” he said. He sounded angry, impatient, upset.

  All I wanted to do then was to silence him. “I can’t make you understand!” I shouted at him. “You are not on a high enough level!” These were the words I had so often heard Shem Tov use to answer anyone who dared to question him.

  Joel didn’t say anything for a while. And then he said, “Are you all right, Daniella?” He said it so kindly, even after how I’d spoken to him and treated him the last time we were together, that for a moment I almost broke down and told him everything. But I could tell he was holding himself back, that he wanted to shout, that he was scared for me. I was afraid if I told him the truth, I’d also start being afraid. And I couldn’t let that happen. I was terrified to stop believing, because if I even allowed myself a second of doubt, what would that mean about all I’d already done? What had happened in the forest, in the hotel? “You will never be as all right as I am, Joel. You are lost, your world is false. It is doomed. You are going to hell. Don’t call me. Don’t contact my children—you will only taint them. Stay away from us,” I shouted at him.

  I heard his voice speaking urgently on the line and knew at once I had no choice but to silence it. Slowly, I pulled the phone away from my ear, putting it back in its cradle. Then I pulled the phone out of the wall altogether. That same day, I changed my phone number so no one could reach me and I wouldn’t have to explain myself to anyone.

  That first Shabbat after we moved to Beit Shemesh, we were sitting around the table eating on Friday night. By nine o’clock, Menchie, who had dozed off in his high chair by the table, was woken by the loud singing. He was very cranky and threw his plate down on the floor, then tipped over his cup, staining the white tablecloth.

  “I’ll put him to bed. He’s exhausted,” I said.

  “Sit down and be quiet!” Shem Tov shouted at me. I already knew better than to defy him. I did as he asked.

  “Your children need to learn discipline,” he said. It was a threat.

  “But he’s just a baby,” I remember begging.

  “Wasn’t Rivka already a saint at three years old when she watered the camels of Abraham’s servant Eliezer? It is never too early. We are not finished eating yet, or singing Sabbath songs, or learning Torah.” He looked around the table at all the children, his dark eyes menacing. Everyone froze but Menchie, who ignored him, wriggling out of his chair, dropping pieces of bread all over the floor.

  Shem Tov rose quickly, striding over to Menchie. With horror, I saw him pull back his hand and slap him so hard and with such violence that he flew across the room, landing on the hard, stone floors. I can still remember the sound Menchie made. It was high-pitched and almost inhuman, like a wounded, cornered animal.

  For a moment, I sat paralyzed, frozen in silence, unable to assimilate what I had just witnessed. It was incomprehensible, like watching someone walk upside down on the ceiling. It simply wasn’t possible; it didn’t connect with anything I thought I knew about Shem Tov, about the world I thought I was now part of, a good world, a kind, gentle, holy world. I felt as if I must be asleep, in the middle of a nightmare. It couldn’t be real.

  I remember Menchie sobbing: “Ima!” He held out his hands to me. That woke me up. I jumped out of my chair and ran to him.

  “Don’t—don’t touch him,” Shem Tov commanded me. But this time, his voice was soft, almost caressing, just the kind of gentleness I desperately needed at that moment.

  “But why, Menachem?” I pleaded, backing away, my heart torn, my mind stretched to the limits of sanity.

  “Daniella, my dearest, do you think I would hurt your child, your beautiful little Menchie?” he said gently, his dark eyes searching mine. “Can you, after all you know of me, of my love for you and your precious children, really think me capable of such a thing?” He was aggrieved, almost in mourning, his face filled with disappointment.

  “No, no, no, no…” I refused to let myself remember what he had done to me in the hotel room. I told myself I had misunderstood. It was not rape. It was an act of love between husband and wife. So now, what he was saying also seemed true to me! How could I think such an evil thing after all we had been through together? He wa
s the holiest person on the face of the earth, my savior, my friend, my beloved, my husband.

  I left Menchie lying there on the floor, alone, uncomforted, screaming in agony.

  “Do you hear that sound? Does that sound like your child, your baby?” Shem Tov asked me.

  And I thought: No, it doesn’t. I had never in my life heard Menchie make such a sound. I was confused.

  Shem Tov shook his head slowly. “It is not your baby who is screaming, who is in pain. It is the demon inside him who tortures him, who makes him do terrible things. Now it screams because it knows we are aware of its presence. That we are coming to annihilate it and remove it from your baby. Do you love Menchie?”

  I nodded. I was speechless. I loved Menchie more than my life.

  “Then you must let me heal him, take out the demon who is inside him. If you interfere, show the demon pity, then the demon gains new strength, new ability to torture your baby. It wins, and Menchie loses. But if you are not strong enough to stand aside in order to help your baby, I can’t stop you.” He shrugged.

  Now I understood. It was all illuminated. I must not interfere. I must go against all my motherly instincts. If I was weak, if I gave into my desire to protect and comfort him, it would only take longer, and my baby would suffer that much more. I had to be strong, to stand back and watch as Shem Tov did his holy magic, saving my baby, making him whole again.

  Shem Tov nodded to Batlan and Hod, who grabbed Menchie roughly by his little arms, slamming him back into his high chair.

  “Stop howling, or we will punish you again!” Shem Tov told the child. “Sit still.”

  Menchie slowly stopped weeping, his terrified eyes yearning toward mine, but I refused to meet them, convinced it was the demon trying to trick me. I looked away.