The Jerusalem inception

by Avraham Azrieli

  “ Pssst!” His father motioned him to get off the boulder.

  Lemmy jumped down and rejoined the group. He bumped into Benjamin, his best friend and study companion, who was rocking devoutly, his eyes shut in devotion. Benjamin stumbled back, and they pushed each other, laughing. A young scholar nicknamed Redhead Dan turned and glared at them. Benjamin resumed murmuring Psalms, and Lemmy pretended to do the same.

  Up on the boulder, Rabbi Gerster opened his arms and sang, “ Bring us back to you, God, and we shall come. ”

  The men of Neturay Karta-“City Sentinels” in Aramaic-sang with him as they had done every Friday afternoon for eighteen years, “ Return us to the old days of glory! ”

  The wind picked up again. It had risen from the Dead Sea, through the barren canyons of the Judean Desert, collecting dust, which lodged in their beards and spiral side locks. They swayed in prayer, fists pressed to their chests, clustered behind the boulder and their rabbi’s open arms. Behind them, the red ball of the sun descended toward the distant Mediterranean Sea.

  In the back of the group, Lemmy picked up a pebble and tossed it up in the air, catching it with a fast hand. He watched his father’s arms reach wide in a symbolic embrace of the Old City, the same arms that had used to carry him onto the boulder. He had grown since, almost eighteen, almost ready for marriage and children of his own. But still, even now, his father seemed like a giant to him.

  The pebble by his ear, he imagined hearing swords clinking as men in armor marched by. Were they Absalom’s rabble rousers, seizing Jerusalem from his aging father, King David? Or the crusaders, rushing to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher? In his mind he walked the narrow alleys of the Old City, smelled the bittersweet aroma of burning hashish and camel feces, heard the chimes of bells and the prayers of muezzins.

  “ If I forget thee, Jerusalem, ” Rabbi Gerster led his men in a mournful chant, “ my right hand shall wither. ” They repeated the chant, and the rabbi glanced over his shoulder at his son. Lemmy joined the chant, swaying back and forth, “ My right hand shall wither. ”

  Rabbi Gerster turned back to face the Old City, his voice louder than the wind. “M y tongue shall stick to my palate, if I don’t remember Jerusalem!” He raised his right hand, his fist clenched.

  A shot sounded in the distance, and the black hat flew from the rabbi’s head.

  Lemmy stared at his father up on the boulder, expecting him to collapse.

  A second shot. Dirt blew up near the rabbi’s feet.

  The men yelled and fell to the ground, cowering behind the boulder.

  But Rabbi Abraham Gerster kept his fist up in defiance of the anonymous Jordanian sniper and continued the chant, “ If I don’t remember thee- ”

  Another shot, the bullet shrieking above.

  Peeking over the rock, Lemmy tried to locate the source of the fire, but the echoes bounced from all directions.

  “ If I don’t put Jerusalem above my own happiness! ”

  With the chant concluded, Rabbi Gerster bowed in the direction of Temple Mount and stepped toward the edge of the rock. A final shot popped, and the bullet hit the ground where his shoe had rested a second before.

  This last one sounded like it came from the north, an area under Israeli control, but Lemmy knew that was impossible. He heard a distant siren from the UN observers’ station to the south.

  Bent over in fear, the men ran downhill, except for their rabbi, who paced calmly, indifferent to the shrieking bullets. Lemmy chased his father’s hat, catching it halfway down the hill, and brought it back. Rabbi Gerster examined the hat and poked a finger through the bullet hole. The bearded men congregated around their leader, watching in awe. Redhead Dan yelled, “A miracle! A miracle!”

  The sun’s last rays touched the roofs. Sabbath was about to begin, time to return to Meah Shearim, the enclosed neighborhood where the insular sect of Neturay Karta lived in strict observance of the Torah, insulated from the sinful ways of the surrounding Zionist society.

  “It was a close call.” Rabbi Gerster put an arm on his son’s shoulders. “Blessed be He, Master of the Universe.”

  “Amen,” Lemmy said.

  They walked down the steep path, worn from eighteen years of weekly visits. The men glanced at the rabbi, their anxiety mixed with elation at having witnessed a miracle. They were devoted to him, a holy man who had emerged from the ashes of the Holocaust alone, not yet twenty years old. Lemmy had heard the stories from others, how his father had come to Neturay Karta to seek refuge among the faithful. His payos had barely started to regrow, the scars on his chest still fresh. But he was the scion of the famous Gerster rabbinical line, and the sect’s elders took him in. They matched him with a wife, Temimah, another survivor of the war. In 1948, when the Jordanians had exiled the Jews from the Old City, Abraham Gerster took a vow not to travel away from Jerusalem until Temple Mount was restored to Jewish sovereignty. And when a son was born to him, he named him Jerusalem, though everyone called the boy Lemmy, as if his given name was too holy to be used lightly. With the passing years, Abraham Gerster had gained a vast knowledge of Talmud and a reputation for calm wisdom, becoming the leader of Neturay Karta.

  As they reached Shivtay Israel Street, Lemmy saw a woman standing by the roadside. She was petite and slender, her dark hair collected in a bun. A sleeveless dress exposed her shoulders, and her plain sandals revealed tanned ankles.

  Lemmy was shocked. Zionist women never ventured near Neturay Karta with their hair and limbs so immodestly exposed.

  The men murmured contemptuously and pulled down the brims of their hats to hide the sinful sight.

  The woman stepped forward and blocked Rabbi Gerster’s way. She stared up at him with piercing green eyes. And before anyone managed to interfere, she reached up and touched his beard.

  This unimaginable violation-a woman’s impure hand touching the rabbi! — unleashed Redhead Dan, who charged forward like a bull, ramming her. Her heel caught the curb, and she fell backward and banged her head on the sidewalk.

  The men closed in, cursing in Yiddish, fists clenched. Redhead Dan shouted, “ Shanda! Shanda!” He plucked off his shoe and lifted it over the woman’s head.

  Without thinking Lemmy hurled himself at Redhead Dan and knocked him to the ground.

  “Stop!” Rabbi Gerster raised his hand. “ Enough! ”

  The men stepped back.

  She sat up. A thin stream of blood dripped from her forehead, down her cheek, and onto her plain dress.

  The rabbi kneeled by her side. He said nothing, but his face was pale. The woman pushed a lock of hair away from her face. He offered her a white handkerchief. She took it, pressed it to her bruised forehead, and began to laugh.

  She laughed!

  Lemmy realized she must be mad. Why else would she laugh?

  She continued to laugh, yet tears flowed from her eyes.

  The men watched their rabbi to see how he would react to her madness.

  “Please visit us tomorrow.” He gestured at the gate. “Over there.”

  She nodded.

  He stood and walked away. His men hurried after him. Lemmy offered a hand to Redhead Dan, who refused it with an angry grunt and sprang to his feet unaided.

  Just before entering the neighborhood gate, Lemmy glanced back. The woman was still sitting on the ground. She waved at him with his father’s handkerchief, stained with her blood.

  E lie Weiss crouched on the rooftop of a deserted house near the border. The gray beggar’s cloak kept him warm, but the hood made his bald scalp itch. He unscrewed the sniper scope from the rifle and gazed through it as a monocular, watching Abraham and his bearded men disappear through the gate into Meah Shearim. Elie shifted his focus to Tanya. She pulled herself up and walked away. Unlike Abraham, the years had left no mark on her. She had remained delicate and childlike, a porcelain doll. But her appearance no longer matched her inner substance. The pregnant, teenage orphan had turned into a confident Mossad agent. It had been a stro
ke of luck when he had noticed her name, after all these years, on a secret list of decorated agents. He knew not to approach her directly, but had found a way to pass the information to her about the rabbi of Neturay Karta, whose name matched her dead lover. Yet throwing the two lovers back together was a gamble. It could set off a conflagration of passions that would derail his plans. But Elie had weighed the chances and bet on the idealistic innocence Abraham and Tanya shared, which would keep them from rushing into each other’s arms at the expense of their respective missions. And having watched Abraham’s son leap to Tanya’s defense so impulsively, Elie suspected the youth might prove to be the key to effectively manipulating both his father and Tanya.

  The UN siren, which his shots had awakened, died down. The armistice observers would assume it had been another bored Jordanian soldier and do nothing about it, as was their custom. He used the rifle scope to watch the UN Mideast Command at the old Government House across the border. Other than the guards kicking a ball in the courtyard, there was no activity. On the hill behind the UN compound, a rotary radar antenna turned lazily, curved as a giant sail, full with wind. It monitored the airspace constantly, enforcing the ban on aircraft operations in the region.

  Elie put down the scope and sat on the tar roof to wait. He leaned back against the low wall surrounding the rooftop and pulled a cigarette from a pack of Lucky Strike. He smoked slowly, drawing deep, savoring the flavor of toasted burley. He didn’t mind waiting. Darkness wasn’t far off.

  Chapter 4

  On Sabbath morning, Lemmy accompanied his father to the synagogue, a large hall where prayers and studying took place daily from early morning to late night. It was filled to capacity. Cantor Toiterlich recited the morning prayers, and the men repeated after him. Children ran around, and the women in the upstairs mezzanine whispered gossip behind the lace partition. Abundant light came from the tall windows. The crossbeam ceiling, high above, carried an enormous crystal chandelier that glowed from Friday afternoon until Saturday night.

  Midway through the service, the Torah scroll was carried to the dais for reading. The cantor called Rabbi Abraham Gerster up to the dais. The rabbi covered his head with the prayer shawl and recited the Hagomel — the prayer of gratitude for having survived mortal danger. When he finished, the men yelled, “Amen!” They had witnessed God reach down yesterday to spoil the sniper’s aim and deflect the deadly projectiles from the rabbi.

  When the reading ended, Cantor Toiterlich chanted a prayer for the rabbi’s health and longevity. He followed with a special prayer for the rabbi’s wife, Temimah, that God may cure her infertility and grace her with more sons, who would grow up to study Torah. With the rabbi and his wife approaching forty, the congregants murmured, “May His will be so!”

  As soon as morning prayers ended, the women hurried to their small apartments to set up for the Sabbath lunch. The children ran between the wooden benches, their colorful clothes lively against the black attire of their fathers. The men stepped outside, squinting at the bright sun, and strolled down the alleys in groups, discussing Talmudic conundrums.

  Waiting in the synagogue courtyard, Lemmy unbuttoned his black coat and raised his face to the sun, enjoying its warmth. Benjamin nudged him, and he saw his father and Cantor Toiterlich emerge through the double-doors.

  “Good Sabbath,” he said and shook their hands. Cantor Toiterlich lived with his wife and nine children in a two-room apartment three doors down from the rabbi. The eldest, a daughter named Sorkeh, stood behind her father.

  Rabbi Gerster said, “Why don’t you and Sorkeh talk a bit while we walk home?”

  “Yes, Father.” Lemmy’s face flushed. The separation between the genders in Neturay Karta allowed for no youthful socializing. But Talmud prescribed: At eighteen to the chuppah. So when a boy of eighteen was told to chat with a girl after prayers, it meant that the matchmaker had already proposed to both sets of parents, the fathers had negotiated terms for providing the basic needs for the couple, and the mothers had found each other agreeable to share in helping the young mother with soon-to-arrive babies, while the groom continued to study Talmud. Marriage in Neturay Karta was a serious business, handled by the parents, who knew their sons and daughters better than the youths knew themselves.

  Rabbi Gerster walked with Cantor Toiterlich and Benjamin down the alley. “We’re facing a crisis,” he said, “with the abortion law proposal in the Zionist Knesset.”

  “A desecration of God,” the Cantor agreed, and they launched into a discussion.

  Lemmy and Sorkeh followed a short distance behind.

  “Nice weather today,” he said.

  “Warm! I like it!” She was a head shorter than he. Her flowery dress reached down to her shoes, fitting loosely on her plump, feminine figure. She must have just turned sixteen, the age at which Neturay Karta girls were added to the matchmaker’s list. Unlike married women, the girls didn’t cover their heads. Sorkeh’s hair was her prettiest asset-a dark, reddish mass of curls that framed her round face.

  “How are your studies going?” She smiled and touched her hair.

  “Very well. Thank you.” Lemmy thought how, moments after she would become a married woman, her head would be shaved smooth and covered with a kerchief-one of several fine, cotton headdresses she would receive as wedding gifts. The image of Sorkeh with a bald head made him grin.

  She looked at him with an uncertain smile.

  “I’m sorry,” Lemmy said, “I just remembered something funny.”

  She nodded eagerly. “It happens to me too.”

  He felt the need to explain, but thought better of it.

  “Sometimes,” Sorkeh said, “I think of a funny occurrence, like when my mother was making the keegel for Sabbath, and the noodles overcooked and stuck together and she couldn’t mix in the sugar!”

  Lemmy chuckled politely.

  Encouraged, she continued, “So we tried to mix the noodles with oil to separate them, and I was holding the pot-”

  Tuning her out, Lemmy thought of yesterday’s dramatic events. He recalled the Jordanian shooting, his father’s arm on his shoulders, and the petite woman who touched his father’s beard, her arm exposed, her skin smooth. He shuddered as the sun disappeared behind a gray cloud. The narrow alley had been neatly swept before the Sabbath, and the air was sweetened by the aroma of cooking pots that had been simmering since Friday. His mouth watered. Talmud forbade eating until after morning prayers, and he was famished.

  “-and it took us an hour to clean up the mess!” Sorkeh burst out laughing.

  Realizing she had reached the punch line, Lemmy smiled. “That’s funny. Do you like to cook?”

  “Oh, yes!” She launched into a long monologue about food preparations for Sabbath and various holidays.

  With occasional head nodding, Lemmy paced along the connected row of apartment buildings, which had originally been designed as a wall of defense against Arab nomads, but now kept out the immoral, secular Israeli society.

  He was relieved when they reached home. After further greetings, Cantor Toiterlich and his daughter left.

  Rabbi Gerster entered the apartment first, touching the mezuzah on the doorframe and then his lips. They hung their coats in the foyer and entered the dining room, where the table had been set with silver utensils and white cloth.

  Temimah and Benjamin’s mother, Rachel, shuttled dishes from the kitchen. The mother and son had come to lunch every Sabbath since Benjamin’s father had left the sect many years ago, never to be heard from again.

  Benjamin’s dark eyes glistened, and he whispered, “How was it?”

  Lemmy crinkled his face.

  Rabbi Gerster began to sing: “ Tranquility and joy, beacon for Israel, day of Sabbath, of rest, day of delight. ”

  Benjamin and Lemmy joined him, singing the familiar tunes until the women were ready to serve the meal.

  The rabbi recited the blessing on the wine goblet and the braided challah bread, which he sliced with a long,
toothed knife. They ate gefilteh fish in jellied broth and wiped the plates with chunks of challah. The three of them sang again while Temimah and Rachel cleared the table.

  Next came a large pot of tcholent — a concoction of meat, beans, vegetables, and spices that had been cooking overnight. Temimah’s ladle broke through the crust, and she served her husband. He pointed at the steaming, generous portion. “My dear wife wants me to get fat!”

  Temimah emptied a full ladle in Benjamin’s plate, then in Lemmy’s. Her face, framed by a headdress tied behind, was bright with sweat. “So?” she asked. “How is Sorkeh?”

  Everyone looked at Lemmy.

  “Sorkeh?” He creased his forehead. “Who’s Sorkeh?”

  They laughed, and the rabbi started chanting, “ Sabbath today, Sabbath the sacred day, ” saving Lemmy from further inquiries.

  After the meal, while the women were busy in the kitchen, Rabbi Gerster leaned back in his armchair, sipped tea, and quoted from memory: “ The heaven and the earth were completed in all their glory, and on the seventh day God finished the work and blessed the Sabbath. ”

  Lemmy listened carefully. Every Sabbath lunch, his father followed the same routine: A quote from the Torah and a trick question.

  “Torah and Talmud,” the rabbi intoned, “what’s the difference?”

  “Torah is God’s word,” Lemmy answered. “Cast in stone. Talmud, on the other hand, is a compilation of transcribed arguments between Talmudic scholars.”

  “I disagree,” Benjamin said. “The sages’ arguments originated from God’s words, which had been passed down the generations by memorizing until the Babylonian exile, when every word was transcribed.” As always, he ran out of breath before he ran out of words.

  Rabbi Gerster turned to Lemmy. “ Nooo? ”

  “How can Talmud be cast in stone? It’s a collection of oral debates about law, rituals, business, science, ethics, animal sacrifices, and everything else.”