A Love and Beyond

by Dan Sofer

  Jay nodded. He felt the tingle of destiny spread though his bones. The Teacher understood. The Teacher would show him The Way.

  “Enough for now,” the Teacher said. “I will send further instructions in the usual manner.”

  John didn’t need to be told a second time. He pulled the handle of the door and bailed out. Jay’s head swam with questions but his time was up.

  “One last thing,” he said on the threshold. “What’s your name?”

  The cloak straightened. The deep voice uttered two unfamiliar words. Jay repeated them. Hebrew always tripped up his tongue.

  “What does it mean?”

  “Teacher. The Teacher of Righteousness.”

  Chapter 2

  Dave awoke Thursday morning determined not to think about dating. Not under any circumstances. Not until his return from Eilat.

  He needed a break. He deserved a break. Only two hurdles stood in his way: nine hours at work and one brief phone call to Nat.

  Dave leaned over the side of the bed and washed his hands into the plastic tub stowed beneath. He brushed his teeth, dressed, tucked the embroidered phylactery bag he had received for his Bar Mitzvah under one arm, and braved the morning chill.

  Cars choked Emek Refaim. Egged buses creaked and hissed. Storeowners rolled up security gates and set out chairs. Pedestrians bustled.

  Dave’s walk to the Great Synagogue averaged seven minutes. His route passed three other synagogues but only the Great Synagogue started after 8 AM.

  He rounded the Paz gas station at Bell Park and climbed Keren Hayesod. He picked his way between bulldozers and torn sidewalks courtesy of the long overdue “light rail” project.

  Dave passed the Kings Hotel opposite France Square. On Fridays, a gaggle of aging Israelis in black T-shirts overran the square and urged Dave to “end the occupation.” He always smiled at them and accepted their pamphlets. At least they weren’t trying to marry him off.

  He veered into a courtyard and said good morning to the elderly guard. The towering Great Synagogue was modeled after Solomon’s Temple. The main domed synagogue seated a thousand on Sabbath services, cantorial events, and weddings. Weekday prayers took place in the cozy oak-paneled study center two floors down.

  Dave found an empty seat at one of the long pressboard tables and unzipped his tefilin bag. The congregation consisted mostly of retirees in varying degrees of gray hair and bent posture. They swayed and mumbled prayers beneath white prayer shawls. He wound the black leather phylactery strap around his left arm. He straightened the black box on the crown of his head. Then he wrapped the end of the strap over his fingers like rings.

  “Ve’erastikh li le’olam…”

  The words rolled off his tongue.

  I betroth you to me forever; I betroth you to me in righteousness and justice, in loving kindness and compassion. I betroth you to me in faithfulness…

  The symbols of marriage hounded him at every turn. Judaism was no religion for single men. Dave needed a wife and fast, and not just to get his mother off his back or even to fulfill the Divine command to “be fruitful and multiply.” Family life was the only path to normalcy.

  Rabbi Hendler nodded at Dave from his seat beside the Holy Ark. After thirty years of community service in New York state, the rabbi with the tidy white beard and John Lennon glasses retired to Jerusalem to write, teach, and introduce Dave to the congregation’s granddaughters.

  Rabbi Hendler smiled and beckoned. He wanted a word with Dave after the service. Dave remembered his morning resolution. He smiled, feigned stupidity, and kept his head down.

  The men stood for the silent prayer of Eighteen Blessings. Dave took three steps forward and closed his eyes.

  The rabbi meant well. Dave, as a bachelor, was the only congregant without the protective cover of a prayer shawl, besides one gangly teenager and two Philippine caregivers. He must have stood out like a missing tooth.

  He found his mind wandering like a flickering projector. Intelligent emerald eyes. The hint of slender legs beneath the dark, elegant fabric of her dress. Exquisite lips. Ivory neck. Silky black hair. A manicured eyebrow arched in surprise.

  Dave pulled the projector cord; he sucked air into his lungs.

  God had offered him Heaven on a silver platter and Dave had tripped up the waiter.

  He took three steps backward and bowed to his left. He who makes peace in His heights. To the right. May He bring peace upon us. Forward. And upon all Israel. He straightened. Amen.

  ***

  The offices of TikTech lay deep within the mushroom patch of hi-tech buildings known as the Har Hotzvim Industrial Park.

  Dave’s keyboard, mouse, and stationery had shifted to the foot of the monitor, a sign that the cleaning staff, a team of lanky, soft-spoken Ethiopians, had visited their sanitary wrath upon his workstation.

  He nursed a paper cup of instant coffee and scanned the Jerusalem Post headlines for news of the City of David. Finding none, he reviewed the contents of his inbox.

  He dropped the cup in the waste bin and dialed Nat’s number on his desk phone. The call cut to voice mail, as he’d expected. At this time of the morning, Nat was busy introducing thirty Israeli high schoolers to the joys of the English past participle.

  He left his message: Dreadfully sorry… Something came up… You know how it is… He’d be happy to drop off the bread regardless, just say the word.

  From beyond the cubicle divider, the voice of Kermit the Frog yelled, “What do you want?”

  Five years on the job, Dave still jumped at the sound of his boss. From the volley of terse answers, curt demands, harsh recriminations, and abject denials, Dave could tell that Avi, the forty-year-old American-Israeli team leader, was talking to his wife on the phone.

  Avi kept photos of his two teenagers, bucktoothed creatures with wild hair, on his desk with no images of his wife, and Dave pictured her as a disgruntled Miss Piggy.

  There was trouble in Muppet Land.

  Dave clamped headphones over his ears and played Genesis’ Greatest Hits on his computer disk drive. He clicked open the document for his current work project. All work documents followed a standardized format known by the unfortunate name of Standard Test Document, or STD.

  Phil Collins sang “Another Day in Paradise.”

  Nine hours and counting. Eilat, baby, here we come.

  An email notification popped onto the screen: a new message from Frumster.com.

  Ben had convinced Dave to open an account two years before and although Dave had met a handful of girls on the site, none had ended well.

  The mouse cursor circled the email as he considered.

  Don’t bother. You’re on a break.

  The chances that his soul mate was reaching out to him this very moment were negligible. Still…

  Dave clicked the link. A girl named Nili had written him the usual drivel.

  Hi. Liked your profile. Be in touch.

  Dave clicked her profile link. Thirty years old. Few extra pounds. No photo.

  Delete.

  Dave slumped back in his chair. His iron resolve had lasted all of two hours.

  Be proactive, Dave.

  He clicked his own profile and reviewed his selections: Modern Orthodox; Three Daily Prayers; Eats Kosher at Home and Out; Strict Sabbath Observance.

  He downgraded Torah Learning from Daily to Weekly. Between work, groceries, laundry, jogging, ironing, and, of course, dating, spiritual growth had to take a number and stand in line.

  He hardly recognized what he had written in the About Me box. He increased his aliya seniority from five years to seven.

  He checked the boxes of a few hypothetical hobbies to round out his virtual self and clicked Save.

  “What do you mean, ‘no bugs’?”

  The irate voice of Kermit the Frog triggered a reflex response in Dave’s finger muscles. They pressed the Tab and Alt keys, replacing Frumster.com with his current STD.

  “But it works,” a young Russian said.<
br />
  Dave’s shoulders relaxed. Alex, the new recruit in the Quality Assurance Team, had made a classic mistake.

  “What did I tell you?” Avi demanded, his voice quavering. “A test with no bugs is what?”

  Alex said nothing. Poor sod.

  “Dave?!” Avi hollered.

  “A test with no bugs,” Dave said, raising his voice, “is a failed test.”

  The quote originated from an old QA textbook, Avi’s Bible, Koran, and Veda combined.

  “Thank you! A failed test. Your test has failed, Alex. See this.”

  Dave heard a clatter of keystrokes. The coast clear, he toggled back to Frumster and clicked the Saved Search link.

  Twenty profile tiles materialized on the screen. He’d viewed most of them before. The remaining girls he’d already met, judging by the photo or other telling details.

  He broadened his search. His current criteria specified Single (Never Been Married), English Speakers who lived in the Jerusalem Area, described themselves as Slim or Athletic, wore Skirts Only and planned to cover their hair Fully after they married.

  Now he added Average Figure, Skirts and Trousers, and Undecided vis-à-vis Hair Covering.

  And people said he was picky. No need to search outside Jerusalem, though. He wasn’t that desperate.

  Dave clicked the button.

  Thirty-three results. Nothing new. Apparently, he had run the search previously.

  Eilat crawled half an hour closer.

  Strangely, he couldn’t find Nat among the profiles.

  A throat cleared behind him.

  Alt-Tab! Alt-Tab!

  Dave craned his neck. He released the air in his lungs.

  “Yoram, you’ve got to stop sneaking up on me.”

  “I have a girl for you,” said Yoram, Israeli programmer and father of three.

  Dave eased back in his chair. Battle stations.

  “I’m on a break.”

  Yoram leaned his elbow on the cubicle wall.

  “This one is special,” he said.

  He ran his hand over his close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair and smirked. Yoram always smirked. An unlit cigarette waved at the corner of his mouth.

  Dave sighed. “How old?”

  “Twenty-five.”

  “Religious?”

  “Yes, but not crazy.”

  Dave had to give him credit. Yoram had done his homework and breached Dave’s first line of defense.

  “Looks?”

  “You know. Two arms. Two legs. A nose.”

  Bingo.

  “But she’s attractive?”

  Yoram frowned. “She’s not a supermodel.”

  Dave considered arguing for the existence of a spectrum of women spanning between Bar Refaeli and the Elephant Woman but gave up before he started.

  Time for the big guns. “Does she speak English?”

  “A little.” The smirk dropped. “Not much,” Yoram admitted.

  “Sorry, not my type.”

  Yoram shook his head. “You know where I sit, if you change your mind.” He padded off toward the stairwell for a drag

  A message arrived on Dave’s phone. It was Nat.

  Pity that. Another time. Don’t worry about the bread. Laters.

  Dave pondered Nat’s missing profile. He searched her text message for clues.

  In the cubicle opposite, Kermit uttered expletives in English, Hebrew, and then Arabic.

  “Dave!” Avi shouted. Swivel chairs creaked and Avi appeared at Dave’s side with Alex in tow.

  “Break something for me, Dave.”

  He leaned over and commandeered Dave’s keyboard.

  “If Dave can’t bring her down, nobody can.”

  He opened a browser window and navigated to a login screen.

  “All yours,” Avi said and shoved the keyboard at Dave.

  Dave cracked his knuckles. He flexed his fingers. He entered random text in the User Name and Password fields.

  Access denied.

  He entered the test user credentials.

  Welcome, Member.

  Dave logged out. He clicked the Password Reminder and, dammit, that worked as well.

  Tricky. Little. Bastard.

  “It work,” Alex muttered. “No problem.” English was his third language.

  “You don’t get it, Alex,” said Avi. “Everything has bugs. If you can’t find them, you’re not looking hard enough.”

  Dave tested and retested. He entered Greek characters and Chinese. He served his best shots; they all bounced back. The system was flawless. Of course, the buttons were too small. But Dave refused to settle for cosmetic defects, the QA engineer’s equivalent of a white flag.

  “C’mon,” Kermit growled in Dave’s ear.

  Dave wiped his brow on his shirtsleeve. Match point. Time for desperate measures.

  He jammed his fingers onto the keyboard and jabbed keys at random like a crazed Captain Nemo at the organ, twenty thousand leagues beneath the sea.

  The Members Only page blinked onto the screen.

  “Yes!” He punched the air.

  His input frenzy had kicked open a back door. An ace at the deciding moment. Inexplicable? Yes. Impossible to reproduce? Probably. But a bug is a bug.

  Avi slapped Dave on the shoulder. “The Bugmeister strikes again.” He loped back to his cubicle, trailed by a hangdog Alex. “I hope you took notes.”

  Dave’s phone rang.

  “Hi, Loverboy.”

  He stiffened. “Hi, Ben.”

  “And how is Jerusalem’s most eligible bachelor?”

  “I’ll be sure to ask him if I meet him.”

  “They released me this morning.”

  “Good.” He hoped his curt reply implied that he was very busy and therefore unable to answer questions about last night.

  “Join us for lunch this Shabbat?”

  “Can’t. I’m in Eilat with Mike and the gang.”

  “Eilat? Are you out of your tree? Shabbat is your chance to meet new girls. You’ve got to get out there. Play the field.”

  “I’m on a break.”

  “Break-shmake. Breaks are for closers. There’s a reason Mike and his gang aren’t married. Do you want to be single at forty?”

  Dave’s feelers tingled. “Are you trying to set me up? Who’s coming over?”

  “Just the three of us.”

  “But I’ve made plans, Ben. I even canceled dinner at Nat’s.”

  “Un-cancel it, then. There. Now you’ve got both meals sorted. No excuses. Do me a favor, do your unborn children a favor, and stay in.”

  Dave groaned. “All right. I’ll stay.”

  First his short-lived resolution. Now his bachelor weekend.

  “God, I hate changing my mind all the time.”

  “Pity that,” Ben said. “It’s what you do best.”

  “And I can’t believe I’m agreeing to another Katamon singles meal.”

  “Cheer up. How bad could it be?”

  ***

  The Friday sun sank lazily over Jerusalem, bathing the stone apartment blocks in soft, gold light. Another springlike day had snuck into December and chased away the clouds.

  Of all Diaspora comforts, Dave missed Sundays the most. Fridays and their manic errands offered a poor substitute.

  At dusk, however, silence descended on the streets. Cafés stacked their chairs, shops rolled down their security doors, and the city exhaled the tensions of the workweek. The aromas of warm bread and simmering chicken soup wafted through the windows as housewives lit candles and ushered in the Sabbath.

  Dave stepped onto Emek Refaim, a plaid sweater over his Sunday—or rather Saturday—best and the plastic bag from Ne’eman’s Bakery in his hand.

  Ahead of him, a father exchanged kind words with his two small children; the little girl wore a white-frilled dress, the boy a suit, a miniature version of his father. The ironed collars and personalized white yarmulkes spoke of a loving wife and mother.

  Dave, the outsider, the leering
vagrant at the gates, clamped his lips. He turned left on Rachel Imenu, climbed Kovshei Katamon and Palmach to the intersection of Jabotinsky and Chopin, a stone’s throw from the Jerusalem Theater.

  The Ohel Nechama synagogue rose in tiers about a central staircase like a ziggurat. A fitting design, in Dave’s opinion, for this altar would be used to sacrifice what remained of his human dignity.

  He selected a prayer book in the foyer and entered the inner sanctum. The walls, thirty feet high, tapered to a central square of ceiling like the inside of a snub-nosed pyramid.

  Men packed the pews and the air swam with the surging waltz of their voices.

  Le-e-kha Do-di. Li-i-i-krat Kal-lah. Ah-ah-ah. Pe-e-nay Shabbat ne-e-e-ka-belah. Let us go, my beloved, toward the bride. Let us greet the Sabbath day.

  Dave hurried to a vacant aisle seat beside a little boy in a starched white-collared shirt. The boy held a prayer book open on his lap.

  Dave placed his own siddur on the wood-paneled support affixed to the next pew and paged to the Friday night service.

  The boy’s father, about the same age as Dave, whispered instructions in French. Dave remembered sitting, as a young boy, next to his own father in the Hampstead Garden Suburb synagogue in London. The synagogue hall had seemed so large, the world so inviting and ripe for the picking. His plan: complete the Talmud by eighteen, marry by twenty, kids at twenty-one, conquer the world by twenty-five. Tops.

  The congregation stood for the Mourners’ Prayer. Dave swiveled at the waist, as if to stretch his back; a practiced gesture that allowed him to steal a glance at the women’s gallery above. No sign of the Waterfall Blond. Nor of the New Girl from Rabbi Levi’s lecture. Nat stood in her usual front row spot, a prayer book resting in open hands, her gaze focused on a point in the center of the men’s section. Was that lipstick? Dave tried to follow Nat’s line of sight but then the congregation sat and fell silent.

  A graying man dressed for the opera took the podium and read Hebrew from printed pages.

  Dave thought of Nat’s missing Frumster profile and the floor fell out of his stomach. Was Nat seeing someone? And if she was, what of it? Dave often shared details of his own dating escapades with her, although Nat never spoke of hers. For years, he had sensed that Nat was keen on him but he had never considered her seriously. Nat was the familiar tree in the backdrop of Dave’s life. She would always be there. Or would she?