Disobedience

by Naomi Alderman

Genres: General Fiction; Religious & Inspirational; Literary Fiction

Synopsis

For Ronit Krushka, thirty-two and living on Manhattan's Upper West Side, Orthodox Judaism is a suffocating culture she fled long ago. But when she learns of the death of her estranged father, a pre-eminent rabbi, she returns home for the first time in years, where her presence causes upheaval.

Release date: January 1, 2020

Publisher: Atria Books

Print pages: 240

Sample

Disobedience

Chapter One

And on the Shabbat, the priests would sing a song for the future that is to come, for that day which will be entirely Shabbat and for the repose of eternal life.

Mishnah Tamid 7:4, recited during
the Saturday morning service

By the first Sabbath after the festival of Simchat Torah, Rav Krushka had grown so thin and pale that, the congregation muttered, the next world could be seen in the hollows of his eyes.

The Rav had brought them through the High Holy Days, had remained standing during the two-hour service at the end of the Yom Kippur fast, though more than once his eyes had rolled back as though he would faint. He had even danced joyfully with the scrolls at Simchat Torah, if only for a few minutes. But, now that those holy days were over, the vital energy had departed from him. On this sultry, overripe September day, with the windows closed and sweat beading on the brow of every member of the congregation, the Rav, leaning on the arm of his nephew Dovid, was wrapped in a woollen overcoat. His voice was faint. His hands shook.

The matter was clear. It had been clear for some time. For months his voice, once as rich as red kiddush wine, had been hoarse, sometimes cracking altogether into a harsh little cough or a deep fit of retching and choking. Still, it was hard to believe in a faint shadow on the lung. Who could see a shadow? What was a shadow? The congregation could not believe that Rav Krushka could succumb to a shadow—he from whom the light of Torah seemed to shine so brightly that they felt themselves illuminated by his presence.

Rumors had spread across the community, were passed at chance meetings in the street. A Harley Street specialist had told him all would be well if he took a month’s rest. A famous Rebbe had sent word that he and five hundred young Torah students recited the entire book of Psalms every day for Rav Krushka’s safe recovery. The Rav, it was said, had received a prophetic dream declaring that he would live to see laid the first stone of the Bais HaMikdash, the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.

And yet he grew more frail every day. His failing health became known across Hendon and farther afield. As is the way of things, congregants who once might have skipped a week in synagogue, or attended a different service, had become fervent in their devotions. Each week, more worshipers attended than the week before. The clumsy synagogue—originally merely two semidetached houses knocked together and hollowed out—was not designed for this quantity of people. The air became stale during services, the temperature even warmer, the scent almost fetid.

One or two members of the synagogue board suggested that perhaps they might arrange an alternative service to cater to the unusual numbers. Dr. Yitzchak Hartog, the president of the board, overruled them. These people had come to see the Rav, he declared, and see him they would.

So it was that on the first Shabbat after Simchat Torah, the synagogue was overfull, all members of the congregation fixing their attention, sad to say, more on the Rav himself than on the prayers they were addressing to their Maker. Throughout that morning, they watched him anxiously. It was true that Dovid was by his uncle’s side, holding the siddur for him, supporting him by his right elbow. But, one murmured to another, perhaps the presence of such a man would hinder rather than help his recovery? Dovid was a Rabbi, this much was admitted, but he was not a Rav. The distinction was subtle, for one may become a Rabbi simply through study and achievement, but the title Rav is given by a community to a beloved leader, a guiding light, a scholar of unsurpassed wisdom. Rav Krushka was all these things without doubt. But had Dovid ever spoken in public or given a magnificent d’var Torah, let alone written a book of inspiration and power, as the Rav had? No, no, and no. Dovid was unprepossessing to the sight: short, balding, a little overweight, but more than that, he had none of the Rav’s spirit, none of his fire. Not a single member of the congregation, down to the tiniest child, would address Dovid Kuperman as “Rabbi.” He was “Dovid,” or sometimes, simply, “that nephew of the Rav, that assistant.” And as for his wife! It was understood that all was not well with Esti Kuperman, that there was some problem there, some trouble. But such matters fall under the name of lashon hara—an evil tongue—and should not even be whispered in the holy house of the Lord.

In any case, Dovid was agreed to be no fitting support for the Rav. The Rav should be surrounded by men of great Torah learning, who might study night and day, and thus avert the evil decree. A pity, said some, that the Rav had no son to learn in his name and thus merit him a longer life. A pity, too, said others, more quietly, that the Rav had no son to be Rav when he was gone. For who would take his place? These thoughts had circulated for months, becoming more distinct in the synagogue’s dry heat. And as the Rav’s energy had drained from him, Dovid, too, had become a little more bowed with every passing week, as though he felt the weight of their stares upon his shoulders, and the force of their disappointment crushing his chest. He rarely looked up during the service now, and said nothing, continuing to turn the pages of the siddur, focusing only on the words of prayer.

By midmorning, it was clear to all the men that the Rav was worse than they had seen him before. They bent their necks around the corners where fireplaces and built-in larders had once stood and shuffled their plastic chairs a little closer to him, to observe him more exactly, to will him on. Through the morning service of Shacharit, the room grew warmer and warmer, and each man became aware that, even through his suit trousers, he had begun to stick to his seat. The Rav bowed low during Modim, then straightened again, but they could see that his hand gripping the bench in front of him was white and trembled. And his face, though determined, faltered into a grimace with every movement.

Even the women, observing the service from the upper gallery built around three sides of the room, peering through the net curtain, could see that the Rav’s strength was almost gone. When the aron was opened, the Torah scrolls exhaled a fragrant cedar breath into the faces of the congregation, which seemed to rouse him, and he stood. But when the cabinet was closed his sitting seemed a surrender to gravity rather than a decided motion. He released the energy that had supported him and fell into his seat. By the time the Torah portion was half read, every member of the congregation was willing Rav Krushka to take each rasping, painful breath. If Dovid had not been there, the Rav would have slumped over in his place. Even the women could see that.

Esti Kuperman watched the service from the women’s gallery. Each week a place of honor was reserved for her, in the front row, by the net curtain. In truth, the front row was never occupied at all, even at such times as these, when every seat was needed. Women would stand at the back of the gallery, rather than take one of those front-row seats. Each week Esti sat alone, never bending her thin neck, not showing by any word or glance that she had noted the empty seats on either side of her. She took the position in the front row because it was expected. She was Dovid’s wife. Dovid sat next to the Rav. If the Rav’s wife had not passed on, Esti would have been at her side. When, God willing, they were blessed with children, they would accompany her. As it was, she sat alone.

Farther back in the women’s section nothing could be seen of the service at all. For the women in those seats only the melodies penetrated, as in the chambers of Heaven, whose doors open only to voices raised in song. Esti, though, could observe the crowns of the heads below, each covered by an oval of hat or decorated with a round circle of kippah. Over time the hats and kippot had become individual to her, each blotch of color representing a different personality. There was Hartog, the president of the board, solidly built and muscular, walking up and down even while the prayers continued, occasionally exchanging a word with another congregant. There was Levitsky, the synagogue treasurer, swaying in a nervous pecking motion as he prayed. There was Kirschbaum, one of the executive officers, leaning against the wall and constantly dozing off and waking with a jerk. She watched them come and go, ascend the steps to the bimah, and return to their places, where they’d stand and rock gently in place. She felt a strange sort of disconnection. At times, when she was staring down, the movements seemed like some game played on a checkerboard—round pieces advancing purposefully but without meaning. In the past she had often found herself becoming lulled into a trancelike state by the familiar melodies, the unchanging pattern of movement below, so that she would scarcely notice when the service was over and would be shocked to find the women around her already wishing her a Good Shabbos, the men below already drifting from view. Once or twice she had found herself standing in what seemed to be an empty synagogue, afraid to turn around for fear that some of the women might remain, behind her, whispering.

On this Shabbat, though, she restrained herself. Like the rest of the congregation, she sat when the Torah scrolls, clothed in regal velvet, were returned to the aron at the front. Like the rest, she waited patiently for the leader of the Shacharit service to step down from the bimah and the leader of the next service, Mussaf, to step up. Like the rest, she was puzzled when, after five minutes had passed, Mussaf had not yet started. She peered through the net curtain, trying to discern what was happening below. She blinked. On her husband’s arm, the hunched figure of the Rav, clad in his black overcoat, was making his way slowly to the bimah.

In earlier times, the Rav would have addressed them at this point in the service, taking the Torah portion they had just read and weaving it, with other sources, into an intricate and beautiful lesson. But it had been many months since he had spoken to them like that. This week, as for so many weeks now, a copy of one of his previous sermons had been left on each seat. The Rav was not well enough to speak. And yet, in the men’s section beneath her, he was ascending the three steps to the podium. A rustle of voices rose up around the synagogue and fell silent. The Rav would speak.

The Rav raised his arm, thin and pale in the sleeve of the coat. When he spoke, his voice was unexpectedly strong. He had been an orator all his life; the people did not need to strain to catch his words. “I will speak,” he said, “only for a moment. I have not been well. With Hashem’s help, I will recover.” There was a vigorous burst of nodding around the room; several people clapped and were swiftly quieted, for theater applause has no place in a synagogue.

“Speech,” he said. “If the created world were a piece of music, speech would be its refrain, its recurring theme. In the Torah, we read that Hashem created the world through speech. He could have willed it into existence. We might read: ‘And God thought of light, and there was light.’ No. He could have hummed it. Or formed it from clay in His hands. Or breathed it out. Hashem, our King, the Holy One Blessed Be He, did none of these things. To create the world, He spoke. ‘And God said, let there be light, and there was light.’ Exactly as He spoke, so it was.”

The Rav broke off, coughing violently, a sickly bubbling sound in his chest. Several of the men strained to move to him, but he waved them back. He supported himself on Dovid’s shoulder, gave three sharp coughs, and fell silent. He breathed heavily and continued.

“The Torah itself. A book. Hashem could have given us a painting, or a sculpture, a forest, a creature, an idea in our minds to explain His world. But He gave us a book. Words.”

He paused and looked around the hall, scanning the silent faces. When the pause had gone on just a little too long, the Rav raised his hand and banged it loudly on the lectern.

“What a great power the Almighty has given us! To speak, as He speaks! Astonishing! Of all the creatures on earth, only we can speak. What does this mean?”

He smiled faintly and looked around the room once more.

“It means we have a hint of Hashem’s power. Our words are, in a sense, real. They can create worlds and destroy them. They have edges, like a knife.” The Rav brought his arm around in a sweeping motion, as though wielding a scythe. He smiled. “Of course, our power is not Hashem’s power. Let us not forget that, either. Our words are more than empty breath, but they are not Torah. Torah contains the world. Torah is the world. Do not forget, my children, that all of our words, all of our stories, can only, at best, amount to a commentary on a single verse of the Torah.”

The Rav turned to Dovid and whispered a few words. Together, the two men walked down from the bimah and back to their seats. The congregation was silent. At last, gathering himself, the chazzan began to pray the Mussaf service.

The Rav’s words had clearly weighed with the chazzan leading the prayers, for the man seemed to be paying peculiar attention to each letter, each syllable of every word. He spoke slowly, but clearly and with power, as though he were hearing and appreciating the words for the first time. “Mechalkel chayim b’chesed,” he said. (“He sustains all living things with kindness, He gives the dead life with abundant mercy.”) The congregation responded in kind, their responses becoming louder and clearer until they were speaking with one great voice.

As the chazzan reached the kedushah, he began to sweat, his face was pale. “Na’aritzecha v’Nakdishecha…” he declared.

“Kadosh, kadosh, kadosh,” (“Holy, holy holy is the Lord”) the people responded, raising themselves onto the balls of their feet, many feeling a little light-headed, perhaps through the heat.

And it was at that moment, when all were reaching up on their tiptoes to the Almighty, that a crash resounded in the hall, as though one of the mighty cedars of Lebanon had fallen. The men turned and the women craned. The congregation saw Rav Krushka, lying on his side, by his seat. He let out a long moan, but there was no movement in him except his left leg, twitching against the wooden bench, the knocks sounding loud and hollow around the synagogue.

There was a moment of quiet and a sensation of pressure beating at the temples.

Hartog was the first to recover. He ran to the Rav, pushing Dovid to one side. He loosened the Rav’s tie and took his arm, shouting, “Call an ambulance and bring blankets!” The other men looked confused for a moment. The very words “call an ambulance,” uttered in the Rav’s synagogue, on the Sabbath, seemed unreal; it was as though they’d been asked for a slice of bacon, a pint of prawns. After a long moment, two of the young men started up and dashed toward the door, racing for the telephone.

High above, Esti Kuperman stood still, although some of the other women were already making their way downstairs to see what should be done.

Esti watched her husband take his uncle’s hand and pat it, as though to comfort the old man. She noticed that Dovid’s hair was thinner, seen from this angle, than she had thought. Some part of her noted, almost without intending to, that Hartog had already left the Rav’s side, leaving his care to the other medical members of the congregation. That he had pulled three or four men of the synagogue board to one side, that they were in conversation. She looked at her own bony fingers, curled around her siddur, the nails very white.

And for an instant, she felt heavy damask wings stirring the air against her face. The beating wings might have surrounded her, moving more slowly, more heavily, circling and ascending infinitely slowly, bearing a far greater burden than the soul of one old, tired man with a shadow on his lung. The breath had gone out of the room, and the beating wings were a pulse, growing fainter and fainter.

Esti felt exhausted, unable to move. Dovid raised his head to the women’s gallery, looked to her accustomed place, and shouted out, “Esti!” plaintive, frightened. Esti started back from the rail and turned to stumble to the door of the stairwell. She was faintly aware that some of the women were touching her, reaching out their arms to…stroke her? Support her? She wasn’t sure. She continued toward the exit thinking only that she must go now, that there would be something she should do.

And it was only when she was running down the stairs toward the men’s section that a thought awakened in her mind—a thought at once shocking and joyful, a thought of which she felt instantly ashamed. As she raced down the stairs, the rhythm of her steps echoed to the beat of her repeated thought: “If this is so, then Ronit will be coming home. Ronit is coming home.”

* * *

The night before, I dreamed about him. No, really. I knew him by his words. I dreamed about a huge room filled with books, floor to ceiling, the shelves stretching on and on farther and farther out, so that the harder I looked, the more that became visible at the limits of my sight. I realized that the books, and the words, were everything that was and everything that had ever been or would ever be. I started walking; my steps were silent, and when I looked down I saw that I was walking on words, that the walls and the ceiling and the tables and the lamps and the chairs were all words.

So I walked on, and I knew where I was going and I knew what I would find. I came to a long, wide table. Table, it said. I am a table. All that I have ever been or ever will be is a table. And on the table was a book. And the book was him. I knew him by his words. Truthfully, I would have known him if he’d been a lamp, or a pot plant, or a scale model of the Long Island Expressway. But, appropriately enough, he was a book. The words on the cover were simple, good words. I don’t remember what they were.

And, like you do in a dream, I knew I should open the book. I put out my hand and opened it and read the first line. As I read it, the words echoed around the library. They said, like God said to Abraham: “You are my chosen one. Leave this land and go to another place which I shall show you!”

Okay, so, I made that last part up. But the other stuff was genuine. I woke up with a headache, which I never get, but it was as if someone had dropped a dictionary on my skull during the night. I had to take a long, really hot shower to ease the words out of my brain and the tension out of my shoulders, and when I was done, of course then I was late for work, so I was walking, no, make that marching down Broadway in search of a cab, which you can only ever find when you don’t need one, when suddenly I heard a voice say, as though it’d spoken right in my ear:

“Excuse me, are you Jewish?”

And I stopped, almost jumped, because it was so close, and so unexpected. I mean, particularly in New York, where everyone’s Jewish anyway. So I turned to see who it was and lo, I had fallen for the oldest trick in the book, because there was a guy with a smart suit, a neatly trimmed beard, and a stack of flyers, clearly out to sign up some Jews for his one hundred percent top-quality religion.

Poor guy. Really. Because I was late, so in a bad mood to start off with. And I’d had that dream. Usually, I would have just walked on by. But some mornings you just want to fight with someone.

I said, “I’m Jewish. Why?”

Except, of course, I said it in a British accent, which I could see puzzled him straightaway. On the one hand, he wanted to say, “Hey, you’re British!” because he’s American, and they like to tell me that. But on the other hand, he had God whispering encouragingly in his ear, saying here, here is a woman whom you, my friend, can win for righteousness. The guy pulled himself together. Souls to save, worlds to conquer:

“May I interest you in a free seminar on Jewish history?”

Right. Of course. He was one of these guys. Not selling a new religion, but the old one; winning people back to the faith. Free seminars on Jewish history, Friday night dinners, a bit of Bible code thrown in. Well, I guess it works for people who’ve never had that experience. But that’s not me. Hell, I could be leading one of these things.

I said: “No, thanks, I’m really busy right now.”

And I was about to turn and walk away when he touched my sleeve, just brushed it with the palm of his hand, as though he wanted to feel the material of my coat, but it was enough to freak me out slightly. It made me almost long for a Lubavitch boy, whose sweat and desperation you can smell from three feet away, and who would never touch a woman. Anyway, my guy held out a leaflet and said:

“We’re all very busy. These are fast-moving times. But our ancient heritage is worth making time for. Take a flyer. Our programs run all over the city; you can join anytime you like.”

I took the flyer. And I glanced at it for a second, intending to walk on. And then I looked for a bit longer, just standing there. I had to read it over and over, trying to understand what I was looking at. A bright yellow sticker on the front read: “Monday night special seminar—Rabbi Tony will talk on Rav Krushka’s book, Day by Day, and how to apply its lessons in our lives.” I mean, I knew he wrote a book, but when did it come over here? When did he produce lessons to help us in our lives? When did people who call themselves “Rabbi Tony” start being interested?

I pointed at the yellow sticker and said: “What’s this?”

“Are you interested in Rav Krushka? That’s a wonderful presentation. Gets right to the heart of his teachings. It’s very inspiring.”

Poor guy. It wasn’t his fault. Not really.

I said: “What’s your name?”

He smiled broadly. “Chaim. Chaim Weisenburg.”

“Well, Chaim. What exactly are you doing this for?”

“This?”

“This, standing on the street corner, handing out flyers to passersby. Are you being paid for it? You owe some money? They threaten to break your legs?”

Chaim blinked. “No. No, I’m a volunteer.”

I nodded. “So you’re doing this out of the goodness of your heart?”

“I’m doing it because I believe it’s the right thing to do. Our heritage—”

I spoke over him. “Right. Heritage. Only it’s not heritage you’re selling here, is it, Chaim? It’s religion.”

He spread his arms wide, a little flustered.

“I wouldn’t say selling exactly, it’s more—”

“You wouldn’t say selling? But don’t you get something in return for handing out all this religion?” He tried to speak, but I just barreled on. “Don’t you, Chaim Weisenburg, get a special seat in the world to come if you get a few straying Jews signed up? Isn’t that why you’re doing it? Profit? Face it, Chaim, you’re just in it for yourself, aren’t you?”

He was angry now.

“No. No, that’s not it at all. That’s not how it is. God has commanded us—”

“Ah. Okay. Now we’re getting to it. God commanded you. God tells you what to do and you jump to it. You’re doing this because you think God wants you to, right? God wants you to find the straying Jews and bring them back to the fold?”

Chaim nodded. A few people turned their heads as they walked past, but no one stopped.

“Well, let’s say God did command you to do that. Has it ever occurred to you, Chaim, that some of us don’t want to be brought back? Some of us don’t want to be found? Some of us have been in that fold and found it narrow, and limiting, and more like a prison than a safe harbor. Has it ever occurred to you that God might be wrong?”

Chaim opened his mouth and closed it again. I guess it was obvious I wasn’t going to be attending any seminar. I ripped up the flyer and threw it at him in confetti pieces. I admit it, I’m a drama queen.

When I got to the subway station, I turned back to look at him, and he was still staring at me, his flyers hanging limp in his hand.

* * *

Dr. Feingold tells me that I need to work on “feeling my feelings,” in the interests of which I have to admit that ol’ Chaim got to me more than I’d expected. I was still thinking about him, and about all those saps lining up to take seminars in “the lessons of Rav Krushka,” when I got into work. I carried on thinking about it through the working day, which is pretty unusual for me. I usually enjoy the way work forces everything else out of your head. I work in corporate finance; I’m an analyst. It’s a full-on job, it takes all the brains I have in my head. I think that’s what most of us want, really, isn’t it? A challenge that’s just hard enough that we can accomplish it, but it’ll take everything we’ve got. So that there’s no room left in us for the doubt, the worry, the internal crises. We have to let it fill us up because that’s the only way to get the job done. Dr. Feingold says, “So you won’t have time to think, Ronit?” and she’s probably right, but maybe introspection is overrated. Anyway, I like my job, and I’m good at it. I had a new contract to work on, which demands full concentration if you’re not going to misplace a million dollars, and yet somehow there Chaim was, all day. I kept imagining him on the street, handing out his flyers. Some people would walk on, but some people would take one. And of those, some people would call, and of those, some people would end up attending that seminar. Chaim was wearing a sharp suit. The flyers were glossy. They’re probably doing well. Hundreds of sheep are probably stumbling back to the fold right now. It unsettles me, just a bit, to think about the business of it, about the expenditure-to-sales ratio and the probable returns. If you can put a value on a soul, there’s probably someone out there just like me, crunching the numbers on the religious-zeal biz.

And, yes, yes, Dr. Feingold would probably say that even thinking about that was a way to stop thinking about other things, but you know, sometimes I’m just too clever even for myself.

I stayed late at work, trying to make up for the things I hadn’t got done during the day, but of course that never happens because you get more and more tired as the evening goes on, and the amount of time the work’s going to take gets longer and longer. Eventually, I noticed Scott and I were the only two people left in our section, and I thought it wouldn’t be long before he came over and tried to talk to me—or didn’t. Didn’t would have been even more uncomfortable, so at nine o’clock I went home. Without wishing him good night.

Inevitably, because journeys are so good for brooding, thoughts of Chaim and Rabbi Tony led to thoughts of London, which are never good thoughts to have. And when I got back, after dark, I realized, of course, that it was Friday night, which is never a good thing to realize. And I started to think about my mother, one of the only distinct memories I have of her, which must have been because it was of something that happened so often: on Friday night, lighting her candles in those huge silver candlesticks covered in silver leaves and flowers.

And I knew it wasn’t going to get any less maudlin from then on. And I really wasn’t up for one of those fun evenings contemplating how no one else in my life has ever truly loved me, so I poured myself a large one and went to bed with a book.

That night, I dreamed of nothing and no one, which was perfect. When I woke, it was late. I walked to the Museum of Natural History on Seventy-ninth Street, but by the time I’d got there it was closed, and it was too cold to sit in the park. I could have called someone, made dinner plans, gone to the movies, but I didn’t; I watched the rest of the day pass by, the hours chasing each other to sunset.

* * *

At eight o’clock it’d been dark for about an hour, and I was thinking of ordering takeout when the phone rang. I picked it up and there was a silence on the other en