Devotion (24 page)

I sat cross-legged on my bedroom floor, trying to listen to my breath.
Inhale
, two, three, four.
Exhale
, two, three, four. I was having trouble concentrating. It had been a hard couple of days. My uncle Moe had died one morning as my cousin Henry was preparing him to lay tefillin, and even though Moe was ninety-three,
even though he had been suffering and very ill for many years, still I was grieving.

At Moe’s funeral near Boston the day before, hundreds of mourners filled the sanctuary. A succession of eminent rabbis gave eulogies. I learned things about Moe that I hadn’t known before. He had been president of the Orthodox Union, and the authentication stamp on kosher food had been his idea. In a rapidly assimilating postwar America, he saw the need to circle the wagons in order to keep Orthodox customs alive. He had traveled the country in support of
mechitzot
—the partitions that keep men and women separate in shul.

I sat with Michael and Jacob in the rows reserved for relatives. In front of us, a familiar-looking young woman—a cousin?—rifled through a siddur affixed with dozens of brightly colored Post-its. Everyone except for us seemed to know what to say and do. We were alone—my little family—an isolated, rogue cell within the larger organism of Moe’s family. I didn’t mind, really. I was used to this particular discomfort. Before we got out of the car in front of the shul, Michael had turned to me, squeezing my hand:
Remember
, he said.
It’s okay to feel like an outsider. You are an outsider.

Thoughts clouded my mind as I tried to count the breath. What would Shirley do now? Would she stay in the vast, empty house in Brookline by herself? Would she move in with one of her children? Shirley was keeper of the flame, and her house contained within it everything that was left of my grandparents—of my father’s childhood life. Now it would be further dispersed until, one day, it would disappear completely.

Inhale
, two, three, four.
Exhale
, two, three, four. My mind stub
bornly refused to quiet down. Jacob had wanted to attend the funeral—in fact, he insisted on it. He felt a sweet connection to Moe.
He’s my family, Mom
, he said. Before we got to Boston, I tried to prepare him. I was nervous that the Orthodox funeral would be too much, but it didn’t feel right to keep him away. He was right. They were his family—and I had so little to give him in that regard.

They believe in God differently than I do
, I had told him. Feeling, at least, some comfort in being able to say that I believed in anything at all. But once in the sanctuary, watching my relatives as they entered the prescribed orchestrated rituals of mourning with an almost choreographed precision, it seemed to me that they had a lock on God. They had certainty. I would always have doubt. They had one set of rules and rituals; one rabbi after the next referred to
Torah-based Judaism
. They lived—literally—by the book. I lived by an eclectic array of rituals, by many different books. They had continued on the path set by my grandparents, digging deeper as they went. And I—Michael was right—I had chosen life on the outside. I was an outsider.

Counting the breath wasn’t working. I kept seeing Moe’s casket borne on the shoulders of my cousins—those same cousins who had carried my dead father more than twenty years earlier. Shirley standing, silent in the bitter cold as the casket was placed in the hearse. The line of the funeral procession as it began its long journey from Boston to JFK Airport, and then onto an El Al flight to Israel, where Moe would be laid to rest. I imagined the second, smaller service in the cargo hold before my uncle’s remains were loaded onto the plane. My eighty-six-year-old aunt and four cousins boarding the flight, settling into their seats, prayer books in hand.

May you be safe
. By now, they would have buried Moe at the cemetery near the gates to Jerusalem.
May you be happy
. They would be back on the plane, flying home to sit shivah. I hoped the trip wasn’t too much for my aunt.
May you be strong
. I was no longer having trouble focusing now.
May you live with ease.
I sent the phrases—the wishes and hopes, my form of prayer—out into the invisible world.

Later that afternoon, Jacob came home from school and told me that during his school assembly he had raised his hand and asked if they would all say a prayer for Uncle Moe. Two hundred blue-blazered New England prep school children recited the Lord’s Prayer.
Our father who art in Heaven
. A woman sat cross-legged on her bedroom floor practicing ancient Buddhist blessings.
May you be safe
. An elderly widow and her four grown children were airborne, bent over their siddurs as the sky outside their windows turned from night to day.
Yitgadal v’yitkadash.
Each of us human, full of longing, reaching out with our whole selves for something impossible to touch. Still, we are reaching, reaching.

A small bookcase near the desk where I write is lined with books that I found inspiring. In addition to those I mention or quote, I was particularly helped by the following:
For the Time Being
by Annie Dillard;
The Buddha
by Karen Armstrong;
A Grief Observed
by C. S. Lewis;
Nothing to Be Frightened Of
by Julian Barnes; Pascal’s
Pensées
;
Do You Believe? Conversations on God and Religion
by Antonio Monda;
Ambivalent Zen
by Lawrence Shainberg. I am also indebted to the works of Sharon Salzberg, Larry Rosenberg, and Jack Kornfield, and the poems of Jane Kenyon.

Stephen Cope, Sylvia Boorstein, and Burt Visotzky have been my shining lights on this journey. I didn’t set out to find a yogi, a Buddhist, and a rabbi, and can only marvel that my initial, tentative questions led me to extraordinary thinkers who have now become such dear friends.

I am grateful to my early readers Jack Rosenthal and Jack Gilpin. Abigail Pogrebin—fellow sojourner, astute reader—talked me out of more than one tree. Mitchel Bleier shared his extensive knowledge of yoga philosophy and allowed me into his advanced yoga class even though I can’t do a handstand in the middle of the room. Tracy Bleier and Ally Hamilton—goddesses both. Maria Da Silva made it possible for me to do what I needed to do.

My gratitude, as always, to my wonderful agent, Jennifer Ru
dolph Walsh, whose support I feel every day. Andy McNicol read early pages and offered a generous and spot-on critique. And my deepest thanks to my editor, Jennifer Barth, who got this book from minute one and has been this writer’s dream.

My beloved aunt, Shirley Feuerstein, is simply the most graceful person I have ever known.

Finally, my two favorite men: my son, Jacob Maren, the beating heart of this book. And my husband, Michael Maren, who embodies the very essence of the word
devotion
.

Jacket photograph © Oote Boe

Jacket design by Archie Ferguson