I Am Forbidden

L
IGHT
, fast, Zalman’s heels rapped the ground as he ran, naked, down the center aisle of the House of Prayer. His hand reached toward the Torah scroll raised above the altar, but the embroidered mantle slid up and out of sight. The scroll spread open, revealing a passage he had not memorized. There, supine on the black Ashurite script, her long braids undone, was Rachel Landau, the bride of his study partner. Her dark eyes smiled at Zalman. He ran faster toward her, his hips rose and fell, circling the heat in his ammah—

Zalman awoke to a damp warmth on his thigh. He lay still, as the texts he knew so well descended upon him:
You who inflame yourselves among the terebinths … who slay the children in the valley.… No, do not read
shochtay,
who slay, but
sochtay,
who cause to flow. Rabbi Yochanan says, Whoever emits seed in vain deserves death
. Zalman tugged at the belt strapped around his wrists. If his roommates had not been there, he would
have beaten his chest, heeding the command:
Become angry and do not sin
. He pressed the buckle against the pillow so it would not clang against the brass headboard. He disengaged one wrist, then the other. He had taken every precaution—neither Law nor custom commanded that he bind his hands. He unwound the string tying his ankle to the footboard to prevent him from turning onto his belly and rubbing accidentally during sleep. He reached for the water and washbowl. The clammy pajamas hugged his groin.

Master of the universe, I have done this unwittingly
.

He pulled off the sheet.

Every bed, whereon he lieth that hath the issue is unclean
.

He stole down the stairs, into the unlit, narrow alley where each slat of the closed shutters was an accusation. In the desert, he would have been barred from the Tabernacle’s camp and from the Levites’ camp.

He pushed open the low door to the ritual bath. He would immerse himself three times and then he would be permitted to study the holy books that same day
—born anew after the third immersion
.

He disrobed. The water nipped at his calves, his thighs; the chill shriveled his ammah. He spread his arms and let himself sink, to make sure his long sidecurls were submerged.

It had happened in his sleep, Zalman reasoned; he was sure he had never run, naked, in front of a woman’s eyes, but he was guilty in other ways and the Lord was punishing him—surely his classmates were not visited by such dreams.

He should have fled as soon as he saw Gershon holding a pushpin and a Talmud tome, as soon as he saw the assembled students. The metal point hovered above a line of text, careful not to scratch the holy letters, then it stilled above the word
father
.

“Nu, Zalman?” the students coaxed.

Zalman did not resist. “Strife.”

Gershon held up the page of the heavy treatise and all the heads bowed to inspect which word was on the reverse side of the page, exactly where the pin was pointing:
strife
.

Already the pushpin hovered above another word.

“Two pages from here, Zalman?”

He should have called it vanity and turned away but he knew the word to which the pin was pointing two pages ahead. “
Behold
.” Only when the pin hovered above a third word did Zalman put an end to the conceit, but even as he hurried away, he took pleasure in his classmates’ reverent whispers.

Zalman’s head broke the surface of the water for one breath, then he sank a second time, drifting deeper into his past.

Ezra the Peddler called out to him: “Six years old and you can name Adam’s offspring all the way to King David? What was the name of Adam’s twelfth-generation descendent?”

“Arphachsad.”

“The twenty-fifth?”

“Amram.”

“It’s true, the Stern boy is an ilui, a wonder of Torah knowledge.”

Zalman had not known how to be modest. He blurted out the twenty-sixth name and the twenty-seventh as if the Lord’s gift were a personal achievement.

Zalman lifted his head for a second breath, and sank under the water a third time.

His father’s words boomed: “Five years old and our son plays marbles instead of studying?”

When the teacher had left the classroom, Zalman had sprung up with the other boys to pitch walnuts and measure whose was closest to the wall.

His father’s worry; his mother’s silence.

Zalman sank toward the bottom of the small pool until he turned three, a child with a child’s set of obligations. His father sheared his hair, leaving two sidecurls. Then he began to float upward and he was two, spelling his first words while raisins and almonds rained from Heaven. He was one, licking Hebrew letters coated with honey while his mother smothered him in kisses. He rose out of the water.

Born anew
.

Now he could put on his phylacteries, now he could beseech Him:
Remember the binding of Isaac and Your promise to Abraham. In their merit not mine, subdue, kill, uproot the Lilin that were spawned through these drops that left me in vain.…

• • •

The Lord heard Zalman’s supplication. There were no nocturnal emissions during the Days of Awe leading to the Day of Atonement, nor from the Day of Atonement to the Feast of Tabernacles. Once more, Zalman looked every man straight in the eye. On the night of the Festival of the Law, Simchath Torah, Zalman danced. Never had Zalman felt His presence with such immediacy.

U
NTIL SUNDOWN
the previous eve, the Hasidim had discussed Hitler and Stalin marching across the newspapers; they had argued about the fall of Warsaw ten days earlier, and about Poland partitioned, but on the Festival of the Law, the Hasidim danced. Their right arms rose, folded, unfolded, drumming the air that circled the scroll that circled their years. Each round heaved their bodies closer to their souls.

Leading the dance, the Rebbe tossed his head from side to side. Eyes closed, the Rebbe saw wonders words could not convey. He skipped and the heart of the whole congregation leapt.

“Shaddaï! Melech! Netzach!” the Rebbe cried out.

The circling stilled, the Hasidim shuddered as the Lord’s names hovered above their lifted faces.

“Aye yaï yaï,” the Rebbe called.

“Aye yaï yaï yaï,” his Hasidim responded. They sang tune after tune, they hummed melodies unconstrained by word or meaning, and their sidecurls were silver streams twirling in front of Heaven’s gates, which surely, tonight, would swivel open on the seventh round.

His assistant whispered into the Rebbe’s ear, the Rebbe nodded, the assistant called, “ ‘Adir Kevodo’ will be sung by Zalman Stern!”

It was a great honor to lead an anthem in the Rebbe’s court, an immense distinction for an unmarried youth, but Zalman was not only a wonder of Torah knowledge, he also had the most beautiful voice east of Vienna.

“Shaah! Quiet!” the assistant hollered.

Zalman’s voice rose, focused, from his belly, as taught by his father, the cantor of Temesvár.
“Splendid is His honor.…”

The notes plunged deep and then kept climbing, spurring the men’s longing to break free from their bodies. They joined for the refrain, startled to hear their unruly modulations cover the perfect pitch.

Then Zalman’s voice soared again.

Long after the last note had lingered and died, all were still, until the Rebbe let out an
“Aye mamale aye!”

They leaned into the dance—the boys, the men in their prime, the men with white beards; hugging the Torah scrolls, they skipped along the ring that wheeled their past into their future; entwined by their sidecurls, they wound themselves back to
In the Beginning
.

Dawn was breaking when the men left the synagogue.

Zalman Stern and his study partner, Gershon Heller, left together. The two youths walked in a fashion that showed respect for the Lord’s presence: not too proud, shoulders back and chin out, but not bent over. Their steps tapped lightly
through the fog. They parted before reaching Piaţa Libertăţii. Zalman entered the large square alone. Strips of haze swathed the façades, but Zalman saw sparkling gems: If, on Simchath Torah, dancing was akin to prayer; if, on Simchath Torah, angels gathered every step danced by every Jew and wove them into crowns, then the Lord’s splendor, this morning—

Something pulled at Zalman’s collar, hard, from behind.

A muffled pop. A receding clink as a button ricocheted against the cobblestones.

Soldiers.

A tug on Zalman’s sleeve. Two more buttons snapped.

A muzzle lifted his hat. His hand came to his head.