One Hundred Philistine Foreskins (29 page)

A profound silence followed as our holy mother took this in,
channeling it through attributes of wisdom even the existence of which I could not venture to fathom. “Kol-Isha-Erva,” Ima Temima spoke at last, “think carefully. Were these two things truly what you noticed first?”

It was my turn to draw deeply from whatever impoverished well of cognitive awareness I possessed. Finally I said, “I guess the very first thing I truly noticed were the genitals. Isn't that what one always looks for first? I took note that it was a girl. Then the spots and the tail.”

“Three birth defects then,” our holy mother responded. “Three damning stigmas.”

I
T IS
not for me to presume how much of this teaching was absorbed by the consciousness of Aish-Zara, za'zal, as she lay in that bed beside our holy mother with eyes sealed, her breaths vibrating in thin rasps. But I can testify that before her final passage our beloved high priestess was blessed with one more moment of what as executive director of the school for prophetesses I would with no hesitation whatsoever call end-of-days prophetic vision. It occurred at twilight on that Tisha B'Av day as I joined the vigil in our holy mother's chambers reading psalms along with Rizpa and Aishet-Lot—Even when I walk in the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil because You are with me, Your rod and Your staff they will comfort me.

As if she were startled by a stunning realization she had been grasping for all her life, the cavernous eyes of our high priestess Aish-Zara, za'zal, flashed open and she cried out, “The Queen the Messiah, here she is!” Mustering the last shreds of her strength she clasped Ima Temima around the neck with both arms and kissed our holy mother passionately on the lips. Utterly spent, her arms dropped, her head sank onto Ima Temima's breast, and she remained in that position, her depleted upper body splayed across Ima Temima as our holy mother stroked her back, singing softly in an aged voice, deep and gravelly, a Yiddish lullaby, Sleep, sleep my dear little bird, ay-lululu-lu-lu-lu. Over and over again Ima Temima sang this simple melody, caressing and rocking Aish-Zara, za'zal, for an hour at least as we sat there silent
privileged witnesses until the words of the
Shema
rang out from the lips of HaRav Temima Ba'alat Ov, shlita—“Hear, O Israel, Adonai is our God, Adonai is One,” and, after a haunting pause, the acceptance of the death sentence, “Blessed is the True Judge.”

A long tear crept down the sides of our holy mother's face from the corner of each eye. Rizpa and Aishet-Lot approached the bed diffidently and lifted the body of our high priestess Aish-Zara, za'zal, off of our holy mother and laid her gently on her back in her own bed, her released soul still hovering in midair seeking the open window like an agitated bird desperately searching for a way out. The two personal attendants assisted Ima Temima onto a chair, which was drawn up close to the bed. The hands and feet of Aish-Zara, za'zal, were already bloating and growing waxy, an organic smell of sweet rot was beginning to radiate from her, her nearly toothless mouth hung down open and slack. Our holy mother reached for the Tanakh on the bedside table and wedged it under the chin of Aish-Zara, za'zal, to prop up the jaw and close the mouth. Then HaRav Temima Ba'alatOv, shlita, pulled the cover over the vacated face that no longer truly resembled our high priestess Aish-Zara, za'zal, her essence no longer present, and said, “In keeping with the mitzvah to honor the dead I take it upon myself to serve as the
shomeret
.”

Instantly, with no prior consultation, the three of us came forward as one to offer ourselves in place of our holy mother as guardians over the body. We were overcome with concern that the task of sitting up all night beside Aish-Zara, za'zal, keeping watch over the remains so they would not be left alone even for a second would be too taxing, frail with age and desolated by this loss as Ima Temima was, and especially after a twenty-four-hour period of fasting. But HaRav Temima Ba'alatOv, shlita, would not hear of it, refusing absolutely to cede to anyone else this service of lovingkindness to the dead, or even to compromise by agreeing to shifts in which we would each take a turn as
shomeret
. The only concession our holy mother made was to eat something from the tray of salads and fruit that Rizpa had already set out in the front room while my prophetess Aishet-Lot and I during this brief break sat watch over the withered corpse
decomposing on the bed. It was a tiny body, yet even so it was too large to stuff into the refrigerator in the apartment for preservation purposes, and, despite the irrefutable holiness of Aish-Zara, za'zal, we were bewildered to discover that her remains were so quickly giving off a rancid stench even on that musty Jerusalem night, though not one of us would dare to dishonor the dead by making reference to it either in words or by facial expressions or by, God forbid, the gesture of placing a hand discreetly under our noses.

Within ten minutes Ima Temima returned from the brief repast, resuming the role of dedicated watchwoman, companion to the dead, even as the three of us also remained through the night, listening in awe as our holy mother intoned all one-hundred-and-fifty psalms entirely from memory in a remarkably young and strong voice. After the verse “Although my father and mother have abandoned me, the Lord will take me in” from Psalm twenty-seven, Ima Temima reminded us that, although Aish-Zara, za'zal, had been cut off by her family for what were judged to be heretical activities impermissible to a woman warranting complete shunning when she left them to join our flock, and although she was regarded as dead by her husband and children who had already sat shiva over her for seven days of mourning, it was nevertheless our responsibility to find a way to inform her thirteen children, ten sons and three daughters, of the actual passing of their only mother and of the funeral and burial that would take place the next day here at our “leper” colony as well as of their obligation to sit shiva again, this time for true and proper cause. “What they decide to do with this knowledge once we have fulfilled our duty to pass it on to them is their choice, God help them,” our holy mother said. The task of dispatching a member of the Bnei Zeruya with the mandate to seek out at least one of the children of Aish-Zara, za'zal, to deliver the news and to spread it to the others was delegated to me, a commission I welcomed with gratitude. After that, Ima Temima did not interrupt the recitation of Tehillim again until Psalm one-hundred-and-thirty, arriving at the verse, My soul longs for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, watchmen for the
morning. Here, our holy mother paused and declared, “When morning comes, I will oversee the
tahara
.”

From these words we understood that HaRav Temima Ba'alat Ov, shlita, was yielding to us the actual performance of the purification rites involved in the
tahara
process in favor of a supervisory role, and in my heart I thanked God for this. It must surely have been an extremely painful decision for our holy mother to refrain from active participation in what is considered to be among the highest acts of lovingkindness one person can perform for another, a thankless task, and especially in this case the sacrifice must have been doubly hard, since the recipient of this
hessed
would be Ima Temima's soul mate, Aish-Zara, za'zal. Moreover, I can personally attest to our holy mother's extraordinary skill at preparing the dead for burial, from the days when the two of us came out of the patriarchal compound in the wilderness of the late Abba Kadosh, a'h, and Ima Temima quickly became known throughout the land of Israel as a one-woman holy society, traveling anywhere day or night to perform a
tahara
, especially for women who had no one, the nameless and marginalized. But this time, to my immense personal relief, there was an implicit acknowledgment of the limitations that come with age. Now, under the scrupulously demanding eye of our holy mother, the hard labor and heavy lifting involved in the
tahara
were to be left to us, to Rizpa, Aishet-Lot, and myself, joined by a fourth woman, Zippi, who strode into the room and promptly let out a loud Phew!—clapping her hands against her nose and shaking them out as if they had accidentally dipped into some foul pool. In the spirit of special indulgence of one's own child our holy mother overlooked this outburst possibly disrespectful to the dead had the spirit of Aish-Zara, za'zal, heard it, and opened the proceedings at once by paraphrasing from that great depressed authoress Kohelet, “As she came out of her mother's womb naked so must she go—as we wash a baby at the beginning so we wash her at the end.”

The wasted and ravaged body of our precious high priestess Aish-Zara, za'zal, was laid out naked under a white Sabbath tablecloth on a wooden bench, the feet pointed toward the door,
the hands arranged palms upward in a gesture of supplication. “Essie daughter of Sarah-Yiska,” the four of us recited in unison (since we did not know the name of the mother of Aish-Zara, za'zal, this was the name HaRav Temima Ba'alatOv, shlita, instructed us to use), “we of the holy burial society ask your permission to perform this
tahara
on you. We beg your forgiveness for any disturbance we might cause you or for any mistake we might make.”

We proceeded to wash the body with water ladled from a pail, exposing only the section we were working on to protect the dignity of the dead like a surgeon performing an operation, barely able to gaze out of pity at the cavernous webbing of scars where the breasts had been gouged out, the savage gash through which the womb had been eviscerated, the evidence of beatings and cigarette burns that had been inflicted upon her. We combed the sparse white hair remaining on the head of Aish-Zara, za'zal, we cleaned out all of the orifices, the ears, the nostrils, the mouth, and so on and so forth, all the holes down the body front and back and packed them with sand, we cut her nails and scraped under them with a toothpick, bemused to discover the remains of a glossy mother-of-pearl polish on her toenails, which we were instructed to remove. As we labored our holy mother sat in the chair directing us, closely monitoring our every move, all the while chanting from the Song of Songs—Her head is like the finest gold, Eyes like doves, Cheeks like beds of spices, Hands like golden rods, Thighs like marble pillars, Her mouth is sweet, She is completely delicious, This is my beloved, This is my darling, daughters of Jerusalem.

The two heftiest women in our group, Aishet-Lot and Zippi, raised the naked body of Aish-Zara, za'zal, and stood it up on its feet holding her rigid form steady in that position as Rizpa and I carried out the actual purification ritual of
tahara
, pouring water from buckets in a continuous stream down her head and body like a shower for a total immersion as in a ritual bath, and afterward we dried her thoroughly. We covered the bench she had been resting upon after drying it too, spreading the great white talit over it in which Aish-Zara, za'zal, used to wrap herself to
bless our congregation, first tearing one of its fringes to render it unusable for any future holy service.

We dressed her in her plain white linen shrouds sewn by hand by the women of our “leper” colony—the cap, the veil, the trousers, the socks, the mittens, the tunic, the jacket, the sash wound around the waist knotted in the shape of the three-pronged pitchforked letter
shin
for one of God's aliases,
Shaddai
—“Like the white garments donned by the high priest only once a year on Yom Kippur day to enter the Holy of Holies,” Ima Temima said. Here at last was an outfit tailor-made for Aish-Zara, za'zal. Honey, I was tempted to say, With all due respect, this is you! Ima Temima sent Aishet-Lot outside into the northern garden of our “leper” colony to collect some dirt from the Holy Land, which we sprinkled over the eyes, heart, and private parts of Aish-Zara, za'zal, who now totally clad in her white shrouds at last truly took on the ultimate aura of a high priestess. We drew up the edges of the great talit she was resting on and folded it over her completely, tucking in its corners, wrapping her in a tight, neat little bundle as Ima Temima cried out with intense feeling, “She is pure! She is pure! She is pure!”—and we lit a memorial candle at her head.

“Aish-Zara, za'zal,” we intoned repeating after Ima Temima, “we beg your forgiveness if in any way we have offended your dignity as we carried out this
tahara
. We have now completed our task according to custom and tradition.”

“Thank you,” a muffled voice responded in a whistling note followed by a sharp little bray of a laugh—all four of us can testify that we heard this, it was a miracle—and a small brown bird that had been perched on the sill of the open window fluttered its wings and flew off.

T
HE FUNERAL
was held soon after, on that very same morning, the tenth of Av before noon to escape the stifling heat of the day. Every member of our community gathered in the dark shaded northern garden of the “leper” colony outside the door of Ima Temima's apartment where the grave had been readied under the ancient oak tree to receive Aish-Zara, za'zal, in the winding
sheet of her talit. It had been dug with somber devotion by Aishet-Lot and the three remaining Bnei Zeruya, who were also given the honor of pallbearers, carrying Aish-Zara, za'zal, out on her bench and setting her down beside the shocking hole in the ground of her open grave. Our holy mother, cloaked and hooded in a prayer shawl and completely veiled, accompanied by the little mother Torah tucked securely into the corner of the wheelchair like a beloved stuffed animal without which a small child will refuse to go anywhere, followed behind in the procession to escort the dead, pushed by Rizpa who was helpless to suppress the sobs that gripped her. Though proximity to the impurity of the dead except in the case of the closest relatives is forbidden to a member of the priestly caste, HaRav Temima Ba'alatOv, shlita, had ruled that Aish-Zara, za'zal, was like a mother to our priestesses, and so they too were present, their white prayer shawls draped over their heads, three priestesses in all remaining to us now in our “leper” colony, including Tahara Rappaport who had risen from her bed and was breast-feeding her tightly swaddled baby under her talit.