One Hundred Philistine Foreskins (55 page)

The Teachings Of HaRav Temima Ba'alatOv, Shlita

(May She Live On For Many Good Long Years)—

Recorded By Kol-Isha-Erva At The “Leper” Colony Of Jerusalem

D
RAWING
from the secrets of the wise and the discerning, and from the teachings derived from the knowledge of those endowed with understanding, I will open my woman's naked mouth in prayer and supplications to beseech and beg mercy before the King who pardons and forgives sins. I have been remiss, I am awash in mortification, whatever excuse I might offer is feeble and of no account. Write it down! Write it down! our holy mother wordlessly commands me every day, several times a day I hear the prophetic voice insisting, demanding, Write it down! Hold nothing back!—but until now in my weakness I have procrastinated, I have lacked the strength of character to get my act together and carry out my mandate. It is now well over a full year that we have sojourned here in the “leper” colony of Jerusalem. I have been drained of energy almost to extinction, my fingers have grown numb, the skin of my hands has become scaly, my arms are knobbed and mottled, until now I have not
been able to muster the spirit to lift my pen and perform my duty, God forgive me.

Only five souls remain in full-time residence within the walls of our settlement, towering above us all HaRav Temima Ba'alatOv, shlita, who has entered a hidden state, no longer rising from the holy bed, and, in mystical abstinence, no longer communicating through speech. Of the five surviving remnants who have dug in and refused to be uprooted—hell no, we won't go!—the exalted HaRav Temima Ba'alatOv, shlita, is, needless to say, first and foremost; last and not even meriting mention is my insignificant afflicted self. The remaining three survivors in order of appearance include Rizpa, our faithful domestic management associate now donning ritual fringe
ziziot
at the corners of her apron, her dark wizened skin erupted in patches of discol-oration, still emotionally powerless to move past her personal mourning and loss through the five stages of grief and achieve closure with acceptance; my prophetess of the past, Aishet-Lot, every exposed part of her massive body white as the salt of the Dead Sea, now promoted to the position of our holy mother's primary personal assistant, still suffering from a severe case of post-traumatic stress disorder with its symptomatic muteness that surely elevates her silent conversations with Ima Temima to transformative heights not to be imagined; and our male help-meet, a nomad (this is not the time to disturb Ima Temima with the question as to whether or not it is appropriate to use the word “Arab” to identify another human being created in the image of God) whom Ima Temima called Kadosh-Kadosh, though I suspect that is not his true name. I recognized him, of course. He was the visitor who would arrive from time to time to the Temima Shul in the Bukharim Quarter—to bless
me
, our holy mother would say, instead of the reverse. Whenever he showed up, despite whatever else of urgency might have been scheduled, HaRav Temima Ba'alatOv would enter a secluded state with him for a long session of
hitbodedut,
in the bedchamber where all business was conducted, with the door closed and no one else present, and when word of this deference to a lowly seeker of obviously no consequence in the world and unmistakably not
even Jewish would leak out to the disciples, it only served to embellish our holy mother's legend.

These are the five survivors of our camp, the embers salvaged from the flames. The decimation of our ranks is in no small measure my fault, I take full responsibility, I am prostrate with shame and remorse, I am abject, our holy mother has forgiven me but I shall never forgive myself. All that is asked of me now is to write it down, to hold nothing back, to lift my woman's naked voice and make public confession. I was tested and I failed—flunked, flunked! I stand now on the block as the emissary of our congregation and deliver myself into the hands of the Lord, the high executioner up above: Here I am, impoverished of deed, quaking and terrified, unworthy and unsuitable, a sinner and transgressor, have mercy.

Now at last, in compliance with the admonition of HaRav Temima Ba'alatOv, shlita, to hold nothing back in these pages, I accept that it is no longer possible to avoid setting down a full accounting of what happened here in our “leper” colony starting on the tenth of Tishrei, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, two months and a day after the passage of our high priestess, Aish-Zara, za'zal, from this world to the next. It is my duty to acknowledge that my reluctance to testify to these events, putting the task off day after day, was nothing but a small-minded, self-centered defense mechanism on my part to rewrite history through omission due to the corrosive light these compromising events shed on the weakness and baseness of my own character. Our holy mother's continued silence warns me that I can no longer hide behind the excuse of female modesty or my hypocritical aversion to calling attention to myself in order to be spared the disgrace I deserve for my inappropriate behavior, for all the pain and suffering I have caused, for corrupting and contaminating our community with a sin that festered undercover until it leaked and spiraled out of control to a disastrous climax.

W
E WERE
still a community of about one hundred souls on that Day of Atonement. How long ago it now seems, a past life, a full year has not yet gone by since that Yom Kippur when it
all began but the questions we asked then have already been answered—Who by madness? Who by disease? Who by despair? Who by degradation?

HaRav Temima Ba'alatOv, shlita, did not join us in prayer on that Yom Kippur due to physical issues, but instead remained cloistered over the entire twenty-four-hour period in the holy chambers attended by the only non-Jew from our inner circle, the nomad Kadosh-Kadosh. Everyone else, including Aishet-Lot, who had become the primary caregiver to Ima Temima, was ordered to take the day off to fast and pray as was required, optimally with the full congregation.

During the short break following the afternoon service, highlighted, to my mind, by its detailing of the frenetic ancient priestly rites and sacrifices and costume changes on the Day of Judgment when our Holy Temple still stood in all its glory on its Mount, may it be rebuilt speedily and in our time, and with its rapturous exhalation of relief when the radiant high priest manages to make it out of the Holy of Holies in one piece, I found myself in the northern garden outside our holy mother's quarters beside the burial spot of our own high priestess, Aish-Zara, za'zal, who had not been so lucky, she had not been spared. There I sat and also wept as I remembered Aish-Zara, za'zal, just as our ancestors also musicians (entertainers like other eager-to-please immigrant population groups) once wept in exile by the waters of Babylon.

So deep in end-stage grief and longing was I crouched there between the still-unmarked grave of Aish-Zara, za'zal, and the sealed door of our holy mother that I did not at first notice the stranger in our midst climbing over the wall until he came scrambling and scraping down and crash-landed on the ground. Naturally, I rose at once to come to his aid, but gesturing defensively with lacerated hands, as if on guard to repel me if I turned out to be a hostile or allow me cautious limited access if I showed myself to be a potential ally, he cried, “The
go'el ha'dam
is after me! This is an
ihr miklat
! You have to take me in!”

The white garments he was wearing as is the custom on Yom Kippur, from his great white crocheted yarmulke pulled low and snug over his skull to the white cloth sneakers on his feet and all
the whiteness in between symbolizing purity, a clean slate and fresh start for the new year, were filthy, shredded and bloodied from the ordeal of the gripping chase scene he had just starred in with the blood avengers pursuing him, hot on his heels.

Even then I wondered where in the world he had picked up the notion that our “leper” colony was an
ihr miklat,
a city of refuge, set aside to give asylum to accidental murderers, but he was pitifully battered and distraught, it was not the time to interrogate him, he had the right to remain silent. He was not such a young man either, well beyond the age to be scaling walls. Nor was he in very good physical shape for such an extreme workout, panting heavily, sweating lavishly, clutching his gut. His patchy grizzled gray beard was wiry like steel wool, his sidelocks were white and wispy, but his eyes, set a little too close together, gave off a poignant childlike wounded quality, as if expecting something good and expecting to be disappointed, both at the same time. He reminded me of someone, I couldn't at first quite put my finger on whom.

As I continued to stand there in silence taking pains not to make any threatening gesture or abrupt move—for instance, backing up a few paces and turning to pound on our holy mother's door in this genuine emergency to demand the nomad's help in dealing with this intruder—his agitation began to cool, he calmed down to a degree though he remained wary and alert, and he went on declaiming, “The whole world's going crazy—you know? I'm the main
go'el ha'dam
—that'
s
my job description, to avenge the blood, I'm the blood redeemer, so how can a
go'el ha'dam
be chased by another
go'el ha'dam
? Hel-lo? The buck has to stop somewheres, otherwise you get your endless cycle of violence, blahblah,
ve'hulai ve'hulai
. And where does it stop? The answer is—Right here, lady, in your “leper” colony. Who's gonna come in after me into this joint anyways, and maybe catch the sickness and turn all white and bumpy like a cauliflower with boils like from the ten plagues and pus pimples like you wouldn't believe oozing gunk all over the carpet and all of his body parts that stick out hanging from a piece of skin and then dropping down on the floor one by one, plop, plop, plop, first his toes, then his nose,
then his fingers, then his ears, then his pecker—gross, right? So I'm safe in here—right? Until the Moshiakh comes, quickly in our day, amen, the “leper” colony is our
ihr miklat
, my refuge city. It's your job to gimme shelter, lady, like Reb Mick says—'cause there's a war going on, the end of days, Apocalypso, Gog and Magog, fire, flood, rape, murder, and the mad bull lost his way. I'm the main bull, lady, and boy am I mad, I'm real mad!”

All this and more he poured out in English, it occurred to me. There we were in the “leper” colony of Israel but he wasn't speaking Hebrew, he had sized me up instantly as an Anglo. It was a New York accent of some sort, definitely not Upper East Side, nothing I was familiar with, some neighborhood in one of the outer boroughs probably. That was when I also realized whom he reminded me of—our holy mother's son, Paltiel.

Then it all came together for me, like sparks fusing into a bolt of lightning, like prophecy. This was Paltiel's father, aka Go'el-HaDam the blood avenger, aka Haim Ba'al-Teshuva, scribe and phylacteries maker of Hebron, the former Howie Stern of Ozone Park, Queens, New York. I had never met him personally but I knew all about him, there was no mistaking him, this was the man our holy mother, Ima Temima, was still technically married to by the law of Moses and Israel, though, as I also knew perhaps better than anyone, our holy mother's true husband was and remains the Toiter in the line of the redemption and fulfillment of the messianic mission.

Out of concern for embarrassment to HaRav Temima Ba'alatOv, shlita, therefore, without informing anyone of the arrival of this potentially compromising incendiary figure within our gates, I led him along back pathways around the northern garden through the tangled brush and nettles on the east side of the hospital up the stairs under the J
ESUS
H
ILFE
inscription to the refuge of my room, where I closed the door and offered him asylum.

I
HID
him in my room for close to six weeks, convinced that during that period, with the exception of Basmat, my cat, I alone knew of this stranger's presence in our midst, and I alone would
bear the consequences for shielding a fugitive from justice should his whereabouts ever become known. During that time, I took care of all his needs, from soup to nuts, it pains me to confess. Apart from food and shelter, it would be morally equivalent to a violation of attorney-client confidentiality to give a full blow-by-blow of all the needs I provided for; suffice it to say they were across the board, to my everlasting shame. He called me his “little righteous gentile,” I blush to admit, and promised to plant a tree in my honor at the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum when all of this blew over for placing myself at mortal risk by hiding him from his Nazi anti-Semite persecutors. I am equally mortified to confirm that I called him my “Hero of Our Time,” but it is my intention in these pages not to spare myself any humiliation or hold anything back except for a pointless recapitulation of the intimate details, which, in any event, would simply reward prurience and idle curiosity, and bottom line always boils down to the same-old same-old tiresome drill between a man and a woman with very limited wiggle room for originality or variation on the theme to the disappointment and boredom of voyeurs and pornography junkies everywhere.

As for attending to his emotional needs, this consisted primarily of listening, of allowing him to talk, which he did practically nonstop when I was in the room with him and we were awake. Fortunately, he did not talk in his sleep, nor did he cry out from nightmares most likely because he was congenitally immune to fear or guilt, nor, to my surprise, did he snore though judging from the position of his septum that was on full display in flagrant deviation when he slept on his back with his nose pointed to the ceiling, coupled with the nasal quality of his voice to which I am acutely sensitive thanks to my musical training and his open mouth that shut only to grind his teeth, he looked and sounded like he would have been a snorer. Each night's sleep, however, I am obliged to note, was interrupted at least once by the thud of poor Basmat's body striking the wall when he hurled her out of the bed across the room. The flow of his talk ran on without pause or interruption or comment from me, which was his sexual preference as well. The only caveats I imposed were that
all conversation must be conducted in a whisper, and that above all he was banned from uttering a single word or syllable, either negative or positive, about his so-called “wife,” our holy mother, or anything even remotely touching upon our holy mother. In no uncertain terms I warned him that all it would require would be one violation of this restriction and he would be out the door on his rear end in the street before he knew what hit him, at the mercy of the revenge freaks, which is the main natural resource and export of the Middle East.