Read Online As Close to Us as Breathing: A Novel by Elizabeth Poliner - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Elizabeth Poliner
Ads: Link
paradise and sunshine and endless bowls of fruit salad, a summer unimaginable to me and my father, and what does that son do but take it all for granted. God forgive me, he told himself, but I expected more from Howard, never would I have broken my word to my father, ignored my father, God rest his soul, God hope the old soul’s not really hurting, God help him if he is, and then Mort was back to the written text, back to God, busy and industrious—so very unlike Howard—sustaining the living with loving-kindness, resurrecting the dead with great mercy, supporting the falling, healing the sick, releasing the bound, and fulfilling his word to those who sleep in the dust.
He’d once slept in the dust, Mort realized, his heart seized by the word, and by dust he meant ignorance, and by ignorance he meant himself, before his awakening, for which he had his father, Zelik, to thank. At the time he’d been a few years younger than Howard was now, just twelve, his bar mitzvah nearing, but he was far more in love with baseball then than with Judaism. Games and practices were on Saturdays and he’d appealed to his father for permission to forgo the rules of Shabbos for the freedom of playing Saturday games. His team wanted him, a natural as a shortstop, and he wanted them. But Zelik had shaken his head; the law was the law, he’d said, not without sympathy for Mort’s request. After all, baseball was certainly a worthy concern. But, his father had remarked, you couldn’t compare the pursuit of baseball with the rules of Judaism, the teachings of Torah, the love of God, and—here Zelik cleared his throat for dramatic effect—the fate of the Jewish people. There was talk then of the old life before America: of expulsion from Moscow, of life within the Pale, of dire poverty, robbings, even killings, of every law designed to keep you down. This was what the family, because of their Judaism, had suffered. But hadn’t Mort heard all this a thousand times before? He looked to his father. “We have to remember the Sabbath,” the man concluded. “We can’t choose not to. That’s the same thing as choosing not to be a Jew.”
“Then I choose not to.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
Zelik had stepped back, as if wounded, and they’d walked away from each other for the afternoon. Later, as my father had come down the stairs for dinner, Zelik met him at the landing. His words, heated earlier, were now calm, even kind.
“Listen,” he told Mort. The unusual sweetness of his father’s voice captivated Mort and he did listen. “What this is,” Zelik said, “is a responsibility. This is how you were born: Jewish. This is the family you were born into: of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You can’t change that, and this is how it comes: with responsibilities. We have to meet them, or—”
Zelik looked at him and the words, which at first came so easily, and had sounded almost like music, were now seemingly beyond his grasp. “Don’t you see?” he added, shaking his head as if to clear his mind. “Responsibilities,” he repeated quietly.
This moment was the first time his father had talked to him like that, like Mort actually did have a choice, to meet or refuse to meet his responsibilities. In a few months the bar mitzvah would mark him a man, at least in religious terms, and with that his full participation in adult Jewish life could begin, but it was this moment that my father always thought of as the one that truly began his adulthood. He did have responsibilities, he realized, blinking his eyes, as if to push past the dust of sleepy denial. He just hadn’t seen his life that way before. He didn’t know he had the will to do it, but in the end he did: he made his choice, and it was against baseball.
The words of the Amidah continued, and as Mort rocked forward and backward, his eyes focused again on his prayer book, his mind working to find that center point, that place that stilled his
He’d once slept in the dust, Mort realized, his heart seized by the word, and by dust he meant ignorance, and by ignorance he meant himself, before his awakening, for which he had his father, Zelik, to thank. At the time he’d been a few years younger than Howard was now, just twelve, his bar mitzvah nearing, but he was far more in love with baseball then than with Judaism. Games and practices were on Saturdays and he’d appealed to his father for permission to forgo the rules of Shabbos for the freedom of playing Saturday games. His team wanted him, a natural as a shortstop, and he wanted them. But Zelik had shaken his head; the law was the law, he’d said, not without sympathy for Mort’s request. After all, baseball was certainly a worthy concern. But, his father had remarked, you couldn’t compare the pursuit of baseball with the rules of Judaism, the teachings of Torah, the love of God, and—here Zelik cleared his throat for dramatic effect—the fate of the Jewish people. There was talk then of the old life before America: of expulsion from Moscow, of life within the Pale, of dire poverty, robbings, even killings, of every law designed to keep you down. This was what the family, because of their Judaism, had suffered. But hadn’t Mort heard all this a thousand times before? He looked to his father. “We have to remember the Sabbath,” the man concluded. “We can’t choose not to. That’s the same thing as choosing not to be a Jew.”
“Then I choose not to.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
Zelik had stepped back, as if wounded, and they’d walked away from each other for the afternoon. Later, as my father had come down the stairs for dinner, Zelik met him at the landing. His words, heated earlier, were now calm, even kind.
“Listen,” he told Mort. The unusual sweetness of his father’s voice captivated Mort and he did listen. “What this is,” Zelik said, “is a responsibility. This is how you were born: Jewish. This is the family you were born into: of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You can’t change that, and this is how it comes: with responsibilities. We have to meet them, or—”
Zelik looked at him and the words, which at first came so easily, and had sounded almost like music, were now seemingly beyond his grasp. “Don’t you see?” he added, shaking his head as if to clear his mind. “Responsibilities,” he repeated quietly.
This moment was the first time his father had talked to him like that, like Mort actually did have a choice, to meet or refuse to meet his responsibilities. In a few months the bar mitzvah would mark him a man, at least in religious terms, and with that his full participation in adult Jewish life could begin, but it was this moment that my father always thought of as the one that truly began his adulthood. He did have responsibilities, he realized, blinking his eyes, as if to push past the dust of sleepy denial. He just hadn’t seen his life that way before. He didn’t know he had the will to do it, but in the end he did: he made his choice, and it was against baseball.
The words of the Amidah continued, and as Mort rocked forward and backward, his eyes focused again on his prayer book, his mind working to find that center point, that place that stilled his
Similar Books
