a doorway into his own home. But it also seemed we had no choice.
Around me, the sound of women rising, a rustle and movement, gathering of pocketbooks, murmurs, the click of heels. Our new mission was an important one. Together we would light thosecandles and create a peaceful island of time, a Sabbath Island, for our People. And so Ana and I glided away among the women, leaving the men behind.
Near the kitchen was a single narrow table with many little brass candlesticks and a pile of matchbooks at one end. Ana’s eagerness made me smile. We all gathered around the candle-covered table, maybe twenty of us.
“I can do this one. It’s basic Sunday School,” Ana said.
“I feel weird,” I murmured back.
Ana took a book of matches from the pile and lit two candles, then covered her eyes with her hands and recited the Hebrew blessing. But this faux kind of female-ness we were taking part in was yet another set of rules that I couldn’t begin to intuit. Shyness settled over me like a veil.
Then, standing there deep within that female group, I was suddenly grateful for this rare sense of belonging among women. Here we were, all immersed in the same moment in the same prayer, the same ritual. I, too, took up a matchbook. Struck a match. A sizzle rose up, then a blue and yellow flame. I also remembered what I’d been taught in Sunday School. Hold the flame to the wick, I thought, until it burns small and strong on its own. Recite the blessing, hands over eyes. Baruch atah adonoi elohenu. Then I stood surrounded by the others’ whispers, magnetized to them among their wafts of perfume, tiny swaying movements, Ana’s sleeve brushing my arm. Before me was a horizon of wavering little flames. Maybe, I thought, maybe we were more than just blips in history, more than statistics. We could be women who, as the rabbi said, had just changed the world with the strike of a match.
We could mean something. Because, like God, we could create a day.
W HEN I WAS SMALL I was afraid of the dark. One night, I woke up terrified in the black night. I wanted my mother. Once out of bed, unable to see in the dark, I waved jerking, trembling hands in front of me for obstacles and somehow found my way into the hallway. All along the hall, I knew, were the huge canvases my mother had painted; we lived in her narrowed, cluttered chaos edged in her tilting planes of color, although in the dark the colors were only memory. I groped my way past my sisters’ rooms, curling my toes as I crept, wide-eyed and blinded. A lurch, then a halt, fingertips guiding me as they brushed the stippled wall.
The wall ended at my parents’ doorway, and without it as my guide I was in a void, breathing hard. I dropped to my knees and crawled forward like a blind infant, particles and fibers in the musty carpet pressing into my palms. At the end of this long journey I met the drape of my mother’s bedcover and stood with a rush. I became a toddler, moving sideways inch by inch around her bed, holding on.
I fully expected my mother to send me back to my room, but she muttered and moved over—no open arms or caress, but I could stay. I slept then and dreamed, but even though I had gotten myself to where I wanted to be, the boy I was in my dream was still looking for his mother. In the morning, I woke with that need for her, the wish for her love a sharp place in my throat. I suppose I have always been compelled to set out clueless through the dark for new places while at the same time looking for safety, heading away yet hoping against logic that in the end I would find I’d come home.
F OR THE S ABBATH EVENING prayer service we moved to the other end of the social hall, where they had set up more rows ofchairs in two sections with a partition down the middle.. The women were to sit on the left. We took a seat.
Another Hassidic rabbi introduced himself as Rabbi Geller and explained that he was in charge of the weekend. He was a short, dark-haired man who
Around me, the sound of women rising, a rustle and movement, gathering of pocketbooks, murmurs, the click of heels. Our new mission was an important one. Together we would light thosecandles and create a peaceful island of time, a Sabbath Island, for our People. And so Ana and I glided away among the women, leaving the men behind.
Near the kitchen was a single narrow table with many little brass candlesticks and a pile of matchbooks at one end. Ana’s eagerness made me smile. We all gathered around the candle-covered table, maybe twenty of us.
“I can do this one. It’s basic Sunday School,” Ana said.
“I feel weird,” I murmured back.
Ana took a book of matches from the pile and lit two candles, then covered her eyes with her hands and recited the Hebrew blessing. But this faux kind of female-ness we were taking part in was yet another set of rules that I couldn’t begin to intuit. Shyness settled over me like a veil.
Then, standing there deep within that female group, I was suddenly grateful for this rare sense of belonging among women. Here we were, all immersed in the same moment in the same prayer, the same ritual. I, too, took up a matchbook. Struck a match. A sizzle rose up, then a blue and yellow flame. I also remembered what I’d been taught in Sunday School. Hold the flame to the wick, I thought, until it burns small and strong on its own. Recite the blessing, hands over eyes. Baruch atah adonoi elohenu. Then I stood surrounded by the others’ whispers, magnetized to them among their wafts of perfume, tiny swaying movements, Ana’s sleeve brushing my arm. Before me was a horizon of wavering little flames. Maybe, I thought, maybe we were more than just blips in history, more than statistics. We could be women who, as the rabbi said, had just changed the world with the strike of a match.
We could mean something. Because, like God, we could create a day.
W HEN I WAS SMALL I was afraid of the dark. One night, I woke up terrified in the black night. I wanted my mother. Once out of bed, unable to see in the dark, I waved jerking, trembling hands in front of me for obstacles and somehow found my way into the hallway. All along the hall, I knew, were the huge canvases my mother had painted; we lived in her narrowed, cluttered chaos edged in her tilting planes of color, although in the dark the colors were only memory. I groped my way past my sisters’ rooms, curling my toes as I crept, wide-eyed and blinded. A lurch, then a halt, fingertips guiding me as they brushed the stippled wall.
The wall ended at my parents’ doorway, and without it as my guide I was in a void, breathing hard. I dropped to my knees and crawled forward like a blind infant, particles and fibers in the musty carpet pressing into my palms. At the end of this long journey I met the drape of my mother’s bedcover and stood with a rush. I became a toddler, moving sideways inch by inch around her bed, holding on.
I fully expected my mother to send me back to my room, but she muttered and moved over—no open arms or caress, but I could stay. I slept then and dreamed, but even though I had gotten myself to where I wanted to be, the boy I was in my dream was still looking for his mother. In the morning, I woke with that need for her, the wish for her love a sharp place in my throat. I suppose I have always been compelled to set out clueless through the dark for new places while at the same time looking for safety, heading away yet hoping against logic that in the end I would find I’d come home.
F OR THE S ABBATH EVENING prayer service we moved to the other end of the social hall, where they had set up more rows ofchairs in two sections with a partition down the middle.. The women were to sit on the left. We took a seat.
Another Hassidic rabbi introduced himself as Rabbi Geller and explained that he was in charge of the weekend. He was a short, dark-haired man who
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