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July 29, 2005
War is not a Parlor Game
Karen and I are gathering our thoughts and memories for the next chapters of How I Married Karen, which should also be titled How I Married Robert.
In the meantime, I'd like Seraphic Secret readers to read the words of a truly wise man. Victor Davis Hanson knows more about the rise and fall of civilizations than any man alive. He puts the current war in Iraq into historical perspective and guess what? it's not all that unique. In fact, we've been here time and again.
My friend Azriel G. has brought to my attention another excellent article by Victor Davis Hanson. As always, Hanson brings a fresh persepective to some old ways of thinking. In this article Hanson pretty much puts to rest the idea that what's needed in Islam is a Reformation. Hanson argues, persuasively, that the Jihadists need to destroyed, preferably through a decisive civil war. This essay is an intellectual gold mine and I urge all my readers to give it a careful read. Hanson is our preeminent thinker on how the West can best confront the threat of Jihad and the "useful fools" (Lenin's phrase for western liberals, not mine) who, as always, urge policies of appeasement.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:55 AM | Comments (4)
July 28, 2005
What is Art?
The continuing saga of my loooong love affair with Karen. Actually, it wasn't really, technically, a love affair. It was more like, um, me pining for someone who didn't even know that I existed. It was sad. No, it was downright pathetic.
Robert skipped ahead in our courtship, telling of his epiphany--that I didn't have to share his rapture with The Seven Samurai, there was no litmus test to be passed. Still, there were future rites of passage that involved questions of artistic taste.
One of these was the flip side, where I was upset, and had to come to the understanding that it was OK for the two of us to have different tastes in art, and that I had to be tolerant and suspend judgment.
The movie in question, was one that we never would go to now, and will remain nameless. At that time it was considered a classic, starring Marlon Brando. Those old enough will know the film. Well, I didn't get it. I was upset. I was crying for most of the film. Not because it moved me, but because I was repulsed by it. So what do I do? I make allowances, I understand that we are different people, with different sensibilities, and different set points for art. And we talk about it. The last point is the most important. I explain what I am feeling.
Another example: Before Robert and I were married, we had a debate about modern art. It was one of the few times we actually had a formal debate. It was titled, "What is Art?" We never resolved it. Of course, I came down on the side of a more conservative, representational art.
Girl Reading a Letter by a Window, by Johannes Vermeer (1657 -1659)
Robert's argument favored a conceptual art, for example, a totally white canvas. We never resolved our differences, but we did come to a civilized compromise—I agreed to go to his types of museums and galleries for ten minutes, and ten minutes only.
Robert Ryman, Vector, 1997
So I guess the point I'm making is that there is room for differences as long as you are accepting of the differences and you respect each other and can work out a way of compromising and living with the differences in a realistic way. No two people agree on everything. And if they do, well, that would make for a pretty boring relationship. In fact, if you think about it, that's what totalitarian governments are all about: getting people to shed their individual identities and agree upon some some bland collective identity.
P.S. I spent my time in The Seven Samurai trying to figure out who played whom in the adaptation of the movie in The Magnificent Seven.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:59 PM | Comments (23)
July 27, 2005
Karen: Seraphic Samurai
The Gentle Tale of Robert-san, the Poor but Honorable Peasant Warrior and his Desperate Gonin Onna, Loving Love, for the Proud but Lonely Princess Karen, the Jewish/Samurai Lady from the Clan of Singer who Possess much Ying-Yang-Yichus.
A clarification. This was not our next date. In fact, this Samurai event took place several months after I returned from Sweden. Karen and I were, by then, going out regularly--to the exclusion of all others. Why do I choose to derail my time line so severely? I guess it has something to do with how important an event it was in How I Married Karen. Chronology is important, don't get us wrong, but just not as important as the veracity of the feelings we are trying to recapture over twenty-seven years later.
The time has come to introduce Karen to Akira Kurosawa. The time has come to introduce Karen to the single most important movie in my life, the film that has shaped my consciousness, the film that has turned me from a directionless yeshiva student into a rabid film fanatic, into a budding screenwriter.
Yes, The Seven Samura is playing at The Thalia and I've invited Karen to see it with me. Keep in mind, these are ancient days, there are no videos, much less DVD's. To see a classic film, you must rush to Manhattan, to one of the revival houses and hope that the print they have is half-way decent. And with Japanese films, the biggest problem is the subtitles. Frequently, they are illegible.
As we stand on line to purchase tickets, Karen quizzes me about the film.
"What's it about?"
"Courage and loyalty in 16th century Japan."
"Does it have a... plot?"
"Oh, yes, several very strong plots running parallel to one another. Don't worry, it's a foreign film, but you'll find that all the emotions are completely familiar."
Karen looks a bit skeptical. By now she knows me well enough to know that my take on reality is a bit, well, not all that (ahem) real.
"How long is it?"
"We're incredibly lucky, Karen," I enthuse, "This doesn't happen very often but we're actually getting to see the original three-hour version! Isn't that great!?"
Karen smiles, but her smile is strained. I'm not worried. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt that once the film gets going she'll be caught up in the magnificent imagery, in the classic story-telling, in the heroic, tragic characters. Once Karen imbibes this film, our relationship will be sealed—a final intellectual union.
The house lights dim and chills run up and down my spine as the opening shots of The Seven Samurai thunder across the screen. Karen is at full attention, her spine is rigid, she sits straight as a pilaster, like a proud Japanese princess.
A half-hour into the film Karen is:
Oh
My
Gosh
idly toying with her split ends. I am incredulous, in shock, in a kind of numbed pain that I never knew existed. How is this possible?
Slumped in her seat, Karen is the portrait of a a bored grade school student. My heart is actually pattering in my chest at twice its normal rate. I am twenty-five years old and I'm having, I'm pretty sure, a massive heart attack.
A few years ago, I told a friend that I could never love a woman who didn't love The Seven Samurai. Not only did I say it, but I believed it.
"You'll have to excuse me, " says Karen, "I need to take a break."
"There's a break at the hour-and-a-half point," I lamely point out.
"I need it now," Karen says quite evenly with no hint of rancor whatsoever. Karen exits to the lobby.
I feel like committing hara-kiri.
In the dark, I gaze at my beloved and outnumbered Samurai warriors; even unto death they maintain their orthodox code of honor. There is something very Jewish about these men and their stubborn refusal to give up their Samurai mesorah, l'havdeel. This film has changed my life, made of me a screenwriter, a scribe with a developing vision.
What to do?
The images no longer cohere for now I see Karen, ten-years old, on the day that she first transferred from Yeshiva Ohel Moshe to Yeshiva Flatbush, the day I, also ten-years old, fell in love with her; now I see her leaning against the chain link fence during recess, pressing her linen handkerchief against unnaturally pale lips; there she is, years later, when we meet in camp and exchange a few awkward sentences; and again I spot her at a high school basketball game. Karen has no idea how I feel. What am I saying? She has no idea that I even exist. This life of mine is one that can easily slip into utter catastrophe.
Karen's image splits and flies away; there she is, up on the screen in full close-up. I love her, have always loved her. And this moment, this film, this decision that I'm about to make will define the balance of my life.
The Samurai speak of Bushido, the soul of the warrior, the perpetual struggle to maintain honor and dignity, the fight to recognize your true inner-self. I catch a glimpse of my Bushido. It's in danger of being crushed... by yours truly.
I bolt from my seat and follow Karen into the lobby. Sitting on a bench, she looks sad.
"I know how much this movie means to you," says Karen.
"It doesn't matter," I respond.
And it doesn't.
In a split second I have gone from being a boy to a man. Morally, I have matured, been forced by this honest and most un-pretentious of women, to reorder my priorities.
I took The Lovely Girl From Boro Park to see The Seven Samurai and she told me that she loved it. Adored it. "It's fantastic," she gushed. But in the darkness I felt her boredom, sensed her incredible yearning for the film to end. She was just saying what she knew I wanted to hear.
Karen cannot lie. Karen is constitutionally unable to say that she admires something when she just plain doesn't like it.
To this day, when I slip the DVD of The Seven Samurai into the player, Karen beats a hasty retreat.
This night, this moment, I make the decision to grow up and to be a man. I understand that admiring or despising The Seven Samurai, any movie, has nothing to do with the guts of a relationship. If you look closely, it's merely about aesthetics.
What it's not about is values. Admiring or disliking a movie or a book or painting or a song or whatever —is not a good indicator of the strength of a relationship. Love, real love and lasting relationships are built on shared values.
Karen knows how important this movie is to me. But because this film is so central to my life she cannot bring herself to pretend that she likes it. In fact, the way I feel about The Sound of Music is how she feels about The Seven Samurai.
I bid goodbye to The Seven Samurai. We do not stay for the rest of the film. We exit the theater. Walking along Broadway, Karen searches my face for some expression of what I'm feeling, some hint of what my reaction is to her reaction.
As we walk away from the movie theater, I discover that I feel lighter, I feel unburdened and I find that I am grinning hugely. I smile because at long last I'm able to bid goodbye to my youth. Karen's perfect scrupulousness, her Female/Jewish/Samurai personae has, as I have long suspected, compelled me to become a better man.
To be continued.
Look for Princess Karen to Add Her Royal comments later today.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:29 AM | Comments (19)
July 26, 2005
Not So Seraphic Sweden
In which the Author Recounts the Saga of how He, An Awkward Jewish Lad, Fell in Love with Karen, The Fair Jewish Lady, at age nine, and Though She Knew Not That He was Alive, the Author Surrendered Not and Strange as it Seems, the Author Met The Lady Again Under Most Extraordinary Circumstances and Somehow The Author Won the Lady's Most Fair Hand.
Dousing all the lights in the room, sealing the windows like Count Dracula, I crawl into bed and find a position that will allow me to fight off the migraine. Sometimes I'm able to put myself into a trance; I suppose it's a kind of anti-pain meditative state. Several hours later, I'm out of bed, drinking buckets of black coffee and eating slices of burnt toast, and I'm ready for more of, you guessed it, Karen.
That evening, we meet at The Library. No, not the New York Public Library. The Library was an intimate coffee shop on Broadway. The walls of the cafe filled with books, hence the clever name. We continue our endless conversation and more than ever I consider the wisdom, actually the non-wisdom of my impending trip to Sweden.
I walk Karen back to her apartment and promise to write. This time, I do not shake her hand. I actually learn from my mistakes.
Sweden. What can I say? My body is there, but my mind is definitely not. It's a pretty country. But how many medieval cathedrals can you look at? How many castles can you explore saying, “Wow, it's so... old.” Sweden has lots of, um, trees and blond people who are excruciatingly polite.
But even in neutral Sweden I run into hostile students who argue, no, lecture me about the poor Palestinians. Most American students who agitate for the genocidal Arabs are pretty ignorant about history, about Jewish history, about simple facts, but the Swedes are not only ignorant, they spout, get this, Stalinist propaganda, and I feel like I'm in some time warp from the 1930's.
I realize that European socialism is alive and well and anti-Zionism is just a convenient front for some pretty vicious Jew-hatred. No wonder all my Jewish/Swedish friends are planning to making aliyah, all of them repeating the same mantra: “There is no future for Jews in Sweden.”
When I'm in Stockholm I daven in a tiny and dying Orthodox Shul on St. Paulsgaaten. The old men are all refugees from Poland. At first they are suspicious of me, but soon enough they approach and greet me; they smile and chat in Yiddish. I understand about half of what they say.
The old men honor me with an aliyah at every minyan. I feel like crying for they are just so happy to have another observant Jew under the age of eighty. And when I announce, in Hebrew, our only common language, that I am about to leave, that it's time for me to return to America, the old men look so very sad. I can still feel their hands on my shoulder, skin like leather, gently patting me goodbye. I have to admit that I am crying. When you daven, put on tefillin, with a minyan for a length of time a bond is formed that is transcendent.
I send Karen three postcards from Scandinavia. They are somewhere in our house, but Karen has not been able to dig them up. She will find them, but it will take time.
The day I return to America—oh G-d, I love the US, I hate traveling, I hate foreign countries, they reallyreallyreally bite, big-time—I immediately call Karen right from the airport. I want to make sure that:
1. Karen is real.
2. Karen did not get married while I was gone.
3. Karen still wants to see me.
Affirmative to all the above. Huge sigh of relief.
Karen and I get together a few hours after I get back to my upper West Side apartment. It takes all my willpower not to gather Karen in my arms and hold her and announce to her that I will never be separated from her ever again. I want to ask her to marry me right then and there, but even I, crazy and obsessed as I am, know that this kind of behavior is, ahem, highly inappropriate.
To be continued.
Karen adds: These were not ordinary postcards; not shots of the towering cathedrals or the ancient castles. Rather, Robert sent me museum portraits of classic paintings. They were romantic yet tasteful and just right for that stage in our relationship.
The words he wrote really didn't matter, what mattered was that he took the time to write. I remember pasting them to the wall next to my desk, and they stayed there until I moved. I wrote back and the addresses on the postcards were longer than the messages, but boy did I work on those words. I finally wrote something about our shared quest for the perfect raw mushroom (a weird interest at that time) and it's symbolism—go figure the folly of youth.
While Robert was gone I had the leisure of house sitting for my family who had all gone to Israel, so I was alone, going on a series of non-serious dates, commuting between my apartment and my parent's house in Brooklyn, depending on my schedule, seeing friends, working temporary odd jobs, and checking my mailbox.
When the call came from Robert I remember how surprised I was, since he called about two weeks earlier than I expected. I kept repeating like an idiot, “I can't believe you're back!”
We agreed to meet the next day, and I practically flew back to Manhattan.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:31 AM | Comments (34)
July 25, 2005
Migraine Date
The continuing story of how I fell in love with my wife at age nine and, well, did not give up until Karen, so to speak, gave in.
Karen and I are sitting in my apartment. We're talking. And talking. I'm about to leave for Sweden in a day or two and deep in my gut I have this sinking feeling that this trip is about the dumbest thing I have ever done. I'll probably return from the land of the blonds and find that Karen has married one of the med students who have been courting her. I'll end up a miserable human being living a life of endless regrets.
Oh, I forgot to mention that I've got a raging migraine.
Migraine therapy in ancient Egypt. Have not tried this cure... yet
I've been getting these headaches since I've been a child. First I get an aura. Lights pulse weirdly. My skin becomes extra sensitive to, well, everything. Even my yarmulke feels like a lead weight on my head. And the bobby pin? Like a nail going through my skull. The pain pulses at the base of my skull, travels up, usually to the left side of my head. Boom! Boom! BOOM! Unrelenting agony. Sometimes it goes on for two or three days at a time. Bottomless nausea follows. Light hurts like you wouldn't believe. Sound penetrates my skull like hot shrapnel. Normally I'd be curled up in bed in a completely dark room for the slightest amount of light can send fragments of pain flying deep into the cortex of my brain.
Medicine? Forget it. The only thing that helps is a trip to the ER and a slow drip of some powerful opiate that puts me deeply out of it for the rest of the week. I have a magazine to edit; no way I can take that medicine. When I was a child I was sure that HaShem was punishing me for something. Actually, that thought still crosses my mind when I get a killer migraine. Guilt is a powerful master when you truly believe that you are accountable for your actions.
But Karen is here and gosh, I have been in love/obsessed/crazyabout this child/girl/teenager/woman for as long as I can remember and I'm not going to let mere agony get in the way.
“Are you okay?”
As I've said, Karen is smart and perceptive. Nothing gets by her. When she looks at me she's like Superwoman—minus the skin-tight suit—but with the X-ray vision. She sees right through me. And now, I suppose that my eyes have been blinking uncontrollably, and my forehead is creased like ancient papyrus, and my voice is probably not much above a whisper.
"I have a bit of a headache,” I allow.
Karen studies me and nods. She knows that I'm not in good shape.
“How long will you be gone?” she asks.
That's a good sign, I say to myself. She cares.
“A month,” I say, “maybe less.”
I'm already planning on cutting the trip short. And that's just what I end up doing. I have to. I am so bored in Scandinavia that I absolutely understand why they have the highest suicide rate in the world.
Abruptly, I am steamrolled by a tsunami of pain and Karen must see it for she stands up and announces that it's time for her to go. This is becoming a habit. She did this just a few days ago. I offer to walk Karen home, but she insists that I stay, that I really do not look too good.
Exit Karen.
I bolt to the bathroom, drop to the cool tile and, well, you know the rest.
Ah, the end of another romantic evening.
Karen adds: Robert did a better job of hiding his distress than he remembers, otherwise I would have had to be blind not to have seen immediately how miserable he was. He actually was able to carry on a charming conversation and it was only after about an hour that I began to notice that his mouth was puckering in funny ways — a good cue he might be sick to his stomach!
I do recall my disappointment when Robert told me he was going to be away not a month, but six weeks, it seemed to a very long stretch.
During that time, I had what seems in retrospect, an active social life, but none of the prospects were serious. I should explain that Shidduch dates had not taken hold in the Orthodox community at that time, but we did have the Shavuos event at Grossinger's which was one of the few ways that young singles could meet.
It was traumatic, humiliating, but effective. So, the month following Shavuos, my calendar was full. As much as this blog has emphasized the powers of hashgacha pratis (divine intervention) and Bashert (there is a predestined lifemate) I do want to emphasize the importance of being an advocate for yourself.
As a single I did have to get out there, push myself into situations that were really uncomfortable, and do the "Hishtadlus" thing. This means going to Grossinger's when I hated it, and indeed, getting myself to Lincoln Square (where Robert sighted me) picking myself up and getting out of the apartment on a hot Sunday afternoon to the Jewish Street Festival all by myself even without the security of a gal-pal, where I bumped into Robert.
So I guess my message is, there is the element of romance, but there is also something to be said for being a realist, and taking the bull by the horns and being an advocate for yourself and taking initiative, and putting yourself into the right situations, even when it is uncomfortable and seems like work.
To be continued.
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Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:11 AM | Comments (11)
July 21, 2005
Seraphic Shakespearean Urges
The romantic saga of how I fell head-over-heels in love with Karen. Here, the aftermath of our very first date. It took but sixteen years from the moment I fell in love with Karen to get a first date. I am, if anything, patient.
I take Karen back to her apartment. Leavetaking is particularly difficult for this evening has been the culmination of a dream that started a long time ago. In fact, it began when I was but nine-years old and Karen transferred to Yeshiva Flatbush from Yeshiva Ohel Moshe. I saw her that first day. I fell in love—or whatever it is that happens emotionally to a fourth grade yeshiva kid—and I remained obsessed with Karen throughout elementary school, high school, college, and now, a few years after college we have finally met, purely by accident, at a Jewish street festival on the Upper West Side.
And so here we stand at the front door to her apartment. We are both smiling, and I tell Karen that I will call and we will get together before I leave for Sweden. Do I detect a faint expression of—what, doubt in her eyes? I know that guys say they are going to call and they have absolutely no intention of calling. Ever. But Karen, really, I've been waiting fifteen years just to talk to you!
It occurs to me that I really should cancel this trip to Sweden. I reallyreallyreallyreally should. After all, these friends from Israel will understand. Won't they? But then, I realize that if I cancel I'll probably lose the entire fare. And I do not have a great deal of money. In fact, I live from pay check to pay check. Just barely. I have saved, counted pennies for over a year for this vacation. And there's the simple issue of friendship, responsibility. My friends have long made plans for my visit. I have said that I will do something and not to do it is, well, just plain wrong.
Again, I tell Karen that I have had a wonderful time. Again, I tell Karen that we will get together before I leave for Scandinavia.
I have a tremendous urge, almost Shakesperian, to fall to one knee and proclaim my love for Karen, an almost overwhelming urge to tell Karen that I have always loved her, that I vividly recall watching her during recess of her very first day of school. The other girls were skipping rope in the center of the yard and Karen was leaning against the chain link fence dabbing at her unnaturally pale lips with a snow white linen handkerchief.
I have the urge to tell Karen that I once watched her in the pizza shop on Avenue J with one of the alpha male Yeshiva Flatbush jocks, and when she smiled at him I felt as if my world had collapsed. I will never be that guy, I said to myself.
I have the urge to reveal to Karen that even when I was going out with other girls, even when I liked them, even when I thought that I could love them, her image always pasted itself over their faces and I was left with the sinking feeling that I was doomed to a life never to be lived. I want, oh how I want to enfold Karen in my arms and ask, no beg her to marry me.
Instead, I say goodnight. I shake her hand.
What a dork.
Singin' in the Rain. One of the greatest movies ever made. Gene Kelly has just met Debbie Reynolds, he has, natch, fallen head-over-heels in love. The rain machines are switched on and Gene Kelly dances; he dances with the rain, he dances with the puddles, he dances with his umbrella, he dances with the lampposts. Kelly performs what has to be the most powerful expression of love I have ever seen.
I am no Gene Kelly. And it is not raining. But walking back to my apartment after my date with Karen, I do hum Singin' in the Rain and I know, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my life has just changed. I can finally glimpse what it can be. What I have always wanted it to be.
I have waited all my life for Karen, for this relationship; naturally, my greatest fear is that somehow I will make a mess of it and forever destroy my only real chance at the life I desperately want.
To be continued.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 07:34 AM | Comments (26)
July 20, 2005
Seraphic First Date
The continuing saga of how Robert fell in love with Karen when he was nine-years old, stayed in love with her throughout high school, college, and post college. In this, our latest installment, Robert is finally going out with Karen on a first date.
The Lovely Girl From Boro Park is not happy. As soon as Karen leaves TLGFBP wants to know what's going on. She demands to know where she stands, even though we've only gone out once. She makes it clear that I have to choose between her and “that girl.”
Sheesh, you'd think Karen had a scarlet A emblazoned across her chest.
I take a deep breath and spill. TLGFBP rolls with this new plot-point because, well, that's the kind of young woman she is—realistic and diligent about guiding her future.
Anyhoo.
The next time I see TLGFBP, she's flirting with a Lovely Boy From Boro Park on 47th street. We chat for a few moments and part on a chilly but polite note.
I call Karen the next day and we make plans to meet in three days for a private film critic's screening, a perk my job offers me. Very casual, we'll meet at my office.
I have a hard time concentrating on work the day of my first date with Karen. I am Editor-in-Chief of Millimeter, a film magazine. Desperately trying to edit a long interview I did with director Roman Polanski, I'm having very little success. Instead of talking about the craft of film he constantly veers off into fascinating but somewhat inappropriate monologues about the joys of female flesh.
So nervous am I before meeting with Karen that I sprint to the restroom, fall to my knees like a slaughtered lamb and heave.
Karen is waiting for me outside my office. After saving for months, I have finally bought a Nikon camera. Karen is sooooo beautiful, so ravishing, that I positively yearn to start snapping away. But I sense that Karen is naturally reserved and my intuition tells me that if I raise the lens she will freeze like a deer in headlights.
We walk to Farm Food, a dairy restaurant that no longer exists. You older folks will remember it as offering decent food, decent service and moderate prices. Karen has no interest in going to one of the more expensive restaurants. She doesn't make a big deal out of it, but I find out that she is—and remains—a vegetarian:
“Not out of any ethical considerations,” Karen goes out of her way to explain, “I just don't like the taste of meat.”
Conversation flows easily, though my guts are churning and my heart beats like a Ginger Baker drum solo. I talk about films and screenplays and my dream of a Hollywood career.
Karen
Does
Not
Flinch
Understand how unusual this is. This is the 70's. There are no Orthodox Jews in the film business. Oh, wait, Shimon Wincelberg Z"L, a friend of my father from Yeshiva University, has had a pretty good run writing episodic TV. But I'm determined to crack feature films. The odds are not good for normal people, and for an Orthodox Jew, well, I have a better chance of becoming head of the Physics Department at MIT — and let's not forget that I have a severe math disability.
After dinner, Karen and I walk to the screening that, as Editor of Millimeter, I'm obliged to attend. The whole time we're walking I steal glances at her and say to myself: It's really her. Karen Singer is actually on a date with me—of her own free will.
Karen sees something that prompts her to say: “America is a great country. I hate when people put it down.”
As these words spill from her mouth, I actually feel like getting down on my hands and knees and kissing her feet. Anti-American sentiment is fashionable, a by-product of the Viet Nam War. I hate the poisonous rhetoric used by the anti-war protesters. Karen's unadorned love of America is not popular and signals that she is not afraid to stand outside the currents of popular culture. I admire her enormously.
Here is what I discover about Karen during our dinner:
1. Her intelligence is fierce, but she holds it in reserve.
2. She is practical without being dull.
3. She has impeccable table manners.
4. She's religious, but does not make a display of it.
5. She does not flip her hair.
6. She does not idly play with her split-ends. Well, not too much.
7. She does not make believe that she knows more than she does.
8. She has no interest in status.
9. She becomes more beautiful the more time I spend with her.
10. She has no idea who Akira Kurosawa is.
Outside the restaurant:
“Karen, I just bought this new camera and I was wondering if I could test it out?”
“You mean, take my picture?”
“I guess.”
She ponders a moment. Shrugs. She smiles and says, “Hurry up, before I get too nervous.”
Snick!
It is the best picture I have ever taken because it records the moment when I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I would marry Karen Singer.
The movie we go to, A Small Town in Texas, is awful, just awful. I take Karen home and tell her that I want to see her again—as soon as possible. I explain that at the end of the week I'm flying to Sweden to spend a month with some friends that I met in Israel.
She looks at me and says, “Oh.”
I have no idea what her single word of dialog indicates.
Karen adds:
First of all: Robert told me he was leaving for Sweden the first day we met, and I couldn't believe it. That gave an urgency to our encounter from the very first moment.
Second, every girl in the universe plays with her split ends, perhaps not in public, but it's on the x chromosome — for sure.
Third, Robert forgot to mention that I sensed he was so incredibly nervous that I had to say something or I would burst. I said something like, “I think if we talk about how nervous you seem to be it might help.” Of course, this just made matters worse. After I made that incredible faux pas of addressing Robert's jitters, I beat it to the ladies room, but I think he actually did relax a bit.
Farm Food was already on the skids, on a seamy side street right off Times Square. I wasn't officially a vegetarian yet, but potato latkes and mock chopped liver weren't for me either. I think I had my standard melon.
The comment about the United States completely escapes my memory, but it was probably related to the Bicentennial which was coming up in a week. Yes, it was that long ago.
To be continued.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:13 AM | Comments (33)
July 19, 2005
The Truth About Suicide Bombers
Karen and I are furiously working on our First Date blog. In a stroke of unexpected luck, Karen actually unearthed her calendar for the month we met and started dating. We have discovered that there is much that has been forgotten, and there is much that has been revealed by Karen's cryptic notations in her calendar. Thus there is much that needs to be rethought and rewritten. Often, we sit and compare memories, turning into a more gentle version of Rashomon.
In the meantime I'd like Seraphic Secret readers to read an article by Psychologist James Hamilton. This extremely important piece, The Psychology Behind Suicide Bombing recently came to my attention through my friend Jackie who linked it on her blog, The Hole. I am grateful to Jackie for bringing this first-rate mind to a wider audience.
For too long the nihilistic motives of suicide bombers and their handlers have been taken at face value, especially by the liberal media who seem not the least aware that the endlessly shifting grievances of Islamic terrorists and their western apologists have even less substance than those claimed by Germany after the treaty of Versailles. This article should be required reading for...well, everybody. Especially those who repeat the endless mantra of "finding the root causes of terrorism." And for those who claim that suicide bombers have been "driven to these acts of despeartion by the hegemony of western imperialists."
The most potent weapon against liberal defeatism is the simple truth, and in this one article truth is rampant.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 03:17 PM | Comments (11)
July 18, 2005
David Margolis Z"L
My friend David Margolis (Dovid Yoel ben Shia Halevi v'Mirel) passed away Sunday night at 11:30 PM Jerusalem time. May his memory be a blessing.
I met David and his wife Judith when we moved to Los Angeles in 1984. Our friendship continued through their aliyah to Eretz Yisroel. I sent an early draft of The Hebrew Kid and the Apache Maiden to David and his feedback was invaluable. My final rewrite was based on his notes and I can say that if not for David, the book would not be as good as it is today. David was a fine novelist, short story writer and journalist. His wife and children adore him and he will be sorely missed by all who knew him.
It is odd, I thought that Ariel's death had inured me to the shock of unexpected death, but I am still stunned at the grief I experience.
Baruch Dayan Emes.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:53 AM | Comments (10)
July 15, 2005
Seraphic Knife Rebbe II
Yesterday, I wrote about my Mississippi friend Billy "Pup" Cochran and his wonderful site, Vintage Knives. But after publishing my post and looking at Billy's site once again, I realized that I completely overlooked the most vital aspect of Billy's enterprise: Its heart and soul.
There's a great moment in Citizen Kane where Joseph Cotten says: "Anybody can make a lot of money if that's all you want to do." Well, anybody can sell knives if that's all they want to do. But Billy wants to do much more than sell knives. Billy wants to dig into the guts of America. He wants to understand who we are and how we got to be this way. He's interested in road signs, license plates, he's fascinated by little mom and pop bakeries. Soon he's going to run a special feature about American music and the stories they tell. I must confess that I'm not familiar with any of the music he will feature. I think it's Christian Gospel. A gaping hole in my musical education.
Billy writes Last Cast a monthly column about all things American. Many of his customers send in letters and pictures and he's managed to build a lovely community of knife lovers, patriots, people who just love a good tale.
Billy is involved in a wonderful enterprise that reaches far beyond knives, it goes deep into the guts of the American soul and through my connection to Billy I feel like I understand America and Americans on a deeper level than at any other point in my life.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:54 AM | Comments (17)
July 14, 2005
Seraphic Knife Rebbe
Choose from a wide
selection of knives
at Nashville Knife Shop or
make your own
. Straight
razors also.
|
I'm taking a short break from How I Married Karen. Believe it or not, dredging up all these wonderful old memories can be stressful. As Karen has rightly pointed out, it is a way of removing ourselves from our daily grief, for our romance was a time in our lives when Ariel was not yet alive.
When I was a child, I had a small collection of pocket knives. My father was a chaplain in the US Army and every so often he was posted to a far-off Army base where he would perform holiday services for our Jewish soldiers. I hated it when my father went away. But I absolutely loved it when he returned, for he always brought a gift, and it was always a pocket knife. The knives were never anything fancy. Just simple one or two blade affairs. I reveled in the seemingly gigantic power these little knives gave me: being able to whittle a piece of wood, carving my initials into a tree--yes, trees do grow in Brooklyn, playing mumblety-peg. Most of all, there was the simple relationship, almost primal, of man and his oldest tool. I remember the feel of the knives in my pocket. The weight of these small pieces of steel. The knives made me feel, well, important. They also made me feel "capable" -- the best word I can come up with. I loved the smooth action of the blades when they opened, and the decisive click when they snapped shut. There was one knife from Greenland that was a bit too decisive. My mother took it away from me when she discovered that my fingers were absolutely lacerated with deep gashes.
I'm sad, almost ashamed to confess that not one of those pocket knives is still around. When you're a kid you do not realize that the "junk" in your closet will someday be a treasure you yearn to once agan hold in your hands.
A few years ago, surfing the net, I came across Vintage Knives. An on-line site that specializes in the sale of beautuful knives, some old, some new, some made exclusively for them. Immediately, I was seized with a nostalgia so powerful that I wrote to the owner, Billy Cochran, and we have been writing to each other ever since. We are close friends. An unlikely cyber friendship deep as the ocean. After Ariel's death, this pious Christian offered genuine comfort that is hard to measure.
The Talmud teaches: "Aseh L'cha Rav." Make for yourself a teacher. Billy, an incredibly generous and honest family man, is my Rebbe, more precisely, My Knife Rebbe. He knows, well, everything there is to know about knives. My female readers are rolling their eyeballs. I can just hear them groaning, "Boys and their toys!" To which I say, "True, very true!" But look at Randall Handmade Knives. These are the knives that I collect. This is great American folk art, as finely wrought as Chippendale furniture, as elegant as Revere silver. And if you should want to purchase a Randall knife well, don't hold your breath, there's a four year waiting list. That's right, four years! You only have to wait four months for a Bentley automobile.
America is filled with brilliant knife craftsmen who make knives that are as beautiful and elegant as any works of art in any collection in any museum. Take a look at the stunning hunting knives made by Jim "Treeman" Behring.They are, in fact, homages to the first great American Knifemaker William Scagel. I own two of Jim's knives and let me tell you, I will not be using them. Ever. They have almost doubled in value and I only bought them five years ago.
Anyway, surf through Vintage Knives. Their motto is "Yesterday in the palm of your hand." Take it from this boy who loves his toys, they speak the truth. And if you're looking for a pretty solid investment, well, you can't lose buying a Randall Knife. In fact, there's a brisk trade in Randall's on e-Bay. There are people who buy a Randall on Monday and put it back up for auction on Tuesday. Randall knives rise in value that quickly. I love market capitalism. As my friend Jackie says: "The more capital, the less poverty."
I will be returning to How I Married Karen in a day or two. B'lee neder.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:37 AM | Comments (15)
July 13, 2005
Sunday Afternoon Around the Corner from the Park with Robert
The continuing saga of how I met, fell in love, and pursued, pursued, pursued—you get the idea—Karen until, well, it's a megillah.
The scene thus far: Karen is on the couch being interrogated by my mother, AH. My father is pacing, jingling the change in his pocket, an habitual gesture which continues to this very day.
Enter my sister.
"Caron this is Karen."
Yup, the love of my life has the same name as my sister.
Caron (sister) gives Karen (not-yet-wife) a friendly greeting. Caron (sister) scopes out the situation in a fraction of a second. Caron (sister) sits down with Karen (not-yet-wife) and my mother, and joins the conversation.
The sound of the change in my father's pocket seems to grow even louder. I look over at Karen—you can figure out who's whom, right?—and shrug. My apartment is genuinely tiny. Take six paces in any direction and you hit a wall.
Karen and I are no longer lost in our magical conversation. Now Karen is politely talking with my mother and my sister. My father has switched on the teensy-weensy black & white portable television to watch the Yankee game — but don't worry, the coins in his pocket continue to chime.
And now the doorbell rings. Again.
My Aunt Pearlie, my mother's youngest sister, makes an entrance like Bette Davis. Hugs and kisses are exchanged. Aunt Pearlie studies Karen so carefully I'm pretty sure she's going to take whip out a microscope for a closer view.
"So, Rob," (Note: some people in my family feel it's their G-d given right to call me Rob, sometimes Robbie. Who am I to argue?) "So Rob, who is this lovely young lady?"
"This is Karen Singer. We went to Yeshiva Flatbush together."
"Rabbi Singer's daughter," my father notes without tearing his eyes away from the TV.
"A Ph.D student at Ferkauf," my mother quickly adds.
HELLLLLP, I silently scream.
"Very pleased to meet you, Karen," says my beloved Aunt Pearlie.
Karen smiles and shakes my aunt's hand. Pearlie gives me a look which says: Marry this one or I will personally disembowel you! At least I think that's what the look expresses. Or perhaps I'm just projecting. And Karen? She's looking, well, a bit uncomfortable, if not downright confused.
Aunt Pearlie positions herself to the left of Karen. My mother and sister Caron are to the right. Good grief, they've got Karen surrounded!
ALL SOUND FADES:
All I can hear is my HEARTBEAT thump, thump, thumping in my chest like a galloping horse. The light coming through the window is so bright my head starts to ache.
My eyes focus on Karen, she is poised, talking with my mother, my sister, my aunt, but every once in a while her eyes shift towards me and beckon me to return to planet earth.
I step towards Karen. I must remedy this situation which started out so promisingly and abruptly turned so... weird.
And believe it or not, the doorbell rings. Again. Who could that possibly be?
I swing the door open.
"Hello cutie-pie!"
There stands G. She's a lovely girl from Boro Park. We have (ahem) a complicated history. She's got a blazing head full of reddish blond hair, deep sea-green eyes, and when she speaks Yiddish you do a double take because it's a bit like Rita Hayworth speaking the mama lashon.
Remember the scene in A Night at the Opera, the classic Marx Bros. film where the stateroom just overflows with bodies? Well, the resemblance is startling.
G. sweeps into the room. I introduce her to my mother, my father, my sister, my Aunt. Smiles all around.
I break into a cold sweat.
I look at Karen. Karen looks at me. I try, oh how I try and convey to her that G. is, well, not the one. I have this impulse to confess to Karen that I love her, that I have always loved her, that no matter who I've gone out with she, Karen, has always been the love of my life.
But of course, I'm not insane. Well, maybe just a little. How else to explain falling irrevocably in love when you are nine years old—in fourth grade for crying out loud—and never getting over it?
I introduce Karen to G.
G. smiles.
Karen smiles.
You know how women smile at each other but the smiles are really daggers? Well, that's what is going on here. But squared to the 10th degree.
There is perfect silence in my perfectly tiny apartment. Karen and G. gaze at one another for what seems like an eternity. Karen is still stuck in that couch. Meanwhile, G. has maneuvered herself so that she's standing right next to me. In fact, her hip whispers against mine. She's making sure that Karen sees this.
Karen abruptly stands up. How she manages to move this fast, extricating herself from the vacuum-like couch cushions is a wonder of modern physics.
"I think it's time for me to go," she says in measured tones.
I excuse myself and accompany Karen outside. I decide not to say anything about G. I'll deal with that later. I cut to the chase.
"Will you go out with me?"
"When?"
"Tomorrow. Let's meet after work?"
"Yes."
Karen gives me her phone number.
I enter my apartment. My mother looks at me. My sister looks at me. My aunt looks at me. My father looks at the ball game on TV.
G. crooks her finger, beckons me to a join her in the galley kitchen.
Oh boy.
To be continued...
Karen Adds: When "another woman" showed up, I really got confused, and although not doubting Robert's interest, felt quite uncomfortable, and there was no question the scene had to close. This was an instance where a woman's intuition and split second timing was essential. Before I could articulate words, my body extricated itself from the couch, almost gracefully, and I said, almost in a dignified way, "I think it's time for me to leave." and I made my exit. Just like Robert wrote. There was nothing else to be said or done.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:17 AM | Comments (29)
July 11, 2005
Karen's View From the Couch
The continuing story of Robert's mad love for Karen. It started out in fourth grade at the Yeshiva of Flatbush, when Robert first laid eyes on Karen. Can a 9-year old dweeb really fall in love, and stay in love, pursue said love object? Read the series and find out.
Karen Writes: My memory of that scene must include a description of the apartment. It was a studio. Basically the room consisted of one enormous couch that took up the entire space. It was one of those 70's platform couches that was made up of gigantic cushions that sucked you in. Once you sat down, you couldn't get up. This couch had the added feature of being two-tiered. The top level was Robert's bed. Well, once the parents arrived, they had to be in the same room. There was only one place to sit. Think of the state room in the Marx Brothers “Night of the Opera.”
Being the super analyst I am, I told Robert that I think we are engaging in all this nostalgia because it is one area that we don't have to mourn Ariel. All this romantic froth is a way of celebrating a time when we couldn't possibly miss Ariel, he didn't exist yet.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:38 PM | Comments (16)
Karen Meets the Parents—Way Too Early
Our continuing series that tells the painful, humorous, often deeply weird, and other times simply unbelievable story of my lifelong love for Karen.
I have been in love with Karen since fourth grade. I have finally run into her at a Jewish street festival on the Upper West Side. She is not married. She is not going out with anybody. And now she is sitting in my apartment drinking a glass of water and we are talking and talking and it is absolutely magic. My eyes are fixed on Karen with such intensity that they feel like hot rivets in my head. And that's when the doorbell rings. I open the door. My parents—G-d help me—sweep into the apartment.
My parents, Abraham and Mina Z'L Avrech, wedding day, 1943
There is a long awkward moment as my mother and father realize that a young woman is sitting in my apartment.
“Mom, dad, this is Karen Singer, we went to Yeshiva Flatbush together.”
My mother screams.
She screams Karen's name. She just can't help herself. It is the primal cry of a mother who realizes deep in her gut that this is the one young woman who can save her only son from bachelorhood. My father smiles from ear to ear. Karen is reserved and polite, but I can tell she's a bit uncomfortable. It is a bit early to meet the parents.
My mother sits and plies Karen with questions. My father paces and jingles the change in his pocket. I scrunch down into the couch and try and figure some way of getting my parents out of the apartment without breaking the fifth commandment.
Karen smiles politely at my mother and submits to a ruthless interrogation: What school are you going to? What are you studying? What are your plans for the future? Questions designed to elicit one morsel of information: Are. You. Going. To. Marry. My. Shmendrik. Son?
I search for an opening, and that's when the doorbell rings. I breath a sigh of relief, go to the door, swing it open and who stands there but my younger sister.
Okaaaaay!
At least now there's another body in the room to distract my mother.
To be continued...
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 07:47 AM | Comments (13)
July 08, 2005
Second Yartzeit
I stand in shul reciting the Kaddish. I praise and sanctify the name of G-d. My voice is one among many mourners. Am I really saying Kaddish for my son? Is Ariel really dead? The moment is so difficult to process. Maybe if I just stop mourning and go home I'll find Ariel in his room, sitting at his desk, hard at work on one of his notebooks. Ariel will look up and smile: "Hi Dad." I will throw my arms around him and everything will be a all right.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 06:25 AM | Comments (15)
July 07, 2005
Seraphic Blogosphere
There's a wonderful article in World Jewish Digest by Seraphic Friend, Sarah Bronson. She writes about Jewish blogs and has some nice things to say about Seraphic Secret. Thank you, Sarah.
Sarah also mentions a few other terrific blogs which I regularly read: Renegade Rebbetzin is a particular favorite of mine. My mother, AH, was a reluctant rebbetzin, and thus most everything Renegade writes strikes a chord.
By the way, Sarah Bronson has one of the best blogs around. In Chayyei Sarah, she writes with great honesty and elegance about living in Israel, being Orthodox and single, and unlike moi, Sarah is perfectly willing to admit when she is utterly confused about politics and does not have all the answers. A rarity in the Jewish blogosphere.
Also mentioned by Sarah is On the Fringe written by a self-described "tallit-and-tefillin-wearing woman in a traditional Conservative synagogue?! An unorthodox—and non-orthodox—perspective on Jews and Judaism from a perpetual misfit. This blog, welcoming the entire Jewish community, is dedicated to those who take Judaism seriously, but not necessarily literally." Whew.
Sarah highlights an anonymous blog written by a Jewish man who is trying to extricate himself from his ultra-Orthodox heritage. Da'as Hedyot authors a vivid piece about dancing in a mixed crowd. Don't miss his description of a frum girl who is not quite comfortable in her own skin.
A fascinating blog that I recently came across is written by the anonymous semgirl. She's 19-years-old, from South Jersey and anxious to share all her "nisoynos, challenges, and experiences, both positive and negative." Her language is unvarnished teenage-speak, which is to say, raw and honest. Be prepared for some frank discussion about where the frum kids in Monsey go to "French Kiss" -- Carlton Road.
Another blog that has captured my attention recently is margaritagirrl or From Williamsburg to Boro Park and Beyond. This young woman is, well, an original. Don't miss her post: Beauty or the Beast Revisited. It is one of the funniest He/She scenarios I have ever read. If my instincts are correct, this talented blogger has a book just busting to get out. I sincerely hope that Margaritagirrl will write it and send it to us here at Seraphic Press.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:10 AM | Comments (10)
July 06, 2005
Karen's Side of the Street Festival
Robert didn't find me, because as I've mentioned before, I avoided the mixer madness in front of the shul, and escaped to the rear exit. No meat market for me. The next day, I was stuck in my broiling apartment writing a final term paper and getting nowhere. Another thing that was going nowhere was my latest relationship. I was angry and fed up with the guy who had led me on. No shidduch dating in those days for the Modern Orthodox, you were never sure where you stood, and then when you thought you were heading for a serious relationship, one member (usually the male) got cold feet and had the not ready for a serious commitment, let's see where it goes talk. I was angry, I was ready to break out. Hah! Big rebellion. I would go to the Jewish Street Festival all by my lonesome. Talk about Hashgacha Pratis, Divine Intervention. Well, the street was lined with tacky arts and crafts booths, and I do remember considering buying something. I truly did not know who Robert was when he approached me, but once we started to talk, well, believe it or not, it was magic. You know how they talk about the background sort of fading out, and you just focus on the person in front of you? Well, that's how it was for the next hour. The only thing that was missing was the violins.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 04:03 PM | Comments (9)
Seraphic Street Festival
The continuing story, actually it's an old fashioned romantic saga, of how I fell in love with my wife.
I am ashamed to admit that I do very little davening, praying, the Shabbos I spot Karen in the women's section. Her hair is not covered, a sure sign in the Orthodox world that a girl is not yet married. She's probably engaged, I tell myself. And so, for the rest of shul, I stare at Karen. Cannot tear my eyes away from her. Gosh, but she is beautiful. As always, she does not know that I am alive. Which is the story of our, ahem, relationship. As far back as fourth grade in Yeshiva Flatbush, I would stare at Karen in the hallways, during recess, class assemblies, and she was simply not aware.
I am determined to approach Karen after shul, talk to her, ask her out. Finally, I am going to let her know that I exist, that I am...what, in love?
Shul is over. Lincoln Square Synagogue is a meat market for Orthodox singles. After services everyone congregates outside; they talk, flirt, make weekend plans, invite people over for Shabbos lunch.
I am carried along by the tide of young, attractive Jewish singles. As always, I feel like an outsider. Most of my elementary and high school yeshiva friends have gone on to respectable careers in law, medicine, and, natch, accounting. I am the Editor-in-Chief of Millimeter, a small, struggling film magazine — and of course I am an aspiring screenwriter, have been ever since I saw The Seven Samurai when I was about fourteen years old.
When I do talk to Orthodox women about my Hollywood dreams their eyes betray either total confusion or they simply glaze over. It is an ambition so far removed from the Orthodox norm that most people considered me if not eccentric, well, at least a loser-in-training. Clearly, I am not a stable prospect; some girls find me amusing, fun to be with, but definitely not husband material.
What these young women never get about me is that more than anything I yearn for a good middle class life.
I lust for normalcy.
In the Lincoln Square crowd, I search for Karen. Moving from group to group I am like some lost soul. I think I spot her shining helmet of black hair, and my heart leaps, but as I inch closer I realize with a sinking feeling that it is not Karen. I slink away.
I feel like weeping.
Paranoia kicks in. Perhaps Karen did spot me in shul. Maybe she did sense my unrelenting gaze and rather than chance running into me, made a tactical retreat.
I walk around the neighborhood for an hour. I am hoping that somehow, miraculously I will bump into her. Everywhere I turn I see clots of attractive Jewish singles. Everyone seems to have someone—everyone but me.
Depressed beyond words, I make my way back to my apartment on West 86th street and eat a miserable, solitary Shabbos lunch.
The next day, there is a Jewish Street Festival. Huge crowds are streaming by my apartment. Normally I flee from crowds, which I define as anything more than, ooooh, two people. But I am so lonely that I simply have to get out of my tiny, shoe box apartment. I need human contact.
Maneuvering my way through the congested streets, all I see are happy Jewish couples. I run into no less than three high school friends with their radiant, pregnant wives. My childhood friends are on their way to prosperous careers, and when I tell them what I am doing, they smile tolerantly, as if to say: same old Robert.
More depressed than ever, I make my way back to my apartment. And then —
— and then I see her.
Karen Singer.
She is at a merchant's booth, holding a t-shirt in her hand, deciding whether to buy it or not. Karen is wearing a khaki skirt, navy blue top, and adorable brown clogs. With her perfect skin, Karen looks like a modest Jewish milkmaid.
A gust of wind blows in from Central Park and a whisp of hair dances across her face. Karen shakes her head, smiling and I am once again that nine-year-old child seeing her for the first time, falling hopelessly, helplessly, inexplicably in love.
I stand there and just gaze at Karen. Where is the inevitable boyfriend? The med student? The high-powered lawyer? The bound-for- millions real estate mogul? But after a few moments it's clear that Karen is alone.
There are puzzles in the universe; there are worlds within worlds. Karen is still single and this is as confusing to me as string theory.
I walk up to her. The world has switched into slow motion. I have no idea what I am going to say.
“Are you Karen Singer?”
Can you believe it, that's exactly what I said to her the last time I saw Karen nine years ago. Wide-eyed, Karen looks at me. She has absolutely no idea who I am.
“Yes, I am,” she answers.
“I'm Robert Avrech. We went to Yeshiva Flatbush together?” Yup, I actually put a question mark at the end of the sentence.
“Oh, right. Hi. I'm driving myself crazy trying to decide if I should buy this t-shirt or not. What do you think?”
She holds up the t-shirt.
Forget about the t-shirt, just marry me!
Finally, Karen puts down the t-shirt down, deciding not to make the purchase. We walk along, chatting about nothing in particular.
I have to know.
“Are you going out with anybody right now?” I asked quite abruptly.
Karen looks me straight in the eye.
“No. Nobody.”
I have no idea what keeps me on my feet. Karen meets my gaze so directly, so fiercely, that it makes water of my knees.
“What about you,” Karen asks, “are you going out with anyone?”
I cannot believe that she's asking me this question.
“No, nobody,” I shake my head.
We continue walking and talking. It's a great two-shot. I can just see it. Max Ophuls would shoot it in one fluid take. It would be... magic.
I tell Karen about my passion for film, for screenwriting. She does not flinch. In fact, this solidly frum, orthodox girl, this daughter of a well known and scholarly black hat Rabbi is genuinely interested as I enthusiastically ramble on about Buster Keaton, Preston Sturges, John Ford, Howard Hawks, Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi, and Carl Dreyer.
“I'm thirsty,” said Karen.
“I live around the block, would it be okay...?”
“Sure.”
We step into my apartment and Karen sips water. My couch is in an L shape. Karen sits on one end of the L and I sit on the other. We are very proper, and I realize, very nervous.
We continue chatting. I learn that Karen graduated from Barnard and is in a Ph.D program in Psychology at Ferkauf Graduate School. She shares an apartment with several other unmarried young Orthodox women on West 74th street.
You would think that after all these years the reality of being with Karen would be something of a let-down. That my fantasy would come crashing down to earth. That the real Karen would be, well, anti-climactic.
But if anything, I am even more smitten. Karen is exactly what I have imagined — and more.
I was and am a dreamer. My head is in the clouds. Karen is rooted to reality. She was and is the most capable person I have ever met.
Instinctively I know that she will make a better man out of me. Instinctively, I also know that Karen is almost as alienated from the Orthodox mainstream as I am.
She is special; too smart, too aware and introspective to be mindlessly carried along by the powerful currents of the surrounding Orthodox culture.
She is in the society but not of the society.
I understand that we both love Torah Judaism, but there are acute angles to our round personalities.
We talk and talk. I make Karen laugh and when she does her whole face lights up. Like shards of glass, her eyes shine. There seems no end of things to say to each other.
I think of those great Hollywood screwball comedies that I love so much. In these films, the men are always one or two steps behind the women in the dance of love. I feel like one of those clueless men—except I'm about ten steps behind the dance.
The Lady Eve, Barbara Stanwyck is way ahead of clueless Henry Fonda
And then there is a knock at the door. Who can that be? I squint through the peephole.
My parents.
This is going to be... interesting.
To be continued...
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 07:29 AM | Comments (25)
July 01, 2005
The Book of Ariel
Because so many requests have come in asking how to get hold of The Book of Ariel, Karen and I have decided to sell a limited number through Seraphic Secret. We only printed 500 books and so we don't have many copies to sell. The book is printed on heavy gloss paper, interspersed with vellum scrapbook pages that feature lovely pictures of Ariel growing up as well as pictures of all the contributors. The book is 135 pages long and comes with a CD of Eitan Katz's Song for Ariel. The Book of Ariel features essays by friends, relatives, and teachers. There are excerpts from Ariel's diaries and several of his Torah essays that are models of Torah scholarship. The Book of Ariel is a memorial to a young man whose life was tragically short, but in those twenty-two years Ariel managed to have a profound effect on almost everyone he ever met. Karen and I labored for two years on this book and it represents much of what we feel as proud but grieving parents.
It is significant that The Book of Ariel appears on Seraphic Secret today. It is exactly two years (secular time) since Ariel was niftar.
We are charging $23.95. All proceeds will go to the Ariel Avrech Memorial Fund. We hope that The Book of Ariel will allow you to know our son Ariel, ZT"L.
Cost includes shipping and handling. Online payment accepted via PayPal to robert.avrech@gmail.com, or send checks to:
Seraphic Press
1531 Cardiff Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90035
Posted by Jackie at 04:27 AM | Comments (6)