Inside each of us is the one saying no no and the one saying yes yes and the one asking maybe. Maybe now? Maybe this? Maybe him? Asking, what if I do this? Or this? Or this? Or if I eat my bread like this, if I make my bed so, if I do my work thusly — then will the messiness of extraneous doubt disappear?
The women in my family do not work. They are frightened and polite. They fluff up pillows and re-cover sofas just before their dinner parties. They dampen soft cloths to dust the tops of frames of non-objectionable art prints. In another era, they would stay inside the circumference, the eruv, the private area of our ancestors’ shtetl, and would not venture into the place where they felt frightened. The eruv marks a boundary that extends the concept of home, so that you can carry things on Shabbat. It is a loophole. We do not strive to keep the Sabbath, so we do not seek loopholes.
I must amend the above. Our foremothers were not confined by the eruv. They traveled by foot and cart to the marketplace to buy fabric and root vegetables, to haggle with the peasants, while the men stayed inside buildings, arguing over meanings across shaky wooden tables. They would get lost in the texts, trail home after dark.
My therapist charges $100 for forty-five minutes. Just talking. I amuse her, and she makes me cry for at least a whole afternoon after the session. With her few words: “You are extremely sensitive, without insulation. You...
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