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by Leah Lax

Yaancha adonoi byom tsarah ysagevcha shem elohei yaakov. A bride is to fast and recite the entire book of psalms on her wedding day. Im whispering the Hebrew words while standing at attention before God, covered in my white gown to chin and wrists, the shining train of cloth puddled on the vacuumed carpet behind me. My mother and two sisters are fixing their makeup at the vanity. Yishlach ezrcha mikodesh umitsion yisadecha. I just turned nineteen, and I am certain that Im drawing down Gods blessings and suffusing holy light over us all, this day of my hassidic wedding. Outside, the sky is electric blue over the neighborhood of manicured lawns and privacy walls, another in a string of August ninety-five degree days. We are in a back bedroom in my grandparents elegant home. In the front of the house much of the furniture has been cleared, a kosher catered feast spread on long covered tables, the ivy-draped wedding canopy set up outdoors. Hurricane lamps on pedestals dot the vast lawn beneath old shade trees. My mother and grandmother have been holding their chins high all day as if practicing for this evening, lips pulled tight, trying to tolerate my new religious demands and still have their society wedding. Soon, the sun will go down and I will be given to tall bearded Levi, grave in his long black satuk, under the stars. My photograph will be in next Sundays Dallas Morning News, August 17, 1975: the bride wore satin with her grandmothers veil of handmade lace. Mom. A little modesty, please? I say. Her gown is floor length, and sleeveless. I add in a stage whisper, Rabbi Frumens in the next room. Put on the bolero! Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Frumen is a shaliach of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, emissary over all of Texas. Hes doing the ketubah! The what? my mother says.

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The wedding contract. She gives a little huff. Put the book down for a minute, would you? she says. Come here. Come to the mirror. I want to put the veil on you. She picks up the lace crown, pauses over it. Her eyes are moist. She wore that crown, that veil, once. So did her mother. I dont want to see my mothers eyes. I think of the hoarded clutter of our home, how we were left alone in it, how often she forgot to make meals. Put the veil on me, Mom? Now you care? Cant you see that we dont deserve this celebration, that my gown shouldnt be white? It should be dirty gray, it should be transparent over our past. Instead, the dress hides me, and now you want to help me to disappear. Then I think of following her to symphonies, art galleries, the first paintbrush she put in my hand, and, helpless, I go to her. I sit down at the vanity. She takes bobby pins from a gold filagree box and secures the netting and heavy lace to my head with her tapered, delicate hands. Above her in the mirror, as she bends over me, my sisters Amy and Debbie are watching. Tuvia comes into the room. He heads our burgeoning hassidic group, where other students like me, and like him, are also finding religion, at the University of Texas. There is the blue suit on his thin frame, sandy beard, his respectful manner, eyes downcast. Mrs. Mallett, he says to my mother, indicating with a nod for her, and only her, to join him in the next room, in her fathers study, where the men have gathered. My mother gets up like a startled fawn. In the study, she will find Ruth, the mother of Levi. Levi is my chatan, the other half of my soul, destined since Creation to find me, although Ruth calls him Eugene. The two mothers will be told to stand to the side of that room of men, dark wood paneling, heavy masculine furniture, beards, hats and yarmalkas. Most of our family friends have yet to arrive, but Rabbi Frumen is in there, as are fellow students Tuvia, Dovid, Vulf and Mendel. As I whisper my

Chapter One of memoir

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psalms in my grandmothers bedroom, I can imagine the two mothers in there in their long gowns, the line of young men in their new pious beards, and Levi at the carved polished table looking regal, holding a piece of holy text. I imagine Levis father looking perplexed, and my father, struggling with mental illness, simply afraid. The room will grow quiet. Levi will launch into a hassidic discourse, an analysis of the mystical union elevated in higher spheres by the ultimate union of bride and groom; always a piece of holy text will ritualize the moment. The young men will burst into lively Hebrew singing with an affected manner, stumbling over words, clapping, rejoicing on Rabbis Frumens command, just as they do on the Sabbath in Austin. Then the rabbi will produce the ketubah, the marriage contract, written in Aramaic, which Levi will sign. Two male witnesses will also sign, trusted because they are men and because they honor the sabbath. My father is wearing a summer linen suit of light tan and a white carnation in his lapel, as white as his thick white hair. But in there he isnt Herb, and I am not Lisa. The rabbi will write my name on the contract as Leah, daughter of Yehoshua, the son of Yaakov; my fathers Hebrew name, Yehoshua, means God will grant salvation. My father will sign the ketuba last, in my stead. Then, also on the rabbis cue, the mothers will grasp a single china plate and dash it to the floor to commemorate the destruction of the ancient temple in Jerusalemthe admixture of loss in every Jewish celebration. I wait, over my psalms, listening for the crash on the polished floor. I imagine the two mothers, their self-conscious smiles, their thrusting hands a blur. But dont you know, Mom, the plate isnt the temple, its me, its my years with you, its just another thing broken?

Chapter One of memoir

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Later I will hear how Levis father was distressed seeing the shards fly. I will hear how he scurried around the room picking up the pieces, but there were too many. ****** It was in February, six months before the wedding, when Rabbi Frumen called me to meet with him. He called from the Chabad House, the hassidic student meeting place in Austin, had driven in from Houston to give his classes. Shiurim. The Chabad House was actually a cleared storage area in a student apartment complex near the UT campus. Rabbi Frumen came in every Tuesday, so by then I well knew his gruff style, his dismissive manner with women, the way that the boys in our group seemed insecure yet thrilled around him. I was quite simply afraid of the rabbi, struck silent every time he walked into the room, so I didnt question that imperious voice on the telephone. Of course he could interrupt my studying for a test in government, change my plans to spend the afternoon practicing cello. Besides, I had become a hassidic soldier long before I met him, ready to take orders from any emissary of our Rebbe. I dropped the schoolwork and rushed across the campus, long modest skirt slapping my calves in the cold wind. Sitting there in the Chabad House before Rabbi Frumen, empty white walls, sabbath tables folded and stacked, a poster of the Rebbes smiling countenance tacked on the wall above us, my heart was pounding in my ears. I pressed the back of my knees hard against the cold smooth edge of the metal seat. Rabbi Frumen had a Russian/Yiddish accent. When he smiled, his lip dropped to reveal his lower teeth surrounded by beard and mustache. Hows your life? he said.

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Baruch hashem, I said, bless God, but that was the expected response. I knew he was hedging. I sat very still. Someone in the apartment below turned on a stereo and the base line hummed up through my feet, mixing with the pulse in my ears. And your grandparents? I wondered if he was looking for a donation. Baruch hashem, I said again. God gets the credit. For everything. But I was beginning to guess why he had called. I wanted to ask you, have you thought about any of the boys? As a husband? I thought, it was true. I was right. Suddenly my life was tumbling forward. Past moments flashed: the warm face of Ana, a girl who once had my dreams as no one had since; Mom, I said once when I was fifteen, placing my hand on my chest as if she could see the ache I carried in there. I think I have a soul. I thought Rabbi Frumens probing eyes were searching for some private fantasy I might have been holding about one of the newly hassidic boys in our group, but I couldnt produce a modest voice trembling with desire for any of the boys. What I remembered in that moment was my visit to see the Rebbe, in Brooklyn, a few months before, the way that the Rebbe took off his white plastic glasses and put them on his desk. You will make an everlasting edifice of a Jewish home, he said to me, with those piercing eyes. It was a command to marry in the form of a blessing. What I remembered was stumbling out of the Rebbes office that night swept away by the fervor in his face, my future now defined. Levi Lax is interested in marrying you, Rabbi Frumen said. I jerked my chin up. Levi was one of the oldest boys in the group, older than me by seven years. He was overdue for marriage Our families knew one another in Dallas. I thought, I should have expected this. And that was all.

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**** Lets stop somewhere and talk. That was Levi, on our only date, the two of us in his Dodge Dart on a cold dark night. Levi was in jeansstill in the process of becoming a hassid, but I knew we wouldnt touch. I relied on that. Still, my hand stayed near the door handle, curled like the hand of a child. I didnt know that I was the third girl Rabbi Frumen had approached for Levi, that I had been shopped. He had been acting on Levis behalf more than mine. I did know, by then, how hassidim were supposed go about their matchmaking, when there were caring hassidic parents involved, how the parents research the prospect, the gentle way they are supposed to probe their son or daughter, how the young couple is encouraged to go out to some public place to talk, but not touch. The two are to question one another, share their heart, their goals, and decide together only if both soul and real attraction begin to ignite. You will know, the parents say. But Levi and I both came from secular Jews. In place of hassidic parents, we had Rabbi Frumen with his fierce and pious beard. In place of courtship, twenty minutes on a folding chair in an emptied storage room beneath a tacked poster of the Rebbe. Levi pulled into a broad black-tarred Sears parking lot and we got out of the car. Well, he said. He looked at his tennis shoes. What do you think? He had just proposed. Levis face was in shadow beneath the hat brim, his broad shoulders, the towering mercury lights beyond his outline spreading a diffused light too thin for warmth. In the night, I couldnt make out the black curls in his beard, his brown eyes, high forehead, thick eyebrows.

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We were alone in a black and white world, a world held down by a tarmac grid of white parking lines and litter. I want flowers, I said, near panic. What? Color. In every room. I want you to bring me flowers, always. And I want a room where I can play my cello. It felt like a call for beauty in a black and white world. Id like that, he said. His voice had gone soft, and warm. When I heard that, hope filled me. You would? I said. Then, I was grinning, grinning, and so was he, both of us on a train of dreams that was picking up speed. Flowers and color, a safe clean home with a predictable, devoted and loyal man, none of my mothers hoarded clutter or my fathers obsessions and grinding teeth. I had found a proper home. Order. Safety. Holiness. Thats what drew me to the hassidim. I saw nothing to note in my absence of desire for Levi. I wouldnt know, even on the day of my wedding, that escape from loneliness is not the same as holiness. Levi stepped out of the shadows. I looked up into his face. His eyes were bright, face softened, his gaze deep. He made a tiny stopped gesture with his hand toward my waist. He was falling in love. Lit from above, his bent head threw a curved shadow over my face, like half a heart.

***** The two mothers return from the paneled study. The contract has been signed, my future set, the wedding soon to begin. I had gone back to whispering psalms. I put my finger on the place and look up, expectant.

Chapter One of memoir

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by Leah Lax

Soon, the enormous, cleared den is filled with chatting guests milling around me. I sit in the middle of that on a dining chair as if it is a throne, my mother and Ruth at either side. The drapes and sliding glass doors are opened wide onto the patio, where a Texas band more accustomed to honky tonk than Yiddish music is gamely playing hassidic tunes; one clarinet, a violin and a saxophone. Levi isnt here. We are being kept apart, havent been allowed to see one another for the past seven days. The ceremony is about to begin. I glance around, tell myself to look happy. My secret, maybe its stress, I got my period early and now Levi wont be allowed to touch me for ten more days. I dont think about what this will do to Levi, but Im relieved. The relief wont last. But sitting here in white and bleeding makes me feel as if I am playing a part in a play. I wonder what would happen if the guests knew that Im going through this whole ceremony and...Im not sure who it is that Im inside of. My gown is really blood red but no one can see. I feel removed, harboring secret shame. In the next room, Levi is with Rabbi Frumen, who gets the privilege of dressing the groom. Over Levis ruffled tuxedo shirt, the rabbi drapes a huge shirt that has been worn by the Rebbe himself, wrapping Levi in an aura of holiness. Then Rabbi Frumen helps Levi into his first long black hassidic coat. He will wear it for the ceremony, the mark of a married man. But something is wrong. The coat was ordered according to Levis measurements, but it doesnt fit. Levi hunches his shoulders and sucks in his stomach trying to close the button. His back seized up a week ago and hes in pain. He forces himself into his new costume. Rabbi Frumen takes his elbow and Levi winces. He moves forward, wooden, unsure. Back in the den, the music stops, a long breath-held pause. I look up to see Levi flanked in the doorway by his father and my father, the rabbi behind them. The camera flashes, catching

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Levis still-black beard, his thick lashes and earnest eyes, the stiffness he holds that I will come to know, the effort in his handsome face to hold onto the seriousness of this moment. The music begins again, the Lubavitch wedding song from the Alter Rebbe, a pensive, raw tune that has no words. Rabbi Frumen and the student friends sing with the music, nananana, in their deep voices. I think, this is it. This is the moment Ive read about: Soon the desires of bride and groom are to be celebrated, legitimized, consummated, but right now is when the bride is supposed to look up with longing and see her groom coming toward her, her groom she has missed for seven long days. She is supposed to feel the delighted rush of finally seeing her beloved. This is supposed to be the wonder moment of recognition, when their eyes should meet across the room with infinite desire, just before they turn together to proceed to the hoped-for wedding canopy. I try. Really, I try. I try to feel that. Levi, are you looking joyfully across the room, wanting me, and not just trying to ignore your pain? Tell me that at least one of us has that. Or are you also telling yourself what you are supposed to be thinking, phrases from hassidic books like my helpmate, other half of my soul, we will create an everlasting edifice? You understand such phrases as loftier and thus more legitimate than that flash of desire, but I hope you feel that flash, that at least one of us can, contorted as you are. If you dont, then, Im sorry. I feel responsible: I agreed to marry you, made you fall in love. I wince at Levis discomfort in the coat. I hope nobody notices how ill-fitting it is. But then, as the men proceed toward us, pacing to their slow singing, my eyes are on my father. The music swells. My father is supposed to come forward and place his hands on my head, bless me with yesimcha elohim ksara, rivka, rachel vleah, may God make you

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like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah, the four beloved mothers of the Jewish people, setting my destiny to do the same. The Three now stand in front of me, Levi, his father and mine. Levi looks down into my face. He is awkward with the fullness of his feeling, struggling to meet my eyes, but mine are on my father. The music stops. The crowd gathers closer. Levi is ready to take my veil, it is hanging behind, to bring it down over my face. First I want my fathers blessing. I tried to teach him the words before the wedding. Im wishing he could do this and so much else, for me. But hes had shock therapy, lives on powerful medicines. Theres no way. My father leans in close. The camera catches the moment: my face turned up toward his, the pleading look, eyebrows raised to encourage him. Daddy? I whisper. The words? He doesnt have the magic blessing words, even if hes gotten up from his grey recliner where he spends entire days reading the newspaper, even if hes showered and shaved and put on a suit, pinned on a carnation. Instead, he puts a trembling hand on my head, the motion stiff with uncertainty. He leans in and kisses me on the forehead with an awkward chaste kiss that is filled with unspoken wishes, with his non-blessing. That kiss is the love, his love, that tarnishes me. The air is cool on the wet spot it leaves on my forehead. I turn my face away. This is both my wedding and his funeral. After his kiss, that way that I have always been able to feel my fathers pain and disappointment is cut away. In my wedding gown I dig his grave myself and dump in his weak body, his mouth open fishlike pulling for air, twin streaks of white from his hair and from the carnation as he tumbles in. I shovel dirt over his head, gripping the shovel handle, arm muscles taut and vigorous and working. Dirt collects under my

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fingernails, sweat beads on my forehead, drips onto my white satin. My father disappears beneath the surface, but his smell lingers. This is both my wedding and my funeral, because I bury with him the part of me that is him. From this point, after his kiss, my father becomes an old dead package that I carry in secret. I will feel little for him, hate his incapacities and our common history, bury what he did. I look up into my fathers eyes, the music as background, the wet spot on my forehead, his hand still hovering over my head. There is another camera flash as I replace my father with Levi, the Rebbe, and God.

The music rises. Levi looks directly into my eyes in his glorious moment. He lifts the veil and brings the netting down over my face. He has ascertained that I am really Leah and that he has received the right merchandise. No trickery of the Biblical Leah, who put herself in her sisters place beneath a veil. It is me, and he believes this with elation. But I have tricked you, Levi, and you dont know. I havent put myself in place of my sister, maybe I should have once, but I have put the Leah you see here in place of my fathers daughter Lisa. Its the same trickery as in the Bible, you see? Leah has taken Lisas place, Lisa who cant fully love you, who carries her sisters with her, and you dont know. You only want Leah the hassidic girl, soldier of God, and not Lisa, and thus not the tiny infant who heard the mother croon of Lisa over her sleeping form, not the girl whose father loomed in the dark, or the child who scratched Lisa in wonder on the wall beside her bed in the night, not the girl who

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dreamed she was a boy and climbed on rooftops, or the teen at the ocean dreaming of the world, and certainly not the girl who loved Ana. You think youre marrying Leah and only Leah, the woman you love. But who is she? My face is now veiled. Triumphant, Levi turns with the two fathers at either elbow and proceeds to the open patio door. The guests take their seats outside and then, on cue to music meant to awaken bride and groom to their holy destiny, the three men march to the wedding canopy ahead of the bride. It is time. I must go to my husband. I rise with the two mothers. Each has a hand on one of my arms. Each also holds a long tapered burning candle. Behind me, my two sisters Amy and Debbie, also with candles, follow in measured steps. There is no breeze in the warm night. The flames rise small and strong and sure. Under the canopy, I pace around Levi seven times. The mothers follow me, around and around. Rabbi Frumen counts the circles in a whisper, two, three, four. Seven circles for the seven heavens with Levi at the center of the universe, for the days of sabbath that will order our life. Levis mother picks up my train so that it doesnt entrap her son. Then I stand beside Levi, shoulders just out of touch, as men announce my purchase, the contract, the bride pricea ring of gold, as they bestow seven blessings. The veil is lifted to feed me a sip of the wine of agreement, the wine of sleep. The ring is placed on my right index finger while Levis remains unbound. Levi stomps on a glass. There are cries of mazal tov! The band lets loose. We dance in wild stomping circles until midnight, round and round, women indoors, men on the patio. The guests buzz with exuberance that they will talk about for weeks. We dance. Planning to do so just for the evening, I keep the ring on my right forefinger where Levi placed it, although it only fits to the knuckle. But heres my Ana dancing past me, she came with the

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man who will become her husband. Heres my Austin roommate Andrea, she will marry Vulf and they will shuck off their flirt with hassidic life. He will be Warren again. Here is my childhood neighbor and first friend, Jean, and other friends from high school and before, Andrea, Sharon, Brett, David. Youre happy for me, my friends. I invited you all back to me, to my wedding, only to show you that this is our final disconnect. You will never really have me again. The night air cooler now, the women pull me out to dance on the lawn among the hurricane lamps, under the heavy old trees, under the stars. I grab their hands, jumping, dancing on the soft grass, freshly mown, around and around, drunk with music and dancing. I raise my right hand and fling my arm out in the dance. The ring flies away, nestles in the grass. It is nighttime. What can we do but look for it tomorrow? No matter; it is time to dance! The ring sinks in deeper and disappears. I stop to get my breath. I go into the house, back into my grandmothers room, where she helps me to remove the veil and long lace train. My mother and father and Levi follow. My father says, Lisa. Did you find the ring!? He knows. I look up, startled. Behind him, Levi scowls. This is my first failure before my husband. I subject myself to that. But were back at the reception and here is young Mrs. Frumen, confident, head high, large pink and green flowers printed across her tight dress. Shes in charge, a whirling expert in this hassidic dance. And heres sister Amy, sixteen and already forming tracks on her arm, how shes smiling, and older sister Debbie, who catches my tossed bouquet; shell marry her live-in boyfriend before the year is out, the familys first non-Jew. Here is Rabbi Frumen, the beard and ritual fringes fly, arms up high, he is heavy, but his feet, what they can do. He dances with my

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grandfathers business associate, an upright Baptist man much taller than he, and the photographer catches the odd pairing as the ritual fringes fly. I know everyone here will remember this night and the fun, the music, the dancing. The joy.

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