Thou Shalt Not Lie
Shira Chaimowitz2011ContestsWinter 2011 ContestOff the Derech
I am lying on a blue rubber mattress on the floor and waiting for the endless night to end. I want to pull the thin white sheet over my face to block the ever-glaring light, but I cannot lower my clenched hands from above my head, for that would lead the man who is perpetually hovering in his seat above me to shout: “I need to see your hands” and I am tired of his shouting. The cameras need the light so they can unblinkingly record my every move, or lack thereof, and so that others can watch me on the grid of screens that exist somewhere beyond my reach.
I am bound inside this spotless cubicle, and cannot breathe deeply or shift to another part of the mattress without the man’s head turning and his eyes widening. I don’t like to see those eyes as they stare through me and beyond my naked, sheet covered body, beyond my unwashed hair and uncovered feet. The man lifts his pen, yawns, and scrawls an illegible note onto my psychiatric supervision form that will later be put into my patient file.
With my inert body surrounded by blank walls, I am left with only my thoughts. These thoughts are unexpectedly calm and peaceful, and although each idea winds tenaciously in circles around my mind, I feel free. I think of the absurdity of my feelings of freedom, for I am confined by an endless series of locks and cameras.
Just yesterday I got off a bus and walked into my school to attempt, once again, the daily feat of absorbing endless bits of useless information being tossed at me. Perhaps it was a week ago, or even a month ago. Ever since I entered this white room, time has blurred into an indistinguishable smudge.
I was standing at the back corner of the library among the many swaying bodies. At first I stopped swaying, then I stopped moving my mouth, and then I ceased to deliberately turn each page in my siddur. Yet even as I randomly flipped between unread pages, I stood up, bowed down, and took three steps towards God.
I closed my eyes knowing that an onlooker would see me as devoutly squinting at the sacred text in front of me. Yet lost in a reverie I must have remained standing for too long until I was alone in the room. Forgetting the concluding steps, I fled. I put the siddur back onto the shelf, making sure it was upside down.
When I lugged my massive binder into class, it felt unusually heavy. Not only because I had to place a special order to procure this unreasonably large industrial item, but because I carried this item everywhere, until eventually it gave me a perpetual stoop. The people around me were too busy carrying their own similarly unreasonable industrial items, and so I didn’t need to worry about creating banal banter.
It was fitting that I was shackled to this great monolith that was now filled with endless biblical scribbles. The margins of my notes were covered in questions. I questioned the meaning of life and the truth of the seemingly-illogical information that I was being fed. I also questioned why “t” had to be written with a small tail, lest this letter be mistaken as a cross. I questioned why I needed to acknowledge God in small lettering on the corner of each page, and why I needed to kiss dusty and extremely unhygienic books. I did not desist from this kissing practice, but I made sure to accidentally pile my chemistry notes atop these holy books.
I knew that my small and comical mutinies were inconsequential. I had to continue to lie and pretend to be pious and righteous. I was pulled down and trapped into empty actions and words while my mind revolted. I knew that eventually the thoughts boiling inside me would burst from beneath my fake facade, wreaking havoc in their wake.
Right before I entered this small room I realized that I could no longer live this lie. The divide between my thoughts and actions had grown so great that I felt as if I was being torn apart. Despite my awareness of the incongruity of my being, the line between who I was and who I appeared to be was tenuous, and so my thoughts were muddled. I did not know how to end one life and embrace another, so I tried to kill both of them.
In giving up on life and entering into this small bare room I lost ownership of my body, my movements, and my privacy. Yet with this loss I have allowed my thoughts to erupt. While these thoughts envelop my body and take over my mind, I know that someday in the wake of this tumult I will build a life from this act of death. I have pretended for so long, that without my mask I don’t know who I am. I will have to create my own being, and form a new face from this shapeless slab of clay. Yet despite my uncertainty of mind and my captive body, I am no longer liable for my profane thoughts or actions, nor do I need to pretend to pray. I no longer have to lie, and I am therefore free.
12 Responses
“fake facade”?
You can do better
Wow , a very powerful piece . A little dark but powerful . You captured the “logic” of suicide or hurting ones self , the feeling of what else can I do , something which reminds me of Jodi Picoults book The Pact.
It is very sad that this is the way you have to attain freedom. I admire your desire for freedom.
I feel your pain. I hope you have successfully killed the “liar” within you, and are now able to become the person you really are.
Shira, I was really moved by your story. Thank you for sharing.
Dark, powerful and liberating.
Like: “I did not know how to end one life and embrace another, so I tried to kill both of them.”
Dear Shira,
If I misunderstood the implications of your writing, I apologize.
So don’t put the little tail on the “t”. And don’t put BS”D on each page. And don’t kiss unhygienic books. Create your own being that does not contain the inane cultural aspects of mainstream Judaism. Rather, find the health and sanity, depth and beauty in our creed. In three thousand years of heritage, there is a lot to keep as part of a recipe of life that is in consonance with what most people think it normal, moral, and just. Even ideal.
If your Bais Yaakov education was intolerable, don’t tolerate it. But why reject the national identity and order of your people because of flaws in how your teachers transmitted it? Help create a new society of people who refuse to demean the greatness of our people by reducing it to a set of mindless cultural minutia. A society created by people who say, “It is not it is not the Emperor who has no clothes, it is the people. We need to find the clothes, the glorious garments, the Emperor wishes we gird ourselves with. And we will be the future of the Jewish People.”
Dovid Levine
The unfortunate reality is that many of us live religious lives governed by the force of habit or the expectations and rules forced on us by our upbringing and parents. We are taught the rules but lack the feeling and meaning behind them. Born into a religion that is in reality full of meaning, we live lives devoid of meaning. We fast on Tisha Baav and feel hunger pangs, but have not the smallest inkling of what the destruction of the Bais Hamikdash should mean to us. We keep Shabbos, kashrus, etc but these are only external practices that have little or no effect on us internally. Dovid, how will this “society of people who refuse to demean the greatness of our people by reducing it to a set of mindless cultural minutia” be born? “The health and sanity, depth and beauty in our creed” may be right before our eyes but remains seemingly out of the reach of our hearts.
Leah, I agree with you entirely. On this website I find bright, deep, passionate people who are dissatisfied with Torah lifestyle as it is presented. Eloquent people who burn with fervent zeal against the travesty they see preformed using the Torah. Against what they see as an unauthentic, smothering code of conduct. It seems these people reject the Torah because of how it is presented. And I understand that.
My plea is, if this community would combine their talents to create a new Torah observant community that does not have the flaws of the mainstream community, they would have a society that reflects the depth and beauty of pure Torah without the defects of popular frum culture.
The waters of the Torah taste bitter because you are drinking from a bitter vessel. Rather than spitting into the well of our people and looking for truth exclusively in other sources, draw from the Torah with an old cup that predates the current state of Judaism. And take some of the water in a new cup, a cup you construct from your own understanding and from materials G-d presented to this world through other cultures whose ideals you realize have truth and value. Find the meaning, tap into the feeling, discover the morality, listen to the message. You will find the waters of the Torah in these vessels are really sweet.
Use your creativity and passion to bring the water to the mouths of others who can’t drink using popular vessels. Please. You may be the only hope of revitalizing our people.
Leah, as Tisha B’Av approaches, I am thinking about your comment. I want to address your point about mourning specifically, as an opening to what I am trying to convey.
“We fast on Tisha Baav and feel hunger pangs, but have not the smallest inkling of what the destruction of the Bais Hamikdash should mean to us.” This is what we were taught as children. But as adults, as thinking adults, we need to approach Tisha B’Av from a more mature, personal perspective. Does the fall of a building 2000 years ago make me cry? No. If I told my elementary school rebbe that, he might yell at me for not loving G-d enough. Whatever. As an adult, I think differently. I contemplate not stone and wood, but the concept of ascendency the world was supposed to reach that did not happen. The Bais Hamikdash is not just a building. It was supposed to be a House of Prayer for all people. It was supposed to represent harmony, internal Jewish harmony and world harmony. (Yerushalayim = Ir shel Shalom = City of Harmony) A charge to promote harmony we neglected. Twice. I am sad because the word of G-d that was to be a beacon for all people, drawing them toward living healthy, peaceful, and productive lives, was darkened. Ki metsiyon tetsey Torah u’devar Hashem m’Yerushalayim – and now what do we see from Jerusalem? Is it a center of greatness of spirit, a guiding light for all people? Sadly…
Am I sad for G-d? No – G-d does not feel pain, does not suffer disappointment. I am sad for the state of the world, for the destruction we wrought by making immoral and unethical choices. For OUR loss. This Tisha B’Av, I will think about what I saw on this site. How in place of “Safeguard and keep [these rules], since this is your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of the nations. They will hear all these rules and say, ‘This great nation is certainly a wise and understanding people'” (Devarim 4:6), some of us only see a foolish, dumb people holding on to absurd, stupid rules and beliefs. And I think that will be enough to make me cry. I will mourn for the loss of true Torah, and I will mourn for the people who dropped off our force.
Contrast what you wrote with another piece on this site, http://www.unpious.com/2011/08/the-crack-in-the-western-wall/. “On Tisha B’av we would fast and sit on the floor and cry. We cried because our temple was destroyed and we cried because God was disappointed in us. Some cry at the Kosel for health and some cry for peace. If you asked my younger self I would tell you that we cried for what we lost. Truth is we never lost anything, and that was the problem.” Thank you Samuel, for devising words to express my pain. My pain that we have nothing left to lose. I don’t know if that is what Samuel meant. But if Samuel would be promoting a true Torah understanding, if he would think deeply and originally into what exile really means, what is really to be accomplished by mourning for the Bais Hamikdash, and express it in his beautiful style, many people would have a meaningful Tisha B’Av. Including me.
Dovid,
You are such a thoughtful, eloquent writer. You hit the nail on the head and said it better than I could have. Yes, too many people throw away Torah because of a bad rebbe, uninspiring shul,or claustrophobic community or school. After a circuitous path, I realized that I was basing my Judaism on my disfunctional family and backwards bais yaakov. I ran hard and far away. I took a circuitous, and what could only be called miraculous, path. It took having children. I was determined not to give them my baggage. And so, I created our home life to be everything I did not have. This took a of effort and sacrifice. I stayed away from extremism. I visited all “denominations” of Judaism.I read tons of books. Basically, I started from scratch. I found a tolerant and open community. My kids are happy, well-adjusted observant Jews, and I will love them no matter what they choose. I hope that they will one day tell their own kids, “Shabbos was the highlight of my week.” I cannot change the past (which was traumatic), but I can change the future.
Hi Kelly,
Sorry it took me so long to reply. I am gratified that what I wrote struck a chord with you. Your story is touching. We all need to revisit the Torah as mature, intelligent adults, and it sounds like you did an outstanding job of discovering its beauty and significance. I am sure it was a Herculean struggle. As the Rebbe of Kotzk supposedly said, “Seven years to discover the falsehood, seven years to uproot it, and seven years to replace it with the truth”. Your children are fortunate; I pray your hopes for them will be realized.
I find the writings of Rav Shamshon Rifael Hirsch particularly relevant. Through his eyes, I see how the Torah is a source of life, goodness, and blessing for our people, nationally and individually. His Nineteen Letters is available online. http://books.google.com/books/about/The_nineteen_letters_of_Ben_Uziel.html?id=q02JxKxj5jQC The writing style is difficult, following German sentence structure, but I think it is well worth the effort.
Let me know if you get any mileage out of the suggestion!
Dovid
Hi, I read your blog daily. Your humoristic style is awesome, keep it
up!