The Expert

credit: krystian_o

“It will work out, everyone goes to him,” Boruch told me as I opened the car door and stepped into the chilly evening.

I sucked on the last of my Marlboro as my brother continued to reassure me.

“All the Rosh Yeshivas hold by him,” he explained. “He can figure it out, maybe a more chilled out yeshiva is what you need, maybe a shrink to talk to. Maybe you sleep because chas v’sholem you have mono. This guy, he’s seen it all, he can help you.”

I was sixteen-years-old, staying with family in Lakewood and trying to figure out what to do with my life. I had been doing well in yeshiva, but things weren’t working out. It wasn’t like I was doing anything criminal. I wasn’t talking to girls or reading secular books or listening to the radio. Rather, I was sleeping late, felt detached from the rigid yeshiva schedule and found that I was just going through the motions. I didn’t recognize it then, but my teenage self was disillusioned, questioning, and unfulfilled. Not to mention horny and undernourished.  “Depressed,” was the all-encompassing label the Mashgiach affixed to me, and I was to take a break and try to figure it out.

Rabbi S. was the person to go to. He was the “yeshiva placement” expert, a de facto bochur-yeshiva shadchan. Additionally, he acted as therapist, a supposedly expert diagnostician of any emotional problem of the modern yeshiva guy.

I knocked on the basement door as I had been instructed to do. A little kid answered. “Tatte’s in his room.” She pointed to the office across from the playroom. I stepped through toys and children and cautiously opened the study door. A gruff voice instructed me to enter.

Sitting behind a broad desk was Rabbi S. His hairy knuckles were interlaced over his broad stomach as he leaned back in his black leather office chair and sized me up with a baleful stare. A large pair of eyeglasses perched precariously on a long curved nose that drooped into a small bushy salt-and-pepper beard. A receding hairline gave way to spirals of mousy hair, topped by a large black yarmulke. “Sit down,” he commanded. I picked at the lapels of my jacket and sat on the shaky folding chair. I pushed my black hat back on my head and put on a serious face, confident in my maturity and in my status as a burgeoning adult, ready to make some serious life decisions. Prepared to confront my demons. Ready, together with this wise rebbe, to map out my life.

“So, how often do you look at dirty magazines?”

The question startled me. I blushed and almost laughed. This was the first question of the great man as we try to figure my life out?

“I don’t, Rabbi S.”

I don’t. OK, there was the occasional romance novel crumpled in the corner of the bathroom stall, but magazines? Chas V’shalom.

“I don’t,” I stuttered. “My problem is I get sad. I think maybe I need a new yeshiva…”

Cutting me off, Rabbi S. leaned forward and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I know bochurim these days. The problem is looking at things you shouldn’t.” Peering at me he asked again, “How often do you look at dirty pictures?”

Disgusted and frustrated, I quickly stood up, sending my flimsy chair hurtling into the wall. I rushed through the playroom and out of the suffocating basement apartment.

Lurching down the street, I frantically yanked out my smokes. One crumpled Marlboro remained. I pulled it out and then threw the empty pack into the dimly lit Lakewood night.

Late next morning my brother’s musky basement was dark and quiet. The house was empty; Boruch was at Seder, the wife was out shopping, and the kids were in cheder. I dragged myself off the mattress and out of the house. There was a 7-Eleven at the end of the street. The Indian fellow behind the counter flashed a sly smile as he handed me my change together with the brown paper bag.

The basement was blessedly quiet and dark, save the lone naked light bulb that illuminated the glossy pages.