Sabbath, because there was no eruv (a fictitious boundary which encircled an area making it one and thus permitting one to carry from one place to the next), could one wear a shirt with such a button?
She looked around nervously, wondering if everyone was as excruciatingly bored as she. Discounting the nappers, she realized with relief that the men had their eyes fixed upon her husband with approval and pleasure. And while the women did shift nervously, their chatter rising above the volume and intensity generally to be expected in the women’s section of Orthodox synagogues during the rabbi’s speeches, it seemed all right.And when Chaim finished, closing his book and kissing it, wishing everyone “Good Shabbes,” and his grandfather got up to hug him, as if he were a Bar Mitzva boy, the synagogue erupted with interjections of goodwill and praise: “Yasher koach.” “God bless you.” “The apple doesn’t fall far.” The men’s voices rang out, and the women stopped fidgeting. A few came over to Delilah to shake her hand, and their wrinkled arthritic fingers—like old white parchment—were cool against her young warm skin. “You must be so proud!” they told her. “A wonderful job!”
Delilah felt touched and filled with reciprocal warmth.
And then the service was over, and the people filed out as fast as their canes and walkers would allow them, navigating the staircase to the first floor social hall where gray-haired ladies in old-fashioned hats had laid out paper plates with various types of herring and gefilte fish stabbed with toothpicks, plates of dull sponge cake, and stale-looking Stella d’Oro cookies that smelled of anise. No one touched the food until the old rabbi arrived, pouring the red sweet Malaga wine—so thick you could cut it with a knife—into a silver cup, making the kiddush benedictions over it. That taken care of, the ladies brought out steaming platters of brown potato kugel and cholent —a dark meat-and-bean stew cooked overnight—which had enough fat in it to clog the last open space in any artery still actually allowing blood to pass through.
Delilah stood by Chaim’s side as one by one the members of the congregation filed past, smiling at her and shaking Chaim’s hand as the venerable rabbi they adored looked on benevolently. It was lovely, she thought, to be the center of so much positive attention.
She tried to tell herself she was lucky. That she had everything. That she’d been blessed. That it wasn’t so bad she hadn’t had a honeymoon, some tropical getaway where she could wear a bikini and lie near sparkling pools of turquoise water, lathered with suntan lotion, as sarong-clad men and women plied her with icy smoothies and fresh pineapple speared with festive paper umbrellas. That she could live with the two weeks of physical separation each month; that it would give her private time to read and watch TV in bed when he couldn’t lay his hands on her. In fact, secretly, she thought it might be a relief.
In bed, she had noticed, his passion rose quickly and tanked accordingly. He had a self-congratulatory way of smiling afterward that she found irritating. He always rose fastidiously and returned to his own bed, leaving her behind to deal with sticky sheets and rumpled blankets. At first, shehad been annoyed about the two-bed thing. “Why can’t we just lie side by side on either side of a big bed when I’m a niddah ?” she’d grumbled. But his response had mollified her. “If I could lie next to you and not sin, I wouldn’t be a man.”
But later, as time went by, with about half of each month with no physical contact at all between them, she began to feel peeved and insulted and abandoned. She would long for the ritual immersion that would have them resume their physical intimacy, no matter how flawed. In between, she saw him sneaking glances at her naked body like a guilty schoolboy. His yeshiva upbringing had created in him the perennial adolescent
She looked around nervously, wondering if everyone was as excruciatingly bored as she. Discounting the nappers, she realized with relief that the men had their eyes fixed upon her husband with approval and pleasure. And while the women did shift nervously, their chatter rising above the volume and intensity generally to be expected in the women’s section of Orthodox synagogues during the rabbi’s speeches, it seemed all right.And when Chaim finished, closing his book and kissing it, wishing everyone “Good Shabbes,” and his grandfather got up to hug him, as if he were a Bar Mitzva boy, the synagogue erupted with interjections of goodwill and praise: “Yasher koach.” “God bless you.” “The apple doesn’t fall far.” The men’s voices rang out, and the women stopped fidgeting. A few came over to Delilah to shake her hand, and their wrinkled arthritic fingers—like old white parchment—were cool against her young warm skin. “You must be so proud!” they told her. “A wonderful job!”
Delilah felt touched and filled with reciprocal warmth.
And then the service was over, and the people filed out as fast as their canes and walkers would allow them, navigating the staircase to the first floor social hall where gray-haired ladies in old-fashioned hats had laid out paper plates with various types of herring and gefilte fish stabbed with toothpicks, plates of dull sponge cake, and stale-looking Stella d’Oro cookies that smelled of anise. No one touched the food until the old rabbi arrived, pouring the red sweet Malaga wine—so thick you could cut it with a knife—into a silver cup, making the kiddush benedictions over it. That taken care of, the ladies brought out steaming platters of brown potato kugel and cholent —a dark meat-and-bean stew cooked overnight—which had enough fat in it to clog the last open space in any artery still actually allowing blood to pass through.
Delilah stood by Chaim’s side as one by one the members of the congregation filed past, smiling at her and shaking Chaim’s hand as the venerable rabbi they adored looked on benevolently. It was lovely, she thought, to be the center of so much positive attention.
She tried to tell herself she was lucky. That she had everything. That she’d been blessed. That it wasn’t so bad she hadn’t had a honeymoon, some tropical getaway where she could wear a bikini and lie near sparkling pools of turquoise water, lathered with suntan lotion, as sarong-clad men and women plied her with icy smoothies and fresh pineapple speared with festive paper umbrellas. That she could live with the two weeks of physical separation each month; that it would give her private time to read and watch TV in bed when he couldn’t lay his hands on her. In fact, secretly, she thought it might be a relief.
In bed, she had noticed, his passion rose quickly and tanked accordingly. He had a self-congratulatory way of smiling afterward that she found irritating. He always rose fastidiously and returned to his own bed, leaving her behind to deal with sticky sheets and rumpled blankets. At first, shehad been annoyed about the two-bed thing. “Why can’t we just lie side by side on either side of a big bed when I’m a niddah ?” she’d grumbled. But his response had mollified her. “If I could lie next to you and not sin, I wouldn’t be a man.”
But later, as time went by, with about half of each month with no physical contact at all between them, she began to feel peeved and insulted and abandoned. She would long for the ritual immersion that would have them resume their physical intimacy, no matter how flawed. In between, she saw him sneaking glances at her naked body like a guilty schoolboy. His yeshiva upbringing had created in him the perennial adolescent
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