I used to believe in Hashem the way everyone else did. Somewhere along the way I lost that. I wish I could have it back. I don’twantto be one of those people who say things like “G-d is chaos” or “G-d is a universal constant” or a “cultural legacy.” Those are all perfectly fine things to believe. A lot of Jews believe them. But those beliefs don’t fill my cup the way religion used to.
I want the feeling of arms wrapped around me, holding me tight. I want the structure of halacha and mitzvot, the rules and commandments all Jews are bound to follow as part of our covenant with Hashem—even the silly ones.
Iwantto believe in G-d, but I gave all that up. I threw it away.
I don’t know what I believe now.
“You’ll be fine,” Wyatt tells me. The sound of his voice is lowand soft, and if I closed my eyes, I could imagine him murmuring those words in my ear, the two of us in a dark, quiet place. Alone.
In that universe, I imagine him saying that would immediately relax me. I’d uncoil to bask in the warmth of it. Instead I hover at the edge of the sidewalk, craning my neck to watch for oncoming traffic, waiting for a break between the cars long enough to let me dart across the street. Tension is a live wire strung down my back. And Wyatt’s words don’t do much.
“I hope you’re right,” I say. “Otherwise this is going to be really embarrassing.”
Maybe I should have just asked him to come. The asking would have sucked, but the having him here would have made it worth it.Oh well.
The Astoria Chabad House is located near Thirty-sixth Avenue. It’s brand-new; Astoria didn’t have much of a Jewish community until recently. I mean, you can’t even find a decent Jewish deli in this neighborhood to save your life. I once saw someone ask on the Astoria subreddit where to find good challah, and everyone told them to just suck it up and take the train into Manhattan.
But I guess enough new people have been moving in lately that the demographics have changed, or else someone in charge decided that if they had the money to fund Chabad Houses in Wyoming, then they had the money to fund one in northwestern Queens. I ring the bell and take a step back, my hands laced behind my back and fingers twisting together, sweaty and awkward as fuck. My camera bag suddenly seems too heavy, the straps digging into my shoulders. I feel a lot like a wayward middle school student waiting to be let in for her piano lesson.
The woman who opens the door is short, with a long brown sheitel and a modest navy-blue dress. She smiles the second she lays eyes on me, a bright smile that shows teeth and crinkles the corners of her eyes. I can hear the chaos of raucous childrensomewhere behind her, all screeching voices and thunderous footsteps.
“You must be Ely,” she says. “Please, come in!”
She steps aside to let me move into the entryway. I toe off my shoes next to the collection gathered by the door, my dusty floral Doc Martens taking their place amid the neat line of sensible flats and sneakers. The pair of men’s dress shoes is identical to the ones my father used to wear, to the point that I almost wonder if Moshe shops at the same shoe store.
“I’m so glad we were able to make this work. So sorry about the mess, by the way. The kids have been going crazy all summer. Maybe I feed them too much sugar.” Nechama touches the back of my elbow, guiding me deeper into the house, chattering away the whole time. “They’re very excited to meet you. My daughter Menuchah especially. She loves taking pictures. I’m sure she’ll want to hear all about your studies at Parker.”
I wonder if Menuchah is like I was, lurking at bus stops and snapping photos of the ladies with baby carriages as they pass by, trying to get the shutter speedjust rightso that the traffic is a blur behind them. If she wastes her allotted computer time developing new presets in Lightroom and could spend hours in the photography exhibits at MoMA.
Or maybe that’s egotistical of me. Maybe we’re nothing alike at all.
Nechama leads me back into the kitchen, which is large considering this is New York. She even has an island, already laden with dry-goods canisters and a carton of eggs. My mother would be so jealous.
“Have you made challah before?” Nechama asks, so unassumingly I kind of want to die because here it is: my first lie by omission.
“A few times,” I say. “But it’s been years. I don’t remember much.”
I remember some, though. I remember the sensation of warm dough pillowing up between my spread fingers, the way flour clouded the air as my mother dusted it over the countertop. But I don’t remember how many eggs to use or how to form the intricate braids that my mother always accomplished so easily.
I used to imagine my future standing in a kitchen of my own, braiding challah with my small horde of offspring running around underfoot. I can’t admit it to anyone I know now, because they’d think I was bananas, but I still like the idea. Or maybe I just miss the version of myself who craved that future more than anything.
“It’s easy enough once you get the hang of it,” Nechama says, just as an army of children races into the kitchen. There are six of them, all dark haired and barefoot and sharp elbowed. One flings both arms around Nechama’s thighs and she laughs, patting his head. “I had a feeling we wouldn’t make it long without company. This is DovBer, Menuchah, Chaya Mushka, Batsheva Tikvah, Bentzion, and the little one is Yehuda Simcha.”
“Hi,” I say, waving at them, already certain there’s no way in hell I’m gonna remember all those names. Dvora was just as bad as I am. She used to jokingly call every little girl Chaya Mushka and every boy Menachem Mendel. And since pretty much every Chabad family we knew named a kid after the Lubavitcher Rebbe or his wife, odds were that she was at least part right at least 20percent of the time.
I’ve met a hundred Chaya Mushkas in my life, but hearing the name still makes me flinch.
“Hi,” says one of the girls. “You’re here to take photos of us?”
“Well, not specifically…but, yeah, I’m here to take some pictures—and to braid challah with your ima,” I say. “Are you going to help us?”
She nods fiercely. “I always help Ima make challot. Can I try your camera?”
I’m abruptly very glad I brought both my DSLR and my filmcamera, because the thought of trying to figure out how to politely inform a ten-year-old that no, they can’t waste my precious film makes me want to punch myself in the nose because it’s so obviously an asshole thing to say. “Sure,” I tell her, and set my camera bag down on the nearest stool to dig out the DSLR and a lens. “You must be Menuchah, right?”
She nods and takes the camera when I pass it to her, turning it on and peering through the viewfinder with the practiced ease of someone who has done it a hundred times before. “Is this the D850?”
“Good eye.”
