AMEN, AMEN, AMEN by ABBY SHER

Author:ABBY SHER
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: SCRIBNER
Published: 2009-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

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The only time I went to synagogue anymore was for Yom Kippur services. Yom Kippur is the holiest of the Jewish holidays and it’s traditional to fast from sundown to sundown and spend the day atoning for the past year’s sins. After graduation, I’d tried synagogues in Hyde Park, Evanston, and up and down Lake Shore Drive, often sneaking into the back row of folding chairs because it was so crowded. I cherished the chorus of supplication surrounding me and the complete anonymity as we listed our transgressions. No matter where I was, every prayer book said “the sin we have committed,” which always comforted me. Maybe I wasn’t the only one with a foul past. Many congregations pounded their chests as they chanted, and I loved that, too. I made a strong fist and rapped just above my heart, savoring each twinge of pain I could inflict on myself.

I also got an amazing sense of contentment from fasting. By the end of the first night I already felt groggy, light-headed, and thirsty. Every time I tipped with wooziness I reminded myself that I had earned it. When the closing prayer was intoned and the doors opened, I came out into the autumn evening and imagined myself floating just above the pavement, feather-light, slightly shaky but renewed. My tongue would be fuzzy from dehydration, and it scratched as I licked my lips, famished and ignited by my clean soul. Ruthie and I often splurged afterward at our favorite Italian restaurant, ordering big plates of gnocchi and asking for three baskets of warm bread.

Pasta was one of the only things we ate now. Ruthie had a special way of preparing it at home—boiling the noodles and then dumping the marinara sauce right out of the jar so nothing was too hot or too cold. For dessert we had Diet Pepsi and baked potato chips or pretzels. I don’t know when we’d weaned our diets down to these three food groups, but I enjoyed their simplicity. Ruthie ate a lot less than I did and even though I was usually still hungry, I tried to match her portions. We ate in the dark too, which gave it a secrecy that I also treasured. For lunches at the music studio, I decided I would allow myself only bread and raisins from the grocery store. Feeling my stomach roil and fold was a lot like knocking on my breastbone as I listed my sins—it was gratifying to focus my brain on these raw sensations. It was the punishment I had been waiting for.

I was in awe of Ruthie’s discipline. Her meals grew smaller as she wrote, rehearsed, and jogged every day. She was absurdly prolific, constantly meeting with new writing partners, and she had an agent who booked her for commercial voice-overs. When she performed at Second City, they hung her picture on the wall just inches away from Gilda Radner’s and Tina Fey’s.

I tagged another mile onto my daily runs. I made

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