In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist by Ruchama King Feuerman

Author:Ruchama King Feuerman [Feuerman, Ruchama King]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Jewish, Contemporary Women, Religious, Political
ISBN: 9781590177495
Google: Sp0qi7LChxAC
Amazon: B00C8RZHG0
Barnesnoble: B00C8RZHG0
Goodreads: 17736998
Publisher: NYRB LIT
Published: 2013-09-17T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Something peculiar happened at the courtyard—something Isaac couldn’t explain in rational terms and that disturbed him to no end.

He had been unloading a box of frozen gefilte fish early one morning when he glimpsed through the kitchen window a feminine form scurry into the courtyard. Could it be—? He shoved the last fish roll into the freezer and banged his finger in the process. Nursing his knuckle, he dashed outside just in time to catch Mrs. Edelman unsnagging her skirt caught on a rosemary bush. Oh. The widow Edelman, and his heart sagged. Resolute, he brushed his palms against the side of his pant and walked over, the heat of the morning rising between the cracks in the stone ground. Mrs. Edelman hadn’t come in weeks. Why now? He gazed at her in her everyday brown pageboy wig. Once again, she was wearing a navy outfit. It was practically her uniform.

She turned to face him, and what an expression on the widow’s face: furtive, distraught. “I’ve got an unpleasant situation on my hands.”

He beckoned her over to the shaded, gloomy dirt area. “My daughter eloped,” she said in a tight voice. Her left eye batted, seized by a passing tic.

He took off his glasses. “Come again?”

“Yes, an elopement.”

He gazed at the widow, awestruck. Could Mrs. Edelman produce a daughter so heedless or so romantic?

“If this gets known it will bring disgrace on both families. They took off just like that—no invitations, no wedding, no ceremony, no band. Can you imagine? What is this, Eilat or Las Vegas? A free-for-all? And I still have my other children to marry off. Ach.” She let out a short blast of exasperated air, and her brown wig bangs fluttered on her forehead. “The shame of it.”

“Does anyone know?” he inquired.

“No one, thank God!” she said vehemently, flicking a dust flake off the cuff of her jacket sleeve. “Just the parents.”

What would the rebbe have advised? In an instant he knew: “Mrs. Edelman, you must fake the wedding. Send out the invitations, rent the hall, and make a wedding Jerusalem will remember. No one will know the difference.” Quick thinking, he congratulated himself. She merely reached into a straw purse and handed him an envelope.

“That’s the wedding invitation. Done. The date is set two weeks from tomorrow,” she announced as he perused the folded stiff paper with the couple’s gold initials artfully intertwined. “The problem is, how can we say the blessings under the canopy using God’s name?”

Ah, now he understood. He thumped his forehead. To repeat God’s name—to pronounce it in vain—was forbidden, a desecration. And God’s name had already been uttered when they’d eloped at a private ceremony. The couple was in a fix. He paced the dirt expanse, almost squashing a tiny lizard scrabbling over a leaf. Then an idea struck him. “How about this. The rabbi can bungle God’s name. He can say it this way.” He recited the blessing so fast no one could possibly know he had made up a phony name of God.

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