I go inside.
There’s nobody here.
The pews are ready for services, the prayer books stuck in little pockets. At the front of the synagogue is the raised carpeted bima, the stage where the rabbi and cantor stand. It’s just high enough that everyone in the synagogue can see them. In the Jewish religion, we’re taught that there is no intermediary needed to reach God. The rabbi does not stand above you. He stands among you. You connect to God together.
But everyone wants to see the show, so they have the bima.
Above it is the Eternal Light. The flame of the Jewish people. The reminder of God. It never goes out because it’s connected to a gas line with its own power source.
HaShem is a pilot light. It’s like praying to your stove.
I sit down in a pew. It’s nice in the syngagogue when it’s quiet, when nobody’s around to blow their noses, say stupid things, daven too much, slip mints to their family during the sermon, forget to turn off their cell phones.
I think about the life of the synagogue and the culture that surrounds it. It usually seems absurd to me, a lot of noise that adds up to nothing. But now I think of it a little differently.
Everyone is trying. Herschel is trying. My teachers. The rabbi, the dean, my whole school. They’re all trying.
Outside of school, too.
Mom is trying. Dr. Prem is trying.
Judi Jacobs and Barry Goldwasser. The yoga mommies.
Even the guru.
They’re all trying to feel connected to something bigger than them.
I lean forward in the pew. It’s hard wood. Not comfortable at all.
But I like it in here. It’s quiet. Kind of nice. I never knew that before.
I never knew people were trying, and I never knew it was nice in the synagogue.
“Great Spirit—” I say.
And then I stop. Because I don’t know what a great spirit is. That’s Mom’s word.
“Infinite and Divine,” I say, because that’s how Dr. Prem says it. But it doesn’t feel right to me.
“God,” I say.
I don’t know what God is either, but I don’t hate the word.
I say it again. Out loud in the empty synagogue.
“God.”
The space feels less empty.
“Thank you,” I say. “Not because things worked out, because they didn’t. I pretty much got screwed on the Mom and Judi Jacobs front. And I won’t be graduating from B-Jew. So I really can’t thank you for that.”
My leg is falling asleep. I move on the pew, shift from one butt cheek to the other.
“And I can’t thank you for this pew, which is hard and hurts my tuchas.”
The eternal flame flickers. I wonder if God is pissed at me for saying tuchas in synagogue. Maybe he hates that I used a slang term for ass, or maybe he loves that I spoke Yiddish at all. But I can’t believe in a God like that, one who hates or loves according to an obscure set of rules. I have to believe in one I can say anything to. I can tell him the truth, I can be myself, and he doesn’t blink.
“I can’t thank you for making things work out, but maybe I can thank you for being with me while they didn’t.”
Was God with me?
I close my eyes and think about it for a while. I don’t get any answers.
Instead of pushing through and trying to figure it out, I hold the question in my head like the guru taught me. I sit with it. I sit with the idea of God.
After a while I look at my phone. A half hour has passed. I think it’s the longest I’ve ever been in a synagogue voluntarily.
I should leave now, but I don’t want to.
I want to stay.
I want to sit with God a little longer.
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to Danny Silberstein and Simon Lousky for sharing their experiences in and out of Jewish school (and teaching me about getting flipped).
Thanks to Taaly Silberstein for opening her home to me on many a Shabbat and for her beautiful example of what it means to live a Jewish life. Much thanks to Adam Silberstein for his incredible support, knowledge, and perspective.
Extra special thanks to Ira Gewanter for his early read of the manuscript.
As always, I’m very grateful to Stuart Krichevksy, Shana Cohen, and Ross Harris at SK for taking such good care of me.
Finally, a giant thanks to Elizabeth Law and the Egmont team for making book three together such a great experience.
Other books by Allen Zadoff
Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can’t Have
My Life, the Theater, and Other Tragedies
Copyright
First published by Egmont USA, 2012
443 Park Avenue South, Suite 806
New York, NY 10016
Copyright © Allen Zadoff, 2012
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Zadoff, Allen.
Since you left me : a novel / by Allen Zadoff.
p. cm.
Summary: “A Jewish teenager struggles to find something to believe in and keep his family together in the cultural confusion of modern-day Los Angeles”—Provided by publisher.
eISBN: 978-1-60684-297-3
[1. Faith—Fiction. 2. Jews—United States—Fiction. 3. Single-parent families—Fiction. 4. High schools—Fiction. 5. Schools—Fiction. 6. Family life—California—Los Angeles—Fiction. 7. Los Angeles (Calif.)—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.Z21Sin 2012
[Fic]—dc23
2012003782
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.
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