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A Life of Service

Avreml Zingelwald kicks off his shoes and jumps into the freshly dug grave. He’s done this a thousand times before. It’s his job.

Yankel Vozserzach hands him the body. They’ve done this so often, multiple times a day, that their movements are fast, mechanical, sterile.

This lumpy body in its shrouds could just as easily be a sack of potatoes. Avreml scoops the stretcher out from underneath it, and arranges a row of cinderblocks above it. They don’t use coffins in Israel, so the body can decompose faster.

When the maggots eat the flesh of a decomposing body, explains the Talmud, the soul feels like it’s being pricked with a thousand needles. Better get that nastiness over with quickly, they say in Israel.

So the body just sits there while the crowd eulogizes it in a singsong voice of anguish that is perfectly calibrated to make you cry. Dead men are covered in a Tallis. Women just have a white shroud.

And you can make out the overall contours of the body, and you can pretend it is just sleeping, not dead; and you can try to guess if they have its arms crossed over the chest or straight by its side and many other musings that your mind conjures up to distract you from the starkness of the moment.

Avreml recites the appropriate verses at the appropriate times.

“He sits in the shade of the Lofty One.” He climbs out of the pit and puts his shoes back on.

“In the shade of Shaddai, he rests.” He uses a trowel to drag some dirt into the grave.

“One thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand on your right.” Sobs emerge from the crowd.

“They can’t approach you.” Avreml carries right along, speaking so quickly only a learned ear can make out what he’s actually saying.

“I shall satiate him with long life, and I shall show him my salvation.”

Kaddish.

Avreml climbs back in to the blue Chevra Kaddisha van with its extra tall roof. Benches line either side of the walls, facing two blunt metal hooks in the center that hold up the stretcher.

He slams the door shut and they drive out of the cemetery.

On the way out, the van passes by the children of the deceased, who have not gone down to the gravesite.

When a person spills seed, each potential sperm that is lost becomes a demon, and greets the person when they enter heaven. “Why did you not give us the gift of life?” Demand millions of incensed sperm-monsters, jealously pointing at the man’s actual children. “They got to live! What about us?”

And so, as to not antagonize them further, the Jerusalem tradition is that children don’t enter the cemetery.

They say attending to a body is the ultimate form of kindness, one that will not be repaid. This may be true psychologically, but economically it does pay quite well, and at this point Mendel dunks the bodies in the Mikvah and cuts their fingernails as stoically as one might prepare a sandwich.

He washes his hands six times, and prepares for his next ultimate act of kindness.

Lifetime Guarantee

Avrumi Zeivald was prepared to meet his maker. Or at least a maker. Someone’s, even if not his.

The Torah, the Rabbis had assured him, came with a lifetime guarantee. It was guaranteed to be true, or he’d be eligible for a full refund. The problem was, that as Avrumi’s soul prepared to expire, the warranty prepared to do so as well. Which opened up to a host of alternate scenarios in which other creators played a leading role.

He lay in his hospital bed at the top of the hill. The most beautiful view he could think of, the most beautiful view he knew. Sparse desolate desert stretched out before him, with the occasional shrub holding on to life for dear life. It was beautiful, in a sparse, desolate kind of way that reminded you just how empty life was. It was enough to make you cry from laughter at the meaninglessness of it all.

Lying in the hospital bed, surrounded by friends and family. 12 of his 14 kids had made it (Chaya Sarah was in the process of giving birth, Shmerkel hadn’t spoken to him in years). 36 of his 62 grandchildren. Many of the local villagers were there as well. He appreciated the gesture. They were performing their civic duty. He neither felt close to them, nor distant. They just were. Part of life, in a village, in a desolate desert.

He always knew he’d die from cancer. It was a feeling he had; and anyway, it seemed like everyone these days was dying of cancer. The doctors suggested chemo and radiation to buy him some time: six months, maybe a year. The thought of getting treatment didn’t even cross his mind. Life wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t that great. Leave the meds and the hospital bed for someone who actually wanted to stick around.

He was religious, but he was his own kind of religious. God was there, but in 40,000 feet above kind of way. Like a corporate vision that didn’t quite translate into day to day company operations. He got himself some of those popular posters of sexy Rabbi heros to hang up on his wall. A mural of 80 year old Rav Shach in a speedo on the beach adorned his sukkah walls every year. The art was not great, as most Orthodox art wasn’t, but it got the point across with a brute, uncreative rawness. He liked the picture, and followed it up with one of Rav Fisher in a mankini, long white beard flowing in the wind, straps strategically hiding his sagging old-man nipples.

“Who will merit to walk the path of life?” The verse asks. “He who beholds the Rabbis.” Avrumi had the photos made into little wallet-sized versions, and carried them around wherever he went. That way, whenever he was buying some kugel or rain boots or Tzedakah points, he was reminded of the Rabbis who reminded him of God who reminded him of the lifetime guarantee and the pointlessness of it all. It made him feel better.

He looked around at the crowd. This was exactly how he’d wanted to go. The Rabbi from the Ministry of Lifecycle Events was there to sign the Premature Death certificate. The hooker was there, to give him his one last blow job. He couldn’t ask for a better sendoff. The nurse handed him his pills, a combination of LSD and MDMA. At 100 times the recommended dosage, he was guaranteed to have a stroke. What better way to go than administering so much dopamine to the brain that it short-circuited itself? He couldn’t think of any.

He popped the pills, and, as the Yeshiva Boys Choir Psychedlc Pesach album began to play, he sank deeper into the bed. He took a big, shuddering inhale and let it out slowly, feeling the weight of it all – the indecisiveness, the lack of clarity, the mundane and the sacred – all if it just melting away. He took a final look at Rav Shach in the speedo and Rav Fisher in his mankini. He’d be meeting them soon enough, apparently. The officiating Rabbi helped him say the final prayer (“Blessed art Thou, God, who has given us life and sustained us until this time”). The hooker tucked her heads beneath the sheets and went to work.

Avrumi closed his eyes one last time. There would be no need for a refund.

Teabagging

There is a tradition, at the Eisenkopp Yeshiva for Fine Young Men, that when you make yourself tea, you fling the used teabag at the ceiling and see if it sticks.

It is called teabagging, and no one knows why it is done. Some speculate that it’s a reminder that all goodness comes from above. Others say it is fucking fun to do and you should try it some time. Regardless, it is tradition, and tradition is sacred.

The ceiling of the coffee room is almost indiscernible amidst the forest of brown, upside down teabags, their strings gently waving in the breeze from the electric fans.

The Rosh Yeshiva is furious about it. The Mashgiac has devoted three shmuzim to the issue this zman alone. But the pattern continues.

Because tradition is tradition.

There is a tradition, at the Eisenkopp Yeshiva for Fine Young Men, that when a Fine Young Boy gets engaged to a Fine Young Girl, that her father should buy you a house.

What kind of house, and where, depends on just how fine a Fine Young Boy you are.

If you are The Illuy of The Yeshiva, known to engage in fierce Talmudic debate over the finer points of Cheftza vs. Gavra with the Rosh Yeshiva Himself, you deserve a penthouse in the middle of Jerusalem.

If you’re a Solid Bchur, boruch hashem, known for diligent and studious traits, some who shteigs over his shtender day and night, you should at least get a nice apartment in the periphery. You can then rent it out and live in the big city.

If you’re the kind of bochur who never shows up to shachris, smokes more cigarettes a day than there are letters in the Torah, and spends most of the day in the coffee room flinging teabags at the ceiling, then alas, you may need to pay for half the apartment yourself.

May Hakodush Boruch Hu, The Holy One Blessed Be He, place you in the first, penthouse category and not in the last, as the verse sayseth “Let us be the head of the fish, and not the tail”.

Amen.

Some Settling May Occur

be a famous guru and change the world
be a renowned therapist in my own city
find a therapist

save the planet
save the date
try to save

be a millionaire
be debt free
pay the credit card minimums

build a business
build a career
try to keep my job

be the world’s best dad
try to be there for the kids
try not to swear at them

fuck all the people
fuck some people
fuck my life

travel the world
explore the town
get outside every day

build a bed
make my bed
get out of bed

make breakfast
buy breakfast
force yourself to eat breakfast

Stare at the cereal box, chewing:
Some settling may occur

The Tree of Undisclosed Fruit

In the beginning, God created throat cancer and eye parasites and rivers for people to drown in. And He saw that it was mighty swell.

“You see that tree?” asks God.

“Yes,” says Adam, squinting.

“Don’t eat from it.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so,” said God, beginning to lose his everlasting patience. “It’s The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. If you eat from it, you’ll know what is and isn’t good for you. You’ll know the true nature of throat cancer, and that I created you without any clothes on, as a prank (the angels can’t stop laughing at your pathetic dick).”

“And what if I do eat from it anyway?” inquires Adam.

“It would be very, very bad.”

“What’s ‘bad’?”, asks Adam. Although he speaks Hebrew fluently, that word is unfamiliar.

“Just shut up,” says God.

Fast forward to all of five minutes later. A lot has happened. There’s ladies. There’s talking snakes. There’s illicit snacking.

“Do you realize how bad you’ve been?” shrieks God, absentmindedly destroying the dinosaurs in his fury.

“I do now,” says Adam. “Retroactively.”

God takes a deep heavenly breath and counts to seven, his favorite number. It’s gonna be a long 6,000 years.

Searching

Sometime in between acting out suicide bombings with his Playmobile

In between sneaking into his grandparent’s house to try to masturbate to a nipple on Fashion TV

In between hoping his parents had seminary girls over for Shabbos meals so he could talk and look at girls

In between browsing porn at 14 for an hour every day between morning prayers and class

In between reading every chapter he ever learned 24 times

In between struggling to memorize endless pages of Mishanic non sequiturs

In between the daily hour of study he had every evening to supplement the 10 and a half hours of school

In between sneaky peeks at the censored pages of National Geographic magazines for glimpses of African boobs and prehistoric man

In between his monthly forays out of the city walls to visit his Orthodontist

In between getting tutored every evening in Gemarah to make sure he was ready for “a regular school”

In between daily existential struggles about the meaninglessness of his study and why he sucked so much at it

In between the daily dread of new study material which would need to be understood and memorized with sheer brute force

In between wearing teffilin every class and removing them for every break

In between the struggle to understand the words coming out the Rebbe’s mouth even though he could have sworn he understood the language

In between being the only one in class who could speak English or care about math

In between the guilt of not going to school on Shabbos and the boredom of having nothing better to do

In between fighting with his nine siblings over noise and personal space as they tried to share four tiny bedrooms

In between the continuous struggle to fulfill the indiscernible word of God

Shalom Tzvi found time to be himself

Olives

So it had come to this. He was dead, and it was judgement time.

His first grade Rebbe had warned him about this moment. Rosh Hashanah davening had reminded him of it. And now, 83 years later, it was really happening.

“When you arrive in heaven, you’ll stand before God on His heavenly throne, surrounded by all the angels. And you will be tested on everything you learned, to see what you remember.”

Currently, he could remember jack shit.

For fuck’s sake. He’d read some of those verses 40 times. Then once more every year on that week’s parsha. A lot of good it was doing him now.

His early stage dementia certainly wasn’t helping.

He’d studied so hard, all those years ago. And his Rabbis stood by, assisting in reminding him that no matter how hard he tried, it wasn’t nearly hard enough. Not even close.

“Be glad you’re not in Yemen,” they had admonished. “In Yemen, boys would keep an orange under their chin while studying; if they looked up and the orange fell, they’d get a beating.”

They reserved beatings for more serious crimes, like when Ariel Rubanovitch threw an orange peel at the teacher.

His classmates had made games to pass the time.

How many times would the Rabbi adjust his glasses in a single class? (103)

What was the record for most times one kid got smacked in a row? (23)

What if he’d spent more time studying and less time counting blows?

“Torah is not like math or science. When you learn those things (not that you ever will, or should) you learn them once, and remember them forever,” explained Reb Yechiel, his all-knowing first grade Rebbe.

“Torah is different. If it were like that, you’d just learn it once, remember it all, and move on. So there’s a blessing where you will keep forgetting the Torah you learn unless you constantly immerse in it, as the verse says ‘she is your young elk wife of love, her breasts will satiate you at all times.’.”

Velvel could think of nothing that sounded less like a blessing, or less sexually attractive.

Forget about forgetting. Even if he remembered everything he’d learned, years and years of information which he’d desperately shoved into his dense brain, it was only a matter of time, minutes probably, before the test reached the outer realms of his knowledge and fell into the category of “you should have learned that if only you’d tried a little harder”.

He was sure he could have tried a little harder. The test was rigged. He was fucked.

No one was impressed when you remembered. That was how it was supposed to be. But there were sure as hell pissed if you forgot.

His Father in Heaven was not impressed.

“Nu, Velvel, not a single verse?” He peered down his heavenly beard, his Almighty face overcast and stern. (Velvel found himself noticing, despite himself, how similar God’s face looked like Reb Yom Tov’s his third grade teacher) He’d stopped running the entire universe to judge Velvel, and it was proving remarkably disappointing. The fun of the hunt only exists if the rabbit doesn’t just roll over and take it in the ass.

Velvel emitted an indiscernible squeak. The angels bounced and chattered around God’s throne, supremely entertained. Michael and Gabriel, perched on each of God’s shoulders, jeered at him like a pirate’s monkeys.

It wasn’t every day that someone got their ass handed to them by God during a heavenly judgement. Oh wait, it was. It was every day. Multiple times a day. What fun it was to be an angel!

“What’s gotten into you Velvel?” asked the all-loving one, not unkindly.

“Wait.” God’s lips tightened with suspicion. “You weren’t eating… olives, where you?”

Velvel felt his stomach drop. A wave of shame flooded over him. He felt exactly the same way as he had at 5, watching Reb Avraham scream at him and the rest of the class who had lost their place in the book. God, not much had changed in 83 years.

He gave the slightest of nods, not daring to raise his gaze from the floor and his awkwardly fidgeting feet.

“Olives!!!! How could you???” roared God, spit flying out of His mouth like sparks. Wait, they were actually sparks. Several landed on the wincing Velvel, causing him to wince even more than he ever thought possible.

“You didn’t even think to pour olive oil on it to negate some of its effects?”

“I usually did…” Velvel managed to rasp weakly.

“Usually is not good enough!” raged God. “All it takes is once to forget 70 years of learning, I was quite clear about that (Yavamos page 33 side b)! Of course you don’t remember jack shit (yes, I can read your mind, duh), what do you expect?

“And it gets worse! Gabriel, the recording if you please.”
Gabriel scampered over to a giant projector off to one side of the heavenly courtroom and hit play. Velvel watched a giant version of his much young self – maybe aged 18 or 20 – walking down the street. Passing by a fire hydrant, a shop, between two women walking in the other direction….

“Stop the tape!” screamed God. Gabriel stopped the tape. “Look at that!!! Walking between two women? Is it any wonder your mind is as blank as the day you were born? Did I not clearly specify that walking between two women, two non- Jews, or two dogs could induce forgetfulness?

“Satan! Take him away. Let him burn, along with all the other evil ones. Does the verse not state that forgetting one word of Torah is as though you have spat in God’s face?

“H-how long are you sentencing me for?” gasped Velvel. This was even worse than Reb Yom Tov had described it.

“Twelve months!” Said God, striking his heavenly gavel so that a gigantic thunderclap echoed through both heaven and earth. “As the verse says, ‘gehenom for the wicked is 12 months.’

“But,” gloated God, leaning forward on his heavenly staff and looking smugly at Velvel. “You’ll find that 12 months of eternity is a very long time indeed.”

Spoken Word

One of my favorite memories of all time is a simple one. Reuven Karasik and Tehila Ben Kalifa came and stayed with me for the weekend. We had a sleepover. They listened to my stories. We laughed and watched movies and talked like I always imagined friends did – but never really ever experienced.

We grabbed folding scooters and scooted through the city like 10 year olds, making an absolute racket. There was magic in the simplicity of it.

And we wrote this poem, in a rare collaborative process that is greater than the sum of its parts, the shared experience of three ex-religious humans making sense of the bullshit that gets thrown at them in the process.

We left it as a rough draft until I found it on my computer today and edited it. Imagine it in the your best Reuven-Karasik spoken-word voice.

I recently got very high and made a rap version of this song. It may not be good, but it needed to happen.

האם אלוהים יכול לברוא אבן שהוא לא יכול להרים?
האם רב יכול ליצור שיעור שיכול לא להרדים?

יהדות היא לא דת, היא האמת לאמיתה
והדבר הכי חשוב? שלא יהיה דם בחביתה

אחרי ההיגיון באה האמונה
לא כמו הנוצרים – הם סתם אמונה טפלה

תוכיח את אלוהים? זה כתוב בתנ”ך!
יהודי מאמין יכול להתספק בכך

איך יתכן שמליונים משקרים בעיניים
שבמעמד הר סיני משה עלה לשמיים?

אז כולם טועים רק אתה חכם?
אתה יודע יותר מרש”י והרמב”ם?

התורה היא עמוקה אם רק תלמד לצלול
כבר לפני 2,000 שנה ידענו שהעולם עגול

תראה כמה סלבס חוזרים בתשובה!
אפילו אינשטיין אמר שלא להכל יש תשובה

אוולוציה? אין שם בעיה!
כל יום בבריאה שווה מליון שנה
זה סתם שאדם הראשון הוא הראשון עם נשמה

איך זה שכולם רודפים אותנו?
אין לך שום גאווה?
השואה היא חלק מגלות לתקומה
זה הפתרון הסופי להקמת המדינה

אנחנו עם אוניברסאלי
אבל אנחנו הכי
מחיית עמלק? זה ציווי אלוהי

כל ההמצאות הטובות היו של יהודים
יש כמות חסרת פורפוציות של דמויות מפורסמים
גם מנדלייב, גם צוקרברג וגם סרגי ברין
ואל תשכח את אדם – הראשון, סנדלר, ולוין

יותר פרסי נובל חולקו ליהודים
מכמות הפרסים שבכלל קיימים

אין לך בושה, שום יראת אלוהים
מה עכשיו תהיי זונה ותשכבי עם בנים?
תדרדרי למסיבות, אלכוהול, וסמים?

אתה רק רוצה לכייף ולשכב עם בחורות
ללכת לספארי ולגלות עריות

ואם ההגיון יגיד לך לקפוץ מהגג?
ואיך תהיה מוסרי עכשיו?

אין לך מושג מה זה עושה לי בפנים
רק אל תקלקלי את האחים

הסיטרא אחרא השתרש לך בלב
אולי כיף לך עכשיו אבל בגהינום זה כואב

זה בגלל שנולדת חרדי – הם כאלה קרים
זה בגלל שאתה דתי לאומי –
או פשוט ההורים

מעולם לא ראית שבת אמיתית
מעולם לא חווית התבודדות משמעותית
מעולם לא הרגשת תפילה עוצמתית

כולנו יודעים שאתה יודע שאתה טועה
אתה מעמיד פנים החלטי אבל בפנים אתה תוהה

יש איזה רב שאתה חייב לפגוש
הוא לגמרי יבין אותך – יש לו ת’ראש

כתשגדל תחזור להבין
זה יחזק אותך בעקיפין
זה רק תקופה שצריך לעבור
בסוף עוד תחזור

אל תדאג, אני אתפלל עליך

It’s Time to Pray

zilbermans freidom fighter

There’s a little booklet you can get, and it tells you when you can worship God. He’s available from 6:43 AM until 8:42. After that he’ll be pissed that you missed your appointment.

There’s a Siddur you can get, with a compass in the cover. It shows you which direction you should point when you talk to God. You should face the center of the universe: Israel. There’s also an app for that.

It starts when you gird yourself like a lion to get out of bed. You thank Him for returning your soul with so much compassion and faithfulness. He’s got a perfect track record. If he didn’t, you wouldn’t know about it.

Then you say some gratitude prayers for the basics of life – that the earth floats upon the water and not the other way around. That you were not made as a non-Jew, or a slave, or a woman. That you have a belt.

And please God, make the words of Torah sweet in my lips, and in my lips of my children. Because if I hate it, and it makes me miserable and lost, it’s my fault; I didn’t pray hard enough.

Then you should list all the animals that would have been killed right around now as sacrifices in the temple, may it be rebuilt soon. It’s a long list. Almost no one says that part, but you are definitely supposed to.

It’s time to stand. Hold your Tzitzis in your right hand. Repeat the following paragraph with them pressed against your heart. Now kiss, release, and sit down.

Don’t continue yet, the guy leading the prayers hasn’t reached that point yet.

Now we wait.

Now we bow.

But don’t bend your knees, it’s not that kind of bow. It’s the other kind.

Thank you God, for creating light, and dark, and peace, and everything. Poetic, that “everything” bit, isn’t it?

Shema. This part is super important. People say it when they’re about to die. In fact, it might be a good idea if you imagine you’re about to die. It can help elicit the proper emotions, whatever those are.

Hear oh Israel. Adonay – master of all things, past, present and future. Elohenu – the powerful one. Adonay – still the master of all things, still past present and future, it’s only been two words since we last made this point. He, the aforementioned, is One. But not just one, but O.n.e. where you separate the O and the N and the E to remind yourself that he is one in the seven heavens and earth and all four directions. That’s how One he is.

The next part is said in a whisper. The part after that should be said out loud, in unison.

Be sure the enunciate clearly, I can’t emphasize this enough alongside all the other things that I can’t emphasize enough. There’s a book you can read on the topic.

And you shall love God with all your heart and all your might and all your soul. Remind yourself of this when you sit at home and when you commute, when you lie down and when you arise. Also, beware lest your heart shall stray and you worship other Gods and bow down to them. For then God will fume out of his nose and stop the rain, and there will be no more produce, and you’ll be annihilated off the land that he so graciously gave to you. It’s a clear progression.

It’s time to remember Egypt and how God took you out of there, it’s been a few minutes since we reminded ourselves of this fact. Your Tzitzit are there to remind you as well, so hold them in your hand and kiss them every time you say the word “Tzitzit”. If you’re a woman, you don’t need symbols like these to remember you left Egypt. Your period naturally connects you to time and space and you automatically remember you left Egypt. It’s pretty cool, really. Just remember to keep your elbows covered.

Ah, the Amida. The most important part of prayer. Here you get to talk to God, instead of in his general direction. These 18 blessings, (19 if you count them) pretty much cover anything you’d ever need in life – forgiving your sins, destroying the wicked, and resurrecting the dead.

You can take as long as you want and can add your own prayers at the end, that’s the appropriate place for them. You can even say them in English, because God can ignore you in any language you’d like. But don’t take too long, because the guy in front of you can’t take the three steps back to finish his Amida – let alone sit down – until you’re done, so try not to be a nuisance.

You might be wondering how prayer even works. Why would God need you to ask for things? Well, while you wait for the leader to loudly repeat the exact Amida prayer all over again, you can read the answer to that question in the introduction to your Artscroll Siddur. The answer is this: when you pray, you change, and you become worthy of God’s blessing. What kind of changes, you ask? Well, you remember how everything comes from God, which is the point of it all.

Other changes that may occur when you pray: obsessiveness, feelings of inadequacy and disappointment, rage. Tears of boredom and frustration.

If you prayed hard enough, Mashiach would be here already. But it’s not up to you, all of Am Yisrael need to pray hard enough for something that big to occur. And some Jews aren’t even praying at all, Rachmana Litzlan. They don’t even realize they’re Jewish! But if you prayed hard enough, then free-will be damned – they’d all become religious like you. So yes, it is all up to you after all.

Let’s wrap it all up with a list of incense ingredients.

You’re done for now. See you again in four hours.

Current Weather in Hell

Hell
light snow
33.7 ° F
33.8 °
32.8 °
75 %
4.5mph
40 %
Sun
33 °
Mon
38 °
Tue
38 °
Wed
36 °
Thu
37 °

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