Between Gods: A Memoir by Alison Pick Read Free Book Online

APPOINTMENT to meet Rabbi Klein again in person. I bike up Bathurst Street: it’s under heavy construction, the street clogged with orange pylons and honking SUVs, their shiny flanks coated in dust. I’ve driven past her synagogue before but have never been inside. The front hall is twice the size of the church I attended as a girl, brightly lit and hung with modern art. There’s a tastefully placed kiosk selling pricey Judaica, and a front desk manned by a uniformed security guard. He checks my purse, for what I can’t imagine, then politely directs me up a wide spiral staircase lined with framed portraits of all the synagogue’s earlier rabbis. The secretary shows me in.
    “Have a seat,” Rabbi Klein says.
    I sit down in a red armchair and start to cry right away.
    “It’s not you—it’s me,” she says. “I have this effect on people.”
    I sniffle, smile wanly.
    I have forgotten how gorgeous Rabbi Klein is. She has the kind of beauty that is hard to nail down: it’s not just her long curls, or her dimples or creamy skin, but the way she holds herself, the openness in her face. Her aura is both innocent and refined.
    “So,” she says. “Catch me up.”
    I lean back in the armchair and start talking. I tell Rabbi Klein about the Doing Jewish class, how sad I feel reading the textbook. I tell her about my conversation with my father, about the Jews he feels most comfortable with in the world. I also find myself telling her about meeting Eli, and the validation he gave me that what I’m experiencing is meaningful.
    “I’m just reading his book,” the rabbi says.
    I nod. “Judaism used to be invisible to me,” I say. “Now it’s everywhere.”
    We talk for a while about the legacy of denial, about how the grief I am feeling isn’t just my own but my father’s and grandparents’, as well. About how a secret, passed down the generations, grows until it’s impossible to hold. About the sudden desire I have to fix the past, to undo the wrong that’s been done.
    “I think I might want to convert,” I hear myself say.
    I pause. The word conversion makes me think of thunderbolts, of door-to-door salesmen peddling salvation and of women with their eyes rolled back in their heads. I hesitate. “At least, I’d like to learn more about my options.”
    From somewhere down the hall, someone knocks on a door. We hear it open, then slam closed.
    The rabbi gathers her dark curls in a fistful at the side of her neck. “Refresh me,” she says. “Do you have a husband?”
    “A fiancé.”
    “And he’s Jewish? Not Jewish?”
    “Not Jewish,” I say.
    A little frown wrinkles her forehead. “How does he feel about all this?”
    “He’s supportive,” I say. Which Degan is. Absolutely.
    “He wants me to be happy,” I say. Which he does.
    The rabbi smiles a Botticelli smile. “He sounds wonderful.”
    “So anyway,” I continue, “the people in my Doing Jewish class are all signed up for the Jewish Information Course this winter. I was thinking I might like to take it. That it might clarify things, shed some light. I wanted to ask—” I swallow, my throat all at once dry. “—I wanted to ask if you’d sponsor me.”
    I’m surprised to hear myself say this. The JIC is a long and exhaustive class, and I’ve reached the hardest part in the novel I’m writing, the place where I really need to focus. I have no extra time at the end of my days, not to mention energy. But something else has taken over, an instinctual part of me I know to defer to, so I submit and wait for the rabbi’s reply.
    “Yes,” she says finally. “I’d be happy to sponsor you. And Degan.”
    “And Degan?”
    “He’d also have to take the class.”
    “Okay,” I say uncertainly. Still, I’m relieved. I’ve been warned that getting a rabbi on board is difficult, that it’s their job to push you away as a test of your sincerity, so I’m especially chuffed. What was all the fuss about?
    “The class starts in January,”