I arrive five minutes early. I put down my stuff, take up my cross, roll out my mat, sit next to the wall, lie down on my back while simultaneously sending my legs straight up in the air against the wall (so I am posed at a 45 degree angle), then pick up Betrayals: The Unpredictability of Human Relations by Gabriella Turnaturi and read such insights as:
Furthermore, if it is true that not only in every relationship but in every interaction parts of ourselves that we were unaware of come to light, we cannot even be sure that we will never betray. Betrayal, both as an act on our part and as an action we undergo, is always relational and always possible. When we enter into relations with others, a step that is necessary for the construction of our own identity, we put into play our desire to be with the other — but also our desire not to lose ourselves in the other. (Pg. 4)
As Robert J. Avrech wrote in the foreword to my book, Yesterday’s News Tomorrow: Inside American Jewish Journalism:
Betrayal fascinates Luke Ford. It’s his life.
Luke betrayed his father, a prominent Seventh Day Adventist minister, when Luke converted to Judaism.
Luke betrayed his second "father" when he sacrificed his friendship with Dennis Prager to work on an unauthorised biography of his hero.
Luke betrayed Judaism when he became lukeford.com, the preeminent journalist covering LA’s sordid, mob-infested porn industry. Luke betrayed his Orthodox synagogue when he lied about his work and told the rabbi that he was a "freelance journalist who writes about crime for a Japanese magazine."
A smoldering brunette walks in while I am preoccupied by these lofty thoughts and rolls out her mat three feet from mine. Then she takes her bag and puts it against the back wall.
Baby, I’d light your fire but you are already ablaze! Sugar, I must quench your flames or we’ll both die! Honey, it is a mitzva to love the convert! Sweetie, who took the stars out of the sky and put them in your eyes?
She must be a stripper. Or a porn star. Wow. I know I told my friend that I don’t pursue women for sex, but maybe oh maybe baby I could make one small exception in your case. I keep most of the mitzvos, particularly the ones against incest and homo-sex. Considering the enormous service I do for humanity on this here blog, surely the Almighty won’t hold this sin against me in the True World.
I’m with Susan Boyle. I want to dream the impossible dream.
And even if HaShem does hold it against me, frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. Cast me into the eternally burning lake of fire! I’ll pay the price. I want to know! I want to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil! I don’t care if I don’t live forever. Holy rabbis, if we had world enough and time, this coyness would be no crime, but at my back I always hear time’s winged chariot hurrying near and yonder all before me lie deserts of vast eternity, so let me tear all my pleasures with rough strife through the iron gates of life, thus, though we cannot make our sun stand still, yet we will make him run.
What I am saying, rabbosai, is if I could just get the opportunity to drop all my pretenses and step heroically into the abyss of intimacy, losing myself and my fears in someone holy, then that would be tikkun olam and how could that be wrong?
Holy, holy, holy, hell!
Halfway through the class, the teacher has us chant (progressively louder): "God and me, me and God, are one!"
I refuse. This is horrible. This is pure heresy. This is pantheism. Where am I? How could I have sunk so low? I have abandoned all that Dennis Prager holds sacred. No wonder the good man said: "He was neither a pupil nor a friend. I think I appealed to something good in him at some point, and I hope I did. But I don’t know."
Oy, why the Jews? What is the reason for anti-Semitism? It is horny hebes such as myself preying on vulnerable shiksas. Why must I be such a shark?
In too much moral turmoil to exercise, I ride out the class on my back, where I usually do my best work. The teacher talks about heartbreak. The other day in the middle of meditation, he started crying.
This bloke in the front row interrupts class for the second time to tell us all that he’s never cried in his life, except once when he was six years old.
Well, thank you!
I’ve read books about heartbreak and seen some movies, listened to a few songs, and talked about my fears of abandonment in therapy. I’ve even shed a few tears since I was six.
Class is virtually over. We only have time to do the "Long Time Sun" song. The teacher asks us if we’re willing to stay a little longer tonight.
I hear people say they’re ready to leave but the teacher must’ve heard something different and he’s pairing us up for a final exercise.
PAIRING US UP! Sweet baby Jesus! Oh Christ! There is a God who intervenes in our daily lives!
The teacher is pairing us up! Pairing! Bringing together. Taking one sad lonely old Jew and connecting him to another human being who happens to be young and gorgeous and all woman.
I bet you anything this one doesn’t have a penis.
Oh please, oh please, oh ppppleeeease sweet Jesus, let it be! Let it be! Let it be!
She and I are the only two possible partners for each other. Everyone else is all over the room. They’re just not worthy of her.
And did her feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?
And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among those dark Satanic mills?
I want to turn to her to see if she feels the same way but I am afraid. I am afraid of rejection. I am afraid of intimacy. I am afraid of abandonment. I am just so afraid. So alone. So sad. So old. So sore. So sleep-deprived and love-deprived and sex-deprived and so very very alone, oh please, sweet Jesus, heal me!
I return to my Alexander Technique directions and rise up, letting my neck be free and my shoulders lengthen and widen, and my spine elongate and my knees release forward as my hips unclench and the hammer of Thor’s wrath stands up.
Once poised, I turn to her to find she’s turning to me. We exchange uncertain smiles as the teacher instructs us to say hi.
"Hi, I’m Luke," I say.
She says her name.
The teacher tells us to kneel across from each other.
Did he say that? Or did he say to kneel across from each other with the knees touching? The last time I had this much physical intimacy I had to pay for it — with my soul!
She’s moving her yoga mat to mine. She’s passed the halfway point between us. She’s not playing some stupid power game that leaves me feeling like a dick for wanting to be close to her.
"This is hard," she says.
If you only knew…
My face has changed from joy to uncertainty to neutral to acknowledgment to intimacy.
I scooch myself forward a few inches and then we’re looking in each other’s eyes and I’m losing myself in her sweaty brown face and we’re gliding into easy pose and our knees are touching and she feels so damn good that I am sure the Talmud has ruled that what we’re doing is illegal and will send the blogger to Hell.
She doesn’t shriek and and she doesn’t complain to Rabbi Gordon Bernat-Kunin and she doesn’t run away. She keeps smiling but her smiling is changing with mine as we experience the frightening emotions of intimacy with a stranger not blessed by either secular or ecclesiastical law.
We’ve locked eyes and I’m determined not to blink. I’ll show her who the Alpha Male is. It is Levi Ben Avraham! Never again will a high-achieving woman find me lacking in gonads! Never again!
The teacher tells us to place our hands against each other. Hers are tiny and mine are long.
I go back to my Alexander directions and tower above her, morally and physically. Our knees are touching and our hands are touching and our eyes are locked and our two hearts beat as one.
The teacher has us say hi again. We do and it has a very different quality. Much softer and more intimate. The other has penetrated our soul and changed us.
For all the girls who shared my life and now are someone else’s wives, I’m glad they came along…
The teacher gives us the mantra, puts on the groovy tune, and we shoot into space.
This is more fun than Yom Kippur!
This is the first time in yoga class that I’ve been instructed to touch someone. Normally I do it out of my own volition and it’s created some very unfortunate incidents. But this is legal!
Who can call the police on me now? Where’s the tznius patrol?
If you want to say I’m guilty, then I’m guilty of love in the first degree.
We pump our arms back and forth, hands and eyes glued to each other, as we chant. I’m leading.
When I screw up the mantra too severely, I make a wry smile and her face acknowledges me.
She’s not blinking. My eyes are crying out. She does a half blink. We pump. I do a full blink. And then another. I can’t believe she’s more of a man than I am.
Her eyes sport growing dots of red and now they’re swimming with tears and we’re pumping back and forth and she’s in great pain but she’s taking our pumping to the next level, she’s taking over our pumping, she’s leading our pumping and I’m keeping up with her stroke for stroke and now a big fat tear is streaming down her face. And another!
I’m ecstacy! I’m pumping a hot chick in yoga class chanting some bit of Hindu idolatry and she’s balling!
I’ll never betray her. It would be so wrong to blog this. I must stop now before I hurt someone.
