I’ve decided to add a fictional soap opera to my website. Here’s part one:
I hit Makor on a Friday night. I was kicked out last year after a dozen women complained to the rabbi that I used sexual
innuendoes.
Tonight the dinner is at the home of friends of friends of mine. I feel that makes it OK for me to go.
I sit serene, practicing my Alexander Technique and opening up to the universe.
After buttoning my tongue for a few hours, I kick it up a notch over dessert and approach an attractive brunette named Marlene Cohen. She whips off her sweater, complaining about the heat.
“That’s a good sign,” I smile.
She smiles back.
After an hour of conversation (we agree on nothing) and Torah study, I walk her home. Equivocating for a minute, she invites me in and asks if I want a drink. I take a glass of water.
We sit on opposite sides of the room and talk awkwardly. Then I ask to massage her feet. She agrees. I fondle them for ten minutes and communicate far more effectively with my hands than with my words.
She sits up and kisses me. After a break to wash up, we make-out until she suggests we move into her room.
Thank God I’m always armed when I go to Jewish events.
As we undress, I learn my Sabbath bride is a “crunchy granola” feminist from U.C. Berkeley who’s just entered American Jewish University’s rabbinical school.
Down to our underwear, we slide into bed. She clambers on top of me.
“I like to talk Torah in bed,” she whispers.
“So do I.”
“I was arrested in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago,” she confesses, “for having sex in the back of a car. With a woman.”
I catch my breath.
We roll around in bed like Jews starved for kiddish. I can do anything but be on top of her. The missionary position is forbidden because it represents male domination of women. Like a sergeant in boot camp, she commands me on what I should do, when, and where. I’m told to shut up with my Republican nonsense, and to stop joking about rape.
In the morning, I leave for shul hoping I’ve cemented my ties to a woman and to a community. It is not to be.
The rabbi finds me at kiddish. “While I honor your humanity," he says, "I must ask you again to stay away from Makor events, even if they are held at the home of your friends.” I reluctantly agree.
Saturday day, when I call my lover, she says we have nothing in common but sex. I says that’s reason enough to get together again but she says no.
