What Are You Doing Here? (Memoir)

(another, older Memoir piece from my undergraduate days)

The annual Portland Maine Jewish Film Festival is on its first night. The movie theatre is cramped, packed to the elbows with elderly Jewish women. The sounds of Yiddish, Hebrew, broken Russian, Polish, echo through the room, with a minor silence around me. I don‘t speak these languages. Up and down the elevated aisles stroll old men in thick brown or black heavy cloth coats, grandmas in shawls, floor-length wool coats, and the occasional fine fur. Men and women, children, families, groups of elderly people, the Orthodox, the Reform, the observant, the unobservant, all move up and down the theatre together as if ascending and descending ladders. They see people they know, laugh, hug, neatly organize their winter attire on the backs of chairs, look for a place to be seen, move about like a Jacobian vision. I am trying to be invisible though I stand out. I think to myself, I wonder if I should really be here for the one-hundredth time. I hope someone will confirm that for me.

I am sitting in the fifteenth row on the aisle seat, dressed in all black, not like a Hasid, but like a brooding Goth: a black polyester shirt covered in silver skulls, black pants, black combat boots, silver rings with images of Ankhs and bats on them. A Chamsa, my only identifying piece of jewish decoration, dangles down my chest from a long silver chain to ward off evil.The irony of my Chamsa and Ankh are still, at this time, lost on me. I am all cloaked out in darkness and nightmares, still I think I am smiling more than anyone else here…there is no place I would rather be at this moment, this is where IT has brought me.

A woman with hair the color of late February snow on a city street, sits next to me, eases herself into the chair, clutches her purse. I smile at her, she half-smiles at me. She has no where else to sit, the theater is almost packed. All the old Jewish women around me half-smile. The beautiful younger Jewish women in their late twenties to mid thirties, who I also smile at, never return the smile.

A woman in her early thirties, adorned in a long brown dress, beige blouse, candy apple red winter boots, and a long black shawl, most likely hand-knitted by her grandmother, stops by my aisle. Our eyes meet. Her eyes possessing the glow of some recently rescued Russian Jewish origins, her black hair falling down upon her soft shoulders, brown eyes reaching for miles across a history I would dedicate my life to learning by heart, meet mine. My eyes reveal a different history: wild, a castaway, dimning hazel lights looking as lost in this world as a goat chased out into the dessert, never knowing why it was rooted out from its home, finding itself dying of thirst, the sins of time unjustly cast upon it. She breaks eye contact after two seconds, she doesn’t smile either. I run a hand from my forehead down to the back of my neck, checking that my long, shoulder-length, dyed black hair is all slicked back and neat. She pretends she sees someone from the across the theatre and wanders to the other side.

There are few seats left in the old Portland Museum Theatre, a movie house of the 1960’s that is a historical landmark, with its old red crushed velvet curtains, tiny but well cushioned maroon colored seats, old wooden stage in front of a large red curtain, and a series of ornate and delicate crystal chandeliers all fill the entire theatre with a soft, almost Victorian wedding dress, glow.

Another Grandma gently pushes past me with what is probably her eldest daughter in tow. The two of them almost match in their tan-colored heavy jackets, brown scarves, and beige-flowered old world knit caps. Both, looking for someplace else to sit realize my area is strangely unclaimed, and decide to take a chance next me. They settle into their thick padded theatre seats, occasionally looking around to see who they recognize, wave a hand at someone ten rows back, stand up and hug someone leaning two rows in front of them. The old woman looks at me, sums me up and down with her eyes. I offer myself to her, in my closed mouth smirk, friendly, like a fool. She laughs to herself, then begins:

“Beautiful thing, family, isn’t it?”

“Yes it is, a really, beautiful, thing.

“Your family here as well?”

“No, they all live in New Haven.”

“What part?”

“Westville.”

“You’re Jewish then?”

“Sort of.”

“What’s your last name?”

“Morazzini.”

“A fine Yiddish name!” We both laugh. It is I who now looks away.

I squeeze the brochure for the week’s events in my hands tightly. Here, among the few Jewish people who actually live in this part of the country, dressed like Peter Murphy of Bauhaus, having the same talk I have had with every Jewish grandma to whom I have spoken of late, and who has braved to speak to me, a conversation of whether I do I fit in, or not, in a Jewish world.

A man in his early fifties, smelling of fried foods and nursing a hot cup of tea leans in from behind me. “You know the kosher deli by the Merritt parkway in Westville?”

“Oh absolutely. I used to buy all my breads and meats there.”

“I went to visit my son last year, he works there. Fine store. Not like here in Portland, I don’t think there are any Kosher Delis here.”

“There is actually one.”

“Really?”

“I live here in Portland now. There is a great place on outer Congress, they make a wonderful brisket, not to mention the hamentaschen.” I say as I rub my rounded belly. The people around me laugh. He continues.

“So which temple do you go to?”

“I don’t.”

“I thought you said you were Jewish?” the old woman says with a slight whisper, as if she was covering up an indiscretion.

“I am, and I am not. I was not raised Jewish.”

“What’s your mother’s last name?” The old man asks and then takes a gentle, lip-quivering sip of hot tea.

“DelVecchio.”

“It doesn’t sound Jewish.”

“Actually, DelVecchio is the second oldest recorded Jewish name in Rome. It goes back to about 200 BCE, there have always been DelVecchios in Rome.”

“So how do you know…”

“It’s in the Encyclopedia Judaica under ‘Italy.’” I intercept his question.

“And your father’s last name, again?”

“Morazzini.”

“Not an old Roman Jewish name?” His eyes sweep across the silver skulls on my black Gothic shirt.

“Italian, by way of Spain, indirectly Jewish. They tagged us moronos, the name stuck I guess.”

The old man is now clearly scanning my rings and shirt. His eyes betray that he is working on a question.

“Go ahead,” I say. “I know you want to ask.”

He takes a slow sip of his tea.

“So what’s with all the skulls and the black?”

“It’s where I come from.” I say very matter-of-factly.

“I thought you were from Westville?” the woman next to me asks, her eyes looking a little confused, perhaps nervous.

A beautiful young Jewish woman passes by me, I break away from the conversation long enough to stare at her long brown hair, styled like Elaine on Seinfeld during the early years of the show. The woman is wearing a light green long-coat that is unbuttoned, revealing the most quaint and yet firm figure, firm breasts accentuated by brilliant white pullover, a thin waist that only draws to attention firm, nearly erotic hips, highlighted by the tight fit of her long green wool skirt, and legs that stretch deep into the history of Near Eastern goddess statues. She is perfect. I want her to see me, to smile at me, to say I belong here, but she continues onward. My hopes for the night, in part, are fleeting at best.

“Someone you know?” The woman sitting next to the man asks.

I snap back into the conversation as if I was lost in a trance for a short while. “No, just looking for someone who might want to know me.” They all look at me a bit apprehensively. The old man laughs a second later, finally getting my joke.

“So, the black and the skulls….” the old man continues.

“They are pretty much all I own.”

“And why is that?” the old woman inquires.

“This is where I come from, at least, where I am coming from.”

“Explain a bit more, what do you mean by coming from? The old woman asks.

“This whole Gothic thing, this is my real background. It is my childhood, the place I went to for self-understanding, the only culture that ever took me in, accepted me for what I had become, and encouraged me to be who I was.” There is a brief moment of silence. I continue. “But I have really been bitten by Judaism these days, I think my heritage is calling me home.”

“How is that?” the old man asks.

“I’m a student of….”

“Mr. Morazzini!” I hear from behind me. The voice is powerful, like a thunderstorm high on top of a sacred mountain, and yet it reflects all the gentleness and serenity of years of Torah, Talmud, and mystical inquiry. I hear lifetimes of dedicated study, traditions passed from mouth to ear. More importantly, I hear someone whom I have started to trust with my greatest insecurities. I turn and see, standing behind me, all short and hunched over from the years: Rabbi Moshe Ayer. I stand up.

“You know Rabbi Ayer?” I hear the woman behind me say.

“Mr. Morazzini! You look fine this evening. I see you dressed for the part.” He smiles and places a gentle hand on my shoulder.

I pause for a moment. From him this is a sign of endearment. I look into his eyes, at his thinning red hair topped by a black and brown double yarmulke, at the throng of people standing behind him waiting to say hello, and I am humbled. In his ancient clothing, the old brown button-up sweater that is two large for his body but which still allow his tzittzit to be seen, the long black scarf that hangs to the ground, the folded black Sears jacket that hangs from his arms, the baggy black pants that must be thirty-years-old, he is the vision of deeply devout and also mystically touched rabbi, everything that touches his body is as if it were a prayer shawl.

“I really need to get some new clothes someday.”

He then rubs my shoulder. I feel lighter to just be touched by him.

“You’re doing fine Mr. Morazzini. It is all coming along.”

“I hope so.”

“Next we gotta find you a nice Jewish girl, she’ll get you looking right.”

All the people around me laugh. The man I was previously speaking too jokes, “yeah, my wife did wonders for me!” He then blows on his tea and takes another sip. One of the grandmothers next to him slaps him on the front of his right shoulder.

“We all get what we need, eventually.” Rabbi Ayer says.

He hands me a thick, yellowish book, an old library edition by its look and strong musty odor. I rise from my seat to accept this treasure. He smiles at me as the book passes from his hands, his radiant eyes meet mine for a flickering second and I feel the shell of my existence to be illuminated. Another man in a long brown wool coat pats him on the back and passes by — “Good evening, rabbi! — ,I take the book from the rabbi as if I am receiving the law itself and press it against my chest. “Here is that book I told you about. We should meet in my office on Thursday to discuss your first impressions of it.”

“You know this young man, Rabbi Ayer?” the old man, who is now standing behind me, asks.

“I certainly do Mr. Gruenburg, he’s one of my best students. He has lots of wisdom to impart, even more to learn, he wants.” There is a look of shock and then, suddenly, understanding, on the old man’s face. The rabbi excuses himself and continues down the theatre aisle, embracing and speaking with each person he encounters. Each person he meets, passes by, they all know him, invite him to join them, and I admire him with the greatest esteem every time I turn to see him imparting some bit of hope and faith amongst the seemingly endless throngs who depend upon him.

“So how did you come to know Rabbi Ayer?” the woman next to me asks. I temporarily snap out of my daze.

“He found me,” I say.

“How did he do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know how he found you?” the old woman exclaims, seeming confused, frustrated.

There is a hesitation, a silence, a break in our conversation. I continue.

“One year ago I was walking past the Maine College of Art, here in Portland. I had just finished my junior year here at the University of Southern Maine, a double major in Philosophy and History, with an emphasis on the role of Religion in both.”

The old woman and her daughter are now looking intently at me.

“Even during my darkest years, I always had this strange fascination with wisdom, with what I thought, for lack of better words, was a sort of occult understanding.”

“So you were into the occult?” the daughter asks, her nose coiled up as if she has picked up an unpleasant smell. “That’s not very Jewish.”

“The origin of the word occult means, hidden. I was interested in hidden wisdom, there was something, I didn‘t know what, that I needed to know, or was calling me to know it.”

“I see.” She says.

“And by the way, Judaism has deep Occult traditions going back to the exile and beyond. There would be no European Occult Revival without the emergence of the Occult Revival going on within Judaism just prior.”

“Go on.” the old man says.

“Anyway, that day I was thinking about a paper I had just handed in on the subject of the history of early Jewish mystical practices, the mirkebah tradition you know….

“The chariot.” the old man responds.

“The chariot?” the old woman asks.

“Yes,” I reply, “the Divine chariot, the vision of God seen by the early Jewish mystics, Ezekiel’s vision. It was how they knew they were drawing close to God, they had a confirming vision.”

“I see,” she says.

“Anyway, I was thinking about how deeply the paper and the research had impacted me, I mean, I didn’t really believe God reached out to people, but this paper really made me think, maybe I had been interpreting my life situation all wrong, maybe there was a message, a reaching out to me, in all my situations and darkness, maybe I just wasn’t seeing it clearly.”

“Fascinating!” the old man exclaims.

“There were all sorts off strange feelings inside of me, feelings of longing, and feelings of having been removed from a people, an event, a person, that was my own, although it had never been my own. Maybe there was a reason I was interested in all this religious and philosophical material, more than just some sort of academic over-achieving and curiosity…”

I paused.

“Go on.”

“And then suddenly, I got hit in the head with a book.”

“A book?” the old woman asked. Another Grandma turned around and was now eyeing me.

“The Book of Ruth to be more precise.”

The old man asks: “How does a book hit you in the head?”

“It fell from the sky.”

“From the sky!” they all asked simultaneously.

“Now that’s not something you hear happening these days,” the man next to me said, staring, half-believing.

“Exactly what had been on my mind in the first place.”

“So a book, fell from the sky, and hit you in the head?” the old man says, his face reflecting that he either thought I was lying or crazy, perhaps both.

“Someone was doing performance art nearby, on top of the roof at the College of Art and was tearing sections of the Bible to pieces and throwing them out the window, although I’m still not sure. I did see other pages on the ground, other books, but somehow, I got hit in the head with Ruth.”

“So what did you do?” the old man asks, “Did you go into the College and tell them some crazy was throwing books out of a window?” he laughs.

“No. I stopped and picked up the pages that had hit me. I tried to make sense of it, but it was as if the pages had stunned me senseless, as if I was knocked into a different world. I found myself wandering more, but as if my destination was not my own anymore. I mean, what in the world could this mean? Who gets hit in the head by Biblical pages falling from the sky?”

The old man put his hands under his chin, he was trying to come up with an answer. I continued.

“After walking for maybe twenty minutes, I found myself passing by Bangor Theological School, here in Portland, just down the road. As I was passing by I saw one of my history teachers, the teacher I had just written the paper for actually, Dr. Chokman, entering the school.”

“Oh!” The old grandma who had just turned around asked, “You know Abel Chokman as well?”

“This is an interesting story.” the old man said.

“So, I walk into the reception area of Bangor Theological to say hello to him. He asks me how I am doing and such, so I start to tell him the story of getting hit in the head with Ruth. Suddenly a door opens, and out walks this tiny little man who is beaming from ear to hear, just an absolute light. And I am completely dressed like I am right now, all black and Goth and skulls and stuff, this was our encounter.”

“Oh my!” the old woman says.

“Dr. Chokman then introduces me to this smiling man, Rabbi Ayer, and asks me to repeat my story, from the beginning, of how Ruth hit me in the head just a few hours after I handed in my paper on the merkebah. When I finish, Rabbi Ayer looks at me with this very serious look in his face, as if he sees through me, and he asks me, ‘So what do you take to be the meaning of this?’”

“And what did you say?” the old man asks.

“I told him I didn’t know what it meant. Books don’t really fall from the sky.”

“So wait” said the old woman, “Did Rabbi Ayer answer the question?”

“He did indeed.”

“What did he say?” the younger woman asks.

“He said: ‘Wherever thou goest, so goes I.’ I looked at him in wonder. I knew the reference, but it still didn’t really make sense.”

“And?”

“He said, ‘God has been following after you the whole time that you’ve been running away from Him. Finally, he hit you on the head to get your attention. It’s time to stop fleeing and follow Him for once.’ He smiled at me, and then put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘why don’t you take my class this semester here at Bangor on Jewish Identity, and maybe you can figure that part out.’ I signed up for the class on the spot, and I’ve been studying with him, in school, and out of school, ever since.”

The group all smiles at me, the daughter shakes her head, unbelieving in the story, the old woman nudges her, a growing reflection of excitement and belief on her face, the old man frowns his lips in a pleasant acknowledgment, nods his head in an affirmative manner. The house lights begin to dim.

“Was your mother Jewish?” the grandmother leans in and whispers into my year.

“My mother is the DelVecchio. Her parents ran a Jewish Housing complex for most of their lives, kept Jewish traditions, though to fit in with the other Italians, to stay safe during those early days, they converted to Catholicism, but the family secret was always, ‘we’re Jewish originally, don’t tell anyone.’”

“So….are you Jewish?” the old woman behind me leaned in and whispered.

“I don’t know.”

“You’re Jewish.” The grandma now put her hand on mine and squeezed before saying, “You just need to get rid of all this nonsense. We are your people and you are home.”

I feel like I want to cry, but I am still far too dark and tough for such public displays. My dress and identity beckon out to experiences that have left my self-understanding as ineffible as the Kabbalistic language I am struggling with these days. “It’s not in my hands. Nothing has ever been in my hands.”

I look down at the book still pressed against my chest, Sephar Zohar.

The theatre goes dark.

I am alight.