Shabbat Hospitality

Elation fluttered in Jacob Rosenberg's chest. He knew it was more than just the rollercoaster rush of the plane descending. When they touched the runway, the passengers clapped. Israelis were the only people in the world who applauded when their planes safely landed. Jacob clapped too. He felt he had come home.
After six months in an Ulpan learning Hebrew, he enlisted in the Israel Defense Force. He was surprised to find that he wasn't afraid to die. For the first time in his life, he had a cause worth dying for—Israel. What did scare him, however, was that if he died in battle, he wouldn't get a Jewish burial; the Orthodox Jews, who controlled burial in Israel, didn't consider him Jewish. This thought of not getting a Jewish burial haunted him, reminding him of those killed in the Holocaust without proper burial rites. The army had a 3 month program for soldiers to convert to Orthodox Judaism. Jacob signed up.
If at the end of 3 months the rabbis running the conversion program were satisfied with him, they would take him before a rabbinical court of three high-ranking rabbis. If the court approved him, they would prick his penis with a pin and take a ceremonial drop of blood. Then—the final step—they would dunk him in a mikvah, a Jewish ritual bath, which Orthodox Jews apparently thought magically washed away the Goy.
The conversion process consisted of classes for several hours a day. Rabbis droned on about permissible ways to make a cup of tea on Shabbat, or what blessing to say if you saw an albino. It seemed they were testing if Jacob could sit silently and nod his head at utter nonsense—a necessity for Orthodox Jews. There were also mandatory prayers 3 times a day. The rabbis walked around the synagogue, scrutinizing faces to make sure the prayers were heartfelt.
In addition to classes and prayers, soldiers in the conversion process were required to experience Shabbat hospitality with an observant family. One Friday evening about two months into his conversion process, Jacob was paired with the Levin family, who were also originally from America. After the evening prayer service, Jacob left the synagogue with Mr. Levin, a sweaty, pudgy man in his forties. The Jerusalem sky sparkled with stars. A fresh spring breeze blew. But Jacob didn't have the leisure to dawdle and absorb any of this; Mr. Levin was striding ahead, clutching his stomach and gritting his teeth. Jacob hurried to keep up.
“Another good reason to live near a synagogue,” Jacob said. “A shorter trip home to the bathroom.”
“That's not why,” Levin said. “It's because we're not allowed to drive on Shabbat.”
“I know that,” Jacob said. “I was joking.”
“Shabbat is no joke,” Levin said. “You shouldn't mix the sacred with the profane, especially on Shabbat. Being Jewish is about being separate. You can joke, but not in a way that mixes the sacred and the profane.”
That would rule out pretty much every good joke, Jacob thought, but he didn't say it out loud. He knew that after Shabbat the Levins would be filling out a form for the rabbis, judging Jacob's performance. He had to be on his best behavior.
The Levin apartment was small and cramped. It smelled of chicken and plastic. Two candles flickered from an end table. Every inch of the walls was covered with colorful prints of a heavenly Jerusalem and snapshots of children. The dinner table was covered with a white tablecloth, which was covered with a plastic sheet. Mr. Levin trotted past his wife and children and guests, around a corner and out of sight. Jacob felt to make sure the wind hadn't blown his kippah off. Then he said “Shabbat Shalom” to everyone and shook hands with the men. The Levins had two children, a boy and girl, about 10 and 12 respectively. The upstairs neighbors were there. They were a young frum couple—the wife was noticeably pregnant. Also, there were two women who looked about 37 years old. They were from a local ba'al tshuvah seminary. Mrs. Levin seemed to be the kind of woman the rabbis extolled in class: she was proof of her husband's high spiritual level. He obviously married her for her internal qualities—devotion to the Torah and the commandments. It certainly wasn't for any external reason like beauty. Jacob thanked her for inviting him, and tried to hand her a bottle of red wine he had brought. She just stared at it. He set it down on the table. She picked it up and examined the label, as if checking to see if it was kosher. Jacob realized she was probably checking to see if it was mevushal, boiled to prevent the contamination that occurred when a Gentile touched it.
“Thank you,” she said, and set the wine on the plastic-covered white tablecloth. “Now that we're all here, we can be seated.”
She tried to arrange her children and guests around the table on white plastic lawn chairs, making sure no people of the opposite sex sat next to each other unless they were married to each other or they were close family. It was a simple enough puzzle, but she couldn't figure out how to seat them. Jacob offered to help. Mrs. Levin smiled sympathetically at him.
“I think I know Shabbos tables better than you,” she said.
She solved the problem by unnecessarily bringing in two additional plastic chairs which no one would sit in. They went between unmarried men and women, further cramping the table. Everyone squeezed into the seats. The chair to Jacob's right was empty.
“So, Ya'akov,” Mrs. Levin said, using the Hebrew pronunciation of his name, “what got you interested in Judaism?”
Jacob felt blood pump to his ears. He had hoped to get through dinner without being outed as someone who was converting. He felt the other guests straighten up, on guard, no longer safe among Jews.
“I guess I started getting interested around the time I had my bar mitzvah,” Jacob said through a clenched smile.
“You didn't have a bar mitzvah,” Mrs. Levin said.
“I know,” Jacob said. “No one has a bar mitzvah. He becomes bar mitzvah. It's not about an expensive party.”
“You didn't have one or become one.”
“You can take my word for it. I was there. The Torah portion was va-yetzeh. I still remember some of it.”
“It doesn't matter,” Mrs. Levin said. “You can be the greatest Torah scholar in the world, but if your mother's not Jewish, you're not Jewish.”
Jacob felt anger boiling up his neck.
“You know, when I got to college, I thought maybe I'd join a fraternity,” he said, “and every time I went to visit a frat house during rush week, the first thing they said to me was, 'So, you're a Jew?'”
“Why didn't you just tell them you're not?” Mrs. Levin said.
“I did. I'm still a Jew to them. The Greek system couldn't care less about halacha.”
“Hellenism,” Mrs. Levin muttered without a trace of irony. “Halacha is the same everywhere. If your father is Jewish, it doesn't make you Jewish or half-Jewish. It only makes your father Jewish.”
“Shiksas,” one of the 37-year-old women said. “A silent Holocaust.”
“Jewish seed going to waste,” the pregnant woman said. “It could have brought more holy Jews into the world.”
“As if there's not too much Goyim already,” said Mrs. Levin.
Jacob felt himself about to lose his cool and smash his fist on the table. But before that could happen, Mr. Levin stuck his head out from the side of the hallway.
“Ya'akov,” he said, “could I see you for a minute, please?”
“Sure.”
Jacob squeezed away from the table. Why did he have to assert his Jewishness? He knew what their reaction would be. He should have made some meek pleasantries and changed the subject to this week's Torah portion.
He followed Levin into a back hallway, realizing that Levin probably wanted to use him as a Shabbos Goy, to perform some action that Jews were forbidden to do on Shabbat—probably turning on or off a light bulb. A fresh wave of anger crashed over Jacob, even stronger this time. On the army base, Jacob never kept Shabbat—he would smoke a cigarette or listen to the radio—but being asked to do it was offensive, an attack. And this was worse than at the table. He wasn't passively accepting someone else's opinion of his non-Jewishness, but actively declaring it himself by flipping the light switch. Refusing, though, would mean a bad report to the rabbis, and possibly never making it to the ritual bath.
Mr. Levin waddled into the bathroom, pants around his ankles, white button-down shirt over his buttocks, tzitzit strings dancing on his hairy knees. There was a horrible smell, as if he hadn't flushed. (At least Shabbat allowed Jews to flush.) Maybe he wanted Jacob to spray air freshener or light a candle, activities forbidden by Shabbat.
Levin waved for Jacob to come inside. Jacob stood at the door. Levin sat on the toiled and held up a roll of toilet paper.
“There's never enough time before Shabbat,” he said. “I forgot to tear the toilet paper. That was my job—to tear the toilet paper. This is terrible. I don't know what to do.”
He obviously wanted Jacob to tear the toilet paper into usable lengths, an act forbidden for Jews on Shabbat, but didn't want to ask him directly. A Jew could hint to the Shabbos Goy, but not state the request outright—at least that was the halachic opinion Mr. Levin seemed to go by.
Jacob burned with anger. He didn't want to do it, so he decided to pretend he couldn't take the hint.
“You didn't buy the pre-cut kind?” he asked.
“The pre-cut kind isn't quilted the way I like it,” Levin said.
“Don't you have anything else around that you can use? Kleenex?”
“Kleenex doesn't dissolve when it gets wet. It'll clog up the pipes. This is an old building, and Jerusalem pipes aren't very strong.”
Jacob nodded. “I guess you could tear it in an unusual way,” he said. “Tear it with your feet, or backhanded.”
“I see you've been paying attention in class,” Mr. Levin said. “But it's really better not to do it even in a backhanded way if another way can be found.”
“I think you'd be okay using the leniency,” Jacob said. “Especially since it's for something having to do with your dignity.”
“I see you're quite the Torah scholar, Ya'akov, but there's more to being Jewish than intellect. There's compassion for your fellow Jew. Here I am with an itchy, dirty bottom and there's nothing I can do about it. You can help me, though. How do we know we can trust you when you become a Jew if we can't trust you now?”
Jacob was so angry that he was having trouble breathing. Only one month to go, he told himself. Don't blow it now.
“Oh—you wanted me to tear the paper for you? Why didn't you say so?”
“It's better not to say it directly.”
Jacob took the thick toilet paper roll and began to tear off strips, which he set politely on the sink next to the toilet. Every rip of the toilet paper felt as if he was tearing something inside his chest.
“On weekdays I'm fairly frugal with toilet paper,” Levin said absently, to no one in particular, “but on Shabbat I like a nice thick wad for wiping. Everything should be double on Shabbat.”
Jacob ripped off longer strips of between ten and twelve squares each. Levin picked up a sheet, crumpled it, and wiped, making a purring sound in his throat. Then he looked down at the used toilet paper.
“I'm going to need a lot,” he said, dropping the paper between his legs into the toilet bowl. “In fact, it would be good if the whole roll were to be ripped, and another one as well to get us through the rest of Shabbat. We're having cholent tomorrow for second meal.”
When Jacob finished tearing the toilet paper, he went to the kitchen and turned on the faucet at the sink—he felt an urgent need to wash. The cold water poured over his hands, through his fingers. He wanted to use scalding water, but turning on the hot water tap would be breaking Shabbat.
It wasn't just his hands that felt dirty. It was his whole body. He knew he couldn't wash the feeling away. Even going in the mikvah, the Jewish ritual bath, at the end of his conversion wouldn't wash that dirty feeling away. It was the Jewish part of him that made him feel dirty.