At first Eliza sticks to smaller words. A three-letter word contains only six possible combinations; four letters produce twenty-four. She feels comfortable inside such limits, is less afraid of making mistakes. Initially, permutation is a daunting math problem. A five-letter word with its 120 possibilities seems terrifying, the 720 permutations of a six-letter word impossible. But as the weeks pass, Eliza becomes more confident. The letters’ internal rhythms begin to make themselves known. Eliza’s first five-letter word grants a sense of release absent with shorter words. She learns not to anticipate the letters. Instead she lets the pen in her hand guide her as she submits to the power of the word itself.
Sometimes she stumbles. Deep into five-letter permutations, she can lose her way, suddenly unfixed from the letters and their strange internal rhythms. She becomes fearful of the paper and its nonsensical letter combinations. She and Saul revert to dictionary study then, spelling drills a welcome return to apparent normalcy.
The day Eliza attempts her first six-letter word she knows she is ready. She can feel this certainty in her blood. She picks up the pen and closes her eyes. It is easy to clear her mind now. In a few deep breaths she has washed away the day and all sense of yesterday or tomorrow. She waits for the word to arrive.
MANTLE
enters her pen like a gust of wind and her hand begins to dance. The letters fill the page with their lines and curves until her entire body is carried by the steady stream of letters as they come together and break apart, touching and falling away, M making way for A and N, then shifting into a solid crunch of consonants. L, T, M, and N attract and repel each other with magnetic intensity as Eliza proceeds from
NTLEAM
to
TLEAMN
to
LEMANT
. She can hear the dissonance and harmony of each combination inside her head. She feels no fatigue. Thirty minutes into the permutation her hand continues its frantic pace, 300 recombinations down and 420 to go, though she isn’t counting. The letters are all she needs to know. MANTLE’s energy wells up from deep inside her, bubbling to the surface.
After little more than an hour,
MANTLE
is complete, its 720 permutations filling ten sheets of paper which lie scattered about Eliza like shed skin. Saul has been watching, entranced, for the last forty minutes. He doesn’t need to review her work to confirm what she has accomplished.
“You did it,” he says in hushed wonder.
Eliza, exhausted but exhilarated, can only nod.
Saul realizes the time has come to tell his daughter everything.
In 1280 a Jewish mystic named Abraham Abulafia writes a book entitled
Chayay Olam HaBah,
or
Life of the Future World.
Before this book, the world of the mystic had been a closed one, the methods by which one communed with the Divine a secret combination of magic words, talismans, and Talmudic erudition. Those deemed unworthy of the journey were punished with madness, blindness, or death.
Abulafia’s book changes everything. In it, he states that the key to transcendence is language itself. Creation takes place through words, a series of “And God Saids” bringing each new stage of life into being. Language is God’s divine power made manifest in the world. The foundation of language is letters.
“Letters,” Saul says. “Abulafia believed that, by concentrating on letters, the mind could loose itself from its shackles to commune with a presence greater than itself, what Abraham Abulafia called
shefa,
the influx. He believed that barriers separated personal existence from the larger stream of life, the Divine Intellect.”
He pauses to look at his daughter, to see how she is taking all this. Eliza is extremely still, completely focused on his face.
Tabula rasa,
Saul thinks. She is his own blank slate.
“Abulafia was branded a heretic and his books denounced. Neither
Future World
nor any of his subsequent treatises on practical mysticism was published. But they survived. Handwritten manuscripts were copied and handed down through the ages. His ideas were not only discussed but put into practice. Today, Abulafia is recognized as one of the great Kabbalists.
“The steps that Abulafia outlines, the methods that caused such an uproar, are basically instructions on how to meditate. Abulafia uses language play as a way to clear the mind, to remove oneself from daily concerns and thoughts. The exercises we’ve been doing are Abulafia’s. His methods are primarily a kind of Jewish yoga, a way to relax. For most, what Abulafia describes as
shefa,
the influx of the Divine, is a historical curiosity to be discussed and interpreted. Because, while anyone can follow Abulafia’s instructions for permutation and chanting, very few can use them to achieve transcendence. I’ve never been able to do it. After years of failure I convinced myself that the transcendent state Abulafia described was the result of an inspired imagination or perhaps a condition made inaccessible by modern times. But when I saw you onstage at the area finals, I realized I was wrong.”
Eliza starts getting a warm feeling in her stomach. It’s a cross between a fluttery excited feeling and a sick feeling. She can tell that whatever comes next is going to be big. Part of her wants to freeze time. She would rather enjoy this vague sense of importance than have it defined. She has a feeling that once her father has said whatever it is he is about to say nothing will be the same.
“I think you have what Abulafia had, Eliza, something he took for granted when he wrote his books. You have the ability to use his exercises as he intended, as a means toward achieving
shefa.
I’ve seen it. You’re able to go beyond simply clearing your mind. You’re able to remove yourself entirely from daily life to brush against the limitless. It happened with
EYRIR
at the state bee. It happened today. But these were accidents of latent ability, the merest shadow of
shefa.
In order to truly reach
shefa,
you must work even harder. You must explore the letters through Abulafia’s methods. I will prepare you. Spelling is a sign, Elly. When you win the national bee, we’ll know that you are ready to follow in Abulafia’s footsteps. Once you’re able to let the letters guide you through any word you are given, you will be ready to receive
shefa.
”
In the quiet of the room, the sound of Eliza and her father breathing is everything.
“Do you mean,” Eliza whispers, “that I’ll be able to talk to God?”
Saul leans forward until their heads are touching. His words are too fragile to survive anything stronger than a whisper. “It’s impossible to describe. But from what Abulafia wrote, it seems less like talking than a special kind of listening.”
“And you think I could do it?” The question comes out louder than Eliza intended, startling them both.
“In all my life,” Saul says, not whispering now, the power of his voice unmistakable, “you’re the only person I’ve encountered who might have a chance.”
Every day Aaron says something different. He is going roller-skating, playing basketball in the park, seeing a movie, visiting the library. He’s not sure it makes a difference. He begins saying the same thing on the same day of each week just to see if Saul notices. When Saul doesn’t, Aaron tells himself he is happy. It is freedom he wants, not a father breathing down his back, tracking his every move.
Summer finds Aaron helping Chali in the
ISKCON
office, taking calls, keeping the shelves organized, and occasionally keeping an eye on the children of devotees. Chali has invited Aaron to accompany him to parks, but Aaron isn’t ready for that yet, even with the added incentive of a commission on the beads and pamphlets he sells. The risk of recognition still looms too large. Aaron doesn’t want to risk his father learning from a stranger how he has been spending his time.
Aaron spends large parts of the afternoon in the
ISKCON
library. After reading
Sri Isopanisad
and
Bhagavad-Gita As It Is,
Aaron moves on to
The Science of Self-Realization
and a thin volume called
Om Shalom,
which cheerfully attests to the many similarities between the science of Kṛṣṇa consciousness and Judaism. Aaron becomes known around the temple as
Chaitanya,
which he learns is Sanskrit for energy. He revels in the nickname and does his best to live up to it, participating in the temple’s classes and discussions with the same vigor he used to apply to Shabbat services.
During the weekly ride to the synagogue with Saul and Eliza, Aaron’s thoughts concern a different temple. By sniffing his fingers, he can conjure up the smell of the incense he knows is being lit at the feet of the deities. He pictures the camphor and ghee, the water in the conch shell. Though he knows it will be years before he can hope for such a thing, he pictures himself as the
pujari,
leading the service and chanting. He has already memorized the first chant. The pleasure this evokes mirrors that of his first Hebrew recitations for Saul almost ten years before.
Saul is at the wheel, whistling the song he always whistles on the way to services. He keeps sneaking peeks at Aaron in the rearview mirror. He is looking for some external indicator of the internal changes in his son, who seems to be spending as much time away from the house as possible and curtails Saul’s attempts at conversation with short, curt responses. Though Saul knows that adolescence is marked by the increasing need for independence, he is alarmed by the speed at which Aaron seems to be asserting it. Saul can’t help but wonder if the end of their guitar sessions provided an unintentionally large push in that direction. Saul misses being with his son. There were times when their music became an umbilicus stretched between them, recalling for Saul the intimacy of late night feedings when the world contracted to include only him and his baby boy. Saul wonders if their time together spurred something distantly familiar for Aaron as well: the creak of a rocking chair, the beat of Saul’s heart as Saul held him against his chest. Saul fears it is a question whose time has passed.
Aaron used to love arriving early to Shabbat services. He and Eliza would fight over who got to unlock the front doors. They would take turns switching on the circuit breakers, flush with the power to transform the synagogue from a dark and shuttered thing to a place overflowing with light.
As a small child, Aaron had graced the synagogue with the same ageless, slow-flowing cognizance he granted to trees. Its windows darkened, the synagogue couldn’t see them coming, could only know to prepare for their arrival if Saul parked in the more distant gravel parking lot and not on the silent street fronting the building. The sound of the gravel scrunching beneath the car was Aaron’s signal to the synagogue that he had arrived.
It is a squat, brick building that shows its age. The bricks and mortar have darkened over time, dulling the crisp contrast between clay and cement. One spot to the left of the doors is a little lighter than the rest. The sand-blast scar is all that remains of the removal of a spray-paint swastika. It had appeared the day before High Holiday services when Aaron was in elementary school. Aaron still remembers the stoniness that entered his father’s face as he received the call from the police. Eliza had been too young, but Saul had taken Aaron with him.
A small, anxious woman had met them at their car as they pulled in. She had spotted the twisted cross while walking her dog and had immediately called the police. Aaron can still hear the woman’s soft, sad voice, belonging more to her plaintive eyes than to her ungenerous lips. “We aren’t all like that,” she had said. “There’s no call for such ugliness in the world.” The anger seething from his father had frightened Aaron more than the symbol itself, which seemed small and powerless beside Saul’s fury.
Saul is fishing through his pockets for the keys to the doors as the three of them stand on the front step, the evening air just turning chill. Aaron finds himself staring at the keyhole. It looks like the keyhole to a zillion other doors, could just as easily be guarding the entrance to a gas station lavatory or a convenience store.
Saul finds the keys, producing them with a dramatic
“Aha!”
Eliza tries not to let her brother’s disinterest diminish winning the temple keys from her father’s hand, but it is a three-person game that loses its charm when only two are playing. There is no satisfaction in opening the door, which suddenly feels to Eliza like a pleasure she should have outgrown.
The synagogue’s smell comes to Aaron immediately. In the past, Aaron has associated it with the rows of
tallith
in their holders along the wall and the lighting of the Shabbat candles at the beginning of the service. Today the smell dissects itself upon entering his nose, becoming an uninspiring blend of floor wax and dust. As Aaron watches Eliza flick on the lights he doesn’t think of transformation but of the circuit breaker labeled “Eternal Light,” its switch eternally taped to the On position. He sees the rows of dented metal folding chairs, the scuffed floor tiles. When he looks at the building’s windows, he no longer thinks of eyes. When he looks at the walls, he forgets he ever imagined a slow-beating heart. Compared to the colors and smells of the
ISKCON
temple, Beth Amicha is plain and uninviting, a spinster who long ago gave up on luring a groom.
The congregation shuffle in and take their customary seats. Aaron makes a point of not looking in Stacey Lieberman’s direction, instead imagining himself into a picture of Kṛṣṇa appearing to a meditating man. He is determined to keep his mind and body pure.
When Aaron was younger, his father’s resonant
“Shabbat Shalom”
opening the service filled him with excitement. He would scramble from his seat with the other children to help light the Shabbat candles. Now that he has danced
kirtan,
Aaron cannot help but wonder if his eagerness reflected an instinctive awareness that God cannot be worshiped sitting down. The
ISKCON
temple with its open space seems so much more appropriate than the synagogue’s stiff seats. If Aaron were at
ISKCON
, he would be chanting
japa
in preparation for bed so that God’s name would be the last thing on his mind and tongue. He would not be trapped in a chair, the enforced stillness making him acutely conscious of the body separating him from God. Aaron wants to counterbalance this awareness by chanting in his head, but he is too anxious that practicing one religion in another’s place of worship may constitute a multidenominational sin.