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It was Chanukah. The candles were lit in the jammed dining hall. Sem girls stood everywhere. The term was coming to an end and tonight there would be a screening of some inspirational movie for the entire sem to see.
I didn’t feel like staying in the dining room. I went over to the Rabbi and Rebbetzin’s house to deliver a script I said I would bring over earlier.
I walked out the door into the cold night. As I walked further from sem, the voices of chirping girls slowly faded into the distance and the howling winds took over as the primary musicians. Although the walk was a short one, I was shivering.
I wrapped my light coat tighter around my body. The fur boots weren’t doing a good enough job shielding my feet from the cold.
I stood at the Rabbi’s doorstep, teeth chattering. The rebbetzin opened the door. I smiled weakly and handed her the script I brought over.
She told me her husband wanted to speak to me. I should please go into the dining room and wait for him. My body went stiff. I didn’t take my coat off, or even my gloves. I did not know what he wanted although I had a pretty good idea. The turmoil I had been in the past few weeks left me drained and tired.
The rabbi walked into the dining room and looking at him all I could think was royalty.
He was wearing a satin pajama with a matching robe; his long silvery beard was majestic. He carried in a cup of tea in fancy china. He offered some to me. I declined.
He sat at the head of the table and looked at me. His sharp eyes pierced me. He didn’t have to say anything. I was already overwhelmed with guilt. I would have cried, except that I was frozen. I had no tears in me. I would have blushed. Except that I do not blush. So I just sat there staring back at him, every fiber of my being on edge.
“You are leaving.” He said.
“Yes.” I responded.
“Then there is nothing to talk about.”
I stared at him.
“If there is a chance you might stay then we can talk.”
I said nothing.
“Would you like me to speak with your parents?” He asked.
“Maybe,” I responded.
How did this ever happen to me? Until two weeks ago, all I wanted to do was get out of this place. And suddenly, since I told the rabbi two weeks ago, I have been called into his home almost on a nightly basis for chats which turned my heart inside out and made me feel like the biggest suicidal traitor in the world.
“But it’s not my parents. I think I want to go to college myself.” I said, trying to sound like an independent young adult.
“You know you are committing suicide.” The rabbi said. “Spiritual suicide of course.”
He continued: “If my son was standing on the window sill about to jump off, I wouldn’t just stand there saying… oh well, it is his choice. I would do everything I can to stop him. I would expect your parents to do the same.”
The stupid naïve me that I was, I started responding to his comments and engaging in the conversation.
“But really,” I said. “It isn’t suicide. There are rabbis there as well.”
“What?! Rabbis, you say? Who are they? Who are their rabbis? Don’t you understand that here we are teaching you es hatorah asher mipihem anu chayim?!” He was screaming. “Don’t you understand,” he continued “that if you go there you are going to go out with boys, a different one every night. You are going to discuss your gemarah with him. He is going to discuss his hashkafah with you. You are going to go to the cinema. You are going to wear trousers”
“Rabbi, I am not going to wear trousers.”
“Your parents should never let you go.”
“But Rabbi, my mother went there.”
“She should have never gone!”
I was defeated. This was pointless. After the rabbi dismissed me, I ran back to the dormitory. It was empty. All the girls were still at that movie. Although it was early in the evening, I fell asleep the second my head hit the mattress.
I awoke suddenly at two am from an empty sleep. As I opened my eyes, all the words of the Rabbi came crashing at me. My head fell back to the mattress. I didn’t know what to do.
The rest of the night and day passed in a daze. I walked around looking at people without seeing them; listening to them without hearing them. No one would ever understand the loneliness I experienced that day. I felt disconnected from my body, watching as this peculiar dark-headed teenager roamed around the seminary and surrounding streets aimlessly searching for peace, for a piece of herself that she was bound to leave behind.
That evening I decided to call an uncle in the States who was involved in chinuch hoping he could help me somehow. I had previously sent him a letter describing my anguish. I wasn’t sure whether he received it or not. He picked up the phone on the first ring.
“Hi,” I said. “It’s Tania.”
“Tania! How are you, my girl?” He exclaimed.
The warmth in his voice did something to me.
I burst out crying. The tears that were on the verge of spilling for weeks came forth. I couldn’t say one comprehensive thing. But my uncle just stayed on the phone and listened to my sobs for a half an hour until I calmed down.”
I felt better than I had in awhile.
