Finding Love on the Tree of Life

There were three things that Daniel remembered most about his Bar Mitzvah. The first was how much work it took to memorize and practice his Haftorah, and how the Rabbi, who was tutoring him, stood in back of Temple B'nai Israel's sanctuary and yelled at him, forcing him to sing louder - loudly enough to be heard. The second was the incredible feeling of relief that he got when the service was over. These were the things that he was willing to talk about if anyone asked.

However, there was a third thing that happened that he was unwilling to tell anyone about. It took place near the end of the Saturday morning service, when the Sefer Torah was about to be placed back into the Ark. Daniel was facing the Ark and singing the prayer, Aytz chaim hi, lamachazikim ba - It is a tree of life for those who grasp it - when he felt the slightest tingling pressure - a mixture of a caress and a pin prick - inside his head. The tendrils of two emotions, pride and shame, made known their indistinct but unmistakable presence. Though momentarily startled, Daniel did not falter; he missed not one note of the haunting melody, not one word of the prayer that he had rehearsed so diligently.

After the heavy, ornate curtains were drawn and the Ark was closed, Daniel turned back to face his family, friends and relatives who were sitting in the front pews. He looked first at his mother, who was beaming with pride and joy, then his younger sister, who smiled up at him, and who then made a funny face. Finally, he looked at his father, who had a tear running down his cheek. Again, there was that tendril tickling his brain, and he then had a good idea from where and from whom the pride and the shame were coming. At that moment, while watching his father's changing facial expression, Daniel realized that he was making a most extraordinarily intimate connection with his father.

Later that evening, Daniel sat with his parents in the temple's all-purpose room, which doubled as its catering hall, and which was located in the temple basement under the sanctuary. The last batch of partygoers had finally left, but only after his aunt Ada took one last opportunity to brutally pinch his cheek. He hated that, and he almost slapped her hand away when she approached. After, he swore to himself that that was the last time she was going to do that to him.

Daniel's father broke their exhausted silence, asking, of neither of them in particular, "Well, do you think it was worth it?" Daniel had heard his parents, through the thin plasterboard walls, late at night, arguing about the worthwhileness of spending much more money on a more opulent affair. His mother wanted to have a more sumptuous shindig - "something more than your usual bargain- basement" was how she had put it - but his father wanted to keep it simple. Much of his father's desire for a modest affair arose not out of an honorable aversion to ostentatiousness, but, rather, out of his ongoing tight-fistedness that was often the basis for irrational arguments and screaming fits, not to mention the embarrassing altercations that often took place outside of the home. Some of the Bar Mitzvah parties Daniel had already attended cost thousands of dollars more. Their guests, sitting in the drab, sparsely-decorated windowless room would invariably compare affairs they had been to and then negatively and inescapably judge them on that bitchy continuum that ranged from frugality to lavishness.

"It was a wonderful party, Sy. Everyone had such a great time." Daniel knew that his mother had been disappointed but, as usual, she was trying to keep the peace. After all, "peace at any price" was her motto, her modus operandi, her way of keeping the family together whatever the emotional cost to her.

"But the best part for me was Daniel's voice. His singing was so beautiful. I never knew he could sing like that," she gushed. Always secretive and keeping to himself, Daniel had spent most of his practice time behind his latched bedroom door singing along to the tape the Rabbi had provided.

"That's not what I mean, Phyllis," his father said. "I'm talking about everything - the preparation, the planning, the whole ganse megillah. Do you think it was all worth it?" Daniel wondered if his father was looking for vindication and absolution, although, to the 13-year-old, it boiled down to his father wanting to be reassured that they had the best party money could buy and that his father should not feel ashamed and blamed about the choices that were made. The subtle contradiction did not escape the intuitively precocious child.

Daniel felt another tendril pinch inside his head, but this time, were he to put a label on it, it felt like anger mixed with doubt. Daniel shook his head, as if to get rid of the cobwebs.

They continued to sit, unwilling to leave, as they watched the catering staff finish cleaning up. Daniel broke their reverie when he said, wearily, "C'mon. Let's go home already."

His father's question remained unanswered as they trudged up the back stairs. A flickering, buzzing fluorescent bulb dimly lit their way. The rusty door swung shut behind them with a grating, rasping noise as they passed through the alley to the parking lot. Daniel climbed into the back seat of their Buick sedan. He was so tired that he dozed off just as they were pulling into their driveway.

As they walked into the house, they were greeted by Aunt Sarah, who was Phyllis's sister, and Uncle Walter, who was her husband. They had brought Daniel's little sister home, and then stayed with her. They wanted to know all about what they missed, but Daniel wanted only to go up to his room. He had enough hand-shaking and back-slapping and cheek-pinching and envelope-pocketing and listening to bad Bar Mitzvah jokes to last him a lifetime. He needed to take off his new suit and the painfully-tight shoes that were bought for the high holidays back in September. He wanted to put on some sweats, and spend time by himself watching television. Daniel hugged his mother and father, and remembered to graciously and thoughtfully thank them for a "wonderful, special day." Then he headed upstairs.

Before he fell asleep, Daniel wondered about what had happened to him up on the bima, and what had occurred later, just before leaving the synagogue with his parents. He considered, with a giggle - a worried giggle, all the same - that the two incidents were simply "Twilight Zone" moments, that Rod Serling would magically appear before him, cigarette in hand, saying, "Imagine, if you will..." and then he'd hear the familiar Twilight Zone theme song. Just then another very palpable tendril of emotion - this time, one of raw, unmasked anger, and emanating most probably from downstairs - grabbed at him inside his head. He covered his ears to stop the assault, which did not help, and he pressed a pillow over his face to muffle a scream. Then, just as suddenly, the onslaught was over. Almost in a panic, it took all of his willpower to stop from calling out to his parents. Finally, he dozed off, with tears rolling down his cheeks.

Family legends. Everyone has them and Daniel's family was no different. His grandmother, before her death, always spoke of the faker who stole her ring, although it sounded more heartfelt and real when she spoke about the "faikeer" in her heavy Yiddish accent. As the story went, the faker had somehow hoodwinked his maternal grandparents and had made off with his grandmother's diamond ring - the one that she regularly pawned to make ends meet. From this, family members learned to be distrustful of strangers, because they'd always take advantage of you and would sometimes even steal from you.

There was also the story of beautiful Beatrice, who was so artistic and talented, but who contracted tuberculosis and died at a much-too-young age. It was a real pity, a terrible thing that had happened. Everyone was so jealous of her innate abilities and good looks, but, in the end, look where it all got her.

Then there was the story of a distant cousin - a very retarded, probably autistic child - who spent many hours sitting before the front-loading washing machine watching intently as the laundry went round and round inside. That story made it to the family anthology as well. From it one learned to have rachmones - pity - although it was hard for the kids to stop from laughing at the inherently funny image when the story was passed down to them.

And then there was the whispered story of a relative who had committed suicide. It was a shande - the shame of the family that would rather keep silent, because, to talk about it might mean to somehow risk catching it. Whatever "it" was, no one was willing to explain. Daniel could never seem to get all the facts straight, but, because of its mystery, that legend was the most compelling. What he could piece together was that an uncle Max had been hospitalized on multiple occasions because he heard voices, and when he did, he often became violent. During his hospital stays, he underwent extensive electro-shock treatments, which calmed him down while burning out his brain cells and memory, while supposedly blotting out the voices. This was, of course, before anti-psychotic drugs became widely available, and also before the cure became less inoffensively known as electro-convulsive therapy.

When he was living at home, Uncle Max could not hold down a job, and became the laughing stock of much of the neighborhood, and, worse, yet, of the children who followed him and taunted him, because of his slovenly, unkempt appearance and his psychotic rambling and mumbling. His rightfully protective parents tried to make him stay at home. One day, after his mother went out to the A&P for some peace and quiet and also to buy some much-needed groceries, Max left the apartment on his own to do some aimless gallivanting. It was during this final wandering that the voices ordered him to climb over the hand rail of a pedestrian bridge that spanned the elevated line and then commanded him to dive headfirst into the path of a speeding Bronx-bound express.

There was no clear lesson imparted by the story of Uncle Max, but what Daniel gleaned was obvious. The moral was that if there was something going on inside his head, he'd goddam better keep it to himself. Daniel decided to suck it up and to tell nobody about the poisonous, painful tendrils. It would be his cross, in silence, to bear.

As Daniel moved from Bar Mitzvah boy to teenager, from junior high to senior high school, the episodes became more frequent. Although some were titillating, and he felt almost like he were being fondled, most were accompanied by throbbing or, worse, a piercing ache. Despite the pain, there was an almost erotic sense to each experience. Some were easily controlled and attenuated. Daniel learned, too, that his ever-strengthening ability did not always have to have negative consequences.

Daniel was often able to manipulate his teachers because he could get a sense of their emotional vulnerabilities. He was able to read and exploit the moods of his parents. But most importantly, he was able to beguile and seduce a steady parade of young ladies who wondered why Daniel was so different from his classmates, how he listened so well, how he seemed to care so much about them, how he "knew" them so intimately, and who would then willingly shed their clothes and let him do whatever he wanted to them. Daniel didn't need to be the star quarterback or the starting center of the basketball team, for he was rapidly becoming a high school legend in his own right.

Because he wanted to play the field and keep his string of triumphs going, he had to suffer through the inevitable breakups, although he always tried to be as honorable and as kind as possible. After all, he had promised the girls nothing other than his company - no going steady, no exchange of class rings, no pinning, no ID bracelets, no commitment of any kind. But they always seemed to have the habit of reading more into their relationship with him than he was ever willing to offer. Therefore, he faced horrible recriminations and the almost unbearable angst caused by their utter disappointment, their dejection, their gloom, and, often, their shame. Every time he went through a breakup he had to deal with his head splitting from within. He thought about giving it all up, about becoming celibate, about being the first from his family to become a priest. He could almost hear his mother crying out, "God forbid!" But then, the next day, on the bus, or in class, or in the cafeteria, the next time one of the girls took just a little bit too long to cross her legs, or to avert her glance, he forgot all about his most recent painful episode, and then went about seducing the next conquest, knowing, as always, that he'd be successful. After all, he had that edge, that gift, that clearly unfair advantage.

In his last year of high school, his parents urged him to go away to school, but to a state university, of course, because of the prohibitive cost of a private college. Daniel wanted to stay at home and commute to the community college so he would be better able to control the induced emotional pains and pleasures that resonated inside his head. He had realized that physical separation muted the seemingly ever-present effects. His parents, however, longed for emotional space and physical distance for themselves, and would not listen to Daniel's pleas to stay at home for the next two years. "Of course you're going away to school," his father insisted. They claimed to always knew best and he couldn't fight them about this because he knew he wouldn't win anyway. So it was settled.

In the week before Labor Day, when it seemed to Daniel as if the whole world were moving into college dormitories, he took his place, with two other roommates in a room meant for only two, on the seventh floor of an overcrowded brick building that, from afar, looked not much different from a high-rise prison cellblock.

Compared to living away, Daniel had breezed through high school and had not realized the challenge that a crowded dormitory would bring. For one thing, the frequency of the episodes of the tendrils reaching into his brain sharply increased. For another, as Daniel had become better skilled at zeroing in on a source, he also became more adept at isolating a specific emotional emanation. Daniel was honing his talents, and was more able to tailor his responses, but he was starting to wonder if those responses were entirely his own. He became greatly concerned that he might merely be adapting to the expectations of the unsuspecting originators of the tendrils. In other words, Daniel started to wonder if he was still his own person or if was becoming, more and more, a mirror of other people who were playing ping pong or donkey kong inside his head.

Unlike many of his classmates who had listed "undecided" as a major, Daniel knew early on exactly where he was heading and majored in psychology. Of course, any impartial onlooker who knew what Daniel was able to do would immediately suspect that he was actually looking for a reason, an answer, a solution, and might have been right. Unlike his less sophisticated fellow freshmen who were also searching for identity and meaning, Daniel had already done an inordinate amount of reading. He had undertaken an in-depth study with the limited reference skills he had been formally taught as he tried to figure out who and what the hell he actually was. Unfortunately, he had found little in the psychological literature - those writings that he was able to at least wade through and understand - that dealt specifically with his particular skill. What he did find was much more confusing than it was enlightening.

Psychology 101, part of the core curriculum, was his most miserable class of all. He was cooped up at 8:00 a.m. in a large, stuffy lecture hall with 120 other sleepy students who collectively comprised the most discombobulated and fucked-up group on campus. They were continually firing off pyro-plastic effluences of misplaced passions and confused susceptibilities. When fifty minutes of the droning hour-long lecture had passed, Daniel's head invariably began throbbing and he wanted to run away from it all. But because of his over-riding need to be responsible, which had been drummed into him like a mantra by his compulsive, workaholic parents, he never cut class, never turned off the alarm so he could catch another hour or two of sleep, never said "the hell with it all" and shut his eyes for a couple of minutes. Not even once.

But there was another reason for always making it to his early class. Daniel hating lying in his bed, at night, trying to fall asleep, or during the day, like before dinner, trying to catch a nap and catch up on his sleep. Early in the morning, however, was the most excruciating. When the psyches of the dormitory residents were least guarded, in that ever-so-dangerous state between sleep and wakefulness, when they were exuding all sorts of uncensored hatreds and fears and terrors, when the psychologically crippled and the emotionally infirm and the damaged and already-beyond-repair were beginning to stir, Daniel, too, was at his most vulnerable. It was early in the morning when the trickle turned into a torrent and Daniel could scarcely catch his breath, when he had to fight for emotional air, and he was forced to struggle to get his head above the virtually unstoppable flow of emotional detritus and filth and ooze. Most of the time, all he could do was moan into his pillow and pound his fists against the lumpy mattress.

"Just a bad dream," Daniel would usually respond, panting, sweating, with his head pounding and his heart thumping loudly in his chest.

His roommate would shake his head and head off to breakfast, undoubtedly to join his friends and then tell them that fuckin' Daniel had another one of those crazy incidents. Daniel would be left in the room, shaking off another morning's horrors all by himself. After all, whom could he tell? Whom could he possibly confide in?

Daniel spent much of his energy trying to master his unique predicament. Luckily, he had no trouble keeping up his grades. After all, there was that wonderful upside to being able to manipulate people. He got others to tutor him, to share their notes, to write papers for him, to go down on him, to spread their legs for him, to open up their hearts to him. He got by on a superficial level and, outwardly, he didn't appear to suffer more angst than the average college student.

But Daniel could never get beyond the curve. It seemed that the more he was able to deflate and dissipate the strength of the input, the stronger the signal and the noise became. He started to think of himself as a very sensitive receptor of radio-wave-like emissions although he knew that thinking of himself in terms of the electro-radio-wave construct bordered on madness. He was damned whatever he did. If he remained stagnant and did not fight back, then the incoming signal stayed at an uncomfortable and barely acceptable level. If he tried to decrease and de-intensify the strength of the incoming signal, he felt as if he were fighting futilely against incoming waves of an angry, vindictive ocean that insisted on plowing him over. It was so extremely frustrating, for he could find no way to win. No matter what he did, he figured that his life boiled down to no more than a lose-lose situation. His only choice seemed to be by how much he expected to lose.

In order to avoid the random firings inside his head, he usually preferred to stay indoors, by himself, if he had no place in particular to go. During the summer between his second and third years of college, Daniel was awakened by a phone call from a young women, barely a casual acquaintance, who seemed to have "accidently" found herself in his neighborhood. Of course, Daniel could not avoid temptation, and invited her over. After a spontaneous and hurried tryst in his bedroom, with the eyes of Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison looking down at them from posters peeling from the wall, Daniel invited her to go to the beach. They'd have a late breakfast in a diner on the way.

Daniel had tried breathing exercises and yoga and meditation and martial arts to calm the promiscuous inputs that were so haphazard and so goddam unwelcome; he never knew when they'd invade his consciousness. But with this particular girl, he suddenly felt very calm and comfortable, so unguarded and loose. This girl didn't seem to want anything from him other than his warmth, his closeness, his tenderness and his amazing sense of kinship. She was very satisfied to sit next to him with her head nestled against his shoulder. He could smell the faint fragrance of her shampoo and the more pungent aroma of their earlier sexual encounter. For perhaps the very first time, in that rusting, beat-up Buick that his parents had reluctantly passed down to him, as he drove unhurriedly down the Meadowbrook Parkway, Daniel felt very much at ease.

He drove past the Jones Beach water tower and on to parking field 6, which was the most desirable one because it was closest to the beach. Luckily, there were still some empty parking spaces left. Daniel took an old bed sheet and a couple of towels out of his trunk and they set off hand-in-hand across the sand to find a place to spread the sheet. The closer they got to the ocean, the more threatening was the sound of the pounding waves. Red no-swimming flags flapped ominously in the strong breeze. Only a small "swimming allowed" area, delineated by two green flags, remained. Anyone who tried to venture into the surf above his knees was immediately whistled in by the lifeguards.

Daniel and the girl walked up to the lifeguard stand and Daniel asked, "What's going on?"

"There's a hurricane coming up from the Carolinas, and we have a severe riptide," one of the lifeguards answered. "Haven't you heard?"

Daniel shrugged. He rarely listened to the news or even watched television. He didn't need any bad news or extra stimuli to muddy and confuse a fragile mind that was already under a state of siege. He was much too well-tuned into his proximate world, so he chose to have little to do with the greater outside world. And he worked hard to keep it that way.

Daniel and the girl began walking east along the beach, and fifteen minutes later, they found a place next to the dunes, away from the shoreline, where they could be alone. They spread the bed sheet on the sand, took off their sneakers and placed them on the four corners of the sheet. Daniel pulled off his T-shirt and shorts and the girl took off her blouse and skirt. There was no one around, and they were pretty close to the unofficial nude beach, anyway. They lay down next to each other on the blanket.

Daniel luxuriated in the warmth of the sun and in the calming white noise of the ebb and flow of the waves, interrupted only by the occasional cry of a seagull or a tern. But more, he reveled in the deep quiet he felt inside. With no one else nearby, except for the unthreatening girl, he felt utterly alone. They soon fell asleep nestled together, his arm gathered around her, holding her close, with her hand resting softly on his chest. For once, Daniel was not roused by the shrieking or the screams that only he could hear.

A while later, he woke up. She was staring down at him. "What is it about you?" she asked.

"It's like you can get inside my head. Like you know what I'm thinking. Like you know exactly what I want and what I need."

Daniel felt himself slipping automatically into a defensive mode, and he felt his body stiffen. He dismissed her with "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, c'mon," Daniel replied. "You're just fuckin' crazy..." As soon as he got his words out, he felt and sensed not anger and the usual unspoken accusations, with which he was so well-acquainted, but pity and bottomless melancholy. They had come together so easily and had felt so natural together. And then, just as suddenly, an unbridgeable chasm had opened between them.

"I've gotta get out of here," she said, beginning to panic. "I've gotta get out of here," she screamed even louder. She pulled on her clothes and slipped on her sneakers and started off on her own.

Daniel stepped into his shorts, gathered up the bed sheet and the towels and took off after her. He tried to talk to her - needed to talk to her - but he knew that something that had been so rich and vibrant between them only a few hours before, had, just as abruptly, wilted and died. And she was unconsolable.

In an aching silence, they drove back to his house She refused to look at him, refused to say anything. She sat staring out her side window with her knees drawn up to her chest. Daniel's head ached, a general, overall, all-encompassing throbbing. He felt tears rolling down his cheeks.

She got out of his car and walked over to her own, saying nothing to him. Not even a good-by. Not even a look or a wave. Nothing. As her car disappeared around the corner, he felt depleted and emptied, stripped naked by unspeakable loss and sorrow. If his mother had not opened the door and called out to him, interrupting his suicidal train of thought, he would have gotten right back onto the Meadowbrook, and floored the Buick as he headed straight towards the closest bridge abutment.

For days after, it seemed, as it had always seemed, and felt, as it had always felt, that he was totally, utterly alone. And that love and contentment would always be just out of reach.

His parents sensed that something horrible had happened to Daniel that summer, although he refused, as always, to talk about it. He never opened up to them; it was just his way, and it was something they reluctantly accepted since they had little choice. They never liked being out of the loop, and resented their lowly status, as only peripheral to his life. But they instinctively knew that it was not good for him to lie around and do nothing between semesters. So, throughout his junior year, they started selling him on the idea of spending the next summer in Israel. That way he'd be with a lot of other people his own age, and maybe even meet someone Jewish. Maybe eventually get married and start a family. Maybe give them some grandchildren down the road. After all, parents could always wish for certain things.

So Daniel, although partly against his will, was signed up for a visit to Israel with a group of similarly-aged upperclass college students. Their general plan was to spend the first half of the summer touring the country by bus, and the second half living and working on a kibbutz. Despite his parent's overall optimism, Daniel was reluctantly looking forward to his two months away with trepidation and a feeling of dread.

The jumbo El Al jet lined up on the Kennedy airport runway was filled with a large contingent of tourers like himself, marked with smiley-faced adhesive stickers, ultra-religious Jewish men wearing their black-hatted uniforms, and a mixture of families and couples on their way to visit or move to and make aliyah in Israel. It was a physical setting which did not bode well. While waiting for takeoff, he was filled with the collective fears of those who felt trapped and for whom air travel was threatening and dangerous.

Once they were in the air, and at an obviously prescribed moment, the crowd of black-hatters stood up in the aisle and started davening - reciting their evening prayers. While they were rocking on their heels and murmuring the Hebrew holy words, what spewed forth and into Daniel were an ages-old amalgam of trembling and agitation mixed with reverence and awe. That was bad enough. Worst of all, he was assailed by his fellow sticky-labeled travelers who had been passed over during their teen-tour years, and who had developed much more distinct and untempered fears of loneliness and rejection, and an almost overbearing need and longing for love. For Daniel, it was pitiful and almost laughable, if he, himself were not one of those lonely ones who longed and wanted and needed.

They spent their first four weeks in a whirlwind of activity, living out of knapsacks and sleeping in second-class hotels in Jerusalem, Eilat, Haifa and Tel Aviv. They walked the streets of Jerusalem and the back alleys of the Old City. They took side trips to Tiberius and Safed, and Ein Gedi and Masada, where they arrived early enough to climb to the top of the fortress before the heat became even more unbearable. Like most groups, they did all of the usual tourist things, accompanied, as always, by a sour machine-gun-toting soldier who sat expressionless next to the driver of their Volvo bus. They swam in the Mediterranean and in the Sea of Galilee. They snorkeled in the Red Sea and floated in the Dead Sea. At times, when he was immersing himself in so many biblically connected places, Daniel felt as if he were being purified and sanctified, cleansed and replenished. Or maybe it was just hopeful thinking.

The kibbutz was an entirely different experience, a much less hectic time, but time sped by in a blur anyway. There was surprisingly strict regimentation, which Daniel had always rejected, but he felt himself being seduced by a new and wonderful feeling of belonging and acceptance. He let those warm feelings wash over him and bathe his spirit. Ever since his bewildering experience at the age of thirteen back at Temple B'nai Israel, Daniel had rarely set foot in temple, except when he attended the Bar Mitzvahs of his friends, or when he put on one of his good suits on the High Holidays and walked to shul with his parents. He had never been religious, but he was drawn to - and drawn in by - the daily prayers and the rituals. Whenever a minyan of ten men was needed, he immediately stopped what he was doing to join the men in prayer.

And there was one more enticing and enthralling ingredient that had been added to the mix. Her name was Yocheved. Her parents, whom he thought might have been come-lately hippies, had emigrated from the United States to Israel when she was only an infant. Luckily for him, they had decided to leave a cramped apartment in a Jerusalem suburb and to settle at the kibbutz. As soon as he saw Yocheved, he fell head over heels in love with her - proverbially and literally - because he lost his footing and fell out of a tree he had been pruning. He was smitten with an unboundedly amazing feeling of love which he had never, ever known before. He felt a closeness that he could not comprehend nor even begin to understand. When he was with his Yocheved, he felt like an unborn child might in a womb - soothed and secure and shielded and safe.

They often walked together, arm in arm, in the rolling dunes outside the electrified fence of the kibbutz, whispering sweet everythings to each other, making wild promises they absolutely knew they would keep. Daniel could not keep his hands off his Yocheved, who returned his embraces and his caresses with equally ardent fervor. Of course, they did this when they were out of sight, for they didn't want to upset some of the others who had differing ideas about modesty.

As they walked under the blazing sun, Daniel realized that there was sheer silence and total stillness inside his head, for the very first time since that episode at B'nai Israel. A wonderful absence. No spikes of activity. No pops or pinches or piques or jabs. And it wasn't just when they were off by themselves; the stillness endured even when they were back among the others.

And then, sadly, the end of the month on the kibbutz was nearing. Daniel did not want to leave, though Yocheved insisted that he return to the states. She told him that if their love was to be, then it would last more then ten lifetimes, a hundred lifetimes. "If we are truly besheret," soul mates, she explained, "then we'll always find a way to be together. Even when we're apart."

When it was finally time to leave, Daniel looked back at his beloved and he stepped up onto the bus. He and Yocheved had stayed up most of the previous night together fighting off sleep with desperately passionate love-making. Immediately he dozed off and he awoke only as the bus approached Ben Gurion Airport. He slept most of the rest of the way until the El Al jet was about to land in New York. Emotional impulses still invaded his consciousness, but they seemed much more subdued, as if their sharpness were dulled by an analgesic balm. Daniel felt himself smiling.

His parents met him at the airport and, to them, Daniel seemed different. Yes, he was suntanned and was in much better shape after a month of physical work in the groves of olive trees for which the kibbutz was famous. But he was much more relaxed, more confident, more mensch-like and outgoing. And, to himself, it seemed as though he was no longer struggling to catch his breath, no longer gasping for air and grasping to be freed from his inner turmoil.

Daniel spent the last week of summer busily getting ready for school. He had to find another car because the old Buick could no longer pass inspection without major repairs, and he had to order a new laptop because the hard drive on his had crashed just before the summer. The flurry of chores and activities blunted the familial-based worries and pangs of jealousy. Yocheved was the first woman he ever spoke about with them, and they could not avoid being affected by his infectious infatuation, nor caught up in his new-found zest for life. Now, he always seemed to have a sparkle in his eye and a stupid grin on his face.

The kibbutz might have been situated in a remote valley, but it was still well-connected to the outside world. Daniel spent hours talking on the telephone with Yocheved, and he did not give one thought to what his father might say when he got to open the bill. He spent a lot of time on his sister's computer, instant-messaging and e-mailing her, as well. Distance did not in any way diminish their ardor. Daniel was convinced even more than ever that they were truly meant for each other.

After the four-hour drive back down to school, he settled himself once again into his old dormitory room. It had never occurred to him to move off-campus, although that might have been one way to lessen his ongoing distress. Once he was back in the dorm, the tendrils that had been held at bay attacked with a vengeance and ferocity that made him moan and cry out. He battled to fight off the pulsating throbbing inside his head for he now had a purpose. And he was comforted and consoled only when he was in contact with his Israeli love.

Many parents visit their children during the college's homecoming weekend, especially the parents of the freshmen. Daniel, after much soul-searching and inner torment, decided to make the reverse trip for the very last time. He threw all of his clothes and his belongings into the second-hand Toyota station wagon and drove non-stop through the night back up to Long Island. He arrived home just as his parents were waking up. He walked into the house with tears in his eyes, and with the unmistakable look of defeat on his face. "I just can't take it anymore," he said. "I tried and no matter what I do, I just can't beat it."

His parents assumed, but were only partly correct, that Yocheved had a lot to do with his decision to return home. They were, of course, perturbed and resentful, and generally pissed off as hell. Especially at six thirty in the morning. Especially after three years of college had been shot to hell. Especially after all they had sacrificed. Especially how they had scrimped and saved. Of course, Daniel immediately sensed their reaction, not that he'd have to have his own special gift to know how they felt. And it made him feel even worse. But he still could not tell them the whole story. He didn't want to end up in some kind of misguided therapy and become another family legend. Even more, he did not want to be hospitalized. After three years of undergraduate study, after searching on the computer and in the university's vast library, he had found no mention of any case such as his. Virtually all of the citations that had touched only peripherally on similar themes dealt with schizophrenia, hallucinations and delusional thinking. And much worse, with terrible outcomes that he didn't want to even think about.

Daniel spent the next week in his old room with the door locked and the blinds tightly shut, emerging only to shuffle to the bathroom or to grab something to eat downstairs when no one was home. Dejected and depressed and at the lowest point in his life, Daniel wanted to get through just the next few seconds, just the next few minutes, maybe even just the next several hours. There was only one thought, only one element of a shattered reality that kept him going, and she was six thousand miles away. He had to get back to her. He just had to, or he knew his tortured life would be worthless.

On Friday night, he came down to join his family for dinner for the first time since he returned home. There was the tantalizing aroma of the roasting chicken bathed in garlic and onions that permeated the house. More importantly, he wanted to share with them what he had finally resolved to do.

His mother had already set a place for him at the dining room table. Weary and looking haggard, but, for the first time in a week, showered and clean-shaven around his well-trimmed beard, he sat down at his usual place across from his sister. His mother finished puttering in the kitchen and she came out to recite, in unison with his sister, the blessing for lighting the shabbos candles. His father followed with his prayer over the wine, and the glass was passed around the table. Each took a sip and humorously commented about the horribleness of that particular Manishewitz brew. Then, on cue, as he had for many years before he went off to school, Daniel recited the short Hebrew blessing over the challah. Four pieces were then torn off and passed around. In their own family tradition, they held hands, and his mother, who barely avoided being singed as she reached over the candles to grab her daughter's hand, made a plea for peace on earth and, with a tear flowing down her cheek, a special thanks for having Daniel home and safe.

When she was finished and his mother started to pass around the bowl of chicken, Daniel began, "I have something I have to say."

But his father cut him off. "Let's eat first," he said. "We'll have time later."

Daniel dug into the food on his plate, as if he hadn't eaten for a week. Food had never tasted so good to him. Even the wine wasn't so bad. After he finished off the first communal cup, he poured himself another. He had seconds, then thirds of the chicken, the kasha, the asparagus spears and the squash.

When they were finished eating, he helped his sister clear off the table. He rinsed off the glass dishes and cutlery in hot water before placing them in the dishwasher. Then, as his mother was passing out still-warm slices of mandelbread - one of his favorite desserts - that his sister had baked following his grandmother's recipe, Daniel began, "You know I love you all. And I know it's been rough having me around." He looked around for a response, but his father only nodded and gestured to continue.

"But I've got to go back to Israel. I've got to be with Yocheved. I've just got to."

"We expected as such," his mother said. "We already know she means an awful lot to you."

"No." He paused. "Nothing I can really talk about." Daniel decided to remain silent about all the rest. "I just want to get back to her. To be with her. I know we were meant for each other. I love her more than you can imagine."

This time, there were no accusatory reactions smashing inside his head. No trepidation, no anger, no animosity. Once the decision had been made, the gift that was a also a curse started fading away, leaving only an indistinct residue of dully resonating pain to accompany him and to be with him always.

Two days later, Daniel was on the 7:30 El Al flight out of Kennedy Airport. Normally, his parents would have insisted on booking ahead so they could save money, but this time they had no advance notice, and, therefore, there was no waiting period. And Daniel was traveling one-way, so there would be no savings anyway.

After the plane touched down in Tel Aviv, Daniel took buses and hitched rides to get to the kibbutz. Yocheved was gleefully awaiting him at the front gate. They ran into each other's arms and they couldn't get enough of each other. To any observer, they truly looked like two persons who shared one soul.

Several months later, they were about to be married in the open air shul on the kibbutz. Daniel's parents and sister had flown over to meet Yocheved and to be with their son. Before the ceremony, Daniel's father took him aside and asked him just one question: "Are you sure you know what you're getting yourself into?" Daniel nodded, then hugged his father. Still embracing, they laughed and then they cried together.

Daniel and Yocheved, holding hands, were standing up on the makeshift bima as the Ark was being closed. On this very kibbutz, where olive trees were grown and nurtured, where the financial strength of the kibbutz and its economic life were based on the health of its groves of trees, the prayer aytz chaim hi, lamachazikim ba - "It is a tree of life for those who grasp it" - had a particularly poignant meaning.

They stood under the chupa, suspended between two gnarled olive trees, and which shaded them from the already blazing morning sun. At the end of their joyous ceremony, Daniel stomped on the glass wrapped in a sack of plain cloth and they became husband and wife, two souls joined as one. Daniel and Yocheved grasped onto that tree of life, ascended up into it, and, from that time on, held onto its welcoming branches for dear life. For them, its ways will always be ways of pleasantness and, v'chol notivotehah shalom, all of its paths are peace.

Rev 7 / January 25, 2004

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January, 2004…Copyright © 2004, Lloyd B. Abrams

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