May We Be Forgiven

Herschlag. “Who could ask for more?” says Stanley Herschlag. “I could,” Binnie says. “And I did.” The text is interrupted by a photo of Binnie holding her first grandchild. “Allen Steven Koenig Herschlag. I couldn’t be more proud. Well, I could but …”

    I locate Ryan by methodically searching the Web and little postings, like rabbit droppings along the way. His thumbs-up “like” of a site called “Embracing the Gap (Can Jews and Gentiles Really Be Friends?)” is what leads me to him.
    “Did you finish your paper on Jews gone criminal?” I ask when I finally make contact by phone.
    “I quit,” he says.
    “What do you mean, you quit?”
    “I’m done,” he says. “Dropped out of school.”
    “But you’re from a family of rabbis, you’re not allowed to quit.”
    “Can you imagine how hard it was?”
    “What happened?”
    “I got so depressed at how disingenuous people are, how fake leaders are, how full of shit everything is. I had a big spiritual and familial crisis and had to ask myself—do I want to be a rabbi?”
    In the background there’s a weird snuffling kind of honking sound. “What is that noise?”
    “Pigs,” he says. “I’m working upstate on an organic farm, and one of my jobs is to tend to the pigs. Isn’t that ironic?”
    “I guess.”
    “They’re very intelligent animals,” he says.
    I ask for advice on bar-mitzvah essentials, what makes a bar mitzvah legal—are there rules, specific prayers you have to do or say to be sure you’re officially a bar mitzvah?
    “What they don’t tell you is that nothing is required,” Ryan says. “When you turn thirteen, you are a man—the ceremony is a public gesture. At thirteen you are obligated to observe the Torah’s commandments, to be counted as part of a minyan, and you are liable for your misdoings, you can be punished. Usually the bar-mitzvah boy reads from that week’s portion of the Torah, or he could deliver a paper on a particular topic.”
    I ask Ryan if he’d consider joining the trip as our official spiritual leader. He loves the idea of bringing Jewish traditions to a remote village, loves what Nate has done, but … “I can’t,” he says. “I can’t. I want to but I can’t. The pigs need me, or maybe I need the pigs.”

    I ’m at the office in Manhattan, making small talk with Wanda while waiting for the vault man to pull out the boxes.
    “Just a heads-up that I’m going to be taking some time off this summer,” I say. “I am taking my family to South Africa.”
    “Have a good time,” she says.
    “I’ll be reachable on my cell in an emergency.”
    Wanda nods. “What kind of an emergency? Like a misplaced comma?”
    “I’m just saying. It’ll give Ching time to catch up on the transcriptions and copyediting.”
    “Okay,” Wanda says.
    “Any travel tips? Pointers about great places to go, fabulous restaurants?”
    “Not a clue,” she says.
    “But aren’t you the granddaughter of—?”
    “The Nixons’ old cleaning lady in Washington?” she says, cutting me off. “Marcel tells everyone that my mother worked for Mrs. Nixon.”
    “That’s weird,” I say and go no further. “What’s Marcel’s story?”
    “Well, he’s either the illegitimate son of Nelson Mandela who was sent to Harvard to get a divinity degree and flunked out, or he’s a kid from New York City who does stand-up comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade.”
    “I wonder where the truth lies,” I say, knowing I’ve been had.
    “It’s an open question,” she says.

    A s the days go by, everything becomes more urgent. I’m juggling passports, plane tickets, health forms for camp, iron-on name tags.
    Cheryl and I are in the drugstore at the mall, shopping for supplies. “I thought it went well with Ed,” she says.
    “As well as could be expected,” I say.
    “What does that mean?”
    “I can’t picture the two of you together. What do you talk about?”
    “We don’t talk. That’s why I’m here buying hand sanitizer with you,” Cheryl says, annoyed.
    “Are you mad about something in particular?”
    “Sofia has a crush on you,” she says.
    “All she talks about is you and the bar mitzvah and how wouldn’t it be so fun if she got to go with you and that she can’t believe she’s going to miss it.”
    “I’m not interested in her,” I say. “Maybe she just wants whatever you’re having. Women are like that: when they go to lunch they like to both order the same