After my session with Rabbi Heschel is over, we walk outside and sit on the concrete steps that lead to the back door of Temple Emanuel. The parking lot is empty except for Rabbi Heschel’s car, a red Volkswagen Beetle she calls Habbie, after the prophet Habakkuk, because, she says, the car, like the prophet, has been crying for years without anyone paying attention. “I wish I had a cigarette,” she says, sitting down on the back steps.
“Smoking is bad.”
“I know it. But sometimes I get so nervous I wish I had one.”
The side of the building shades the steps. That’s good because it is a hot afternoon. Rabbi Heschel is wearing bright orange pants and a phosphorescent lime-green blouse. When it is cold outside she wears a hat that reminds me of the cat in Dr. Seuss’s books. Her black, fluffy hair has patches of white that resemble snowflakes.
“Do you know,” she says without looking at me, “why Aurora brought you here—how long ago was it? Seven years ago? Gosh, you were only ten at the time.”
“She didn’t want Marcelo to misread the holy books.”
She sighs. “Remember that little boy Joseph that loved you so much? When he died, she said she brought you because she was worried about you. But I think she was worried about me. His death, for some reason, hit me so hard, and you seemed so at peace with it.”
“Aurora brought Marcelo to Rabbi Heschel because you are a holy man. A holy man that is a woman.”
“Ha! This holy man that is a woman, as you say, is not sure she can teach you much more.”
“Marcelo has a question.”
“Oh no. Not about Buddhism. If you ask me what the Buddha means by ‘emptiness,’ I’ll go inside my office and start pulling out my hair.”
“That is supposed to be a joke. I can tell. Emptiness is easy to understand. I have a question from Genesis, Rabbi Heschel’s favorite holy book.”
“I think I’m being set up. Okay, let’s have it.” She takes a deep breath. I can tell that she enjoys my questions, especially the hard ones.
I take the yellow notebook from my shirt pocket and read: “Why did Adam and Eve feel shame that they were naked after they ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?”
“Oh, that. I thought you said it was a difficult question.”
“The rabbi knows the answer?” I thought it was a hard question. At least I wasn’t able to answer it myself, even after reading and rereading the passage and even after thinking about it for many hours.
“I’m just kidding,” she says. “They don’t get much harder than that. Tell me what the Bible says first.”
“Adam and Eve were naked before they ate the fruit of the tree of good and evil but they were not ashamed. Then after they ate the fruit, they realized that they were naked. They did not even know they were naked before. Adam was afraid to be seen by God. It is implied that he was ashamed. What was it about nakedness that made it evil? Why were they ashamed?”
“Mmm. Do you think nakedness is evil?” It is always annoying, the way she answers my questions with questions of her own.
“God does not see nakedness as evil because when He made man, He made him naked, and after He made man, He said that what He made was very good. Woman came from man’s rib, so she’s very good too.”
“Excellent,” she says. “Although I always have problems with that rib thing.” Then she is quiet for a few moments before she says, “Before we delve into the interpretation, can I ask you a question?”
“Yes.”
“Why do you ask me this now? Did something happen at the law firm to prompt this question?”
“No. Maybe. Yes. I have been thinking about the nature of attraction and about physical beauty. Wendell, someone Marcelo works with, has been talking about attraction that for him is sexual. But…”
“Tell me.”
“There is something about the way he feels toward women that seems wrong, but I don’t know why.”
“I see.”
“It is hard for Marcelo to look at women the way Wendell does. When I tried to see a woman the way he does, there was something that made me think of Adam and Eve when they saw each other naked and felt ashamed. Why? If sex is good, why is there shame?”
I see her run her fingers through her hair. Then she grabs one of the patches of white and begins to twist it with her fingers. Finally, she speaks: “Remember a little later in Genesis when Cain killed Abel?”
“Yes. But why was Cain jealous? I cannot imagine what ‘jealous’ feels like.”
“Hold on, hold on. Let’s try to scratch one itch at a time, otherwise we’ll end up without any skin! Do you remember what Cain used to kill Abel?”
“It does not say.”
“Okay, let’s say he used a rock.”
“We don’t know for a fact that he did.”
“We don’t know for a fact that Cain existed at all, so humor me on this one. He used a rock.”
“He used a rock. Maybe.”
“Good. Okay, now when Cain looked at that rock lying there on the ground, he didn’t just see a rock, he imagined the rock as a weapon that he could use to kill Abel. You follow me so far?”
“Yes.” I try to imagine a rock as a weapon.
“Cain also had the knowledge of good and evil, which means that he could imagine how good things could be put to bad use. You see where I’m going? With Adam and Eve’s nakedness, I mean?”
“No. Marcelo does not see where the rabbi is going at all.”
“Actually, I’m not sure I know where I’m going. But let’s see. After Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the tree of good and evil, they became aware that their nakedness, which was good, could also be used in an evil way. Before, as you said, everything that God created was good, and man was more than good, he was very good. So it follows that the body, naked or not, is good also. But now man and woman were aware that the good body, theirs or somebody else’s, could also be used for evil, if they were so inclined. After the fruit, Adam and Eve recognized that they had in themselves an inclination for evil alongside their inclination for good.”
I close my eyes. There is a picture of Adam and Eve that I remember from the Bible that Abba kept in her room. They were naked except for fig leaves and they were looking away from each other.
“I cannot imagine how a naked body can be used for an evil purpose. Evil is a destructive act, like the murder of Abel by Cain. But I cannot see what Adam saw when he looked at Eve’s naked body and imagined doing something that was evil. What was it that Adam imagined doing?”
Rabbi Heschel asks me slowly, “Have they talked to you about sex at Paterson?”
“Sexual intercourse is how humans procreate. The erect penis of the man goes into the vagina of the woman. I am not a child.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be condescending. Of course you are not a child. You’re a young man.”
“It is just that part of me would like to feel what Wendell feels and part of me thinks there is something not right with that, but I don’t know what. It is frustrating not to understand. How can sexual intercourse be wrong?”
“People call sexual intercourse, ‘making love.’ Have you heard that term?”
“Yes. Some terms for sexual intercourse are acceptable and some are not. ‘Making love’ is acceptable. ‘Fuck’ is not.”
“Excellent. Sexual intercourse is pleasurable and it is good. God gave it to us so that two persons could come together and make love, that is create love in the world, through the children that come from the act as well as from the closeness that people feel in the act itself.”
I wonder silently what that closeness is like. Is it something that I will ever experience?
She continues, “What the author of Genesis wants to tell us, I think, is that man, when united with God, is not divided. In this unity, there is no good and evil. All of our inclinations, even the sexual ones, are good when we are in Eden—that is, when we walk with God and all our actions, words, and thoughts seek to follow His will. But man can choose to be separate from God, and in this separateness he creates evil by imagining ways to use what is good in ways that hurt him or others, and then acting upon what he imagines.”
“Marcelo can’t imagine how sex can be used for evil.”
“Oh, my. That’s because you are special. You walk with God in Eden. May the Holy One, blessed be He, be always with you.”
“Give Marcelo an example.”
Rabbi Heschel folds her hands and closes her eyes as if she were praying.
“Father, not my will but Your will,” she whispers, looking up to heaven. Then she turns to face me and says, “The ways we use sex to hurt each other are innumerable and unspeakable. Anytime we treat a person as a thing for our own pleasure. When we look at another person as an object and not as a person like us. When sex consists solely of taking and not giving. When a person uses physical or psychological force to have sex against another person’s will. When a person deceives another in order to have sex with them. When a person uses sex to physically or emotionally hurt another. Any time an adult has sex with a child. Those are some of the ways sex becomes evil. I can’t describe it any more. It’s not for me to give you images of evil. It saddens me to know that you will find out soon enough the different ways that we have devised to hurt each other.”
She stops and rubs her eyes the way a person with a headache rubs her eyes. I want to tell her not to worry about me, but I remain silent, unable to find any words to comfort her.