Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer(37)

As she stared at the shell of her kitchen, the saddest thing was her knowledge of what was beneath, what a tiny scratch, in a vulnerable place, would reveal.

“Mom?”

They turned to see Benjy standing in the doorway, leaning against the growth chart, his hands searching for pajama pockets that didn’t exist. For how long had he been there?

“Mom and I were just—”

“You mean epitome.”

“What, love?”

“You said enemy, but you meant epitome.”

“You can have your kiss now,” Julia told Jacob as she wiped away her tears, replacing them with soap suds.

Jacob got down on his knees, took Benjy’s hands into his.

“Bad dream, buddy?”

“I’m OK with dying,” Benjy said.

“What?”

“I’m OK with dying.”

“You are?”

“As long as everyone else dies with me, I’m actually OK with dying. I’m just afraid of everyone else not dying.”

“You had a bad dream?”

“No. You were fighting.”

“We weren’t fighting. We—”

“And I heard glass break.”

“We were fighting,” Julia said. “Humans have feelings, sometimes very difficult ones. But it’s OK. Now go on back to bed.”

Jacob carried him, Benjy’s cheek resting on his shoulder. How light he still was. How heavy he was getting. No father knows that he is carrying his son up the stairs for the final time.

Jacob tucked Benjy back under the covers and stroked his hair.

“Dad?”

“Yes?”

“I agree with you that heaven probably doesn’t exist.”

“I didn’t say that. I said there’s no way to know for sure, and so it’s probably not a great idea to organize our lives around it.”

“Yeah, that’s what I agree with.”

He could forgive himself for withholding his own comfort, but why did he withhold everyone else’s as well? Why couldn’t he just let his kindergartener feel happy and safe in a just and beautiful and unreal world?

“So what do you think we should organize our lives around?” Benjy asked.

“Our families?”

“I think so, too.”

“Good night, buddy.”

Jacob went to the door, but didn’t walk away.

After a few long moments in that silence, Benjy called out: “Dad? I need you!”

“I’m here.”

“Squirrels evolved to have bushy tails. Why?”

“Maybe for balance? Or to keep them warm? Time for sleep.”

“We’ll google it in the morning.”

“OK. But now sleep.”

“Dad?”

“Right here.”

“If the world goes on for long enough, will there be fossils of fossils?”

“Oh, Benjy. That’s a great question. We can talk about it in the morning.”

“Yeah. I need my sleep.”

“Right.”

“Dad?”

Now Jacob was losing his patience: “Benjy.”

“Dad?”

“I’m here.”

He stood in the doorway until he heard his youngest son’s heavy breathing. Jacob was a man who withheld comfort but stood at thresholds long after others would have walked away. He always stood at the open front door until the car pool drove off. Just as he stood at the window until the back wheel of Sam’s bike disappeared around the corner. Just as he watched himself disappear.





HERE I AMN’T


> It is with a sense of history and extreme annoyance that I stand at this bimah today, prepared to fulfill the so-called rite of passage into adulthood, whatever that is. I want to thank Cantor Fleischman, for helping transform me, over the past half year, into a Jewish automaton. On the extreme off chance that I remember any of this a year from now, I still won’t know what it means, and for that I am grateful. I also want to thank Rabbi Singer, who is a sulfuric acid enema. My only living great-grandparent is Isaac Bloch. My dad said that I had to go through with this for him, something my great-grandfather has never, himself, asked of me. There are things he has asked, like not to be forced to move into the Jewish Home. My family cares very much about caring for him, but not enough to actually care, and I didn’t understand a word of my chanting today, but I understand that. I want to thank my grandparents Irv and Deborah Bloch, for being inspirations in my life and always urging me to try a little bit harder, dig a little bit deeper, become rich, and say whatever I want whenever I feel like it. Also my grandparents Allen and Leah Selman, who live in Florida, and whose mortal status I am only aware of thanks to the Hanukkah and birthday checks that haven’t been adjusted for cost-of-living increases since my birth. I want to thank my brothers, Benjy and Max, for requiring great portions of my parents’ attention. I cannot imagine surviving an existence in which I bore the undivided brunt of their love. Also, when I threw up on Benjy on a plane, he said, “I know how bad it feels to throw up.” And Max once offered to get a blood test so I wouldn’t have to. Which brings me to my parents, Jacob and Julia Bloch. The truth is, I didn’t want to have a bat mitzvah. No part of me, not even a little. There aren’t enough savings bonds in the world. We had conversations about it, as if my opinions were of consequence. It was all a charade, a charade to set in motion this charade, itself only a stepping-stone in the charade of my Jewish identity. Which is to say, in the most literal sense, without them this wouldn’t have been possible. I don’t blame them for being who they are. But I do blame them for blaming me for being who I am. That’s enough thanking. So, my Torah portion is Vayeira. It is one of the most well-known and studied portions in the Torah, and I’ve been told it is a great honor to read it. Given my total lack of interest in the Torah, it would have been better to give this to a kid who actually gives a Jewish shit, should such a kid exist, and to give me one of the throwaway portions about rules governing menstruating lepers. Joke’s on everyone, I guess. One more thing: portions of the interpretation that follows were blatantly ripped off. Good thing Jews only believe in collective punishment. OK . . God’s test of Abraham is written like this: “Sometime later, God tested Abraham. He said to him, ‘Abraham!’ ‘Here I am,’ Abraham replied.” Most people assume that the test is what follows: God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac. But I think it could also be read that the test was when He called to him. Abraham didn’t say, “What do you want?” He didn’t say, “Yes?” He answered with a statement: “Here I am.” Whatever God needs or wants, Abraham is wholly present for Him, without conditions or reservations or need for explanation. That word, hineni—here I am—comes up two other times in the portion. When Abraham is taking Isaac up Mount Moriah, Isaac becomes aware of what they are doing, and how f*cked up it is. He knows that he is about to be the sacrifice, in the way that all kids always do when it’s about to happen. It says: “And Isaac said to Abraham, his father, ‘My father!’ and he said, ‘Here I am, my son.’ And Isaac said, ‘Here is the fire and the wood but where is the sheep for the offering?’ And Abraham said, ‘God will see to the sheep for the offering, my son.’?” Isaac doesn’t say, “Father,” he says, “My father.” Abraham is the father of the Jewish people, but he is also Isaac’s father, his personal father. And Abraham doesn’t ask, “What do you want?” He says, “Here I am.” When God asks for Abraham, Abraham is wholly present for God. When Isaac asks for Abraham, Abraham is wholly present for his son. But how can that be possible? God is asking Abraham to kill Isaac, and Isaac is asking his father to protect him. How can Abraham be two directly opposing things at once? Hineni is used one more time in the story, at the most dramatic moment. “And they came to the place that God had said to him, and Abraham built there an altar and laid out the wood and bound Isaac, his son, and placed him on the altar on top of the wood. And Abraham reached out his hand and took the cleaver to his son. And the Lord’s messenger called out to him from the heavens, and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ and he said, ‘Here I am.’ And he said, ‘Do not reach out your hand against the boy, and do nothing to him, for now I know that you fear God and you have not held back your son, your only one, from me.’?” Abraham does not ask, “What do you want?” He says, “Here I am.” My bat mitzvah portion is about many things, but I think it is primarily about who we are wholly there for, and how that, more than anything else, defines our identity. My great-grandfather, who I mentioned before, has asked for help. He doesn’t want to go to the Jewish Home. But nobody in the family has responded by saying, “Here I am.” Instead, they have tried to convince him that he doesn’t know what is best, and doesn’t even know what he wants. Really, they haven’t even tried to convince him; they’ve just told him what he’s going to do. I was accused of having used some bad language in Hebrew school this morning. I’m not even sure used is the right word—making a list is hardly making use of anything. Anyway, when my parents showed up to speak with Rabbi Singer, they didn’t tell me, “Here we are.” They asked, “What did you do?” I wish I had been given the benefit of the doubt, because I deserve it. Everyone who knows me knows that I make a shitload of mistakes, but also that I am a good person. But it’s not because I’m a good person that I deserve the benefit of the doubt, it’s because I’m their child. Even if they didn’t believe me, they should have acted as if they did. My dad once told me that before I was born, when the only proof of my life was sonograms, he had to believe in me. In other words, being born allows your parents to stop believing in you. OK, thanks for coming, everybody out.