The Jewish men of Morocco, in a sense

Me and my friend, Sarah, who is half-Iranian, half-Louisianan, and socially Ba’hai, had been talking about going to synagogue in Rabat since we got here.

On Sarah, briefly, superficially: her father, who she says looks like George Clooney when he (her dad) doesn’t shave, fled Iran because he was Ba’hai at the onset of the Revolution, she says, and the Ba'hai save the Jews from persecution In Iran (she says), and now Sarah is a Republican from West Virginia who goes to Barnard, who is dating the sort of Jewish man (from Columbia) who since he has been dating her has told her on an almost daily basis that they cannot ever really be together, that is, unless she converts. Her boyfriend is not Jewish Jewish or anything, he’s “culturally Jewish”—that blasted phrase, that market niche, that UES cop-out, that Broadway identity, that unfelt shame, man!—safie?—and he wants Jewish spawn. And she, a smart, confident albeit politically aloof woman, really is “into Jews”—she’s even been reading books about the religion, and might really convert, “crazy, isn’t it?”, and so there you have it.

On Friday night, we set out for the synagogue. We knew generally where it was. I think that a lot of people lacking imagination, or, like, inner direction, come to Morocco for its history of Jews, but then, I guess that doesn’t mean that people with imagination can’t also come here for them (the Jews), and so which we were that night was on us. For some reason, the guy from the Center that sets everything up for us told us that the people at the synagogue that he spoke to told him that we should be there at 3:45, which is of course much earlier than any sundown on this planet. But so we set out for synagogue at around 3, it being a 15-minute walk but we knowing better, and we made it there an hour later. It was hard to find, not only because Moroccans give directions by sending you a block that way and telling you to ask again, meshee muskee, but also because the Jews here—well, if anybody lives a forgotten existence, at least far as I’ve experienced, it’s them.

It was the building we thought it might have been when we first passed it, the white concrete box with a large white concrete box sat on top of it, which second bigger box jutted out over the entrance steps and the sidewalk. No marking, no Jewish star, no Hebrew, no nothing, just two huge empty-looking boxes. Very French Modern looking, Z. We approached skeptically jay-walking and we didn’t see the small shriveled woman sitting at the bottom of the steps in the corner until we were nearly right in front of her, at which point we realized she was staring at us. This woman had no bottom teeth, a plastic bag that seemed to be full of trash, swollen ankles, and very little golden hair. She also had beautiful light blue eyes. Sarah spoke to her in French. She was suspicious of us at first, until she asked us whether we were Israeli, to which we answered Yes, and then whether we were married, to which we answered: No/Yes—then, honestly, No. She loosened up, a bit. She asked us what kind of Israelis we were for thinking there were Shabbat services at 3:45, but, having taken to Sarah, half-kidding, and by then we realized that this little woman wasn’t a beggar or homeless but a part of the synagogue—in fact, they had given her a room after her house had fallen (?) and she, she told us, happened to have the key we wanted. Jewish life here was/is “tranquile”. And then suddenly, we were allowed to go in, too: she yelled, and it seemed like she was just yelling, but then in several minutes the door was opened from the inside by a contagious looking young Arab man in Nike Basketball shorts and flip-flops, who, smiling, dutifully led us upstairs.

And here was this room, this veritable temple, on the second floor of the building—the wing of the upper bigger box jutting out over the people. It was so clearly unchanged. The beautiful brown leather chairs were perfectly set-up at the slightest angle, polished, pristine—and so if this room was unchanged, it was because it was in use. There were, of course, actual stacks of dusty books on various short tables throughout the room, but these made sense, because Judaism as I have always imagined it considers the book most-used most sacred. And Hebrew! The very sight of Hebrew lettering made me nostalgic for something I never had—not just for a knowledge of the language, but for the narrow entry into the incomprehensibly deep realm of Old Testament teaching. Hebrew was not like Arabic: the letters were separated, square, dark, big, unavoidable. And here, it was language used only in a room on the second floor; it was like a find. The wide windows looked out onto the street—just open at the same angle as the chairs—and you could hear Arabic being spoken, but it was as if it were your subconscious speaking. The bema in the middle of the room made me want to do nothing but revere it; less raised than your Catholic stage, higher than your Protestant floor, more juristic than your Islamic niche, more squat, stern and earthly than the Gita’s illusory throne, and, above all, not a theater—was it actually home to me, or did I want it to be—and if I wanted it to be, was that legitimate to make it so? Anyway, this, more than anywhere I have ever been in, was a place of worship, as they say. It was filled with quiet; primed.

We came back at 6:30 for Shabbat. We came a different, quicker way than the way we came our first time, when we met Esther, and this time we passed the deaf school, where several groups of Moroccan teenagers were speaking Arabic sign language and laughing the choked rubber laughter of the mute. One door was open; no one was going in and or out…and of course, Jesus, of course. They are Orthodox. What the hell else would they be? Would there be a minority of reform Jews living in Morocco? What would keep them going? But here we didn’t know better, I think Sarah somehow imagined the same thing I did, which were the shiny services I grew up with at Shaaray. The word “delusion”. And so when we stood at the threshold of the door we had easily walked through not three hours ago we were, for a moment, stood still by the gazes of 16 men—then from our blind spot a thin man, the only one who would smile at me, appeared, took me by the arm and her by the arm and led me to a chair, put a keepah on my head, while somehow at the same time leading Sarah in the exact opposite direction, where she would be hidden for the next hour behind a partition made of white lace sheets hanging from the ceiling. It was so immediate that I didn’t have time to feel guilty that the dream of her first service, the beginning of her conversion, was robbed from her, though throughout the service I intermittently thought about her and whatever women were back there (or could have been: she was actually the only one) with her, and when I thought of them it felt like they were nothing less than spirits existing in this space between the walls and the partition, even circling the room’s perimeter, watching us men through the cracks in the lace—even, though Sarah later said, she could only really hear us.

I was given a prayer book, and directed to a page, and I tried to follow (remembering almost all my Hebrew; the younger you learn the longer it sticks with you, it’s true), but soon I couldn’t (follow) anymore. So I closed it and listened to the men. It was nothing but reading. The men read in succession, their turns dictated by—what? An invisible finger. And these men were old; there were younger old men, who had the sad anxiety of good small businessmen; older old men, who stared straight ahead and blinked like statues who had been given life they hadn’t asked for; and one solitary man at the head of the room, the only one without a book, who wore a pageboy cap and actual breeches, had a red pointed Continental face, and was looking directly at me every time I turned to look at him with the impunity granted to the crazy and the old, who every time I turned to look at him seemed to be making different exaggerated expressions at me—blankness, above all, an expression primed for exaggeration—until towards the end I was sure he was trying to speak to me, which he wasn’t. Above all, these men could be nothing but Jewish, different but, above all, so distinctly Jewish—a higher collection of the near dead.

In the beginning, I found I was able to close my eyes in that way that you can keep them closed, resisting the temptation to peek, that I always try in the hammam. Some of the men turned to look at me; others looked over their shoulders indicating that they’d look at if me if they cared enough; but I was emboldened, building on my preview of three hours ago—I felt big. All of my flesh felt alive. I was aware. Hebrew sounded, like it looked, hard; it was rock, black, single fat stones, serious; Arabic took yellow night flights, and played. The singing of the men—and after they had read in succession they only sang—was inexorable; it was so strong. I was being sustained on the threshold of sleep, and I never felt more awake.

When the call to prayer came (Remember, the Muslims)—when you heard the screaming muezzin, the men collectively got louder, and louder, in response, overtly competing with the cry for Allah. Man, what an envious drama. But a dialectic? The Jewish men won, at least—if winning is lasting.

Sometimes, just one man sang; there was one man sitting off behind the bema, who I could not see, who sang—on the verge. The religion of the land, right?; his voice was geographical; it mapped past lands, moving across space and time like water, it was nothing less than water in a groove being carved out of the surface of memory just ahead of the man’s voice as it (his voice) rushed forward. Am I explaining it? I was thinking this. My eyes closed, I began to fake nodding; and then I meant it (nodding); my eyes closed and I imagined these men wanted me there.

I was thinking all of this—it’s written down. Why the hell is it written down? Because—boy, did I do it anyway. Even—well, especially—as I was doing it, I knew I shouldn’t be. But my mind by then (he tells himself) had straight up snuck out of my head and was hovering over my body (sort of the way it felt like Sarah was hovering over us). And I watched as my body performed the terrible decision that my mind had convinced itself, from its delusional perch of objectivity, was entirely unrelated to its existence. Was it a defense against what I was feeling; a sally against the platoon of unloving old school Jews? I mean, man, I really don’t think I’ve known the word “shame” like this since I was really young (and I can’t remember any instances, I just know you know “shame” when you’re a kid), and it’s really lodged in me, at least it still is today right now...What I did was talk out my SIT weekly schedule and a pen, which felt like a miraculous find at the bottom of my sack, and furiously write most of the above in chicken scratch fragments in the margins of my useless schedule. And the more I wrote, the more I knew it was wrong, the more I needed to do it...inexorably?

Soon, the man sitting in front of me who hadn’t looked at me at all but knew what I was doing, got out of his seat and walked past me and then on some sort of second thought retracted, and asked me off the bat which language he wanted me to speak in. English, I said, or Spanish; and in Spanish he told me that I couldn’t/shouldn’t write; not today of all days, maybe another day, but today, you know what day it is?—you must have respect for what we do here. I tried to respond but I’m sure I just spat on him and then he sat back down—and I was so filled with anger, I was gutted, an adolescent in a man’s body, reduced to the body I had taken for granted, which was just flesh. What was worth saying? All this I had been scribbling—was any of it worth what I felt now? This was the word, and in the face of this shame, which was as my hijacked heart was concerned was the face of God, I couldn’t justify anything I wanted to say or even think.

And from thereon I heard lots of silence. The same silence that had primed the room when Sarah and me had had it our own was recreated by the men when they decided, abruptly, to stop signing. I stood up when they stood up and I stood on my feet. I tried to make the circles of benediction that they made, but they each made their own circles and I, trying to make all of them, made none. Having reduced me, they were more liberal with their stares: most looked at me with a concerned anger, like I was polluting their space. Weirdly, their hatred and suspicion filled me now; my existence, however temporarily, gained from their appreciations of my worthlessness.

It ended, and most of the men did not wish me Shabbat Shalom. The man who had told me to quit writing came up to me, and asked me who I was. I explained as best as I could, though what a silly exercise after that—was I Jewish? Yes! Look at my necklace. But you, don’t you know how to pray? This was almost the same question that the jumping dozen schoolkids at the NGO we visited the other day had asked me—you’re not Muslim, but you pray?

The man loosened a bit; even grabbed my forearm; and Sarah rejoined us, and they liked her, she said. The man bluntly explained that “the men” were suspicious of those that invited themselves in—their community…and it’s true, here they are. I think the men filed past him so quickly because the recrossing of that threshold was like the removal of a knife—better done quickly. And he, the man who had stopped me from writing, formally apologized. And I apologized in the informal, accidentally.

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