Post by Elixir on Feb 13, 2008 23:09:48 GMT -5
Sara never made it to the kitchen after practice. Instead as she followed Leah's map from the dorm she got distracted by her thoughts. At practice she had felt completely useless and frankly terrified. The other students had these amazing powers. Heather could manipulate water and Riff Raf had run at least 100 miles per hour, going so quickly he was just a blur. Whatever had attacked the school had to have even greater powers. And it would come back. She didn't know what it was but it certainly would come back. Bad things and bad people always did. It was as Reb Kaplan always reminded the students in seminary, beware of the goyische velt, one day it is friendly and welcoming the next day it swallows yidden up completely. Well, her people had rejected her because she was some sort of monster, a mutant. And now she was with the monsters and they were her people. The hatred of mutants was a lot like the hatred of Jews and the two would both go to the same place, death and destruction. It made her really sad and angry. So she decided to go take a walk to cool off. Perhaps she would find a nice tree under which to daven (pray). It was late morning and although a little past the halachic time to say sh'ma (a particular prayer) she still could daven the rest of shacharis (the morning prayer service).
With this thought in mind Sara left the mansion setting out across the basketball court, past the swimming pool and into the woods along one of the paths. She intentionally picked the least well kept one for solitude. She walked along the path for maybe fifteen or twenty minutes, before going off the past and into the woods, reaching a little clearing with a small spring. The spring was beautiful and bubbled softly, the perfect calming sound. But Sara was in no need to be calmed.
She pulled out her siddur (prayer book) and slowly began shacharis. In a clear, steady, but somewhat melancholy voice she chanted "Ma tovu elekha Yaakov mishkonetekha Yisrael" (How goodly are your tents, O Jacob, Your dwelling places O Israel"). As she was praying without a minyan she was able to chant it all herself instead of staying quiet (women are supposed to stay quiet when praying with a minyan as the law of kol isha, the female voice, prohibits men from hearing women sing/chant; in Orthodoxy women also must be separated from men during prayer by a barrier/wall called a mekhitza) and finished in about half an hour. By the time she finished the service she was very sad and angry. Sad at losing her people. Angry at what had happend at the school and at the world and the loss of everything she loved.
So Sara decided to sit by the spring for a bit and see if she could calm down. To pass the time she went through some of the Talmudic stories she learned in seminary (in Chabad-Lubavitch, unlike in most other Hasidic sects, women are not only allowed to learn Talmud but are required to do so...most sects ban women from Talmud study). As she was sitting near a spring the story of Rava (Rabbi Abba ben Rav Hamma) and the golem came to mind as a golem is made with fresh spring water and earth taken from a place where no man had dug before.
According to the Talmud Rava to display his mastery of the Torah and to make the point that Hashem (literally the Name, for G-d) had given mankind total dominion over the earth as long as he submitted to the Torah's yoke created a man of mud, pouring fresh spring water on him, and writing "emet" (truth) on his head before placing in his mouth a scroll with the 42 names of G-d. Then he commanded the man he had made, the golem, to live reciting "emet" and "adam" (man) so it came to life and then Rava said: "If the righteous wished they could create a world, for it is written: 'Your inequities are a barrier between you and your G-d.'" This of course meaning that the man without inequity could like G-d create life. The Talmud then continues, "For Rava created a man and sent him to Rabbi Zeira. The rabbi spoke to him [the man] but he did not answer. Then he [Rabbi Zeira] said 'You are from the pietists return to your dust.'" (Sanhedrin 65b).
The reason the golem had not answered Rabbi Zeira was that being a man of dust he could only blindly obey Rava. He could not speak on his own, could not think much on his own either. Indeed, the great danger with creating a golem was that it would take a literal instruction too far and wreak havoc. Still Sara wished that she had one now. A golem may be stupid but it is big and strong and practically indestructible. The only way to destroy a golem is to wipe the word "emet" from its forehead or remove the scroll from its mouth. But of course it was a silly wish. She could not make a golem for she had plenty of sin. No rabbi since Rabbi Loew in the 16th century had been pious enough to make a golem.
Still, she wished for one, a big strong one. Like any proper golem it would obey only her and protect her from everything. She started to imagine what it would look like. It would have to be ferocious, something that would scare even Guardian...not that she wanted to scare Guardian. He seemed really nice and he obviously liked and was good to Leah. But still, she needed something really fierce. She thought for a second and started to sketch in the mud. She sketched a figure that had a lion's face, a bear's body, giant bat-like wings, and a tail with spikes on it like a steggasourus. It looked scary.
Then a devilish thought came to her. She didn't need to have the piety of the rabbis. She had her tears. For the next 9 hours she worked feverishly, digging clay, molding it, shaping it, and reshaping it, until she had the ferocious beast she had sculpted standing in front of her. It was 6 feet tall...she simply couldn't reach any higher, had a giant lion's head with a full mane, a large black bear's body, huge bat wings, and a long lion's tail, having lost the steggasourus idea along the way.
When it was done she tried to cry on it. Nothing happened. She tried again. Still nothing. She thought about her grandmother, about the parents who had abandoned her, about her sister who stopped loving her, about the hurt she had seen in the eyes of the children when she first got here, and even about the horrible stories of the Holocaust her grandfather, a survivor, had told her, and she bawled, but her tears did nothing but make the statue before her soggy.
Then, when she least expected it, it happened. She got so furious with her self for being a worthless failure who couldn't protect herself, her friends, or anything, who was a freak in the outside world and now here was a freak for not being able to do anything, that she became despondent. And in her fury and depression she sobbed then leaned forward against her statue and cried right on its chest. She cried for maybe 5 or 10 minutes oblivious to the world when she started to feel the clay pulse and then the coarseness of fur against her face and two big thick arms enveloping her. Her golem was alive!
The golem held her tightly for a few minutes as they stood there in the darkness of the forest. By now 10 hours had passed since she had set out into the woods alone. As classes had not started at school people may not have noticed she was missing or they might have. She had to get back to the dorms. She looked up at her golem and said to him, "Follow me back through the woods to the house. Your job is to protect me and the people there." The golem nodded at the command. She decided to call him Amos after the minor prophet. "Do you like the name Amos, " she asked," before remembering that a golem cannot talk. The golem didn't say anything. It just put a large bear paw on her shoulder lightly and followed her through the woods back towards the mansion.
With this thought in mind Sara left the mansion setting out across the basketball court, past the swimming pool and into the woods along one of the paths. She intentionally picked the least well kept one for solitude. She walked along the path for maybe fifteen or twenty minutes, before going off the past and into the woods, reaching a little clearing with a small spring. The spring was beautiful and bubbled softly, the perfect calming sound. But Sara was in no need to be calmed.
She pulled out her siddur (prayer book) and slowly began shacharis. In a clear, steady, but somewhat melancholy voice she chanted "Ma tovu elekha Yaakov mishkonetekha Yisrael" (How goodly are your tents, O Jacob, Your dwelling places O Israel"). As she was praying without a minyan she was able to chant it all herself instead of staying quiet (women are supposed to stay quiet when praying with a minyan as the law of kol isha, the female voice, prohibits men from hearing women sing/chant; in Orthodoxy women also must be separated from men during prayer by a barrier/wall called a mekhitza) and finished in about half an hour. By the time she finished the service she was very sad and angry. Sad at losing her people. Angry at what had happend at the school and at the world and the loss of everything she loved.
So Sara decided to sit by the spring for a bit and see if she could calm down. To pass the time she went through some of the Talmudic stories she learned in seminary (in Chabad-Lubavitch, unlike in most other Hasidic sects, women are not only allowed to learn Talmud but are required to do so...most sects ban women from Talmud study). As she was sitting near a spring the story of Rava (Rabbi Abba ben Rav Hamma) and the golem came to mind as a golem is made with fresh spring water and earth taken from a place where no man had dug before.
According to the Talmud Rava to display his mastery of the Torah and to make the point that Hashem (literally the Name, for G-d) had given mankind total dominion over the earth as long as he submitted to the Torah's yoke created a man of mud, pouring fresh spring water on him, and writing "emet" (truth) on his head before placing in his mouth a scroll with the 42 names of G-d. Then he commanded the man he had made, the golem, to live reciting "emet" and "adam" (man) so it came to life and then Rava said: "If the righteous wished they could create a world, for it is written: 'Your inequities are a barrier between you and your G-d.'" This of course meaning that the man without inequity could like G-d create life. The Talmud then continues, "For Rava created a man and sent him to Rabbi Zeira. The rabbi spoke to him [the man] but he did not answer. Then he [Rabbi Zeira] said 'You are from the pietists return to your dust.'" (Sanhedrin 65b).
The reason the golem had not answered Rabbi Zeira was that being a man of dust he could only blindly obey Rava. He could not speak on his own, could not think much on his own either. Indeed, the great danger with creating a golem was that it would take a literal instruction too far and wreak havoc. Still Sara wished that she had one now. A golem may be stupid but it is big and strong and practically indestructible. The only way to destroy a golem is to wipe the word "emet" from its forehead or remove the scroll from its mouth. But of course it was a silly wish. She could not make a golem for she had plenty of sin. No rabbi since Rabbi Loew in the 16th century had been pious enough to make a golem.
Still, she wished for one, a big strong one. Like any proper golem it would obey only her and protect her from everything. She started to imagine what it would look like. It would have to be ferocious, something that would scare even Guardian...not that she wanted to scare Guardian. He seemed really nice and he obviously liked and was good to Leah. But still, she needed something really fierce. She thought for a second and started to sketch in the mud. She sketched a figure that had a lion's face, a bear's body, giant bat-like wings, and a tail with spikes on it like a steggasourus. It looked scary.
Then a devilish thought came to her. She didn't need to have the piety of the rabbis. She had her tears. For the next 9 hours she worked feverishly, digging clay, molding it, shaping it, and reshaping it, until she had the ferocious beast she had sculpted standing in front of her. It was 6 feet tall...she simply couldn't reach any higher, had a giant lion's head with a full mane, a large black bear's body, huge bat wings, and a long lion's tail, having lost the steggasourus idea along the way.
When it was done she tried to cry on it. Nothing happened. She tried again. Still nothing. She thought about her grandmother, about the parents who had abandoned her, about her sister who stopped loving her, about the hurt she had seen in the eyes of the children when she first got here, and even about the horrible stories of the Holocaust her grandfather, a survivor, had told her, and she bawled, but her tears did nothing but make the statue before her soggy.
Then, when she least expected it, it happened. She got so furious with her self for being a worthless failure who couldn't protect herself, her friends, or anything, who was a freak in the outside world and now here was a freak for not being able to do anything, that she became despondent. And in her fury and depression she sobbed then leaned forward against her statue and cried right on its chest. She cried for maybe 5 or 10 minutes oblivious to the world when she started to feel the clay pulse and then the coarseness of fur against her face and two big thick arms enveloping her. Her golem was alive!
The golem held her tightly for a few minutes as they stood there in the darkness of the forest. By now 10 hours had passed since she had set out into the woods alone. As classes had not started at school people may not have noticed she was missing or they might have. She had to get back to the dorms. She looked up at her golem and said to him, "Follow me back through the woods to the house. Your job is to protect me and the people there." The golem nodded at the command. She decided to call him Amos after the minor prophet. "Do you like the name Amos, " she asked," before remembering that a golem cannot talk. The golem didn't say anything. It just put a large bear paw on her shoulder lightly and followed her through the woods back towards the mansion.