2011 Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize Entry
A Frum Story
By C. S.
Since I
wasn't allowed to date until I graduated from college, a rule that I often
broke, I started relying on the internet to get myself potential dates. On one occasion, several years ago, while
George W was still president, my Craigslist ad read: Eccentric Asian femme,
attractive, short at 5'3", 24, spiritually inclined, NYU grad with magna cum laude honors, seeks tall
attractive male under 30 with a functioning cerebral cortex. Many
responded but Jerry's reply riled me: "28, 5'10", confident and
cute – You use all these fancy words to sound smart. Are you?" He was
handsome – short brown hair, baby soft skin, glasses and a self-assured
smirk on his face. Not only was he attractive but discerning and gutsy
too. He had seen through my intellectual façade and touched one of my
insecurities.
Our first date was casual. He picked me up from my mother's house in Bay Ridge where I still lived. He was in semi-formal attire but his white shirt was unbuttoned and disheveled. He said he just came from a friend's engagement party in Midwood. We drove in his black Maxima to the Tea Lounge in Park Slope. Ordering a pot of tiger chai, we let the night melt while we talked, laughed and checked each other out. He was taken by my appearance and I explained that my father is Chinese and my mother is Filipino. He looked at me again and said,
"That explains why you're so exotic-looking."
We continued our banter and everything felt so right. He even made a joke saying,
"Jerry Berry and Cherry, nothing can go wrong now!" I blushed.
At one point towards the end of the evening he said, almost to himself, "You are so
special. It would be so easy to fall for you." It didn't sound like just another line from any other guy. He drove me back and I invited him in, warning him that my mom might be home. Most men that I had dated run at the thought of meeting my mother because it meant that it was
serious, like, marriage-serious. "That's fine,” he replied, “I'd like to meet the mommy," which delighted me.
There, before me, was a young eligible bachelor, ready to enter the lion’s den, ready to say hello to an intimate part of my life no man (or boy) dared venture into even the supposed “serious” ones. Dumbfounded but hopeful, I wished a thousand wishes – my mind racing towards the fulfillment of dreams. I was nearing 25, close to ancient by Asian standards, and felt that I was ready to settle down. My past consisted of a bad string of so-called relationships with commitment-phobic men. Besides, my hormones screamed, "We want him now!" and all these made me feel that Jerry might be someone I should consider as a permanent partner. I decided that I was in love; that "I"- feelings, mind and soul combined, was singular in the desire to merge with Jerry Berry.
Inside the house, in the living room, my mom sat watching TV. Jerry was so polite,
engaging in small talk. My mother interviewed him asking him questions like,
"Have you eaten yet?"
"What do you do for a living?"
"Do you live far from here?"
It was late and he left after partially satisfying my mother's curiosity. He shook my hand
goodbye, lingering on the handshake. He almost fell off the stoop because he kept looking back
at me with a glazed look and a goofy smile on his face. It was adorable.
"Isn't he Jewish?" my mother asked as soon as he was out of sight. Surprised, it didn't occur to me that he was. Relieved that he was even more attractive in person, I liked him instantly and thought that I lucked out. He might be "the one”. “I don’t know,” I replied. I really didn’t.
He didn't wear a yarmulke, something I thought only religious Jews would wear, which
should give an accurate barometer about how much I knew about the Hebraic descendants. He was clean-shaven and his hair didn’t have the curly fringes that I associated with Jewish men I saw around Borough Park. I didn't think that his belonging to one of the Thirteen Tribes was so exclusive or that my being non-Jewish would be a problem. I asked him to confirm in an e-mail whether he was Jewish or not as my mother suspected and he said yes. In fact, he said, he's Modern Orthodox. I didn't know what that meant but before I could, I received an e-mail from him a few days later saying that he could really fall in love with me but that it would never work because we were from two different worlds. I was confused. Why wouldn't it work? I was falling in love and wasn't he falling for me too?
I was enthralled that someone I was into seemed so spiritual and so rooted to tradition. I didn’t realize until meeting Jerry that I was looking for faith to anchor myself into. He was steeped in it. It made him even more desirable that he couldn't let what I took to be our love blossom because of his religious convictions. I respected authentic spirituality since I've been on a search for God myself. I'd been raised in a Christian household from the Philippines all the way into my teens when the family moved to Brooklyn. The transition eventually broke my parents’ marriage. Everything ended in divorce, doubt and disbelief. My broken home was a UFC octagon of no-holds barred verbal fights regarding money and, mostly, religion though money was really the culprit. My father, siblings and I hated going to Iglesia Ni Cristo (Church of Christ), my mother's church – a Protestant offshoot that began in the Philippines in 1914 where evangelical missions were encouraged, interfaith dating discouraged, weekly attendance taken, church members were told who to vote for, prayers gave rise to crocodile tears and Catholic bashing was rampant. I clung to the idea that there must be something to connect me more to God than the dogma my mother's religion espoused. I was always interested in the diversity of faiths outside my mom's church and studied other theologies. The third time I spent time with Jerry making out in his vehicle, I felt weird electrical currents in my spine and I felt a time-release of pleasure throughout my body. I wondered what this could be and realized that perhaps this was my kundalini rising. What was it about Jerry that made me feel that way?
The idea of falling in love, according to mystics like Rumi and Khalil Gibran, was the closest I could get to that sincere God-realized state – the Shakti seeking Shiva, the snake-like energy at the base of the spine that connects man to the God-consciousness state written about in the Vedic texts. Was it because Jerry's faith that my chakras came alive? Was he the catalyst? I was in a world of discovery and if Jerry felt so strongly about it, I thought maybe I should look into conversion to make our relationship feasible and expand my spirituality. He didn't think that this was a good idea if it was just about him but he was fascinated at my experience.
"I wonder at your experience but converting has to be sincerely from your heart," he said. "Don't do this because of me," he added. I couldn’t decide whether it was for me or whether it was for him or whether it was for us.
I read more about Judaism. I talked to him about it. For the next several weeks, we
dispensed with eating out since he was keeping kosher – something I did not completely
understand – and instead met for drives around town. We talked often on the phone. I'd
research and he'd call me sometime at two in the morning, and we'd talk about my new
discoveries and I would ask him things like,
"So does your sister really wear a wig?"
"You betcha she does and it's a five-thousand dollar one too from European hair; not
Indian hair," he said.
Our first date was casual. He picked me up from my mother's house in Bay Ridge where I still lived. He was in semi-formal attire but his white shirt was unbuttoned and disheveled. He said he just came from a friend's engagement party in Midwood. We drove in his black Maxima to the Tea Lounge in Park Slope. Ordering a pot of tiger chai, we let the night melt while we talked, laughed and checked each other out. He was taken by my appearance and I explained that my father is Chinese and my mother is Filipino. He looked at me again and said,
"That explains why you're so exotic-looking."
We continued our banter and everything felt so right. He even made a joke saying,
"Jerry Berry and Cherry, nothing can go wrong now!" I blushed.
At one point towards the end of the evening he said, almost to himself, "You are so
special. It would be so easy to fall for you." It didn't sound like just another line from any other guy. He drove me back and I invited him in, warning him that my mom might be home. Most men that I had dated run at the thought of meeting my mother because it meant that it was
serious, like, marriage-serious. "That's fine,” he replied, “I'd like to meet the mommy," which delighted me.
There, before me, was a young eligible bachelor, ready to enter the lion’s den, ready to say hello to an intimate part of my life no man (or boy) dared venture into even the supposed “serious” ones. Dumbfounded but hopeful, I wished a thousand wishes – my mind racing towards the fulfillment of dreams. I was nearing 25, close to ancient by Asian standards, and felt that I was ready to settle down. My past consisted of a bad string of so-called relationships with commitment-phobic men. Besides, my hormones screamed, "We want him now!" and all these made me feel that Jerry might be someone I should consider as a permanent partner. I decided that I was in love; that "I"- feelings, mind and soul combined, was singular in the desire to merge with Jerry Berry.
Inside the house, in the living room, my mom sat watching TV. Jerry was so polite,
engaging in small talk. My mother interviewed him asking him questions like,
"Have you eaten yet?"
"What do you do for a living?"
"Do you live far from here?"
It was late and he left after partially satisfying my mother's curiosity. He shook my hand
goodbye, lingering on the handshake. He almost fell off the stoop because he kept looking back
at me with a glazed look and a goofy smile on his face. It was adorable.
"Isn't he Jewish?" my mother asked as soon as he was out of sight. Surprised, it didn't occur to me that he was. Relieved that he was even more attractive in person, I liked him instantly and thought that I lucked out. He might be "the one”. “I don’t know,” I replied. I really didn’t.
He didn't wear a yarmulke, something I thought only religious Jews would wear, which
should give an accurate barometer about how much I knew about the Hebraic descendants. He was clean-shaven and his hair didn’t have the curly fringes that I associated with Jewish men I saw around Borough Park. I didn't think that his belonging to one of the Thirteen Tribes was so exclusive or that my being non-Jewish would be a problem. I asked him to confirm in an e-mail whether he was Jewish or not as my mother suspected and he said yes. In fact, he said, he's Modern Orthodox. I didn't know what that meant but before I could, I received an e-mail from him a few days later saying that he could really fall in love with me but that it would never work because we were from two different worlds. I was confused. Why wouldn't it work? I was falling in love and wasn't he falling for me too?
I was enthralled that someone I was into seemed so spiritual and so rooted to tradition. I didn’t realize until meeting Jerry that I was looking for faith to anchor myself into. He was steeped in it. It made him even more desirable that he couldn't let what I took to be our love blossom because of his religious convictions. I respected authentic spirituality since I've been on a search for God myself. I'd been raised in a Christian household from the Philippines all the way into my teens when the family moved to Brooklyn. The transition eventually broke my parents’ marriage. Everything ended in divorce, doubt and disbelief. My broken home was a UFC octagon of no-holds barred verbal fights regarding money and, mostly, religion though money was really the culprit. My father, siblings and I hated going to Iglesia Ni Cristo (Church of Christ), my mother's church – a Protestant offshoot that began in the Philippines in 1914 where evangelical missions were encouraged, interfaith dating discouraged, weekly attendance taken, church members were told who to vote for, prayers gave rise to crocodile tears and Catholic bashing was rampant. I clung to the idea that there must be something to connect me more to God than the dogma my mother's religion espoused. I was always interested in the diversity of faiths outside my mom's church and studied other theologies. The third time I spent time with Jerry making out in his vehicle, I felt weird electrical currents in my spine and I felt a time-release of pleasure throughout my body. I wondered what this could be and realized that perhaps this was my kundalini rising. What was it about Jerry that made me feel that way?
The idea of falling in love, according to mystics like Rumi and Khalil Gibran, was the closest I could get to that sincere God-realized state – the Shakti seeking Shiva, the snake-like energy at the base of the spine that connects man to the God-consciousness state written about in the Vedic texts. Was it because Jerry's faith that my chakras came alive? Was he the catalyst? I was in a world of discovery and if Jerry felt so strongly about it, I thought maybe I should look into conversion to make our relationship feasible and expand my spirituality. He didn't think that this was a good idea if it was just about him but he was fascinated at my experience.
"I wonder at your experience but converting has to be sincerely from your heart," he said. "Don't do this because of me," he added. I couldn’t decide whether it was for me or whether it was for him or whether it was for us.
I read more about Judaism. I talked to him about it. For the next several weeks, we
dispensed with eating out since he was keeping kosher – something I did not completely
understand – and instead met for drives around town. We talked often on the phone. I'd
research and he'd call me sometime at two in the morning, and we'd talk about my new
discoveries and I would ask him things like,
"So does your sister really wear a wig?"
"You betcha she does and it's a five-thousand dollar one too from European hair; not
Indian hair," he said.
I found out that it was custom to give a secular and
a Hebrew name to Jewish kids
especially but not exclusively for the more Orthodox folks. I asked Jerry what was his real
name since he gave his name as Jerry Berry. He said it wasn't important. This bothered me a
great deal but I let it slide. I never found out his real name. It was becoming increasingly
difficult to progress deeper into a relationship with him.
I couldn't understand the presence of Halachic law that pervaded Jerry's life. How could
he not eat pasta I made but he would kiss me? Wouldn't my mouth be more offensive than my
food? I thought perhaps I just didn't understand the complexity of the religion and I needed
something related to an experience I was more familiar with: devotion.
Kaballah study seemed to fit the bill. When Jerry found out that I started taking these
"mystical" classes with Rabbi Fund in a West Village shul, he was not happy. In his eyes, it was
a sacrilege for someone not married, not male and not over forty and definitely someone not of the flock to be studying these dangerous materials. I had to assure him that nothing transcendental was being discussed. It was purely academic with text study and sanitized rhetoric about the Chasidic movement and the return of the Divine Spark to the En Sof. Jerry was relieved but still skeptical. He didn't know what to make of me.
Jerry and I had fooled around in his car several times but had not actually engaged in the
full-blown mating dance. One afternoon, he e-mailed me and said that he had to come clean and
that there was already someone else. His logic was that if we didn't do anything physical now,
we would regret it later. In shock, I cried for one hour. What did it matter to me? God forsook
me again first with the spiritual emptiness in my home and now this. My love expressed was not
God, it was lust. I messaged him back saying I agreed.
Because he was carried away and did not use protection, he feared that I was, in his words, “ovulating”. I don't know how he did it but the very next day, very close to sundown Friday, he procured the morning after pill and told me to take it. I did obediently. He called me a second time exactly twelve hours later to make sure I took the second pill. He was relieved more than I was to know that the pills were working. I bled so much afterwards that it almost seemed like I lost a part of myself in the blood my body was forced to release. I was in so much pain and my body reacted negatively to the pills. I hadn't heard from him in three days and on that last day in reply to my unanswered calls and messages, he officially ended our relationship with an e-mail, writing: "I wish it didn't end like this." In a way, it's poetic, full of irony and appropriate since our doomed relationship started with electronic mail.
Challenged, I looked into the faith more after Jerry was long gone though that also
involved relationships with other Orthodox men who were in varying degrees of religiosity, one
was a former Ramallah settler who hated Arabs so much he called them “pigs” and another man was an outcast from his frum background. I often think of Jerry, my journey of almost-conversion and my search for God – well, it was a search for meaning – that took me to my crazy adventure in the first place. In the end, I still couldn't give up Jesus or reconcile myself to an institution that went literally by the Book.
especially but not exclusively for the more Orthodox folks. I asked Jerry what was his real
name since he gave his name as Jerry Berry. He said it wasn't important. This bothered me a
great deal but I let it slide. I never found out his real name. It was becoming increasingly
difficult to progress deeper into a relationship with him.
I couldn't understand the presence of Halachic law that pervaded Jerry's life. How could
he not eat pasta I made but he would kiss me? Wouldn't my mouth be more offensive than my
food? I thought perhaps I just didn't understand the complexity of the religion and I needed
something related to an experience I was more familiar with: devotion.
Kaballah study seemed to fit the bill. When Jerry found out that I started taking these
"mystical" classes with Rabbi Fund in a West Village shul, he was not happy. In his eyes, it was
a sacrilege for someone not married, not male and not over forty and definitely someone not of the flock to be studying these dangerous materials. I had to assure him that nothing transcendental was being discussed. It was purely academic with text study and sanitized rhetoric about the Chasidic movement and the return of the Divine Spark to the En Sof. Jerry was relieved but still skeptical. He didn't know what to make of me.
Jerry and I had fooled around in his car several times but had not actually engaged in the
full-blown mating dance. One afternoon, he e-mailed me and said that he had to come clean and
that there was already someone else. His logic was that if we didn't do anything physical now,
we would regret it later. In shock, I cried for one hour. What did it matter to me? God forsook
me again first with the spiritual emptiness in my home and now this. My love expressed was not
God, it was lust. I messaged him back saying I agreed.
Because he was carried away and did not use protection, he feared that I was, in his words, “ovulating”. I don't know how he did it but the very next day, very close to sundown Friday, he procured the morning after pill and told me to take it. I did obediently. He called me a second time exactly twelve hours later to make sure I took the second pill. He was relieved more than I was to know that the pills were working. I bled so much afterwards that it almost seemed like I lost a part of myself in the blood my body was forced to release. I was in so much pain and my body reacted negatively to the pills. I hadn't heard from him in three days and on that last day in reply to my unanswered calls and messages, he officially ended our relationship with an e-mail, writing: "I wish it didn't end like this." In a way, it's poetic, full of irony and appropriate since our doomed relationship started with electronic mail.
Challenged, I looked into the faith more after Jerry was long gone though that also
involved relationships with other Orthodox men who were in varying degrees of religiosity, one
was a former Ramallah settler who hated Arabs so much he called them “pigs” and another man was an outcast from his frum background. I often think of Jerry, my journey of almost-conversion and my search for God – well, it was a search for meaning – that took me to my crazy adventure in the first place. In the end, I still couldn't give up Jesus or reconcile myself to an institution that went literally by the Book.
