Part III
The following is the last installment of a true story of
moral courage, of the uncompromise of values that has become
the hallmark of the Bais Yaakov model of the Jewish
Daughter. Names have been changed.
Story synopsis: Abraham Cohen, stingy business magnate,
decides to adopt one philanthropic project to ease his
conscience. His arbitrary choice is a seedy-looking girls
seminary, which he is invited to visit. He subsequently
begins to revamp the entire place and introduces a charm and
poise woman instructor to put some chic into the `old
fashioned' girls.
Strange things were happening. Whereas the halls had always
been full of laughing, shouting, alive young girls, an
unnatural quiet now reigned. Blinking demurely, everyone
spoke in throaty whispers, tilted their heads coquettishly,
sighed deeply. Even their walk was affected. Dainty, itsy-
bitsy steps replaced the once rushing steps through the
corridors and up the stairs. Some girls had blackened eyes,
painted cheeks, exaggerated hairdos and clinging clothes.
Everyone's expression was suddenly so pensive, so
preoccupied, so unspontaneous... Maybe yours would be too if
you had to concentrate on pulling in your tummy, pushing
forward your chest and walking on the balls of your feet,
all at the same time.
Not being a shlump had become a full time job. There
was almost no time left to study. To think how much they had
missed out on all the years without even suspecting it.
Well, that's what happened when a man like Abraham Cohen
entered your life. All your horizons broadened. With their
new poise, all doors would be thrown open for them. And no
one would ever suspect, from looking at them, that they were
religious Seminary girls.
*
The Dean of Students sat at her desk, office door wide open.
She observed the goings on in the corridor at her leisure.
Her gaze lingered on the group at the mirror.
The next day the mirror was gone. Miss Carr did not show up
for class. A Special Student Assembly was called, to which
Abraham Cohen was invited.
The Dean's soft, gentle voice, when she spoke, seethed with
emotion. With the new accoustics that Mr. Cohen had
installed, it shook your very soul.
With humble apologies to Mr. Cohen, the Dean explained Miss
Carr's absence. "She was notified this morning that her
services were no longer needed in our Seminary."
Automatically, all heads turned to where Abraham Cohen sat.
Gentleman that he was, he smiled politely, though a muscle
twitched vigorously in his neck.
"My children," the Dean continued after the hum of excited
voices had died down, "I stand before you today with the
same feelings as that of Yom Kippur. For today is Judgment
Day for us here. Today we must decide if our struggle to
build this school for the past five years has been in
vain.
"I don't hide the fact that I weep," she said sadly,
stabbing a dish-pan reddened finger at her [genuine] tears,
"for had I known, or even suspected, that this day would
ever come, I would not have had the strength or the desire
to build this Teachers' Seminary and endure the constant
struggle that is involved."
Girls were beginning to slide down in their seats, just the
way Miss Carr had emphatically insisted must never be
done.
The Dean continued in a voice that broke and broke and would
not be broken. "We are commanded to be holy. What does holy
mean? Holy means to live apart and alone, separated from the
outside world, in a world of our own, untainted and
unblemished by the mores and morals of society at large. A
world unto itself, fashioned by G-d's word. Just as soon as
we enter or even seek to become part of the greater world
outside, our sights become dimmed with her images, our
spirit is drugged with her enchantments. Our will is
transformed with her enticements. Such is the power of
environment. We are human beings and not angels. As such, we
are influenced by whatever we see and hear.
"Nevertheless, let us, just for the sake of argument, agree
that there is much to be gained in that outside world. But
why seek the rules of poise from a faculty member of Sarah
Lawrence, when we can learn it directly from our own Mother
Sarah? Though all who saw her praised her unequalled beauty,
she sat hidden in the tent, confining her grace and beauty
to the privacy of her home rather than flaunting it
provokingly at strangers. How to walk? Walk humbly before
Me, in humility, in modesty. How to talk? In truth, from the
heart. What has become of our whole purpose in Creation, in
which our role was to be the Light of all Nations, when we
forsake our own living wells of fresh, living water to dig
up broken cisterns that cannot even hold any water?
"And whatever gave you the idea that the outside world is
superior to our own, in the first place? Is that world
really so gracious and poised and beautiful and genteel that
we want to desperately emulate it? If so, what about the
Inquisitions, the Crusades, the gas chambers, the yellow
stars, the crematoriums..."
The Dean stopped to catch her breath. There wasn't a sound
in the room. Abraham Cohen's face was a blank. One could not
tell what he was thinking or even whether he listened.
When the Dean continued, sarcasm replaced her tears. "And do
you honestly believe that after the Jew has eliminated the
sing- song from his speech and the curve from his spine,
after he's straightened his nose and polished his manners,
that he will be any more loved and accepted by that world
outside? Oh, my dear innocent children! The moderns of
Europe were shocked to discover that in metamorphosis they
were hated just as much. Long after their hearts had stopped
beating Jewish, they continued to suffer the curse of their
birthright... And neither poise nor pear shaped vowels nor
parrotting the outside world had made them more acceptable
or welcomed.
"My children," she concluded, "there is one question you
have to ask yourselves today... tomorrow... in generations
to come. Are we the proud Daughters of Israel or are we mere
caricatures of her trying to ape gentile debutantes."
The assembly was over. The girls filed silently out. Loud
voices were heard in Rabbi Schwartz's office and a taxi with
Abraham Cohen inside sped away. The next day, a moving van
pulled up in front of the school and the auditorium was
dismantled, stripped of everything but its ornate wallpaper.
The next day the kitchen equipment was removed, leaving
exposed plumbing to mock the richer days. The dormitory was
the last to be emptied.
The place was beginning to look like the good ol' days
again, the pre-Abraham Cohen days. Once again, Rabbi Shwartz
was running around in a dither, trying to get short term
loans from people as poor as himself to prevent the
teachers' checks from bouncing. Once again, the halls
resounded with the unaffected, unrestrained laughter and
shouting of girls running to greet one another with
exuberance, affection and enthusiasm.
His mother should have known better than to send him back to
that world he had long ago left in body and soul, Abraham
Cohen mused sourly. But, after all those years, she had
still hoped to save him. Jewish mothers! They never gave
up.
What a time he'd have not getting back to old habits. His
daughters had just about decided amongst themselves that he
was going senile... and all along, in the back of his mind,
he realized, startled at the discovery, he had actually been
trying to fashion those uncomplicated, unsophisticated young
girls into carbons of his own detestable daughters.
He was sad. He was tired. He had a lot of loose ends to tie
up. He wondered what madness had prompted him to remove all
the equipment.
"I wonder how I'll sleep tonight," he said aloud and tried
not to think anymore. "Oh, Mama, give up on me already. Let
me stick to Sally's Stray Cats' Society and the World Reform
Movement. The religious don't need me, anyhow. They manage
to survive long after we moderns are gone and forgotten.
Just let me sleep, Mama. Let me sleep..."
