Between Gods: A Memoir Read Online Free PDF

terrible, was the knowledge that the truth had killed your family.

seven
    F AMILY LIFE IS DEFINED BY TRADITION . Degan and I are slapdash: We fall into bed at different times. We eat our dinner on the run. Come Friday, though, we slow things down. Years ago, we agreed to a day each weekend when we would turn off the phone, turn off the Internet and relax into each other’s company. It’s a ritual we call, our tongues firmly in our cheeks, “24 Hours Unplugged.”
    There’s always a moment of panic after pulling the plug, a huge chasm yawning in front of us. But we have learned how important it is to do it anyways.
    This Friday it feels especially needed. The week has been crazy, Degan adjusting to his new job, me ticking my way through the tasks of adjusting to a new city: finding the closest gym, the closest post office; figuring out where to buy dish soap. As dusk falls, we put our cells away. We turn off ourcomputers, the frenzied screens falling peaceful like the faces of sleeping children. We cook slowly, and eat together in the strange and fertile silence. After dinner we retreat to the couch, where we sit on opposite ends, our feet touching lightly in the middle.
    I’ve been waiting all week for the chance to get to the reading that has been assigned for Doing Jewish, from Anita Diamant’s Living a Jewish Life . Now I pull out the book. I turn it over in my hands like a talisman, savouring its unbroken spine. I read the blurbs on the back and the dedication on the opening page. I flip to the Contents page: the first chapter I’ve been assigned is about Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest.
    A Jewish day of rest?
    I read, for the first time, about the day of study and prayer that is the cornerstone of all Jewish life. Every Friday evening, Jews around the world light candles, recite blessings and rejoice in a taste of the world to come. In the modern world, a crucial part of the ritual is turning off technology.
    I look over at my phone, as inert as a stone; at the clean kitchen, dishes gleaming, and the actual fire Degan has kindled in the hearth.
    “Hey, babe,” I say.
    He glances up from his own book.
    “ Listen to this.” I read him the description, and a slow smile spreads across his face. “Yup—‘24 Hours Unplugged,’ ” he says. “The Jews have been spying on us.”
    “I know.”
    “For centuries.”
    “Copycats.”
    He laughs.
    “Isn’t it bizarre?” I say. “It’s like we invented something outof my ancestors’ tradition. I mean, how does that happen? What are the chances?”
    “Do you think you’d heard about Shabbat and forgotten? That you suggested ‘24 Hours Unplugged’ based on something someone told you?”
    I shake my head. “I’ve never heard of Shabbat before right now.”
    “Maybe Jordan?” Degan knows the story of my outing on the playground.
    “Nope. Really.”
    “Weird,” he says.
    He lowers his face to his reading, but I’m too excited to stop. “It’s almost like a genetic memory,” I say. “Like my cells were remembering something my consciousness had been told to forget.”
    Degan is silent.
    “Right?”
    “Yeah,” he says. “Sure.”
    From behind him comes the steady tick of the clock on the stove.
    “I mean, the ritual we have ‘invented’ (I make quotes in the air with my fingers) constitutes, point for point, a secular version of Shabbat. We rest, we eat, we make love.” I clear my throat. “We watch videos, which is like our version of praying.”
    He laughs again.
    “In a way, we’re living as Jews,” I say.
    “I know,” Degan says. “I get it. It’s cool.”
    I can see he wants to get back to his book and I let the subject drop, but I feel an overpowering urge to tell someone who would fully understand the implications. Someone Jewish. But who? Jordan lives on the other side of the country. My fatherhardly counts. What about Eli, his dinner invitation? I think back to a scene in his book where he goes away to reflect on his Hasidic