Jeremiah 30

Her hands are rough; they flit across her skirt like butterflies, or Spanish dancers - her fingers become lace mantilals, shaking back and forth to the rythm of the leaves, which are twirled by the wind. She thought of life in images, spare frames filled with motion she could not grasp, and sounds she could not quite understand. "One day, I will make a movie out of it", she would think, at random moments, like when she was spicing the chicken soup. The kitchen tiles felt cold against the soles of her feet, and she wished she had remembered to wash her socks in the laundry. "But it all comes in fragments", she fretted, as she sliced the onions. She enjoyed the feel of their thin layers between her fingers, and once she had claimed that men were weaker than onions, because no man had made her cry. But now, she grew misty-eyed when she thought about that bravado - and then she turned to the author, and complained that she hated cliches, like "misty-eyed" and "bravado".

"And aren't you supposed to be studying Jeremiah?" she asked, "about how God punishes, then redeems, his people? And how dare you think of me when the image crops up of an abandoned whore - if I wanted, I could have a man between my thighs." She goes back to stirring the soup. She is adorable in her anger - the way she flashes her hair and stomps her feet. "Stop comparing me to a dancer!". Another stomp, a bit more paprika. The author is the one who has read (or, at least, skimmed) Luigi Pirandello's "Six Characters in Search of An Author", so she should take the initiative - but she is too tired, and the words of Jeremiah too beautiful. She wonders briefly whether he would have been good in bed, or whether she should take men between her thighs more often. She ponders feminism, and is grateful that her breasts are no longer being opressed by the patriarchy, her pink bra having been removed somewhere around verse six. She longs to chant the words to the ancient text, almost as much as she longs for sleep.

מנסה לכתוב בעברית

המותר כאסור, האסור כמותר, עד דלא ידעה -
כשטפסתי בתלפיות צועריה,  מנשיקות פיה ישקני-
אלכה נא לשוח בין שדיה, וללתף את פניה
שאבקש ערב ובבוקר בכל יום תמיד
כי הנה לא ינום ולא ישן אהבת נפשי,
לא יפיל תנומה על עפעפי.

 רב דגן ותירוש וריח השדה על צואריך,
שמותר או אסור, כיונים בעיניך-
איך אוכל לפסוק? הרי כולך יפה ומום אין בך
חוץ מגופי הצמוד לגופיך,
עד שלא ידעתי איפה קץ רגליך
והתחלת ירכי, פניך או פני - כבר השתכרתי
מנשיקות פיך הטובות מיין,
עד דלא ידע בין המן ומרדכי.

Jeremiah 29 (Free-Writing Exercise)

"It hurts not to get what you want", she said. Her legs were folded over the stones; I could see the bruises on her knee peeking out from beneath her skirt.
I laughed. "What have you ever wanted that you haven't gotten? A new Mercedes".
"You don't know anything about me."
She turned away, but I knew she was crying. Her chest heaved slightly with each intake of breath, moving to the rythm of her tears.
The torn letter lay on the ground; four more years in a stone palace we had grown to despise. At night,  I lay in the cellar, imagining his hands on her thighs; I could see them kissing in the moonlight.
"He says it's time to plant the roses."
"That's only because he likes thorns".
Did her lips still taste of cinnamon? Did she still cry, when she felt the ram-horn's echoes reverberate  through her bedroom, with its hardwood floors and silk sheets?

"They could import some", I was told when I complained about the rough cotton - but what was the point? It could not be undone, this incessant twining and untwining that had started the minute Moses and God shared a cigarrette.

"Do you think it's like sex?" she asked.
"What?"
"Prophecy".
 I shrugged, flicked my stub into the garden, and used my toes to pile some dirt on the ashes.
Five hundred miles away, she drew the smoke from his breath. His kiss tasted of myrrh and ashes; he could feel the thorns in her legs, the claws in each nipple.
Ravaged.
Her hand is on my shoulder.
The Temple will be ravaged.
We slide into the ground; her knees knock against my thighs; our mouths collide - I can feel the brambles at the back of my neck, but I don't care - and later on, she asks me, "Do you think it's like prophecy?"
"What?"
"Sex".

I shrug, and flick my cigarrette.

Jeremiah 28

The chain breaks in my hands. I feel its wood in between my fingers. I almost feel sorry for him: His brown hair hangs down in clumps by his neck. His eyes have the look of a man who gets too little food, and even less sex. I see him avoiding the prostitutes when they call to him from their fig-trees. I offered him money once, a gift, to let him spend the night. "I don't want to owe you a favor", he said.
"Why so bitter, Jeremiah?"
"We didn't all go to prophet school. Some of us had to learn things the hard way."
"Sure."
"I hear God. You don't believe me?"
"Yeah, I believe you. But I don't think you know what the job of a prophet is."
"To say the word of God."
"No. To tell the people what they need to hear."
He laughed.
"I'm serious. You think I haven't hear it all before, this doom and fire stuff? But that's not what they need, with the Babylonians knocking at the gate - they need hope."
"With hope comes complacency."
"You really need to get laid."

The next day, he avoided my gaze completely, but I couldn't help but smile when I heard him tack on that piece about God redeeming his people.

"But God really told me that!", he said, later that night, as we shared a cigarette. He flinched when I put my arm on his shoulder. "What's wrong?" I asked.
"Nothing - it's just that I- well, after what God told me - you heard this morning - I dont' want to get too attached."
"What makes you think we're attached right now?" I force the cruelty into my voice. He swallows, takes a long drag on the stub. I see tears in the corner of his eyes. I want to put my arms around him, and whisper that it will be all right: Hope. That's what we need.

But after spending all day on my feet, giving hope to the people, I am tired. I crawl into bed, and curl up on my side, closing my eyes when he crawls in beside me - and puts his arm around my waist: Hope.

By the Hanukkah candles

"You shouldn't do work by the candles", he says.
"I know."
"No. I mean you really shouldn't do work."
I put down my pen. "Whatsup?"
"I'm leaving you."

Silence.

"Why?"
"It's not you - it's this country - it's too much."
"And what makes you think I wouldn't go with you?"
"You can't."

"Why not?"
"Because it's become a part of you."

He takes a sip of coffee. I can hear the liquid splash against his teeth, the slight clink of the mug on the way down.

"Do you love her?"

He laughs.  "It's not like that."

I nod. I want to get up and make myself a cup of coffee, but my body is trembling with the effort of holding in my tears.

"I'll get you a cup of coffee", he says. I almost hate him then.

Our hands touch when he hands me the mug. I flinch. He looks down at the carpet: a faded yellow.

"I hate that rug", he says. I nod. I want him to hold me, but I also want to dissappear, and everything is coming at me through a sea of tears I both crave and resent at the same time.

He busies himself around the kitchen, making latkes. "He didn't even give me the courtesy of his time", I think: I know he is only trying to give me privacy, but what does this small act of consideration matter?

The latkes are too oily, and I spend half the night traipsing between my bed and the bathroom. He sleeps soundly, curled on his side - but on one of my trips, his arms reach around my waist, and I find myself crying into his shoulder, before he pulls me down. I cry into his chest, as he awkwarly spoons me, and the down blankets brush my cheek.

"I love you", he says, but the words get stuck in my throat: I do love him, but what does it matter?

I remember the first time he told me those words: I had laughed. "Do you love me, or are you addicted to my body?" I had asked. "Is there a difference?" he asked, and kissed me before I could answer. Now, I wonder if I have run my course through his body, like a really good drug or some really bad latkes.

"Those latkes were awful", he whispers into my shoulder. We laugh. His lips work their way up to my neck.  "This is the man who is leaving you", I think, but it is too late: I hate the precision of his body, the way he knows exactly where to place each part. "I'm like a machine", I think, for a moment - before - I stop thinking at all.

Jeremiah 27

Different chains have different textures: Some are smooth, some are spiky. The wrists they will cover are different too, but I have no desire to imagine the proceedings - only to sit at home, drinking a cup of tea and reading a magazine. Not to be here, by the river, chiselling them into chunks with my hammer. In an hour, five horses will ride out, in five different directions. Tomorrow, five kings will throw a piece of iron into their servant's faces. The servant will lose his balance; the tray will clatter; the wine will spill, and the servant will go to gallows.

I will be at home at the time of the execution, sipping some tea and reading a magazine.

Skin Hunger (For E.)

"What's it called?"
    "Skin hunger".

    It was the middle of choref zman. Moshe and Dov were supposed to be learning about how a man is exempt from reciting kriat shema on his wedding night - a topic that Dov knew was on many of his friends' minds: He heard them dissecting the stocking-covered calves of the women they went on dates with, and the loud grunts that came in the middle of the night from the bathroom, the guilty faces when they unlocked the stalls.

    The topic of marriage was not that far off from his mother's mind either: "Everyday, I pray for you to get a good zivug", she said, when they spoke on the phone. Like his classmates, he too, went to the Inbal, where he would drink coffee with girls with brown hair and soft eyes. Sometimes he could see the outline of their breasts sticking out from beneath the button-down shirts. He'd trace the points of their nipples with his eyes. They were beautiful, and he wanted to want them, wished he desired to kiss them the way men did in the movies his classmates downloaded to their computers.

But at the end of the evening, he was always left with the same sensation he felt after watching football: It had been pleasant, but there were better things he could do with his time. He heard his mother sigh, every time he informed her that there would be no second date, that he would have to go back to the shadchan - and sometimes, as he sipped tea and spoke about middos, he could see them wondering, what the point was - but then they would pick their pens up and start scribbling, no doubt thinking of the bonus they received for each introduction.

    This was what Dov was thinking about, when Moshe explained to him that there was a technical term for the human need for physical contact. "It doesn't have to be sexual", he explained. Dov nodded. "I understand." His hand brushed Moshe's, as he reached for his Gemarah that lay on the table between them. He blushed.

    "Skin hunger". The words kept seeping into his mind, and he would find himself muttering the phrase at random moments, like when he was opening his siddur or trying to pee. He wondered: How many of them had it, these chaste boys who went on coffee-dates? Or had they grown so used to being satisfied by their own hands that they no longer felt it? The thought made him sad.

    In chevruta, they learned that a mourner, like a first-time lover, was exempt from reciting the shema, and Dov tried to figure out what they had in common. "Well, I'd imagine those are both very traumatic experiences", Moshe said, "losing someone, and making love for the first time. Did you know orgasms were called les petits morts in French?" "Where did you learn that?" "In a book I snagged from my uncle's shelf - my mom's a baal teshuva, so none of my relatives are religious." Moshe grinned. "I received quite an education during family gatherings." Dov laughed. The rebbe gave them a stern look. "We should get back to shteiging". The words of Rashi and Tosfot filled their tongues for the next few hours.

    That week, the war broke out: Southern Israel was bombarded by rocket-fire. The yeshiva had special assemblies, during which they would say tehillim, and all students were encouraged to extend their night-seder hours, in hopes that the zechus of their limmud Torah would act as a segulah for the Jewish people. Often, during those extra hours,Dov would find himself staring at Moshe's shoulder blades, wondering what it would be like to touch them, or how Moshe's chest would feel against his lips.

    Skin hunger.

    That Friday night, they were on their way to shul, when a siren rang out, warning of an incoming rocket. Dov and Moshe ducked into the nearest stairwell - common procedure in case of a rocket attack. They were packed tightly with some ten other people. A girl was crying. Dov put his arm around Moshe's shoulder. Dov looked at him, but did not move. The siren faded. Moshe dropped his arm, and they walked back into the street, neither one meeting each other's eye.

    They walked into the synagogue; the entrance was narrow, so they each walked in single file: Dov felt Moshe slip his fingers into the back pocket of his pants. He turned around. Moshe shot him a bashful smile. Then the fingers were gone. Dov smiled back, kissed the mezuzah, and took his seat. Moshe sat beside him. Together, they opened their siddur and prepared to give praise to their Creator:

    It is good to praise God and to sing to Your Name, O Most High.

Note on My Jeremiah Project (My religiosity peeks through)

Much of my Jeremiah writing is erotic, but I do not consider it erotica. What is the difference? The difference is that erotic writing uses erotic imagery as a means, whereas erotica views the erotic as an end.

As a religious Jew, I personally would feel uncomfortable using holy texts as a platform for erotica. (Other religious Jews may feel differently, and I respect that.)

 What I do in my project, is read the text, focusing on the images and feelings they arouse in me, sometimes trying to get my story to match what I feel is the "message" of the story, sometimes giving myself more freedom.

I believe God meant for us to live our lives to the fullest, to maximize our potential - including our creative potential. I also believe that the texts handed down from our forefathers were meant to serve not only as moral guides, but also as texts from which we can draw inspiration for the everyday fabric of our lives and our culture, including the arts.

I am writing this because recently I have encountered some misunderstandings about the purpose of my writing, so I wanted to clarify.

I wish for my writing to be a tool that helps me to grow closer to God, and if through it, I manage to bring a reader a moment of beauty, passion, or inspiration, then I have been truly blessed by God.

Because emotions come from us, but it is God who gives us the tools to express them.