JACS Library - Our Stories

JACS: Jewish Alcoholics, Chemically Dependent Persons, and Significant Others

JACS LIBRARY - OUR STORIES

E.R.'s Trio

I hadn't been to the retreat in ten years. Missed it. Couldn't get away. The intrusions of a dozen major family dramas, none of them trivial by anybody's standard, but I'm back, ten years later, different location, different

people, but I'm back. In my planning for the trip, being back marks some sort of return to normalcy for me, even if it isn't, even if the whole concept of a normal life is lost to me forever, which it is, I know that as soon as I get off the plane, but not until.

I fly to Hartford, Connecticut. Have never been there before. Beautiful ride from Hartford to the retreat center I am told. For $10 more a day, I rent a big car with a tape player in it. Stopped in Norfolk, Connecticut, great deli with Lebanese cook and excellent food. I am riding through the Connecticut countryside listening to Persian music eating a Portuguese bun. A Portuguese bun, Swiss cheese and roasted pepper. Mustard.

First night. I'm scared. I have a roommate and it's raining. I didn't expect to have a room mate. Don't much like the roommate concept, but the retreat is >sold out and I'm stuck. A retreat for ex addicts, Jewish, is sold out.

They introduce all the retreat masters at the first general meeting. There are many of us, maybe fourteen, fifteen. We stand in front of the room. I feel like I'm standing in a beauty contest wearing a swim suit I don't like. I don't know where to put my hands. I fold them under my arms over my chest like Hercules. I drop my hands to my side and toe the ground.

It's raining. Friday night prayers is in the nusach (melodies) of Reb S. I love the melodies and the harmonies with the women's voices are breathtaking.

Later that night, wonderful stories. Bottles in the car. No brown liquid in a bottle is kosher for Passover. Prescriptions from the doctors. The hard detox.

Late night meetings. Hugs all around. Where've you been? Been sober, maybe I should clarify that. Been in exile. A. just got out of jail. "This is how my mind works" A. says, in the middle of the soliloquy he fixes R.'s pant cuff which has turned up on his right leg. "Fine with me," R. says and shrugs.

I realize it's been fifteen years since my first retreat.

I read in bed until I fall asleep.

Shabbat morning I go to pray. My room mate reads Torah in a rich, strong voice. I am feeling it is good to have a room mate. Later, many more shmoozes. Nice walks with friends. We are speaking of empty prayers, the hard

spiritual journey at home, the man woman drift, the daily spiritual remedies. We talk about the possibilities of return, the effort to re-negotiate the distance between, the possibilities of renewal. "Are you willing to go to any

lengths?" I ask.

General meeting Saturday night. J. on video. May he rest in peace. His wife and daughter share. His daughter closes with "there's no love like a little girl for her Daddy."

Tired. Shabbat is out. Late night shmooze around the dining room tables. J. and A., I am falling asleep but A. is so funny I am waking up. Her kids, tattoos, the mikveh in the river. I am howling myself awake.

J. and I start to tell miracle stories. He tells me about Srul, the Chasid he met at the Wall, who took him on an adventure to procure the finest hadasim (myrtle for Sukkot) in Yerushalayim. Tzefas, among the Arabs, m'shuleshet

(three leafed).

I tell him the story of how Reb S. gave me my name. Soon, someone else wanders in, sits down at the table across from me, "I hear you have a story about S."

"Yeah," I say.

"Will you tell me that story?"

"Sure." I tell the story. A half hour later someone else sits down. "Are you the one with the Reb S. story?" I tell the story five more times that night.

J. is sitting next to me at the table all the time I am telling the story. He sits silently next to me the entire time I am telling it, four, five times, he is listening to the story each time. Each time I tell it, I look at him and smile. It becomes part of the preparation for the holy eruption of the tale. The glance.

After the tellings, J. and I sit in silence. Then J. says to me, "you know -- S. gave me my name too."

I nod my head, knowing that the glance is about to be expounded.

I was a street addict. Low. I lived in the subways, I was one of those guys you step over on the streets of New York City. Somebody in my family had a connection with Rabbi S. Someone got to him, told him about me, he came and found me. Imagine, I thought it was an acid flashback, here's this guy in black hat, black suit, payes (earlocks) tzittzit (fringes) hovering over me telling me to get up and come with him to the synagogue. You know what's even wilder? I went.

It was Friday night and I'm standing inside a shul for the first time since I was Bar Mitzvah. S. is running up and down the aisles, I don't remember much, I remember the singing was beautiful and S. running up and down the aisles. In the middle he comes over to me, smiles, his eyes lit up and he says to me "How am I doing?" I thought that was so great! How am I doing? Here's this famous guy, been all over the world, drags this street addict into his synagogue and he wants to know "how am I doing?" I understand now why Moses is remembered for his humility. How am I doing? Hah!

At 3:30 AM I go into my cabin to go to sleep. Can't sleep, so I grab my flashlight and find my Walk Person (don't want to awaken my roommate). I switch on the radio, earphones in bed, switch to the FM, I pick up two stations. One is classical, love classical but the guy is talking all the time, and the other station comes in stronger and is jazz. I am listening to a long piece, five minutes, ten minutes, still can't sleep, listening. It's a wonderful piece. At

the end of the music, the DJ says "that was the trio that used to accompany E.R." I'm trembling in my bed, I can't believe my ears, I switch on my flashlight just to affirm that I am not dreaming. E.R. was on the last retreat that I attended, ten years ago, she died a year or so later on tour in Australia. I have never heard her music or her name mentioned on the radio before. I finally fall asleep some time before dawn.

Next morning, I don't know what to do with the experience of the night before so I sweep it aside, besides I have a qualification to give. I qualify. At the end, I sit down next to J. and A. again. In the front of the room the retreat

organizers are finishing up the last session, I turn to J. because the idea had just popped into my head to tell him about E.R. on the radio last night. I don't know if he knew her or not but I turn to him and whisper "remind me to tell you what happened after we left each other last night."

When the session was over, I told J. about E.R.'s trio on the radio and gave him my interpretation of it. "That's the other side of what we are doing here," I said to J., "some people don't make it." J. disappears into the crowd.

Later, J. finds me and says, "I spoke to her the day she died," J. says." We were close. I don't know if you know that."

"No," I said, "I didn't."

"Your dream -- it was a message for me," J. said, "sent from E. through you."

On the way out of camp, J. was waiting for me at the end of the driveway leading to the road. I stopped the car. I spoke first.

"A message?" I asked.

"Do you know the story about the Kotzker Rebbe?"

"No," I said, though maybe I did, but I wanted to hear it, again, in another version.

The Kotzker Rebbe, you know, withdrew from the world for the last nineteen years of his life, J. began. What that was about, no one is sure. But the Kotzker, Rabbi Menachem Mendel, saw few people during those years. The

Kotzker had a dear friend, Rabbi Isaac, to whom he was bound up, one soul to another. R. Isaac was so close to the Kotzker that R. Isaac named his son Mendel after Menachem Mendel, his dear friend, the great Rebbe of Kotzk.

During the years that the Kotzker lived in seclusion, R. Isaac died. About thirty days after his death, his son, Mendel, came to the Kotzker. One of the Kotzker's assistants welcomed him. He sees no one, the assistant said. I am

Mendel, the son of his dear friend Isaac, perhaps he will see me. So the assistant went to the Kotzker's study, spoke to him through the door. I will see him, the Kotzker said.

Mendel disappeared into the rooms where the Kotzker was secluded. Mendel said, my father was always so close to me. Even when he went away, I heard from him. Always. He was dependable that way. It has been over thirty days since he's died, and I have heard nothing.

The Kotzker said, Yes, I too expected to hear from him. He was always so dependable. I too thought he would contact me, but he has not. So -- I went to find him.

You went to find him? asked Mendel.

I went to find him. I went first to the next heaven, I sat in the circle of Rashi, I listened to Rashi's teaching, it was so beautiful. When he was finished, I asked him, has my friend Isaac been here?

He was just here, Rashi said, he just left.

So I ascended to the next heaven, where I sat in the circle of Rambam, I listened to his teaching, it was so wonderful. When he finished, I asked, has my friend Isaac been here?

Just left, said the Rambam. He was just here.

So I ascended to the next heaven, I sat in the circle of Abraham our father and Sarah our mother. I listened to their teachings, they were so beautiful, and when they were through, I asked, has my friend Isaac been here?

Just left, said Avraham our Father.

Then I met the angel Gabriel. I asked, have you seen my friend Isaac? Gabriel said to me, yes, he was just here, he went that way, through the forest. If you follow him through the forest, you will find your friend Isaac.

So I traveled through the forest and on the other side of the forest I came to the edge of a Sea. The waters of the Sea were peculiar, they rose straight up in the air, and there was a terrible cacophony of sound, like sighing, or groaning. And standing there at the edge of the Sea, leaning against a staff, was your father, my friend, Isaac.

Isaac, I said, what is this place? What are you doing here?

This is the Sea of Tears, said Isaac, this is the Sea of Jewish suffering, and I swore that I would not leave this place, until God had dried every tear.

And that, the Kotzker said to Mendel, is where your father is, and that is why he has not contacted you, he stands next to the Sea of Tears, and he has >sworn that he will not leave that place until God has dried every tear.

I thanked J. for the story and I watched him in the rear view mirror as I pulled away down the gravel path. He stood there, silently watching me leave, with his hand in the air, slowly waving back and forth like a blessing in code, silent praise for the day, his hand lifted to the holiness of the work that we were reminded was not ours to complete, but neither were we free to drive away from it.

I drove out in the clear, sunny Connecticut afternoon, and followed the road back the way I had come.

There is a story about an angel who follows me as I am beginning a long journey. The first night I stop to rest and leave my shoes pointing in the direction I am to continue traveling in the morning. During the night, the angel takes my shoes and turns them around, sending me home, believing, but not for long, that the journey leads to a destination somewhere, far away, in the distance.

James Stone Goodman
April, 1998
St. Louis