I don't make eye contact with Chava when I walk into the classroom. Partly because I want to savor the moment when our eyes meet for the first time each day and partly because I am filled with the shame that accompanies that desire. The list of reasons I feel that hot, humbling feeling is endless; the craving I feel to touch her hair when every time she leans her head against me, the sacrilegious prayers I whisper so desperately into my siddur each morning at the end of sh’mona esrei, the conflict that builds up inside me each time she holds my wrist under the table, and most loudly, the absolute embarrassment when she turns away. Still, the nagging call pulling up from my insides begging me to meet her gaze wins out, as it always does, and I turn to face her seat, only two desks across from mine.
Her bold, blue eyes are staring intensely at the passuk our teacher has written up on the whiteboard in a faint-green marker. I try to follow her lead and squint at the painfully paled marker but within a minute I’ve given up and am hoping to catch her eye once again. This time Chava is looking out to her right, mouthing to Aviella. The two of them erupt into silent laughter and I am left feeling the fool, questioning my optimism. Instead, I pull out my notebook and continue writing the short story I’d begun working on earlier that week. In this tale two teenagers take the leading roles. Here, they are not orthodox Jews, not confined to the pressures of fitting into a predestined future. When they touch it is not after midnight, but rather at recess and in their bedrooms after school lets out. Here, they fight different demons than I do; Anna with her abusive father, Luisa with her absentee mother. Together they find solace and face the world with each other to lean back on.
I forget to look up from my scattered pages until our teacher opens up the period to a classroom discussion. I quickly try to piece together what we’re dissecting here. It is, regrettably, a portion from the book of Devarim (17:17) stating that a king should not have “too many wives, lest his heart goes astray.” This sparks a heated conversation among Aliza and Na’ama about king Soloman and his stretching of this verse. Essentially a conversation about the religious legality of polyamory. I raise my hand and when called upon ask how many husbands a woman is, halachically speaking of course, allowed to have. A few students laugh as if my question had been intended as a joke. Our teacher is fast to tell me that this is, in fact, forbidden, and though I come close to asking many pointed follow-ups I hold my tongue and resign myself to this answer. I turn to see who else has their hand raised, pleased with myself for appearing attentive and hopefully disguising my previous disengagement with the morning lecture.
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