By the age of 32, Ronit has left London and transformed her life. She has become a cigarette-smoking, wise-cracking, New York career woman, who is in love with a married man.
But when Ronit’s father dies she is called back into the very different world of her childhood, a world she thought she had left far behind. The orthodox Jewish suburb of Hendon, north London is outraged by Ronit and her provocative ways. But Ronit is shocked too by the confrontation with her past. And when she meets up with her childhood girlfriend Esti, she is forced to think again about what she has left behind.
Extract from Disobedience by Naomi Alderman
1
And on the Shabbat, the priests would sing a song for the future that is to come, for that day which will be entirely Shabbat and for the repose of eternal life.
Mishnah Tamid 7:4, recited during the Saturday morning service
By the first Sabbath after the festival of Simchat Torah, Rav Krushka had grown so thin and pale that, the congregation muttered, the next world could be seen in the hollows of his eyes.
The Rav had brought them through the High Holy Days, had remained standing during the two-hour service at the end of the Yom Kippur fast, though more than once his eyes had rolled back as though he would faint. He had even danced joyfully with the Torah scrolls, if only for a few minutes. But, now those holy days were over, the vital energy had departed from him. On this sultry, overripe September day, with the windows closed and sweat beading on the brow of every member of the congregation, the Rav, leaning on the arm of his nephew Dovid, was wrapped in a woollen overcoat. His voice was faint. His hands shook.
The matter was clear. It had been clear for some time. For months, his voice, once as rich and clear as red kiddush wine, had been hoarse, sometimes cracking altogether into a harsh little cough or a deep fit of retching and choking. Still it was hard to believe in a faint shadow on the lung. Who could see a shadow? What was a shadow? The congregation could not believe that Rav Krushka could succumb to a shadow — he from whom the light of Torah seemed to shine so brightly that they felt themselves illuminated by his presence.
Rumours had spread across the community, passed at chance meetings in the Street. A Harley Street specialist had told him all would be well if he took a month’s rest. A famous Rebbe had sent word that he and 500 young Torah students recited the entire book of Psalms every day for Rav Krushka's safe recovery. The Rav, it was said, had received a prophetic dream declaring that he would live to see the first stone laid of the Bais HaMikdash in Jerusalem.
And yet, he grew more frail day by day. His failing health became known across Hendon and further afield. As is the way of things, congregants who might once have skipped a week in synagogue, or attended a different service, had become fervent in their devotions. Each week, more worshippers attended than the week before. The clumsy synagogue — originally merely two semi-detached houses knocked together and hollowed out — was not designed for this quantity of people. The air became stale during services, the temperature even warmer, the scent almost fetid.
One or two members of the synagogue board suggested that perhaps they might arrange an alternative service, to cater for the unusual numbers. Yitzchak Hartog, the president of the board, overruled them. These people had come to see the Rav, he declared, and see him they would.
So it was that, on this Shabbat in Tishri, the synagogue was over-full, each member of the congregation fixing their attention more, sad to say, on the Rav himself than on the prayers they were addressing to their Maker. Throughout that morning, they watched him anxiously. It was true that Dovid was by his uncle’s side, holding the siddur for him, supporting him by his right elbow. But, one murmured to another, perhaps the presence of such a man would hinder rather than help his recovery? Dovid was a Rabbi, this much was admitted, but he was not a Rav. The distinction was subtle, for one may become a Rabbi simply through study and achievement, but the title Rav is given by a community to a beloved leader, a guiding light, a scholar of unsurpassed wisdom. Rav Krushka was all these things without doubt. But had Dovid ever spoken in public or given a magnificent d’var Torah, let alone written a book of inspiration and power, as the Rav had? No, no and no. Dovid was unprepossessing to the sight: short, balding, a little overweight; but more than that, he had none of the Rav’s spirit, none of his fire. Not a single member of the congregation, down to the tiniest child, would address Dovid Kuperman as 'Rabbi'. He was 'Dovid', or sometimes, simply, ‘that nephew of the Rav, that assistant’. And as for his wife! It was understood that all was not well with Esti Kuperman, that there was some problem there, some trouble. But such matters fall under the name of lashon hara — an evil tongue — and should not even be whispered in the holy house of the Lord.
