Skip to:

The Hebrew Teacher


Author: 
Translator: 
Jessica Cohen
Published on 
September 18, 2020

Maya Arad
An excerpt from the novella “The Hebrew Teacher”
From the book "The Hebrew Teacher – Three Novellas" published by New Vessel Press, 2024
Translated by Jessica Cohen

***

Yoad arrives on time. This surprises her a little. For some reason she was sure he’d be late, which is why she’d told him to come half an hour earlier than the other guests. She opens the door still in her slippers, her right hand in an oven mitt, having just removed a burning hot baking dish.
He stands in the doorway, wearing a checkered button-down shirt in dark blue and ivory, holding a bottle of wine. “Is it here?” he seems to wonder, “am I on time?”
“Come in, come in,” she says, apologizing as she ducks into the kitchen to turn down the stove. “Shelley?” she calls into the hallway. Lately he’s had trouble hearing. She apologizes again and walks almost all the way to his study: “Shelley!”
When she comes back she finds Yoad staring straight ahead, straining his eyes to decipher the tiny letters of her wedding ketubah that hangs on the wall. It used to be fashionable to have a calligrapher or a graphic artist design a special rendition of the wedding vows, to be framed and hung in the living rom. She has no idea if young people still do that, but Yoad looks as if he’s never come across anything so peculiar. From there his gaze wanders on to the large silver candlesticks on the dining table, with two lit candles, then to her collection of hamsas hanging on the wall, and the Passover dish and menorahs arranged on the buffet. Out of the corner of her eye she can see that he recognizes the Chagall reproduction that hangs next to the hamsas. Now she sees her home through his eyes and feels suddenly ashamed of this house she’s always been so proud of. She can guess what he’s thinking: all the trimmings of a classic Jewish diasporic home. Her—diasporic! But then she stops: after all, he’s the one who took the name Bergman to negate the negation of diaspora. Still, she feels uncomfortable, compelled to defend herself from that gaze. Why is he lingering on the hamsas, the ketubah, the menorahs? He spends no time on the photos crowding the buffet. That was usually a sure way to break the ice and start a conversation with guests. She was always happy to narrate: the picture of their wedding from ’75, in slightly faded colors; Barak and Yael – he a baby, barely standing, she with pigtails and missing front teeth; the two of them in their Purim costumes, Wonderwoman and Superman; Barak at his bar mitzvah; the four of them at Yael’s high school graduation – her whole life on display for anyone who entered the house. But Yoad Bergman-Harari, so it would seem, is uninterested.
Shelley is still absent. When she’d gone to call him, she’d realized he wasn’t in his study but in the bathroom. She has no choice but to have Yoad sit down on the comfortable, heavy couch in the living room, which she now also sees through his eyes, offer him something to drink, and try to strike up a conversation.
“Wine would be nice,” he concedes.
She dallies in the kitchen for a while until she finds the opener, then hands it to Yoad and suggests he open the bottle he brought. “I’m really bad at it. You have no idea.”
Now that the two of them are sitting, she can ask him about his work. She’s heard so many accolades, as though he alone is going to elevate the department, perhaps even the whole college, by several degrees.
Yoad thinks for a moment before answering. She assumes it’s not because he doesn’t know what his field is, but rather that he’s debating how to present the topic to her. “Basically, it’s about Heidegger as a Jewish writer,” he finally says, and leaves her staring at him.
“Heidegger?” she asks in disbelief. “Isn’t he the Nazi?”
A forgiving expression comes over Yoad’s face: Oh, honestly. At the corner of his mouth she notices the beginning of a smile. “The idea, basically, is to examine the question of what Jewish literature is from a new perspective. To challenge that inquiry. To problematize it. What is Jewish literature? Is it Sholem Aleichem? Agnon? Is it Saul Bellow? Today there is fairly broad agreement that Jewish literature is not only what is written in Hebrew or Yiddish, not even only what is written by Jews. Dan Miron has talked about the Judaisation of European literature in the twentieth century. So basically, my idea is that the literary expanse is full of broken vessels of Jewish contexts, which find their place in twentieth century literature and thought throughout Europe, and it is precisely Heidegger,” he accentuates the name, “who manifests that notion so plainly, and I stand behind that claim, problematic as it may be.”
“That’s interesting…” She is unsure how to go on without exposing herself, without sounding ridiculous. Everything he said is completely new and incomprehensible to her. “But you work on Hebrew literature too, don’t you?”
Yoad gestures ambiguously. “If it’s related to my topic, yes.”
“There’s a lot of interest in Hebrew literature in the community. Including from Israelis – there are more and more of them recently, from the university, and now they come to work in the tech industry, too – and Americans. At the synagogue we have a Hebrew book club. The Israelis read the original and the Americans read it in translation. They’re really thirsty for Hebrew literature. They read a lot. Everything that comes out. Amos Oz, A. B. Yehoshua, and the new writers too – Etgar Keret. Everything.”
She expects some expression of interest, a smile, an acknowledgement, but Yoad simply nods blankly.
“It would be wonderful if you came to talk to us some time. Not now,” she quickly reassures him, “of course, with all the pressure of the new year and the teaching, I know how that is. But one day…”
Yoad says nothing. Just nods his head noncommittally.
“And for the last few years Tamar and I – you know who Tamar is, right?” she asks, but doesn’t stop to heap praise on her, so as not to embarrass him, “we tried to bring an Israeli author or poet to campus every year. We don’t have a permanent budget, even though we started working on that too, raising funds from the community, but every year we made it work, we applied for grants, all sorts of university funders, the consulate also helped out. It was a big success. I would be thrilled if it continued.”
She doesn’t go on to state the obvious: that she needs his backing to keep the visits going. He belongs to the academic faculty, she’s an adjunct and has no authority to act alone. But Yoad doesn’t get the hint, and she decides to let it go. This is not the time to discuss that.
Instead she tells him about the Hebrew program, and which courses she teaches. It’s very important for her to stress that she sees the program as an integral part of the array of Jewish studies on campus. She tells him about the Biblical Hebrew class offered every other year, which is always a big success. When she gets to the seminar she co-taught with Tamar, “Hebrew Literature in Context,” offered by the comparative literature department, she finally detects a flicker of interest in his eyes. “And I’ve been thinking of doing something with the creative writing program. It’s an old dream of mine. I take evening courses, too, continuing education, in creative writing. In English,” she clarifies. She barely plucks up the courage to say: “I can show you something I wrote. I’d be very interested in your opinion. There aren’t many people here who understand this sort of thing and read Hebrew too…”
The last words are drowned out by the sound of the toilet flushing, followed by running water, and by the time Shelley joins them Yoad has explained that he’s sorry, but he’s not the right person to give that sort of assessment.
“Of course you are!” she contradicts him, “You’re a professor of literature!”
“I hardly read any literature.”
She is horrified: “How is that possible?”
“Literature for me is the material, not the instrument,” he explains with a shrug. “I look at what I need but the only thing I read seriously is the instruments: mostly philosophy. A little psychoanalysis. Here and there some sociology, anthropology. You know, just enough.”