A Brunoy bocher

It was a nice summer day in Paris. The sky was beautifully painted with clouds. The streets were full of young tourists speaking in all different languages. I look around; everyone is just enjoying the day.

But I am here too. Why am I here? I think.

Do I even know? Can I enjoy the day too? Am I allowed to? Can I try?

I am definitely trying to. But it’s hard. Yes, it’s hard. I don’t look like everyone else. I’m a stranger. I’m different. Maybe even gross. I’m wearing a black fedora and a sun faded blue suit jacket in this summer heat while everyone else is either half-naked or wearing shorts and a T-shirt. I notice my Tzitzis fringes coming out my pants as well. Am I an alien? Am I part of this world? What am I doing? What am I doing here?

I let the thoughts past. Let the questions go unanswered. I let them go just like all the other times they came.

I try to bring my thoughts to my coffee. I sip it slowly. The coffee is good, though it smelled better when it came close to my nose. I’m in the Jewish quarter at this kosher café. Life is not that bad, I think, at least not right now.

Paris is a nice city. I wished I spend more time in it, though. I lived here for two years. I came to study in a yeshiva not far from Paris. A half hour train ride. Two years I spent there. What I did there? Hard to know.

We did come to Paris on Fridays to do Jewish outreach, Mivtzoim. But I never got too much time to see the city. If you’d ask me, I would say that physically I lived in France, right near Paris, the city of love, yet really it was like I was in an old shtetel in Russia. As if time stopped and froze in the fortified yeshiva campus.

So I’m glad to be here today and not in yeshiva. I’m glad I finely did it. After two years stuck in that place, I snuck out this morning like a prison break. Like I was in a movie, looking that no would see me leave the campus.

Sitting here at this café feels like most enjoyable thing I’ve done in two years. I don’t need to do anything. I don’t need to make like I am studying Talmud and I don’t even have to make like I’m looking into a Talmud. I don’t have to fake anything. I feel so free. Just plain freedom. And what’s better than the feeling of freedom? It’s a total high.

I can feel myself take a slow breath. I can feel the air expand my chest. I imagine the air as fresh as the white clouds hovering above me. I feel myself smile. I smile at the calmness that I’m in.

“Shalom” I hear.

I wake up from my thoughts. I look up.

She must have seen me smile. I see her standing right before me with her coffee. She’s young, probably a few years older than me, medium Hight and thin. Dark brown hair wildly dressed her. Her smile brightens up her face.

It was her that said Shalom to me. I don’t know her. She’s a stranger, a stranger like any other person my eyes have met. Yet I’m not too surprised. She’s clearly Israeli, and to see me, a fellow Jew, in middle of Paris, is probably cool for her. It’s like we are already family. I met a lot of Israelis like this.

So, I say “shalom lach” back without much hesitation.

She thought I was either French or Israeli and was happy to see Jews still living in the old Jewish quarter. I explain I’m neither from Israeli or France and all the rest I had to explain.

She had come on a solo trip for the week.

Freedom, I think. She’s freedom itself.

By now we switched to English, after I exposed my bad Hebrew. Her English was perfect and she spoke so beautifully with a hint of Israeli accent.

She took the seat across me. It felt natural, though I definitely sensed a hint of nervousness.

Her coffee was still steaming, she brought it to her mouth so elegantly and put it back on the table.

I hadn’t had the time to think of the absurdity of this scene, a yeshiva boy having coffee with a girl, even worse secular. Not an everyday scene, come to think of it.

“What are you doing alone in Paris? After all you said your studying in a nearby town?” She wondered.

I nearly laughed; it truly was a valid question, it’s not like I know myself.

“Well, I realized I like freedom” I try to explain.

I explain how my school works, the full day learning from 7:00 am till 9:00 pm. The strict principles. The religious standards. I realized it’s not easy to explain a yeshiva.

It was hard to explain why I spent most of the day staring inside a Talmud, just to make as if I was studying.

It was hard to explain how I felt locked up in a prison, if I wasn’t actually locked up.

And it was just as hard to explain the excitement of being out there, even if all I’m doing is nothing.

I felt at ease to unburden whatever that was. But she said she gets it. Even better.

“How about you? Just touring? By yourself?”

“I like freedom too. I love the freedom to just be.”

“Freedom to be.” Such attractive words I thought. I’ve never heard those words before. But they sounded familiar. Familiar that I wanted them. They sound so light. So relaxing. So free.

She explained more, and we talked in depth. We talked about freedom, being and becoming, living in the moment, and some other interesting topics. The most interesting thing for me though was that the topics had depth.

“Do you think a lot” I asked.

“Yea a ton. Sometimes too much.”

“And you?” She took a sip of the hot coffee. Her face constrained as if what she just sipped was too hot.

“I think all the time. All day. There is nothing else that I do. It became second nature for me to live in my thought. I guess sometime too much too. My thinking makes me crazy sometimes. But I never thought of it like that though.”

“Yea it’s good to realize. You can’t always trust thinking. That’s what I’ve learned.

“So, who do we trust?”

“Actual living, I would say. Just trying stuff and exploring.”

“I’ve recently wondered if life’s is better for those who think less.” I say. “They can just fallow everyone else and be quiet.”

“Maybe it’s true.” She laughs. “I do like to think though that it makes me deeper and closer to the truth. Thinking makes us pause and think who we are.” She takes her coffee with her hand. “It’s not that bad”

She finishes her cup. I look up to the sky while I pick up my cup to take in the last drops.

A deep conversation for meeting someone, I think again. I liked it, I really did. In yeshiva this rarely happens. Conversations with even a slight touch of depth usually happen only after everyone is drunk. It’s like everyone is scared to talk what’s actually on their hearts.

But here it was natural. It was natural talking about life, how amazing. Was it because her life was authentic? Was it because she didn’t fake doing stuff? I wasn’t sure. But probably, I thought.

Her smile lit her up. I looked in her eyes. Brown eyes. Just like her hair. I never noticed the beauty of brown eyes. I smile back at her.

I offered to show her the old synagogue. It’s locked during the weekdays, but I came often with friends to do Mivtzoim there so I had the code.

Mivtzoim. Did I ever explain? It’s the thing that you try to convince Jews to like Judaism while you don’t give a shit about it yourself. Maybe that’s too rough. Is it? I don’t know. Maybe.

We got up, and I led the way up the narrow cobble stone street. The doors are old. The stairs rustic. We climb the flight up. I show her around, it’s a nice place over 200 years old. She takes a few pictures. I take her to the balcony; it has a nice view overlooking the street below.

We step back inside. She looked around slowly. Turning her head to the walls and picking it up to the 18^th century engravings on the ceilings. “So historic. Amazing how this lasted even during Jewish persecution.” She admired.

She picked up a book of psalms and recited a psalm in front of the old ark.

For me an old building, a barren shul that I rest in, is for her something historic, a sense of Jewish pride, something worth connecting to.

Was I missing something?