Free Jephte's Daughter by Naomi Ragen

dutifully smoothed her pleated dress beneath her. I look like an MBA student. Dressed for success with closed-toe shoes, little silk bow tie. She had no idea what Ha-Levi wanted, but she decided to treat the royal summons seriously. Where there was wealth, there was power, right? No need to tweak your nose at that if you were a poor country girl.
    “How long has it been since you began tutoring Sheva?”
    “Nearly four years, sir.”
    “Ah, such a long time. I hadn’t realized…” He got up and paced, his hands behind his back, his head bent forward in concentration. “And what exactly do you tutor her in?”
    “Grammar and English literature.”
    “What kind of literature?”
    Was that a threat, a challenge? Maybe not. “Well, it’s been rather eclectic, I’m afraid. Everything from Shakespeare to Forster, Conrad, and Lawrence.” Oops, shouldn’t have mentioned Lawrence. People only remembered Lady Chatterley when you said Lawrence, even though that was one of his worst books and not particularly interesting either. She waited a little tensely for his response.
    “A little risqué, no, for a sheltered child like Sheva?”
    “We didn’t do the controversial books. Just the classics.”
    Suddenly, he sat down in a chair beside her, his eyes peering intently into her own. “You don’t very much approve of the way we live, or how we treat Sheva, do you?”
    She swallowed hard, then took a deep breath. “I don’t understand it. I don’t think it’s natural for a teenager like Sheva to be so isolated and restricted.”
    He smiled and she relaxed her grip on the chair. “Of course you don’t. How could you? We do not live as Americans. We follow the path of our ancestors. We live in the community, but are not part of it. We isolate ourselves in order to fulfill a different destiny, to preserve something very precious. You can understand that, can’t you?”
    “Yes, but there has to be a balance between preserving the past and living in the present. I can’t see how a little fun, a few dates to the movies, could hurt your daughter.”
    His brows knitted together. Uh-oh. Couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you, Liz? she thought. But so what. That was the truth.
    “You don’t understand. You play at love. You find partners in supermarkets or classrooms, knowing nothing about their families, their beliefs, their commitments. That is all right if your own life is so vague…” He got up with a sudden energy that frightened her and went to look out of the window. “I was born in a small town in Poland. My father and his father and his father before him were considered saints. They had thousands of followers that came from all over Europe to eat at our table, to have a private audience with them. Their existence was not an accident, but a linked chain that went back to Sinai. Any break in the chain, and we perish for all time.” He paused, searching her face kindly.
    “I was like you once. I believed in Western values: freedom for the individual above all and family and heritage and custom be damned. I was in Warsaw at the university when Hitler took over. Studying art. I did not want to be a link in a chain, but only myself. The Nazis, they understood about the chain and the links. They believed in it and wanted to destroy it. The SS surrounded my father’s house and marched everyone into the synagogue. They poured kerosene around the building and set it on fire. They waited outside to shoot anyone who came screaming out, anyone who tried to quench the fire by rolling on the ground. Do you know why I am alive? Because I ran away from my family. And because I ran away, God has made me the last link, you see. That is God’s sense of humor. So you see, we are not free to choose our fate. There is a yoke to be borne and freedom is only an illusion. I am not free. God has put me here on earth for a reason. He has chosen Batsheva to be the next link in the chain.”
    Elizabeth cleared her throat,