The Rabbi Doesn't Have a Beard

Miriam Adomovitz was very intelligent, and really into her studies. Her father, the Reb Adomovitz was a rabbi in Montreal who didn't have the good fortune of having a son with whom he could study the Torah. So he taught his daughter Miriam the Torah and the Talmud from his sickbed. It's too bad that Miriam can never be a rabbi, but the Orthodox Jews have a prohibition against female rabbis. What a pity!

Then the Reb Adomovitz dies after a long illness. After the death of her father, Miriam decides to enter a yeshiva in New York City, where she can become a rabbi without anybody knowing her gender. She merely cuts her long and beautiful hair, except for the curls on the sides of her head, and then she wears a yamulke and pretends to be a man. That'll do the trick. Everyone will think she's a man. In the yeshiva, she calls herself Yochanon.

As Miriam, she is somewhat manly, tall and thin with small breasts and voice deep for a woman. She wears round wire glasses that make her look like an intellectual. She isn't very pretty as a woman. However, she is somewhat effeminate as a man. There are those who whisper about her being suspect as Yochanon the yeshiva student, but there will always be gossips in the world.

Then Yochanon meets Avner Wolf, another yeshiva student who grew up near St. Urbain Street in Montreal like him. Avner is tall and strong, very masculine, with a deep voice even for a man. Yochanon becomes the confidant of Avner, who is very much in love with a girl named Avigal, who still lives in Montreal. However, Avner can't marry Avigal because Avigal's father will not allow the marriage. So Avner marries a young widow, Haddasseh, instead, whose husband died a few months after the wedding. They aren't a good match because Avner is intellectual while Haddasseh is neither beautiful nor very intelligent. She is simple of intellect, but she has lots of money.

Little by little, Avner and Yochanon become more intimate with each other. Then Avner murmurs to Yochanon: "Too bad you're not a woman..."

Then they close their eyes and kiss each other on the lips, like in a movie. Later on, with shame, Avner realizes what he has done, that he's in love with Yochanon. What do they do? They must avoid each other for now on, because the love between two men is a sin, scandalous: a man cannot love another man like a woman, no matter what, according to the Torah. However, the end of their friendship is very traumatic for both of them. They are both very sad afterwards.

Now, Yochanon makes the acquaintance of Avigal, the former beloved of Avner, by chance on the Metro when he comes back to Montreal on vacation. They laugh and really hit it off. They ride the Metro every day during his vacation. They always talk and Yochanon becomes the confidant of Avigal, who is gorgeous, with long and blond hair and clear blue eyes. It's Yochanon that she loves. Yochanon loves Avigal too, first as a friend, and then as a lover. They even ride the calèche together in Old Montreal, pulled by a gelding, the driver a blonde whose name is Lucie.

In the calèche, they close their eyes and kiss tenderly on the lips while the driver looks on and smiles slyly.

"We must get married right away," Avigal avows.

"Yes," Yochanon whispers in agreement. "It must be done..."

Yochanon approaches Avigal's father to ask for her hand in marriage. That's ridiculous, Avigal's father thinks: Yochanon is poor, an orphan. What's more, he doesn't have a beard like a real man. Avigal's father, on the other hand, is rich, a diamond merchant. However, Avigal insists that she only wants to marry Yochanon. She even threatens suicide. What a scandal that would be! So Avigal's father allows the marriage, for fear of his daughter committing suicide.

There's a big wedding. Avigal's father hires several musicians and a few singers. Under the canopy, all solemn, the bride and the groom say their vows before God, before the entire synagogue, and then they kiss. The moment that Yochanon breaks a wine glass with his foot, the other members of the synagogue raise a big cheer. Then everybody dances all night and drinks lots of alcohol. Everybody lets the good times roll like the Cajuns of Louisiana, though there's a partition that separates the guests according to gender.

The bride and the groom are carried aloft in a sedan to the tent where they will consummate their marriage. However, Yochanon is really Miriam: the bride and the groom are both women. If the other members of the synagogue knew, they would think that Yochanon's vows were false, in bad faith. But nobody realizes that Yochanon is really a woman, including Avigal.

So what does he do? Yochanon realizes that it isn't possible to deceive Avigal forever. Eventually, she will probably discover that her groom is a woman too. So does he do? He decides to confess everything to Avigal now. All alone with her in the tent, he says to Avigal gravely:

"There are two things that I must confess, Avigal. The first thing is that I love you madly..."

Avigal smiles slyly and replies:

"I love you too, Yochanon. And the other thing, my love?"

Yochanon stammers a little, but he manages to say:

"Like you, I am a woman. My name is really Miriam..."

Must be, Avigal thinks, this is a joke. But little by little, she realizes that Yochanon isn't joking. With shame, Avigal sobs bitterly as she rocks back and forth on the palate in the tent like someone who is about to have a nervous breakdown. She now thinks that she is defiled, because she kissed another woman in the calèche in Old Montreal.

Over and over again, Yochanon confesses his love for Avigal. Then he says:

"It's me you love, Avigal, me. Not a man, not another woman."

Then he swears:

"I love you. If you will only sleep with me tonight, our spirits will soar up to heaven like two doves, like two angels. The love between us, my dear, is the love between two souls, between two spirits. It is something pure..."

Then Yochanon kisses Avigal tenderly on the lips, then harder on the mouth. Little by little, Avigal surrenders to his kisses, to his caresses, until they are making love. More and more, she blooms like a flower, like the Rose of Sharon in the garden of King Solomon. She feels her towers in the mouth of her lover. Greedily, her sex admits the finger of Yochanon, who is also Miriam. The moment that she feels her groom's mouth devour her sex, she moans yes. When she feels him nibbling her praline, she raises a louder moan towards the ceiling of the little tent. Then he does her with a taper. In ecstasy, she tightens the muscles of her neck and cries out loudly like an animal, like a golem. Over and over again, she takes her foot. It doesn't matter to Avigal now that her groom is a woman like her.

Marvellous to say, there is some blood on the white sheet. Avigal has proof that she is no longer a virgin.

Then, Avigal does to Yochanon, who is now Miriam, everything that she has done to her. They are two women in bed together, contrary to the Torah, but they don't care now. The woman named Miriam no longer has to pretend to be a man while in bed with Avigal; she can be herself. And when she bleeds on the white sheet too, her blood mixes with the blood of her bride. Everybody will have proof that she is no longer a virgin too.

Now they will have to wait an eight-day period before they can sleep together again. Alas, they are as sterile as Abraham and Sarah in the Bible, before Isaac came along. There's a brief honeymoon for the newlyweds, and then the despair: they cannot get pregnant; they can never have children. What shame! Everyone will gossip if Yochanon and Avigal don't have children. What can they do? They might have to admit to the members of the synagogue the truth about the nature of their relationship after all.

After a year, after two years, there are no children. After five years, everybody has been waiting in vain for the pitterpat of little feet. Then Avigal pretends to be pregnant by wearing a pillow as a false womb underneath her dress. Yochanon and Avigal go on vacation in the Catskill Mountains of New York State, where they adopt a baby boy in secret. However, something isn't right, because Yochanon, who's a rabbi now, doesn't have a beard. There are even gossips who whisper that Avigal has been unfaithful to her husband.

Now there's a peeping Tom called Motke the Weasel, who likes to sneak up to the windows of those who are sleeping at night. He's aware of everything that couples do in bed, of what sexual proclivities and anatomical irregularities they might have. He knows, for instance, which women have freckles above their breasts, and which women have one breast that is significantly larger than the other. However, Motke the Weasel is dumbstruck when he sees the Reb naked, with the breasts and genitals of a woman like his wife. And when he sees them start to make love, he's shocked!

Motke the Weasel really wants to tell everybody what he has seen, but it's impossible without him revealing himself as a peeping Tom, as a pervert. So what does he do? In the morning, when he's walking back home, he sees a robin looking for worms on the ground. The peeping Tom tells the robin what he has seen, and the robin tells the other birds what the peeping Tom has told him. What's more, the birds tell the squirrels about it, and the squirrels tell the dogs that chase them in the parks. The dogs tell the cats, who tell the rats among the garbage cans in the alleys near St. Urbain Street. Soon, the members of the synagogue hear the sparrows singing in the trees, without really understanding the language of sparrows: "The Reb is a woman who sleeps with another woman."

Now, everybody thinks that the Reb is a woman. What's more, they all suspect that the Reb is a lesbian. Of course, they are right, aren't they? But what credibility does a flock of birds have? What animal doesn't have a bird brain if not a bird?

The most damning evidence, however, is this: the Reb still doesn't have a beard. Of course, the Reb could wear a fake beard in public before the synagogue, but everyone would know: it would be obvious that the beard was fake. Besides, what if a child pulled on it?

Then Avner Wolf, who is now the owner of several bakeries with his wife Haddasseh, while very drunk during a Passover seder, admits that he was kissing with the Reb as a yeshiva student. "We almost sinned that time," he admits, "but, hey, he was almost a woman at the time, him, not having a beard..."

Scandalized, the whole synagogue is about to demand that the Reb reveal himself as either a man or a woman when there's a miracle: Avigal is really pregnant this time. Yochanon and Avigal can't believe it either! This is a case of what scientists call parthenogenesis, where an organism gives birth without recourse to sex. It probably happens all the time.

Maybe, the proud parents tell themselves, it's the Messiah, because the prophet Isaiah had said something about a virgin getting pregnant without the benefit of having known a man. One must remember that Avigal has never slept with a man, except Yochanon, who isn't really a man.

Then there's another miracle: Yochanon wakes up one morning with an erection. That's right, an erection. There are some hairs on Yochanon's chin, as well as on his testicles. Then there are more and more hairs on his chin until he has a full beard. Little by little, Reb Yochanon, whose name was once Miriam, becomes a man, until he has the genitals of a man without the breasts of a woman. What's more, he soon speaks in a low voice like a man, with the broad shoulders of a carpenter. It's better late than never with the testosterone.

They have a son whose name is Immanuel, but is he the Messiah of whom the Bible has prophesied? Who knows? It's a question of faith.

And they lived happily ever after, in their own way, with lots of kids, all of them conceived the natural way.