A Room of Their Own by Rakefet Yarden (best summer reads of all time .TXT) 📕

grab onto, and the evil that you want to repel, and yet it was itself the thing that drove them out of the Garden of Eden − either good or evil, no such thing as both. But the Tree of Life is everything as well as nothing.

Warehouses filled with used and recycled feelings, years of hoarding suddenly make room. Small and large baggage, bundles, crates, chains, and loops, more and more heaps having piled up, insults I had taken and endured. I deserve this and I deserve that. I deserve goodness or I deserve evil. I’m amazing and I’m also not good enough. To each his own. I can’t hold on to both of them simultaneously. Rejection, revolt, neglect, yearning, and despising, reels of endless indecisions, despairing spirals, yes or no, truth or lies, hate or love, rolled-up emotions pulled out of their moldy abodes, slowly melting, making room. Compassion, airiness, softness − they sparkle and slowly become stronger. It’s easy for me. I can fly, but my back is broken and I still haven’t gotten used to that. That may be the reason for the comfy couch’s absence from my daydreams, so that we don’t fly off and disappear somewhere over the rainbow. So that we’ll come back down.

“Nature is the guru,” Yehuda spoke. “This is the last day − supportive love and good will. Today we will share the purification of our souls and the happiness we’ve accomplished during the workshop. We will share it with all living beings. We are part of the creation. May all those created be happy, may they all find peace, and we within them,” he said quietly.

It was lunchtime. The kibbutz cafeteria cart rolled into the yurt for the final time, stopping at the same safe-distance from the rug in order not to soil it. Something felt different this time. There’s no doubt about it: my sensations had definitely sharpened over the last few days. I first recognized the vibration arising from her, before I even saw her behind the cart. A current flowed within me from my head down to my ankles. My sister.

“Hello, Rotem. I thought you’d never come,” she said smiling.

She’s one to talk! I approached her for a hug and she backed off. Electricity ran along my spine, a deep pain sliced through me. Well, some things never change, monk or no monk. All of the demons I had befriended so nicely for the past 10 days suddenly jumped up at once, like crazed monkeys within my mind. What’s wrong with her? Is she crazy? Why won’t she touch me? I haven’t seen her for a year and it doesn’t matter whether she’s a monk or not… But Emily didn’t budge. She stood there looking at me quietly, her face radiating such warmth that my shoulders relaxed and I slowly calmed down. “Where can we sit and eat and talk, Emily?”

“I no longer eat any meat,” she answered, aware of my cravings, “but I haven’t yet parted from cheese. There’s an Indian restaurant just across the road, the Thali.”

The restaurant was indeed like a little trip to India. Big cushions on the floor, low and wide wooden tables, elephant chains hanging off the walls, the sound of Indian music, and a delicate scent of incense filling the air. A meticulous celebration of the senses, and I was excited about the taste that was to join in. A smiling man bowed and served us the dishes. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Kalu.”

“Baba Kalu is an Indian Brahmin, a private import of Lilac’s from her trip to Pushkar. Yehuda and I enjoy sitting with them when their shifts end,” Emily told me.

I didn’t know that monks had such busy social lives.

“If you’re already here, you must try the Malai Kofta. Its flavors are delightful and it’s intoxicatingly spiced so you won’t miss meat for a second,” Emily said, smiling, looking incredibly tranquil. Who would have thought that meditation, combined with childhood sweethearts, could do that to her soul?

Yehuda was her wound, I suddenly realized. Insult and relief mixed within me. It turned out that I wasn’t responsible for that either.

Emily told her tale over an exceptionally tasty bowl of malai kofta. Yehuda was her first boyfriend, even before Ohad. They were so young that she didn’t tell anyone about it. She was scared of Dad’s reaction.

Ehud’s father was the CEO of one of the only factories in the north of Israel in the 1970s. He would make up for being gone all year long during the holidays. While we had spent whole summers at the Sea of Galilee, the Alkabetz family conquered Disneyland. During the summer vacation of 11th grade, Ehud invited her to join him there. She couldn’t resist the temptation. She’d told Yehuda that they were just friends, but they returned from that trip as a couple. Yehuda couldn’t recover from that. His parents had separated two years earlier, and he believed that young love was the answer to all ailments. He cried and pleaded with her. Eventually, he withdrew into himself. He was exempt from army service, traveled to Thailand, and joined a Zen temple, coming down from the samsara Ferris wheel.

He returned to Israel a decade later, sharper than ever, and went straight to Tel Aviv University to do a doctorate, the dissertation for which was “Zen Buddhism as a Remedy for the Soul.” Once he’d completed his degree, he was hired by the Tel-Hai College psychology department and was happy to return to the quiet of the north. A few months after Ehud passed away, Mom was readmitted to the hospital in Safed, and Emily came to visit her, handing out instructions to all the doctors. Yehuda was accompanying one of his students. They bumped into each other, and have remained embraced ever since. Their souls embraced. They’re monks. They fundraise donations. They have big plans. They want to start a new institute for women of varying ages.

“So,” I asked Emily, “they who had