"Clean up the blocks before you touch those Legos," I say. The room is covered with toys, the playroom empty, children at my feet. Mendel dumps the bucket of Legos out on the carpet. In my life, I have never heard anyone speak this picture openly. Tender, delicate-I think she must be writing to a woman. As Lax reminds us, “understanding sometimes comes in degrees, like growth. More a midlife coming-of-age than a midlife crisis, I found Uncovered to be uplifting in its honesty. Readers who have no familiarity with Hasidic Judaism will still feel immersed in Lax’s memories – her own desperation, confusion, and devotion. The defining magic of this memoir is in every immediate detail, from the massive structures of tradition to the smallest daily requirements of the religion she so deeply wanted to define her. I found myself blushing at descriptions of bathing, menstruating, procreating and birthing, and crying at her thoroughly potent fears of destroying her marriage vows, failing her children, and disappointing God.
The trials, triumphs, and shame Lax endures from that awkward, but hopeful, afternoon forward carry the reader right along with her. Never mind that the two have shared only one formal date, and never mind that the bride is most definitely attracted to women.
Lax’s story opens on her wedding day, where upon at age nineteen she is wed to a man seven years older. Leah Lax’s Uncovered whispers directly into the reader’s ear, generously sharing the most intimate secrets of Orthodox Hasidic Judaism, the loves of her life, and her turbulent quest to simply belong. A woman who is always modest before God is like a woman in constant prayer.
She was keeping covered just to please God. “God loved her because ‘the walls of her home never saw a hair on her head.’ Even when Hannah bathed, she had maids hold up sheets around her. Purchase: Powell’s | Amazon | IndieBound | iBooks
0 kommentar(er)
