Eytan Bayme - High Holiday Porn: A Memoir

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To my parents. With love and apologies.

T HE FORBIDDEN D UNKIN D ONUTS was only a few blocks from our home. As my mother walked us past the storefront, I caught a brief glimpse of the cream-filled, jelly-engorged, and rainbow-sprinkled beauts on the wall behind the register. How fun it would be, I thought, to bite into one of each before offering the clerk my thorough ranking from least delicious to most. As my mother held my hand against my little brothers stroller, making sure I kept at her brisk pace through the crowds, I resisted and craned my neck to savor the view a few moments longer.

Maybe I could have a doughnut? I asked, feigning innocence.

Eytan, my mother spoke sternly, you know very well they arent kosher for Passover.

It was true, aside from matzoh, the holiday dietary restrictions forbid anything with flour in the ingredients. But I thought that maybe since she had walked us past the shop and since I wanted a doughnut at that very moment, perhaps she would overlook the rules and let me have the treat. Every moment had led up to one another too precisely for this to be one big coincidence.

The answer is obviously no, my mother continued.

I rolled my eyes and shook my head in a great show of frustration. Uch, I grunted.

The sidewalk teemed with people going about their days. Some carried four or five shopping bags of groceries; others wore suits and clutched leather briefcases. These strangers could eat doughnuts whenever they wanted, and they probably thought we had lost our minds to follow a religion that prohibited such a delicious food. I tried to catch their eyes and silently communicate that I was the same as them. That people like us knew that God wouldnt put things like Pizza Hut and Burger King on this earth if He didnt mean for us to try them. Wordlessly, I implored a half dozen sympathetic-looking commuters spilling from the side of a city bus to, please, talk some sense into my mother.

All I wanted were the simplest pleasures the world had to offer, but life is so unfair when you are a six-year-old Jewish boy.

* * *

That evening I sat down with my extended family for the Passover Seder. In the center of the dressed-up dining room table, a clear glass bowl of water held a thin layer of delicious salt at the bottom. I kneeled in my chair and leaned over to swish my forefinger in the mixture a few vigorous times.

Eytan! the women in my family all called out at once.

We have to eat from that!

Gross!

Behave! cried three different generations on my mothers side.

Sorry, I said with an embarrassed frown while, ever so slowly, bringing my finger to my mouth and sucking off the savory juices. They all shook their heads.

Please sit back, my mother said.

But Im staaarving, I whispered to her from my seat.

Shh.

Arranged around the salt water were more forbidden food items: a boiled egg, a saggy radish, a charred chicken neck, something maroon. I sat up on my knees again and knelt in for a good whiff.

Sit back now, Eytan, said my mother sharply. She knew that I knew these wrinkled foods were off-limits. They were set aside, special for the Passover Seder , as symbols of how difficult life was for the Jews during the time of Moses. The salt water and bitter radish represented tears shed and hardships endured as slaves in Egypt. The maroon glob was supposed to be the mortar we used to build whatever the Pharaoh forced us topyramids or something. And that delicious egg and neck were the covenant between God and the Jews, or maybe they were the fragility of life. Whatever. They reminded me only of how hungry I was and how long it would be until the food was served.

Eytan, would you like to do the Ma Nishtana ? asked my grandfather, in a thick Magyar accent, before I got the chance to pounce on the holy offerings. My nagypapa, as we called him, was a perpetually smiling Hungarian man. He sat at the head of the table behind a large stack of matzohs. His wife, my nagymama, sat at the opposite end looking bored.

I stood up on my chair, in dress pants and white oxford shirt, and frowned at my parents. Every Modern Orthodox kid over the age of three knows the Ma Nishtana, or Four Questions, and was probably being told to recite it at this very moment. The questions kick-start the Seder , which can last anywhere from three to six hours, with dinner served halfway into the program. At six, eating before the rest of my family was not an option, yet I was already famished.

On all other nights we eat bread, I sung in the original Hebrew, a little louder than a whisper, but on this night we eat matzoh. Why? On all other nights we eat vegetables, but on this night we eat bitter stuff. Why? On all other nights we dip our food once, but tonight we dip it twice. Why? And on all other nights we sit straight up, but on this night we slouch on pillows. Why? I didnt know or really understand most of it, I thought as I finished the tune. All I could think about was leaning back down into my half-deflated pillow and maybe trying to nap until the meal was served.

Very good, Eytan! My mother beamed as I finished.

Eytan, that was beautiful, said my aunt.

My nagymama and nagypapa smiled at each other and at their daughters.

Thank you, I said shyly, looking at everyone and no one all at once.

The Seder continued and I sat back down next to my three-year-old brother, Yehuda. He was like a Russian doll with smooth, grapefruit cheeks that my sister and I called Chubs.

Lady, you got a fat baby, a nurse told my mother at the hospital when she had given birth to Yehuda. Even at that age, my baby brother seemed to understand the insult and had despised cracks about his weight ever since. Chubs, Husky, the Round One, and another dozen names my sister and I came up with all pissed him off equally.

As he shoveled a few specially prepared chicken pieces into his face, I stuck my forefinger into his Chubs. If he could eat and I couldnt, I should at least be able to take a few satisfying stabs at him.

Uhhh, he said with his mouth full, swatting my hand so he could chew in peace. His cheek was soft but firm. I loved the way it popped back into its original shape when I removed my finger. For a moment afterward, Yehuda continued eating as though nothing had interrupted him, but like a selfish cat, I wanted to feel more of him against my body.

I wrapped my hand under his chin and pressed both of the Chubs together, prodding him with different finger variations as if he were a chunk of meat. I slid my fingers back toward his neck and then softly toward his mouth, wishing that I could roll around and bury myself in his face.

Stop it, Eytan! he wailed, waving his log-like arms in each direction and upsetting Nagymama s silverware.

Under normal circumstances, this was the ideal reaction. Is that really the loudest you can scream? I might have taunted him, while sneaking a tickle on his stomach or brushing my arm against the soft skin of his back. But here, in front of extended family, where the fuse on my parents patience was short, I needed to calm him down.