FLYING WITHOUT A NET ~ SUMMARY AND AUTHOR
Summary
Dani Perez, a secular Israeli working as a software engineer in
Boston, has never had trouble balancing his faith and his sexuality—until he
meets Avi Levine, a gay Orthodox Jew and sign language interpreter. As they
fall in love, Dani finds himself wanting Avi in his life, but he can’t
understand how Avi reconciles what his religion demands with what his body
desires. And although he wants to deny it, neither can Avi.
Despite the risk of losing Avi forever to a
religious life that objects to their love, Dani supports him through the
struggle to find an answer. Will they be able to start a life together despite
religious ideology that conflicts with the relationship they are trying to
build?
FLYING
WITHOUT A NET ~ EXCERPTS
May
the words of my lips match the words of my heart.
* * *
Avi looked at him, concern plain on
his face. “What is it, Dani? Are you all right?”
“I'm fine.
I just realized that I really needed to tell you now.”
“Tell me
what, Dani?”
“I love
you. You're… you are the best person I've ever met, and I'm proud and humbled
to call you my boyfriend.”
He paused,
part of him wondering why this was all spilling out now. It's not as if he hadn't
known, probably since Avi's bike accident, that he loved Avi, but he hadn't
been ready to say anything. And what he'd said to Avi was true—he wasn't saying
this because he expected to receive anything in return or to hear anything
specific from Avi.
In that moment,
he wasn't sure what Avi would say or how Avi would react. The silence, though
it had only been seconds long, was making Dani twitchy.
“Avi?” Dani
was terrified that Avi would see his declaration of love as manipulative, as a
ruse to try to get Avi back into bed, which it wasn't at all. “I… I don't
expect you to say it back. I don't want you to feel compelled to express
feelings you don't actually feel just because I said it. It's just that, while
I was sitting in the bedroom trying to give you space and time to process, all
I could think about was how much I wanted to wrap my arms around you and hold
you and make you comfortable and happy.”
“Oh, chamudi, I…” Avi put his head on Dani's shoulder. “I love you
with all my heart. I feel like I've loved you forever.”
* * *
(NOTE:
FLYING WITHOUT A NET includes several
prayers, including the following two excerpts.)
Tefilah: Blessed
are You, Who Has Such Phenomena in His World
We say, Hashem, that you created humans in
Your image. Yet we believe with complete faith that You have no corporeal body.
If You did, and it looked like Dani's,
well, then.
Is it chillul Hashem—desecration of Your name—to say, Good going? He is…gorgeous. And I
finally perhaps understand what people mean when they talk about human beauty.
I mean, I've appreciated good looking people before. But this is the first time
I've been literally up close and personal with another man's body. With Dani's
body, specifically.
And he is… amazing.
Dani is as beautiful on the outside as he
is on the inside. And while I knew that he was a very handsome man, I had not
thought about what that might mean for his physique. He is the physical
embodiment of the fantasies I did not know I had. As Shlomo HaMelech—King
Solomon—wrote in Shir
HaShirim, “As an apple tree among the
trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the sons; in his shade I delighted
and sat, and his fruit was sweet to my palate.”
I understand Shir HaShirim, the Song of Songs, much more now. I can
relate to the lover who is basking in the beauty of their beloved, who is so
struck by the appearance of the one who is in their heart that they wax poetic,
that they write the most epic of love songs.
“My beloved is mine, and I am his, that
feeds among the roses.”
I have never completely understood all the
blessings we have for all the random occasions of life, but the one for seeing
a beautiful person or creature now resonates with me. Baruch atah, Hashem,
Elokainu melech haolam, she'kacha lo ba'olamo—blessed are you, Hashem our God,
King of the universe, who has such phenomena in His world.
* * *
Tefilah: Create
for Me a Pure Heart
In these, the earliest hours of the day
after Yom Kippur, please, Hashem, hear my request.
My heart is torn. I am caught between love
of You and Your mitzvot
and love of myself. Love of myself and
love of my family. Love of my family and, perhaps, the possibility of love for
another man.
I know. It's too early for me to call any
feelings I have for Dani anything other than friendship. And I know that from
the perspective of halacha, of Your laws, there is no sin involved in
thoughts, in feelings.
But what if those thoughts, those
feelings, cause others pain? What if by my actions, or at least by my
consideration of future actions, I am causing pain to another person.
To my parents? To my family?
I stood next to Abba at shul all day. We sat in the same seats that we
have used for as many Yom Kippurs as I can remember. But I was a different me
from whom I have been. And when we struck our hearts with our fists and asked
forgiveness “for the sin we have committed with false denial and lying” and
“for the sin we have committed by disrespecting parents and teachers,” I
couldn't help but look over at him and also think about Ima sitting in the
women's section on the other side of the mechitzah. When they find out, when they learn that I am not exactly the son they
think I am, when I tell them that I am still their Avi and I hope they can
still love me, how will they react?
I have friends who have left Your path
when they could not find a way to reconcile their love for You with their love
for another man. I do not want to turn away from all of Your laws, from the way
I have been taught and from the life I have grown up loving. But I fear that my
parents will reject me outright when I tell them.
I should have more faith in them. I should
have more faith in You. Please, Hashem, help me to have faith.
Lev tahor be'rah li, Elokim–God, create
for me a pure heart. Al tashlicheni milfanecha–do not send me away from before
You.
* * *
“All of the dati people I knew
before I came out, they all thought that gay people were an abomination. And
while, yes, I’m learning that not all dati people feel that way, I still have
trouble understanding how someone can identify as dati and gay,” Danid said. I
mean, yeah, halacha doesn’t mandate thought, just action. But how many people
know that? How many people practice
that?”
“A lot of people know. Think of it
this way. Halacha has a lot to say about kashrut. But not everyone keeps the
same type of kosher, even among the dati community. So, for example, I don’t
hold that you have to only eat glatt meat
or chalav Yisrael
milk, but other people do. That doesn’t make my type of kosher any less
legitimate than their type of kosher. The people who only eat glatt or chalav
Yisrael won’t eat the food I make, but that’s because of how they interpret the rules. In my
experience, most of them don’t believe I’m not keeping kosher; they just hold
by a greater stricture.”
“We have a difference of opinion on
how to interpret the law,” Avi continued. “Judaism allows for that; we have a
long tradition of different communities having different standards, all of
which are considered legitimate interpretations of halacha. Same with this. My
interpretation of halacha has no problem with my being gay and my being frum.
Someone else’s opinion of halacha may not be as inclusive, but those people may
also say I don’t keep kosher enough or that the fact that I have a television
in my house or an Internet connection means that I’m not frum. I disagree. My community disagrees. If they don’t like
my interpretation of halacha, they can leave me to my life. I’m not going into
their houses and saying they have to be accepting of my kashrut standards, but
at the same time they cannot come into my house and tell me that I cannot eat
my own food to my own standards of kashrut.”
Avi stopped
and took a breath. Dani closed the distance between them and took Avi’s hand. “Okay,
motek, I get it,” he said. “I think. I mean, it’s still a huge thing for me to
work through, since I have been so used to the dati community that I know
judging me simply for whom I choose to love. I just… Until I met you, I had
never met an Orthodox Jew who was open-minded about gays. So I admit it will
take me some time to adjust my biases. Please be patient with me, motek.”
“We’ll be
patient with each other,” Avi said, bending for a kiss.
* * *
V'ahavtcha, al tassir mimenu l'olamim—and Your love, may You forever not remove
it from us. Please help us to find our way as we navigate our love, through
Your love.
* * *
VBT: Flying Without a Net—EM Ben Shaul
Today I’m very lucky to be interviewing E.M. Ben Shaul author of Flying Without a Net
Hi E.M., thank you for agreeing to this
interview. Tell us a little about yourself, your background, and your current
book.
1)
Do you
buy a book because of the cover, the blurb, or something else?
All
of the above! For example, I am currently reading a book called Like Dreamers by Yossi Klein Halevi. It
first caught my eye in the bookstore because it had as its cover photo one of
the famous pictures of the paratroopers who captured the Old City of Jerusalem
in 1967 during the Six Day War. When I read the blurb, it intrigued me further.
And then when I flipped through it, I found that it had maps inside, and I’m a
sucker for books that include maps.
2)
What
does ‘romance’ mean to you?
For
me, romance requires a real connection between people. It can’t just be flowers
and gifts and the material objects that people give each other; it can’t just
be nights out at fancy restaurants and expensive dates to shows. Romantic gifts
incorporate elements unique to the gift giver and the gift receiver. A gift of
a dictionary for a word lover, when the gift giver has taken time to think
about what kind of dictionary the person might like in view of which ones they
might already have, that to me is more romantic than a bouquet of flowers.
3)
What
are your current projects?
I
have a partially written novel that is a romance between an injured retired
gymnast and his physical therapist, who is a retired competitive swimmer. I’m
also working on a novel about a man who gets involved in political intrigue
because of gifts sent to him by his grandmother. What he doesn’t know is that
his grandmother has a past that she’s never divulged to anyone, and now he is
getting drawn in.
4)
What
is the most difficult part of writing for you?
Remembering
to add in the visual aspects of the story: describing the room the characters
are in, the clothing they’re wearing, the food they’re eating. With Flying Without a Net, especially, the
characters are very talky. I had to work to break up the long sections of
dialogue to remind the reader where in space and time Dani and Avi were while
having their in-depth conversations.
5)
Tell
us something about yourself that would surprise people.
I
do the majority of the household maintenance in our home. If it needs to be
hammered, screwed, or epoxied, I’m the go-to person. The toolbox in the hall
closet is mine, and our daughters have learned to ask Mommy, rather than Daddy,
to fix broken toys. My father taught my sister and me the basic maintenance
skills that he thought we would need, and those skills stood me in good stead
when I was in college and after when my husband and I formed our own household.
And then I tend to put away my tools and pull out my knitting or my sewing
machine or some other handcraft.
About the Author
E.M. Ben Shaul lives in many communities. An Orthodox Jew and writer of gay fiction, E.M. lives in the simultaneously gay-friendly and Jewish-friendly Boston area with her husband and twin daughters. A technical writer by day and freelance editor by nights and weekends, E.M. likes to knit, cook and coin neologisms. E.M. seeks to explore the seeming conflict between religious teachings and the heart’s desires.
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Author: Jay Northcote
