Stoop

Fourteen years ago, I was just about done with my conversion and ready to take on the commitment of Orthodox Judaism. I was subletting in Park Slope, Brooklyn for the summer, planning to move to the New York area permanently to finalize things with a bet din, a rabbinical court. I walked to Friday night services in the neighborhood synagogue. There was a speaker. There was a guy in the audience who interrupted the speaker to debate a point. We davened, we ate. I chatted with new friends at the brief oneg that followed. The guy who’d interrupted the speaker turned out to be a subway conductor who regaled the social set balancing paper plates and seltzer with stories about transit. As the crowd began to dwindle and the powers that were began to lock up and leave, the subway conductor offered to walk me home.

Though I’ve always been a walker, I found myself racing to keep up with him as we breathlessly chatted and exchanged stories. He talked about concerts in Prospect Park blocks away and asked me if I liked them. He asked if I’d like to have dinner with him and we agreed to meet at Jerusalem Pizza the following evening after Shabbos. (I learned later that he was already an hour and 23 minute-walk from his home and he was walking me in the opposite direction of where he’d head back.)

But when we reached my brownstone stoop, we caught our breaths. Between breaths, we chatted as though neither of us had other plans that night. We found that we enjoyed exploring the city and he was a walking encyclopedia of all things transit. He was a walking encyclopedia of all things walking. It wasn’t until I shut the door behind me and made my way up to the third floor where my dinner waited that I realized I had actually been asked out on a date the following evening…and he mistakenly thought I was already Jewish. And I accepted what I thought were friendly plans for pizza. I guess I wasn’t used to that happening.

There’s something about the stoop: a place to park your thoughts and extend time, exchange time with no commitment of taking it all inside. Sesame Street was on to something. As I rested my elbow on the cavernous brownstone railings, I expected Oscar the Grouch to pop out of the trash can where Ben stood, or Big Bird to bounce past with a quick hello.

Shabbos being Shabbos, there was no way for Ben or I to exchange phone numbers or call him before the appointed time. The options were to stand him up – not an option – or to show up and explain right away that I wasn’t Jewish yet and didn’t realize this was supposed to be a date. Two likely outcomes crossed my mind: He would politely have pizza with me and remain friends or friendly acquaintances when we saw each other in shul in the future, or he would excuse himself and go off elsewhere.

Then there was a third possibility: he would want to see me again, kissed me goodnight on that same stoop weeks later, spent hours on the phone with me in the weeks to come even if we had plans later that day, continued to call me even after I returned to Nashville, brought up marriage, brought up love, brought up that he would only marry me if my conversion were accepted by the Chief Rabbi of Israel, but nonetheless spent many happy times with me on the streets, railways, and ferries of New York and beyond while we were getting our ducks in a row.

We were on again and off again: Things got complicated. He would not publicly date a non-Jew or let me inside his apartment for fear “the yenta neighbors would gossip.” But he came over to mine. Nor would he pose for a photo together except in a group setting. What photographic images I have are of him caught on the sly or at a distance. All this made the time we had together more precious. This was a temporary situation, until I could get the geirus he wanted. He never thought there would be the need for people close to him to ask the public to help him save his life. If there were no need to get him convalescent plasma at the hospital in the epicenter of the pandemic, only a few of my friends, family, and ex-roommates would know his name today.

And this is what I’ll leave on the stoop. Long before the days of viruses, clusters, quarantines, ventilators, masks, refrigerated trucks and convalescent plasma, there were the simple conversations about life, plans, and Brooklyn on the steps of a brownstone. There was the need for something to do on Shabbos and something to do right after Shabbos, and someone to do them with.

Happy anniversary, Ben.