By Debbi K. Levy
Dawn Bethany Cohen could be easily described by her community as unremarkable by their collective, nonexacting standards. Not that unremarkable was negative. It was, in fact, just what her Jewish community expected of a little girl in their part of the world. Dawn blended right in and, in an era when many would look back with longing at the way Jews were appreciated in the 1970s, all the right boxes seemed to be checked for Dawn. Clinging to her religion was effortless and simply unremarkable as Dawn trick-or-treated for Halloween, ringing doorbells, chanting “Trick-or-treat, collecting for UNICEF…” while she held out the little metal box and shook its content for effect. December felt similarly predictable with rituals that found her inserting the colored Hanukkah candles from the box distributed at religious school into her Maccabee menorah. Like all the kids, Dawn tried to wait patiently for the blessings to commence so the gifts and chocolate coins could be doled out. With the rote blessings on her lips, she was completely focused on the bright blue wrapping paper and bows. Dawn was a little different, though. Unbeknownst to her family, she was perpetually in the company of her Friend, God. Share her imaginary Companion, private information, with them? “Not today,” she concluded in her careful thoughts as the flames burned low and she took her presents to her room.
A third-generation talented tumbler, Dawn was often asked to give a short, impromptu “show” when adult company came to the family home. A headstand daringly held on the seat of a chair, a cartwheel turned in the backyard using only one arm or the stunt of walking her hands down the wall backward from above her head until her body formed a U shape — all these were welcomed with applause before the adults left her with a sitter for the usual Saturday night out in Big D.
At gymnastics class, the splits remained the highest competitive challenge and Dawn was nearer to her Companion, God, more in this moment than any other. As she pressed her legs flat to the mat, allowing the discomfort to bring with it success, her requests of God for help were humble but abundant. And the perfect pose did, almost with certainty, follow. In Dawn’s free-and-easy exchange with the Almighty, you might imagine that she would connect this sacred relationship with Jewish rituals or even religious school mornings, but she did not.
“Dawn, would you like to have a bat mitzvah?” asked her mother one sunny afternoon. “When would I go to Hebrew school?” Dawn asked in exploration.
“Monday, Wednesday and Friday after school,” her mother replied. “The mothers are making our carpool lists this week.”
Fearing the end of afternoon gymnastics, Dawn put a childhood boundary around what delighted her most; she looked forward to more time spent on the balance beam and on the mat with God and maybe even one of the angels leaping and flying with her.
The years seemed to rush by as Dawn grew. In her budding maturity, she added gratitude to her repertoire with God. With thanks for the found feathers, the perfectly round stones her eagle eyes spotted on the ground and especially the cold and fast stream of pressured water she gulped from the neighbor’s garden hose, Dawn incorporated her thanks into her newly older conversations. On those few occasions of childhood illnesses with stomach pains that felt sharp as a knife, or asthma that brought her shoulders to her ears while she yearned to take a deeper breath, she pleaded and protested with her God close by. Dawn never felt alone, not even during illness. Wrapped in this new maturity, she had just begun to assemble the important puzzle pieces that linked her in a more formal way to the God she had always known.
“Sh’ma Yisrael Adonoy Elohanu Adonoy Echad. Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One!” Now she had a prayer. And so it happened that on a long summer day Dawn borrowed a swatch of her mother’s promising new curtain fabric and made a Torah cover for her small-sized Torah she received at consecration. Although she was not yet wise enough to understand where this assurance was coming from, she did feel the sensations of a good deed. She celebrated in joy in her body with a few cartwheels and backbends.
Dawn was a very blessed girl in her unremarkableness. We grownups would pray that the seasons ahead of her could be just as they were before, kind to Dawn and the world around her. Would the simplicity she enjoyed be lasting as she became a young woman?
Kohenet Debbi K. Levy will share the next installment of Dawn’s story in her very next column and, as always, awaits your feedback via email at Debbiklevy@gmail.com.