Between Gods: A Memoir by Alison Pick

first time, reevaluating her earlier opinion.
    I think: My name shares something with the good impulse. With goodness itself.
    “Yes. Tov means ‘good.’ ”
    Someone clears their throat.
    Rabbi Glickman says to the whole class, “Please put down your pens. What I’m going to tell you now is important.”
    We do as told.
    “In Judaism we are held responsible for the inner wrestling match between the two impulses. At any moment we can turn back toward good.”
    “How so?” Debra asks.
    “We are never condemned,” the rabbi answers. “For example, if my daughter is naughty, I tell her that her yetzer harah got the better of her. And send her to her room until her yetzer tov is ready to come out.”
    Giggles from my classmates.
    “But really,” the rabbi says, unsmiling. “Think of what this means. There’s always the chance to redeem ourselves. Always .”
    I approach Degan in the kitchen, where he is dipping strips of marinated tofu in a bowl of nutritional yeast.
    “I wanted to tell you. I had drinks. With a man.”
    “That writer? Whose book you read?”
    “How did you know?”
    He shrugs. “I’m not stupid.”
    He jiggles the bowl of yeast to distribute it evenly. “What’s his name again? Eli Bloom?”
    “Bloomberg.”
    I fiddle with Granny’s ring, spinning it on my finger. “I just wanted to say …”
    I pause. What did I want to say?
    “Never mind. Forget it.”
    “Are you sure?”
    There’s a challenge in his voice, a crimped edge of fear running around his studied calm. I recognize the fused desire to both know and not know. I remind myself there’s nothing for him to know. And check myself. Is there? There isn’t. “I’m sure,” I say. “Yes. Don’t worry.”
    Degan looks up and holds my eye. “Okay,” he says evenly. “I won’t.”
    The alarm goes off and Degan stumbles out of bed; he has four clients to see before the first in a series of seminars on diversity he has organized. A homeless man is coming to speak about his experience with the federal health care system. The students, I know, will be blown away. Degan is doing something concrete with his life, something practical. Tikkun olam —“repairing the world.” Whereas I sit at my desk every day, mired in self-focus and indulgence.
    On the first morning of Hanukkah, I email Eli. “Chag Sameach,” I write, pleased that I know the salutation. But as soon as I pressSend, I realize my mistake: the Jewish day begins at sunset. Hanukkah doesn’t start until this evening.
    Eli doesn’t reply.
    I get up from my desk and wander around the apartment. I stand in the kitchen and look out the window at the schoolyard behind us. It’s only December, but already the running track lies buried under two feet of snow. A man in a fluorescent green vest, some kind of city worker, huddles in the lee of a portable, trying to light a cigarette. Shielding it with his cupped palm, flicking the lighter again and again.
    I’m overcome with dread at the thought of Hanukkah. I have a little bag of chocolate coins and four wooden dreidels that I bought in anticipation of the season. They are in a plastic bag under the sink. I have no idea what to do with them.
    When Degan arrives home, though, he wishes me “Chag Sameach.” I tell him about my despair, that I don’t know how to celebrate the holiday. He’s been cold since my revelation a few evenings ago, but still he comes to the rescue. “We’ll figure it out,” he says. “It can’t be that hard.”
    We Google “Hanukkah” and read about the Maccabees’ battle to practise their faith; about the miracle of oil enough for only one day lasting for eight days in a row.
    A miracle. That’d be good.
    We Google “The Blessing for Hanukkah” and listen to a bright-voiced woman who sounds like Barbie recite the words. After several listenings, we are able to sing along with her. We light the first candle. It is a mitzvah to publicize the miracle, to place the menorah in the front