MINYAN: Ten Jewish Men in a World That is Heartbroken
by Eliezer Sobel
Summary
Minyan is the story of Norbert Wilner, a man who has mastered the art of arrested development. At thirty-seven, he lives in New York City, still trying to find his place in the world and still hanging out with the Jewish guys he grew up with in the Jersey suburbs. Most of them remain single and continue to search for God, women, and a good deli sandwich, though not necessarily in that order. Bernstein is a Hindu, Greenlatt’s a Sufi, Weissbaum worships Willie Mays, and nobody likes Finkelstein, the big-shot lawyer and born-again Christian. And Freddy Lipschitz has just died.
Excerpt
One by one we file into Finkelstein’s living room (Finkelstein, the big shot): Goldberg comes with me, Greenblatt and Weissbaum show up together, everyone glum. Reb Miltie and Breshman arrive smelling of bagel, then Bernstein in his Hindu get-up with the orange shawl. Finally Moscowitz, looking pathetic. And that’s it: counting the deceased, we have ten men, a minyan. You’re not supposed to count the deceased, but what do we care? Nobody’s standing on ceremony. What, God’s going to turn a deaf ear on a technicality? The herring and the sponge cake can wait; we have to say kaddish for Lipschitz.
Freddy Lipschitz, dead at thirty-five, found in a bathroom with a needle dangling from his arm. Who knew he was still shooting? Not me or Goldberg, certainly. Not Greenblatt. No one knew. Okay, Bernstein knew, because Bernstein with his Turkish connections and his hashish friends with their Tibetan Book of the Dead routine, Bernstein supplied him with the stuff. But none of the rest of us knew.
Poor Freddy, miserable his whole life anyway--everyone secretly felt he was better off. A guy with his talents, his gifts, still living with his parents. Broke, out of work, no direction, hadn’t touched a woman since the Beatles broke up. Plus ugly--pock-marked, big nose, a guy you’d be uncomfortable seeing in a public restroom. Death couldn’t be all bad for Freddy Lipschitz.
Now, to the point: Assembled in Finkelstein’s--the big shot’s--living room are ten Jewish men. And kibbitzers every one of them. Listen to me, already mouthing off:
“Jesus said ‘Whereever two or more are gathered in my name, there will I be also.’ The Jews never had it so easy. They had to gather ten or more before God would show up. Nine other shleppers in the room and what you say counts. Otherwise your deepest soul cry is considered idle chatter upstairs. You want to talk to Jesus, that’s a different story. You could be in the back room of the Ramrod Club shtupping a stranger in the behind and it still counts as two or more. But you want the king of Abraham and Strauss to listen, you need a minyan...is this right?"
Nobody is listening. They are all preoccupied with Freddy, and with the spread Finkelstein’s wife has laid out on the dining room table, a little snack for the boys after kaddish. Delicious-looking platters from Petaks. Kosher dills like they are going out of style. A feast for Freddy, heartburn for the dead.
And these guys were no strangers to deli. Real fressers, every one of them. Committed eaters, the cold cut for them was a religious matter. The Gentile kids may have rubbed their bloody, pricked fingers in secret rituals, but the Jewish kids were born brisket brothers. They may not have set foot in a synagogue since their Bar Mitzvahs, but show them a Jewish mother’s pot roast thirty years later--any Jewish mothers--and watch them pray.
Reviews
John Casey: "...read this book. It is funny and sad, existentially enigmatic."
Alan Weir: "There are passages here so inventive, so lyrical, so downright funny, that readers will get the book to read out loud."
Mrs. Sobel “Who knew he could write like that? My son is a genius.”
Author's Biography
Eliezer Sobel was awarded the prestigious Peter Taylor Award for the Novel (for Minyan) and he is also the author of The 99th Monkey: A Spiritual Journalist’s Misadventures with Gurus, Messiahs, Sex, Psychedelics and Other Consciousness-Raising Adventures, as well as Wild Heart Dancing. He was the Editor-in-Chief of The New Sun magazine in the late 1970s, the publisher of Wild Heart Journal, and his articles, short stories, and poetry have appeared in the Village Voice, Yoga Journal, Tikkun, Quest, New Age Journal, and many others. He has led intensive creativity workshops and retreats at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, the Open Center in New York City, , and similar venues around the United States. He lives in Richmond, Virginia.