The Saturday Wife
The Saturday Wife
Ragen, Naomi
St. Martin's Press (2008)
A
LSO BY
N
AOMI
R
AGEN
The Covenant
Chains Around the Grass
The Ghost of Hannah Mendes
The Sacrifice of Tamar
Sotah
Jepthe’s Daughter
Women’s Minyan
(a play)
The
Saturday
Wife
N
AOMI
R
AGEN
ST. MARTIN’S PRESS
New York
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.
THE SATURDAY WIFE. Copyright © 2007 by Naomi Ragen.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Book design by Mary A. Wirth
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Ragen, Naomi.
The Saturday wife / Naomi Ragen.—1st ed.
p. cm
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-35238-7
ISBN-10: 0-312-35238-7
1. Jewish women—Fiction. 2. Rabbis’spouses—Fiction. 3. Marriage—Fiction. 4. Jewish fiction. I. Title.
PS3568.A4118S28 2007
813’.54—dc22
2007016179
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Dedicated, with love, to
Hallel, Hillel, Ariella, Manny, Yotam, Elon, Aviyah, Matan, and Eliora
for bringing more joy and laughter into my life
than I ever imagined possible
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
T
he genesis of any book is a strange and mysterious process. I would like to thank, equally and profoundly, the blonde in the miniskirt and tank top who got up onstage to dance with the toddlers during a Kosher Club week in the Dominican Republic, and Gustave Flaubert for writing
Madame Bovary,
which I took along with me on vacation. The confluence of these two is truly responsible for this book.
I would also like to thank the approximately ten thousand members of my e-mail list (
www.naomiragen.com
) for responding so generously to my request for help with my research. The hundreds of e-mails I received describing actual Bar and Bat Mitzvas and weddings, as well as shul wars and stories of rabbis, their wives, and their congregations, were wonderful, and I’ve used them all (well, almost). Without this input, the book you read wouldn’t have been the same. I especially thank the wonderful rabbis and rabbis’ wives who wrote me, as well as the intrepid and talented bloggers,
the incomparable Renegade Rebbitzen and Ezer K’negdo, and others for information and inspiration.
As for those few on my e-mail list who wrote me nasty letters declining to participate until they knew more about how I was planning to use this material, I hope you are now feeling satisfied that you cannot be held responsible.
I thank my agent, Lisa Bankoff, for her unending support and encouragement through this and many other projects.
I thank my talented and very patient editor, Jennifer Weis of St. Martin’s Press, for her enormous help and editorial guidance, as well as for suggesting in the back of a New York taxi that I make my main character a rabbi’s wife. It has made all the difference.
I thank my son Asher for taking time off from finishing his doctorate at Harvard (I had to get that in) to read and comment on this book.
I thank my dear husband, Alex, for telling me jokes for the last thirty-six years. I finally got to use a few. If you don’t think they’re funny, his e-mail address is available.
Naomi Ragen
JERUSALEM, 2007
If we disregard due proportion by giving anything what is too much for it… the consequence is always shipwreck.
—
PLATO
THE SATURDAY WIFE
PROLOGUE