05: אהבה

Dear Ben,

            אהבה. Ahava. Love. In Hebrew, it’s one of my favorite words, because it sounds so smooth and beautiful. You clearly have been deprived of an enlightenment as to what exactly it means, so I guess I’ll tell you. Ahava is when you don’t cheat on someone, Ben. It’s when you fully accept the other person for who they are, and don’t want to change a thing. Ahava is a kesher (connection) between two people like no other. It’s an overwhelming feeling from the lev (heart) that takes over your entire goof—your body. Ahava is love. But you already thought that you knew that, didn’t you, Ben?

            I recall a time when you used a derivative of that word for good. We were at an all-school assembly, and it came to the point when students were allowed to raise their hands in order to make announcements. Generally, the announcements were for sports teams or clubs. The time wasn’t typically for personal use. But you were never typical, were you, Ben?

            You raised your hand eagerly like everyone else, and with some stroke of fate, you caused your older sister yet another aneurysm. You stood up on a chair, as was your signature move, and stared down at me, for I had been sitting right next to you at the time. Teachers were objecting, wondering what you were doing. After all, Ben, you are pretty unpredictable.

            “Ani ohev otchah,” you said in that loud voice of yours that summoned everyone’s attention. I guess that’s why you always started off in Hebrew—to get people’s attention. Anyone could’ve spoken in English, and at our school, that applied to Hebrew, too, though English was the preferred language. You always were one for the spotlight, Ben, so I guess that doing something unexpected, like speaking in Hebrew, just made sense in your mind. אני אוהב אותך. I knew what it meant—hell, the whole room did, but you felt inclined to say in English, too, just to stress your point. “I love you.”

            I smiled up at you, shocked that I had heard the words (or lies) come out of your mouth. Tugging at your hand, I urged you to sit down as the entire room broke out into applause. I hated attention, and you knew that, Ben. Eventually, you sat down, but at your own accord.

            “So,” you said once your butt had finally found its way back to its seat, “do you love me too?”

            “Of course I love you, Ben!” I laughed, doing something I almost never did, and kissing your cheek. I wasn’t one for PDA, and you knew that, too, which is why you decided that a make out session in the middle of a school assembly after proclaiming our supposed “love” to each other was the perfect thing to do. It was definitely romantic—I’ll give you that.

            I was on Cloud 9 after you told me that you loved me, Ben. What girl wouldn’t be? We kissed, we laughed, and we explored this new concept of “ahava.” Then the rumor about you and Shoshanna broke out, I saw you two in the gym together, and everything ultimately went downhill from there. After the gym incident, you promised we that it would never happen again. You told me that you loved me, and always would. “Le-olam va-ed,” you said. Forever and ever. “Ani ohev otchah le-olam va-ed,” you swore. I’ll love you forever and ever. Why lie, Ben?

            After I found out about you cheating on me, I already couldn’t look at you the same way. There was a part of me that still loved you, do the “kesher” that we once shared, but it wasn’t the same as it had been. You tried to prove to me that you really loved me, but Ben, after something like that you had to understand that there was essentially nothing you could do to earn back my trust. You cheated on me, Ben. It wasn’t okay.

            Time passed by, and you did everything in your power to show how serious you were. During free periods, you joined me in the library. You hung out with my brother more often, and even came to dinner at my house a few times, helping my mom wash dishes after that. She loved you for that, Ben.

            When you dumped me, it was strange, because you were in the wrong, and it was just so abrupt. I never understood why you hated me, when you once said that you loved me. It didn’t make sense to me. You told people that I was the one cheating on you, serving as your basis for why they should stop associating with me. And you know what they did, Ben? They believed you. Ridiculous, right? People hated me because you told them that I cheated on you, when in reality, you were the one at fault. During that dismal time at the end of junior year, I kept wondering where was that boy who I had once felt this mutual sense of ahava with. Where did he go, Ben? I miss that boy.

            The day I told you that I was an atheist was probably one of the most positive days involving “ahava” that I can recollect. We were sitting on the steps of your front porch one spring day, just talking, when I cautiously said, “I have something to tell you, Ben.” Now, this was before all the drama with Shoshanna started, so we were still “okay” back then.

            With concern lacing your tone, you asked, “What’s wrong?”

            “Nothing,” I answered. “I’m just, well, I thought you should know that I’m atheist.” The words were hard for me to say to you, Ben, because though I was just expressing one of my beliefs, it was more than that. You came from an orthodox family with more kids than could be counted, and my house was conservative, though not really. I had grown up secular, occasionally eating shrimp, and having an addiction to chicken Parmesan (both of which were not kosher, obviously). We had different backgrounds, Ben, though both had attended Jewish day schools since we were five. I was always educated about our religion, though didn’t really like it.

            “What do you mean?” you had said, scrunching your eyebrows together in confusion.

            “I don’t believe in the concept of G-d,” I spelled it out for you in the simplest terms I could think of. You looked at me for a long moment, taking in my every feature and making my heart—my lev flutter the way that only you could. Silence passed between us for a long moment, and I began to grow worried, scared that you would break up with me right there and then. If only you had, Ben. If you dumped me then, so much heartache could’ve been avoided. If only…

            “Le-olam va-ed,” you smirked, leaning in and surprising me a great deal by kissing me right on the lips, hard and passionately. It was your way of telling me that you accepted me, no matter what. When the kiss had ended, we both pulled back, and now I was the one perplexed, and after sensing that, you explained. “I wouldn’t even care if you were a Buddhist,” you told me sweetly, though it was a lie. You and I both knew that you wanted a nice Jewish girl, as the stereotype went. Nonetheless, I thought it was nice of you to say. “I love you, and it doesn’t matter to me that you don’t believe in G-d. I love you—le-olam va-ed.”

            “I love you too, Ben,” I then grinned, not being able to wipe the expression off my face and having no desire to do so. I had been so nervous that you would hate me for being an atheist. You didn’t. Instead, you later hated me for no reason at all. I didn’t do anything to you, Ben. Why did you need to start a war between us? It wasn’t right.

            Le-olam va-ed. It’s an interesting phrase, Ben, and I’ve been replaying you saying it to me over and over in my mind, and got to thinking. Not once did it ever actually mean anything to you, Ben. It was just something to say that made me smile. The hollow promise being that you would love me forever and ever wasn’t one that you should’ve made if you intended on breaking it.

            Le-

            Olam

            Va-

            Ed.

            In English, the transliteration spells out “love,” if broken apart with the first letters. Ironic, isn’t it? Or maybe it’s not irony at all. Maybe it’s just a coincidence that happens to work rather well. To us, le-olam va-ed always did stand for ahava—for love, so it’s only fitting that it spells it out, too. In Hebrew, though, לעולם ועד isn’t really all that special, Ben. It’s just a phrase that appears in certain places and contexts. It has no kesher to ahava at all. I guess you preferred the Hebrew version, Ben.

            At one point in my life, I loved you. At another, I was convinced that I hated you. Now, though, I know that as painful as it may be, I love you, Ben. You hurt me so much, and yet there’s still this part of me that loves you—this part that always will love you. I once saw a quote on the internet that fits how I feel about you, Ben, and how I think you feel about me: “I never stopped loving you, I just stopped showing it.” Pretty fitting, right?

            Ahava is a funny concept. It makes people say and do crazy things. I do believe that you loved me at one point, and I’m not really sure what happened after that. I don’t hate you, Ben—I just hate what you did to me. I probably won’t end up sending you any of these letters that I’ve written, but I’m still glad I wrote them. Sometimes I miss us, Ben, and our ahava. Other times, though, I think that it’s for the best. Someone once told me that if a boy ever dumped me, then he wasn’t worth my time to begin with. I somewhat disagree with that, because you were worth my time, Ben, just not my ahava.

            Le-olam va-ed,

            -Me

A/N: And that's it. Thank you everyone who read this, it means a lot. I just was in the mood to write something involving to concepts relatively important in my life, those being Hebrew and my version of religion. I don't know. I liked writing this, and I hope that y'all enjoyed reading it. Thanks again. Le-olam va-ed,

-Sophie/אורלי