would write arguments in the margins o f books just like the
great rabbis because you wanted to make commentaries like
they did but you weren’t supposed to write in any holy book
even if it was for children so you would have to hide your
writings and you would have to try to argue with God out
loud in person but hiding it but mostly you would talk with
God when you were crying for your mother or had had a big
fight with her or if you were very scared. I had a big fight with
God when I learned in Hebrew School that women couldn’t
go into the Tem ple when they had their periods because I got
mine when I was nine, I was an adult when I went to the
movies alone in the Bible, and it had hurt so terrible, so bad,
and still did every month, and I couldn’t think when anyone
would need God more, and how could He keep me aw ay and
say aw ful things like that I was unclean when He gave you the
thing. We were studying Leviticus and I was in class and I was
angry with the teacher who sat slumped over the book and
told me what God had said which I could see for m yself N o
one else was upset but maybe they hadn’t gotten their periods
yet and the teacher never would and he could go into the
Tem ple all the time, the whole month, all slumped over and
stupid. When I had it out with God I tried to explain over and
over that I really was sincere and w hy would He want to keep
someone sincere like me out o f the Tem ple and there w asn’t
any good answer that I could figure out except that it w asn’t
sincerity God was looking for; He wanted people w ho didn’t
bleed so w hy had He made you bleed; and you thought that
having a baby would be even worse and hurt even more and
He said you were even more unclean and had to stay out even
longer but you could solve that by not having a baby. And if
you had a baby you would have nine months when you could
go into the Temple and make God happy but when it got real
bad and you needed Him you couldn’t go because once it got
really bad and blood came you were unclean. I thought
women should have their babies in the Temple where God
was because it might hurt less. The teacher said you had to
accept things you didn’t understand and God didn’t have to be
fair but if God wasn’t who would be and how would they
know how? The teacher said that when he went to dinner in
people’s houses he would take a book out o f the people’s
bookcases and blow dust o ff it to show the wife the books
weren’t clean and how lazy and dirty she was. He said the
books were always dusty because women were lazy and didn’t
take care o f their husbands’ books. I didn’t understand w hy it
wasn’t rude to blow dust o ff someone’s books and make them
feel bad and I couldn’t understand how she could stand it after
she had made him dinner and been real nice. But he just
laughed and said women were unclean and he had just proved
