Alley of Longing in the City of Forbidden Love

Strong sun lights up every stone, touches every forehead, then melts into a blazing, seething red that spasms and curves and spills into the mountains as it dies in a fiery mess.

Mountains stretch and stand up to greet the bluest sky, then plunge back down to green valleys winking beneath ancient stones.

Tzfat. The hidden city tucked away in Israel’s interior, ensconced in mountains that hug each other.

My city of forbidden love.

I once walked down every alley, walking too close to girls with soft skin and sweet red lips and hair shining in the sunlight.

We would sing together as the hills burned with crimson liquid, as dark veils locked lips with the city, looking into each other's eyes.

Singing love songs.

Jewish love songs, zemiros, to God.

All of them, every single one of them, expressing the fiercest longing, the purest of passions, an aching, haunting, unfulfilled yearning.

I want to get closer to you.

I weave songs and poems because my soul longs for you.

Each time I speak about your glory, my heart longs for your love.

My favorite song, the one that put stars in my eyes, that swelled my heart until it included only every wondrous space of our universe, was Lecha Dodi. We'd go out to the fields and greet the Sabbath queen, welcoming her just like the kabbalists of Tzfat did hundreds of years ago.

“Come out my Beloved, let us meet the bride,” I’d sing, croon, beg.

And we’d move closer to each other, and we’d hold hands, and we’d gently stroke each other's hair.

We’d hesitate, and lean forward, mouths just an inch away, knowing that we could only kiss each other through songs.

I knew every alley in Tzfat, found every cave. We’d finger the stones, weary with age yet still glistening, our fingers always meeting each other.

Then the stars would come out to mark the end of the Sabbath and I’d weep, knowing I was leaving this secret sapphic universe, the only corner of the galaxy I could let my hidden self out to bask in the sunlight, and never knowing when I’d be back.

The banality of daily Orthodox life would sweep over me as the bus pulled away, the world would fade from brilliant fusions of colors into dabs of black and white, and I’d walk back into the dorm in Jerusalem where I spent my weekdays. Where I felt guilty, dirty and contaminated for feeling the feelings I embraced in Tzfat, which were so natural and pristine there.

I always got the same remarks when I walked back into this world.

“You’re glowing,”

“Your face is shining.”

I was glowing. I was a halo of breathless light, an explorer who bathed in the moon and danced on the sun’s surface.

I told them I was in love with Tzfat, and it was true. I was in love with the hidden city perched on a mountain, a city full of cobblestone alleys and secrets, a city which held my secrets safe in its glistening stones. It was the city which opened the gates to my tense, untrusting heart, and placed love softly on my lap.

Our songs got more daring, more desperate, until months of seeking, unsatisfying yearning built and climaxed and drew us closer than ever before, and this time, we didn’t hesitate.

It was a kiss. Just one kiss.

But the entire world flooded into the small alley made of stone and pottery jugs where we stood, eyes closed and then wide open.

After that, Tzfat was mine. It was a city, I was certain, made just for me, a portal to a dimension I had always searched for, always longed for, but never found. Until now.

We kept returning. We kept exploring - the city and each other.

I haven’t seen Tzfat in seven years. I haven’t seen any of the girls I used to kiss in Tzfat since I left the religion which forbade me from kissing them. I no longer have to kiss girls in secret. I no longer sing songs to any gods.

But I still listen to zemiros and close my eyes to sing fervently along. And every time, every single time, I am transported back to Tzfat, to a city of mountains and stones, a breathless girl headily drinking, embracing, creating love. The city which flung open the prison walls of my heart, cast off the aching, guilt ridden burdens of my soul, and guided me, gently, knowingly, through an ancient archway to eternal, exquisite loving.