The Rabbi

I had forgotten which dating app I met Leah on, but it was either the dating app where I masqueraded as a crossdressing man interested in women or the dating app where I masqueraded as a confident lesbian. We got to talking about being Jewish around the time we started teasing each other with the promise of nudes and rope. I'd thought of myself as the sort of Jew who went to services to appease my parents, on Rosh Hashanah, and when I felt guilty. I told Leah that I’d been taught that God had made my body exactly as it was, and that it was a sin to modify it. I didn't really believe it but I'd never been able to shake it off. Leah messaged: The Rabbi will make you into a woman.

I believed her. I didn't even text back, What are you talking about?

Leah sent me a sloppily-composed photo of three women, nude, kneeling on the floor with their arms behind them, leather straps criss crossing up to a tefillin box on their deferential heads. In the right corner of the image was a blurred presence that seemed to bend all of the pixels into it. Leah said that she was the kneeling woman in the center. I told Leah I was feeling too shy to send a photo of myself.

I waited for Leah to text back before giving up, jerking off, and going to bed. Then, the following evening, I received a message. This is the Rabbi. Leah has told me all about you. Listen: You are a part of God's creation, destroyed once in the Flood, and now ours to repair. In your imperfection you yet hold the spark of the divine. I can reveal God's sacred truth within you, if you serve me.

What do you want from me? I texted back.

Reveal yourself to me, the Rabbi replied. Show me your face, and your chest, and your tits, as an offering to me.

I logged off and took a cold shower and went to bed early. I woke up an hour later.

Is this a cult? I texted.

The Rabbi replied: I'll only ever take what you give willingly.

I lurched to the bathroom, took off my shirt in front of the sink mirror and sent the Rabbi a picture of my ashkenazily hairy chest.

Yes, Yes! the Rabbi texted back. Beautiful as the Moon! Obedient as Ruth!

I need to be someone else, I insisted.

If that is all you need, God will provide, said the Rabbi.

I need you to make me someone else, I said.

This, said the Rabbi, is another matter entirely. For this, you must give yourself to me. I need your body. I need your eyes. I need your hair, and your ass, and your dreams.

Her congregation was only a few towns over, and the virus was still mostly just bad news, so I signed a new lease for a one-bedroom with a rat problem. The synagogue was an old Victorian a ten-minute walk away, right next to a bodega.

By the time I finished moving in, the streets were empty, and the bodega shelves were except mustard for some reason. I took two bottles of mustard and ran home. I might've forgotten to pay.

The Rabbi invited me to a video chat and I joined it. Her webcam was off, but I heard her voice, clear as the blast of a shofar. "Are you staying safe?" she asked.

"As I am able. You?"

The Rabbi said, "No virus may harm me."

"Bullshit," I said.

"I tested negative."

"Your women?" I asked. "Leah?"

"Also tested negative. They haven't left my house. They begged me to chain them to the wall," the Rabbi said.

"Take me," I said. "Chain me."

"Do you know if you're infected?"

"No," I admitted.

I heard her shrug rabbinically.

"Is there any way I can serve you?" I asked.

"Like this?" the Rabbi said. "No."

"Let me at least see you," I said.

"I won't allow that," she replied swiftly. "You may not see my face until you are ready to serve me."

"Let me see something, anything," I begged.

Silence. And then: Behold! The sleek polished leather of a boot. The hands of the divine feminine, unlacing it. Sliding it off. An ankle revealed. A heel, an arch, and toes. All of this passed before me and then the video feed went black. All of this I saw and I knew then that I would do whatever I could to survive, for her.

Some day, the bell curve, in its cosmically perfect indifference, will abate. On that day, I will go to the house of my Rabbi. One of her women will open the door for me and beckon me in. I will affix a kippah to my head and remove my clothes. I will get on my knees, and I will be led, crawling, across the hallowed floor to her. And then, I will begin anew.

© 2021 Esther Alter

About the Author

Esther Alter is a trans Ashkenazi Jew. Her stories, games, and programming projects can be found at subalterngames.com. Follow her on Twitter @subalterngames.