Amy Klein - The Matchmaking Rabbi

 

 

“So, you want to find a husband?” the rabbi said to me. I'm 38 old even by non-Jewish standards, [audience laughter] and I'm no longer religious, but I will do anything at this point to meet my soulmate, even visit a crazy kabbalist in Jerusalem who looks like Santa Claus to give me a blessing to get married. “Yes, I want to get married,” I say to him. He says, “Okay. Take book, open book, any page, any page, find a word.” Like, he's a magician. So, I take the book and I point to a word. He says, “Read it.” So, it says Kishuf. He says, “You know what this means?” So, I guess I say, “Magic.” He says, “No, it means cursed. You have been cursed. [audience laughter] This is why you're not married.” Uh-huh, a curse. Okay. It's not my dysfunctional childhood nor my terrible taste in narcissistic men, but a curse, this is why I'm not married. 

 

“I remove curse for you,” he says, “Only cost 400 shekel.” “400 shekel? I don't have a $100 on me.” He says, “That's okay. You go to ATM, you come back.” [audience laughter] So, I leave the office and I walk past the dozens of religious women praying in the waiting room into the August Jerusalem sun. I know I'll never see him again. I walk back to the bus stop to go to my hotel, I'm like, “What kind of sucker does he think? What does he think I am? I already paid him $20. Who knows what he's going to do with it? I'm not going to pay him another $100 to remove this curse.” 

 

I'm waiting for the bus and I'm really pissed off. And then, I just start to think, well, if there was a curse, who would curse me? Not that I believe in it or anything, I'm just saying. Maybe it could be one of my single friends. A lot of them don't want me to get married before them. No. I guess they're bitches, but not witches. [audience laughter] Then I think, well, what about my sister, my older sister, who’s not married, who’s hated me since the day I was born and she was four years old? She is a very determined person and she could put a curse on me. The bus came, but I didn't get on it. How could I, knowing that there might be something that stood between me and meeting my husband? 

 

So, I go to the ATM and I take out the 400 shekel and I walk back to the rabbi's office and I'm wondering maybe if he'll remember me. I walk back in and he says, “You have money?” He remembers me. So, I give him the 400 shekel. He puts it in a plastic bag and he starts waving it over his head like the ceremony that they do with the chickens before the day of atonement. He starts saying these words, “[unintelligible 00:11:56].” This is my atonement. This is my redemption. This is the money that will go in my stead for charity. He puts the money in the drawer and he says, “You will meet someone. He will love you very much. He will please you sexually. He will love you more than he loves his mother.” [audience laughter] 

 

And I'm like, “Is this going to be a Jewish guy?” [audience laughter] Then he says, “Give me your passport.” He takes my passport. I'm like, “What now?” First, he takes my money. Now, is he going to sell me into indentured servitude that's how he's going to find my husband?” He starts copying it down, copying and copying it. I look over his shoulders and there's all these numbers. It looks like a quadratic equation. And finally, he slams the passport down and he says to me, “[00:12:40] Hanukkah. It will be done by Hanukkah.” Hanukkah, that's only five months away. It's August now. He said, “Hanukkah.” 

 

So, I go back to the States. You can believe that winter, I go to every party, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, winter solstice. I don't meet anybody. When my friends says to me, “Hey, I thought you were going to meet your husband now,” I start to cry because I thought so too. I felt like that time when I was 10 years old and they told me that the Messiah was going to come the next day, and I put out my white outfit on the chair and the Messiah didn't come. My husband didn't come either. But when you raised religious, no matter how long you leave it, you still can't give up hope. 

 

So, the next September, when I met Dan, I thought, well, maybe this could be the one the rabbi didn't say which Hanukkah. [audience laughter] You know, we could be engaged by December, but Dan dumped me in October. And in December, he was having a party, so I decided to go to show him what he was missing out on, because guys love that. [audience laughter] I got drunk, and I flirted with him and I flirted with his friends. I guess I flirted with a lot of people, because a couple of days later, I got a message on my cell phone and someone said, “Hi, Amy, this is Solomon. I met you at the party the other day. I just wanted to wish you a happy Hanukkah.” We went out the next day, and we got married about a year later. I just wanted to say that was the best $100 I ever spent. Thank you.