Rebecca Deutsch

Memories

My memories of my last few months in high school are among my most cherished largely because of Amir. More than any particular episode, I remember certain feelings. I remember sitting in the passenger seat of Amir’s car as he was driving to Englewood and feeling like I was one of the luckiest people alive because Amir had let me into his world. And what a unique world this was. In this world, literary allusions shaped daily experience, social status served as a source of comic relief (as he wrote below a picture of two of our classmates in my yearbook: “Look, a tier 1 person talking to a tier 2 person, and they say these shots are candid!”), and everything, from the profound to the absurd, was questioned and discussed. I also remember admiring Amir—for his gift with language, for the intimacy of his friendships (were there best friends, other than Amir and Jon, so close that they wrote passages in each others journals?), for his clarity of vision, for his originality, and for his honesty.

During college, I remember looking forward to the refreshing insightfulness of Amir’s letters. I was forever in awe of Amir’s ability to simultaneously provoke laugher and thought. I also remember being struck by the breadth of Amir’s intellectual curiously: he somehow managed to straddle both the world of science and the world of the humanities; and he challenged me to do the same, always giving me grief for not applying my mind to some greater discipline, like math, physics, or computer science. Most of all, I remember trusting Amir, feeling like he was someone in whom I could confide.

In more recent years, other than a few lucky chance encounters, Amir and I had somehow, and to my great regret, fallen out of touch. Just recently, in early March, I came across Amir’s profile on Friendster. I remember feeling incredibly happy to have found him, even if only in cyberspace, and having immediately tried to add him as a friend. I then remember the tremendous happiness, weirdly out of proportion to the occasion, that I felt, when, within moments, Amir approved my request for friendship. I was hoping it would be a renewal.

For a period in 1997, Amir signed his emails with this quote from Alyosha’s “Speech by the Stone” in the Brothers’ Karamazov: “I want you to understand, then, that there is nothing nobler, stronger, healthier or more helpful in life than a good remembrance . . . You often hear people speak about upbringing and education, but I feel that a beautiful, holy memory from early childhood can be the most important single thing in our development. And if a person succeeds, in the course of time, in collecting many such memories, he will be saved for the rest of his life.”

And so Amir, I thank you. I thank you for saving me with these memories, with these memories of feeling. There are truly no substitutes.

Amir’s first stab at a personal college essay

The following is a portion of an essay Amir wrote in his junior year at Ramaz as a sample personal college essay. Unfortunately, I seem to have lost one of the pages.

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Well this is my personal college essay, and it kind of pisses me off. Whenever people bring up all this college crap, it tends to piss me off. College shmawledge, it’s always future this and future that. I’m a friggin junior, and I’m seventeen, and I just heard Don Henley sing something about being sixteen forever and it really didn’t mean a thing to me to tell the truth. I’m a friggin junior and not unlike my good forefather Abraham, some god has been testing me and luckily I got a 1450 which means I passed. Not so fast, they tell me, a 1450 is not a success complete. Many more high numbers must be collected before the golden gates of Heaven (or is that Harvard) will open up.
But all that is along way off, at least a year, and right now I’m stuck in pre-final hell land and just about the worst thing I can do is think ahead to that judgment day early in May when my entire high school worth is assessed. That is a sick, scary thought. Either I’m missing something or somewhere along the line we lost something and now everything has gone crazy and corrupt. Is this the plan: Study in high school, so you can go to a good college, so you can go to a good university, so you can get some dumb job, so you can earn money, so you can support a wife, so you can have kids so that they can go to school . . . .
Am I missing something there? Is that what my dad is talking about when he says to me, Amir, you gotta have a plan? Well, I don’t have a plan, and though that scares me sometimes, mostly it just makes me feel superior . . . unencumbered . . . more fee than the rest of the bastards running as fast as they can down the dark misty road of success and responsibility and consistency. It is one hell of a marathon, and I am far too lazy to compete.
The irony is that so few know what they are running for. So few can even see this road beneath their legs. I know it is there because someone told me. She said, Nature and life seem to be very familiar. Just stay on the road and everything will be fine. (I read that in my camp brochure). I say, Stay on the road, and you won’t see a damn thing. There are a lot of nifty trees that smell like root beer, pretty vistas, and cool looking animals that all lie just off the path. Hell, you may get a few scratches but that is the risk. I mean, why else did we get on this road in the first place for? You see, that is what bothers me the most, most destinations are not destinations at all, rather, just the lack of destinations. It is going on so you can go on. Stop before you reach the end, because once you get there, they will all be dead, or you will be dead. I do not know, because I have not been there yet.
I did see the end once, though. You see, this path of mine has all twists and turns of various dimensions and sometimes . . . the end comes very close to where you are standing, and if you look hard enough, you will be able to see it. Rather, you won’t see it. You won’t see it because it is not there. Let me explain how I saw the end that is not there:
Last year before the Passover holiday, I went to visit the Jewish homeland with the Dorot project in Manhattan. I brought

[missing page]

immensely, for I do not really know what society is. I think, though, that it has something to do with man’s futile search for purpose. Something to keep us running around this narrow, circular track so quickly and so frantically that we are blind to the nothing that we are falling into.

Email Correspondence with Rebecca Deutsch

While at Brown (1995-99), Amir corresponded via email with his close friend Rebecca Deutsch. The following is a sampling of that correspondence…

Wednesday, October 18, 1995

I am the only person in my nine o’clock class who is awake. I think I participate in class more than anybody else in Brown. I bet other people think I am very annoying.

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Do you think it is good to be anti-social when the only reason you being unsocial is so people say wow, he’s so Holden Caulfieldish and aloof and cool and then you become very popular.

—-

Quote of the week:
“These paradigms of vanilla normality make me puke.” –Jon Wolfson

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Saturday, October 14, 1995

College is pretty cool. Academically it’s great. They really keep one busy here and I am learning a lot. I had figured it would be anti-intellectual compared to yeshiva, what with only four classes and all, but I think I am even working harder here than I did there.

I am taking:

-2nd semester calc
-political philosophy
-intro to object orientd programming (my favorite)
-twentieth century jewish fiction

Also, extra-curricularly there are always a lot of things to do that I am interested in. I am a member of the film society and the fantasy gaming society…

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The whole concept of friendship has got me very confused. Do you think a friend should be a person who has certain personality traits that you find appealing (i.e. s/he is into books you like, or movies you like, or plays the same sports as you), or do you just like anybody who is willing to reciprocate that affection? Most people seem to the latter. I am not sure if it is respectable or pathetic. Friendship is no more than a vestige of a pack instinct. That is my opinion on it.

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Monday, July 15, 1996

Rebecca,

I don’t think I ever told you what I am doing this summer. I have two-and-a-half jobs, all involving computers. My main job is programming for the psychology department here. I am programming experiments in human timing. In my current project a subject is presented with 100 boxes and is allowed to click on any which one. If the box is primed, the subject is rewarded by a sound clip from a movie or TV show. If it is not primed, then the subject is subjected to a very loud, harsh sound. The boxes are primed randomly. The idea is to check for patterns in ways in which the subjects search. My other job is researching how to program Windows sockets. Windows sockets (i.e. winsock) is a programming interface by way of which programmers can write bits and bytes on the internet. My half job, which I just started today and which I am not getting paid for, is that I am programming an interface for a project a post-doc is working on in the Brown CS department. I am doing this because I get a very special account and it is a good learning environment.

Tomorrow, I am going for an interview for a job teaching Hebrew school. I am a little nervous because I shaved my head into a crew cut and I think I might make a bad impression.

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Tuesday, July 16, 1996

Rebecca,

Why didn’t you go away for the summer? You can support yourself on summer job money…. It really feels good to be self-sufficient. It is pretty easy, too. Life really doesn’t take that much, (so you shouldn’t feel sorry for bums, you should just dismiss them as lazy (just kidding (I like nesting parentheses (it is a very computerish thing to do)))). Also, when you are away from your parents for a long time they are much nicer to you.

I just spoke to Mikey on the phone…Really, he is a tremendously decent man.

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Wednesday, August 07, 1996

Hi,

It kills me that girls are judged so much more leniently on personality matters. In order for a girl’s personality to be liked all she has to do is smile a lot and sit around and listen. With guys, if you are not saying something witty every ten seconds people dismiss you right out as a boring schleb. I want to be a woman.

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Friday, September 06, 1996

Hello Becks,

How’s your junior year going? You know, being a junior in college is pretty damn near adult, isn’t it?

Anyway, sorry I haven’t written, I have been very preoccupied with a lot of stuff. I have over-committed myself to too many things: I am working on the Virtual Reality project with the CS department, programming experiments for the psychology department, teaching Hebrew school, librarian for Hillel, pledging a fraternity and 3 work-intensive classes….

Last week, I went camping in the White Mountains and really fell in love with nature. The whole experience made me feel really very primal. It was very invigorating. I climbed a 4,000 ft mountain and now I really feel there is nothing I can’t do. There was a personality conflict with the rest of my group, though, and none of them liked me because they are all a bunch of wusses who don’t like to challenge themselves. What kind of classes are you taking? Are you taking CS?

—-

Did you know that in Hebrew, which is god’s language, there is no word for love? Ahava, which we use interchangeably for love and like, really doesn’t mean either of those, it means loyalty.

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Wednesday, September 18, 1996

It is great that you are reading Heart Of Darkness, but it is kind of sad that you are taking that kind of class when you can be really applying your mind to some greater discipline like math, physics, or C.S.

Lately, things are going very well for me. My fraternity is taking very good care of me and making sure that I am not getting bored socially. I am really pretty much enjoying it so far. It is very engrossing. I don’t know any better word for that. As pledges they keep us busy constantly and it is just a lot of fun. What they are tying to do mostly is indoctrinate us in the tradition. I kind of dig all the tradition… I have been getting about five hours of sleep a night and I feel great. The fraternity keeps me up late every night and then I get up at 7:30 for minyan, which we have just started here this year.

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Thursday, September 19, 1996

It is weird. I have a dual social life here in Brown. Half of it is Hillel, which I love, hanging out and meeting pleasant people… Then there is my fraternity life, which truthfully lives up to all stereotypes… It is actually truly pathetic. But in some ways it provides a strange counterbalance that I think I need. Hell, I don’t need it, who am I kidding. I am stuck in Gehenna, and that is the truth. I could pick up and leave but that is not as simple as it seems. I would be alienating a lot of people, and truthfully there are a lot of people that I do like. Nobody I couldn’t live without, though. But then on top of that there is the huge hassle of moving and finding a place to live…

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Friday, October 25, 1996

I really like having a roommate. I would be very lonely without a roommate. I think I am going to get married this summer so I don’t have to be without a roommate. I need that type of spiritual crutch so I don’t get lonely.

—-

In computer science class I am building a simulated computer. It is really cool. I am also designing this graphical robot that can shoot missiles out of his mouth and lasers from his eyes… I am feeling unimaginative. So next semester I signed up for creative writing. I was inspired because there were two girls from Ramaz here last weekend and they were only freshmen when we were seniors, but they knew who I was because they remembered my poems. That made me feel really great…

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Monday, November 11, 1996

…Anyway, I got to go home this weekend to Englewood and that seems to have done me a turn for the better. I got to see my grandma before she left to Israel and, although we can hardly speak a word to each other, it seemed to make her very happy just to sit next to me. It was nice to make her happy like that and it made me feel groovy inside. Also, I got to speak to my sister, who I recognize as the complete angel that she is, and she had a lot of good advice for me. Maybe you should speak to her, too. She is great at giving advice…

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Tuesday, January 21, 1997

Dear Becks,

I just got back to school yesterday and I moved into the Hebrew house here at Brown. So far it seems like a vast improvement over the frat. The house is much nicer. It is actually like a real house. We have a living room and kitchen and everything laid out for Mr. and Mrs. Joe family. My room even has its own bathroom and carpet. My new roommate is a computer science god who took three years off brown to work for apogee and write Duke Nukem. If you don’t know what that is, let me tell you that is something to be proud about…

I went on a breaks trip last week and that was great. What we did was go out into New York City for a week and volunteer in soup kitchens for lunch and at night we usually spoke to people who were professionally involved with hunger and homelessness in NYC…

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Monday, March 17, 1997

Hi Becks,

Anyway, what I was saying in my last letter was that I am going camping for a while next week in Virginia. I am really excited. I have only been camping once before and I have never been to the South at all. I have been to Florida once but that doesn’t really count. I like long car rides with friends. That is the best. I like to make everybody play these games that me and Jon used to play. One game is called memory game and it just goes that one person says a memory and the other person says one that it reminds them of. And so on. The other game is called trivial pursuit and it is just Trivial Pursuit without the cards, dice and board. The only part that is left is the questions and since you don’t have cards you have to think them up yourself. That is the fun part. I just hope it is not too cold when we go camping.

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Tuesday, April 15, 1997

How are you doing? As for me, everything is going very well. I had a great spring break camping and when spring comes and Ben and Jerry’s gives away free cones of ice cream, it is hard not to be chipper.

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Thursday, October 09, 1997

Hi Rebecca?

How’s life? I haven’t heard from you in a little while and I was wondering. I actually called you a couple of times this summer when I was in NJ but I was never able to get through. As for me, life is fine. I walk a tortuous path within the twilight of some large and looming madness that howls continuously from along the perimeter of my mind. Of the few people I have gotten to know in the slow and sordid course of my social history, I believe that only you could ever really understand the context of my self-loathing and the hubris it engenders. That is why I write you this letter. I think me and you, we share the same insanity. I still think of you every now and then and miss you. I miss certain aspects of myself as they pertained to you. It is funny, people leave your life and new people come in, but there are no substitutes.

–Amir