It was a fantasy born when Debra Brodsky was still attending Sunday Hebrew school. Like most kids, she found Hebrew school boring and confining. She went for two hours in the morning, learning the Hebrew language, Jewish history and bible study: Jonah and the whale, the exodus of the ancient Hebrews from Egypt, Adam and Eve, Abraham obeying God to sacrifice Isaac, his only son.
Neither of these stories from Genesis aroused much interest. But there was one that did, found in Genesis 19:32-35. It's the story of Lot's daughters getting their father drunk and then having sex with him. They did this because they feared there would be no men left to produce offspring with them after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah:
"Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve offspring from our father."
They were living with Lot in a cave when this happened, and when Lot awoke, he had no idea what his daughters had done. Both of them got pregnant and gave birth to sons, ancestors of the Moabites and the Ammonites. Lot's daughters had committed incest, something the bible teaches is a great sin. Even so, it gave Debra ideas. What if she did the same thing, got her father drunk and then, somehow, had sex with him?
Why would she want to do such an outrageous thing? No one explanation is fully adequate, though knowing the family's circumstances helps. First off, Debra's mom had died less than a year before, leaving Max Brodsky a widow. Before Meriam Brodsky got the sepsis that killed her, she and Max had talked about having another child. Debra, being an only child, had looked forward to having a sister or brother. But even after the traditional year of mourning, Max told her that no other woman could take the place of his beloved Meriam. Friends and extended family urged him to at least give another woman a chance. Reluctantly, he went to a few Parents Without Partners and Jewish singles events, met some women, and even dated a few. Yet that only reinforced his belief that Meriam was irreplaceable, at least for marriage material.
Debra, meanwhile, kept her biblical fantasy on her radar, though she didn't give it serious thought until she turned nineteen and entered her second year of college. This was during the Reagan administration. She had grown into an attractive young woman, the "spitting image" of her deceased mom, people said, including Max. When she entered a room or simply walked by, guys, as well as gals, took notice. A "brown-eyed beauty," people called her, with long brown hair and statuesque in form, a form inherited from her mom and dad who stood a shade over six-foot-two. Her fantasy aside, she didn't lack for would-be suitors during her sophomore year. While she wasn't what you'd call "attached," it was rare to find her sitting home on a Saturday night.
In short, her life at nineteen would be considered "normal" in every way. No one would have guessed that she harbored thoughts of doing what Lot's daughters had done. She had kept these thoughts bottled up, telling no one. That is, until one day in her dorm, when she and Karen McCreery, her roommate, got into a discussion of the bible. She and Karen, a devout Christian, had discussed religion before. Karen, being somewhat fundamentalist, took the bible literally, whereas Debra believed, with few exceptions, it was pure allegory, including the Lot story. Debra asked, "So you believe the story of Lot and his daughters actually happened, that these were real people?"
Karen nodded. "I do, same as I believe in Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt and Jesus' resurrection."
Debra remembered enough of the book of Leviticus to know that God considered incest a sin. "So why didn't God punish these women?"
"I guess because he believed that they had sex with their dad for a good cause," Karen said. "They didn't do it for pleasure. They did it because they didn't want to remain childless, and they thought that their father was the only man left to give them children."
Debra had already told Karen about her mom's death, but had said no more until that day in their dorm room. "You know, my mom and dad had been planning to give me a brother or sister before she got sick. Her death devastated me on that level alone, because I had been looking forward to having a sibling. I still hoped for one, thinking that dad would remarry. But he never found anyone else that could measure up to my mom. He's now in his late forties, so I've kind of given up on that. Well, almost."
"Almost? It sounds like you still have at least a glimmer of hope. Men don't have that biological clock to worry about."
"Right, they don't," Debra said, while debating if she should say more. Then: "But I was thinking..." She pursed her lips in hesitation. "Well, I hope you don't think I'm perverted or anything, but suppose I did the same thing that Lot's daughters did for similar reasons? Do you think that would be sinful in God's eyes?" Debra didn't believe in an afterlife in the same fervent way that Karen did, partly because Judaism, being more of a here and now religion, didn't emphasize it. Still, she didn't totally dismiss the idea that there could be a judgement day when we pass on.
Karen drew a bemused smile and shook her head. "Wait. Are you asking will God think it sinful if you seduced your dad just so you can have a brother or sister?"
"Um, something like that. Look, it wouldn't be just for me because, like I said, he always wanted another child."
"Ohmygod, Deb, are you kidding me?! Not to speak for God, but yeah, I would think he'd call that sinful. Incest is called taboo for a reason. I mean, I guess God had his own ideas of why he let certain things pass way back when but wouldn't tolerate those things today. Tell me that what you're saying is a passing thought and not something you'd actually try."
Debra laughed it off. "Absolutely. As you said, just a passing thought."
Of course, she said that to pacify her shocked roommate. In fact, it was more serious than Karen knew, nor was the idea of having a brother or sister the only reason. Ever since that day in Hebrew school, when she first heard the story of Lot and his daughters, the notion of getting intimate with her dad held a special fascination for her. Other kids with attractive parents could objectively acknowledge that without fantasizing about having sex with them. Not Debra. Her imagination ran wild. If the story of Lot were true, she'd bet that his daughters wanted more than just children out of it. Maybe they gave him wine because they knew that Lot would have been horrified, would have never consented to such a thing. She imagined that her dad might be too. Or, maybe not. For all she knew, he harbored similar feelings. He'd been telling her how pretty she was ever since she entered her teens. 'You're getting to look more like your mother every day,' he'd say. 'She was quite a beauty.' And there was the incident a year ago during a weekend when she was home from college that she'd never forget. She could still see Max frozen in his tracks in the hallway, standing by her open bedroom door, watching her change clothes. Wearing just panties and no bra, she looked up and smiled. Then, to her surprise, he smiled back before he moved away. A year later, and they still hadn't talked about it.
Karen's words echoed: 'not something you'd actually try.' Well, maybe she would, though getting him drunk isn't what she had in mind. Alcohol might help to loosen him up, but she wanted him to want it just as much as she. Putting him in some sort of somnolent state in order for the thing to happen didn't appeal to her. Besides that, by definition, it would be a form of rape. She got dizzy thinking how outrageous—and yes, perverted—these thoughts were. If her "plan" went through, if she became pregnant, assuming Max went along with it, she'd be more than just a sister to the baby. She'd be his mom as well and Max would be his dad and grand-dad. She also knew that children born from close relatives had a much higher incidence of birth defects. That alone told her in no uncertain terms that what she envisioned years ago with her dad was a terribly bad idea. The bible made no mention of birth defects among the offspring of Lot and his daughters. Either God looked the other way per Karen's suggestion, or the story was more allegory.
So maybe she should drop this fantasy of hers, however tempting on some level it might be. She was curious, though, about her dad's view of the Lot story. She was sure he knew about it. Max was always more devout than most Jews, attending synagogue on some weekends as well as the High Holy days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. He had even helped her with her Hebrew School homework.
In fact, it was after he came from services one Saturday morning when she was home that she began the discussion she had wanted to have with him.
"This is a pleasant surprise," he said, when he came into the kitchen to find a turkey salad sandwich waiting for him. Being a warm fall day, he wore a light tan, conservative, single-breasted suit.
"Well, I know you get hungry after services," she said, "so I thought I'd make myself useful." Barefoot with her hair up, she stood at the island counter making her own sandwich wearing tight, peach-colored shorts and a low-cut white blouse sans bra. She then poured two glasses of iced tea and placed them on the square glass table, while he slipped off his striped blue and green tie and suit jacket, then hung both over the back of his chair. "So, how were services?" she asked upon sitting down.
He released the top button of his shirt, then said, "Rabbi Katzen gives the best sermons. I like the way he uses philosophy as a way to interpret biblical stories. Today, for example, he asked the age-old question, are human beings inherently good or evil. God brought about the flood in order to cleanse humanity of its wickedness. But then, after Noah and his brood left the ark, God realized that man was evil from an early age and he vowed never again to curse the earth."
