Nicole Nathan, Let My RV Go!, Mosaica Press, 2013, ISBN: 9781937887087, 222 pages including glossary
By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO– The title to this novel is well chosen. It is a humorous play on the phrase “Let My People Go!” which we imagine Moses (or at least Charleton Heston in the Ten Commandments ) saying with insistence to the Pharaoh.
Author Nicole Nathan’s story is about two families that are ba’alei teshuvah (or more simply B.T.’s) deciding to take their somewhat recent Jewish religiosity along with their nine young children in their rented motor homes on a pre-Passover trip from the chill of Canada to the warmth of Florida. Just as they are about to leave, a mysterious man gives them a box of shmurah matzoh to be delivered to a certain Rabbi Schwadron, whose address–even hometown–he neglects to mention.
Along the way, the two families encounter some of the oddities and delights of the American road, and also learn more about each other — for example, the incidents or moments that had them turn from their previously secular life styles to the lives of committed observance.
Anyone who has lived for any period of time in a recreational vehicle with their children know how challenging being together in such a cramped space can be, but when one is trying to observe the many mitzvot of daily Orthodox Jewish living, it can be even more tumultuous.
If you’re going before Passover but returning after Passover–and your destination is a campground in the deep South–you have to pack along year-round foods as well as Passover foods, because there will be no place to buy kosher-for-Pesach foods anywhere near the campground.
Try to imagine whisking every bit of chametz out of an RV in which your four children and your neighbor’s five children are regularly returning from their play. Then imagine trying to string an eruv around your two motor homes so you can carry foodstuffs back and forth on Shabbat. Finally, try to imagine preparing for a seder under the stars in an RV park near the Gulf of Mexico.
If all this sounds like a hassle, you’re looking at it wrong. It’s an adventure — at least in Nicole Nathan’s telling. While smiling through this adventure with her, some of us, no doubt, will want to emulate the experience. Most likely, even more of us will be glad that we can share such experiences by reading about them while safely ensconced in our armchairs!
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com