Excerpt from The Life and Crimes of Hoodie Rosen by Isaac Blum, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Reuven was all over it. "We have left the chance for evil spirits to come onto us in the night. So we wash them off, the spirits."

"Amazing. As Reuven said, we have left ourselves vulnerable," Moritz went on, his voice rising to "vulnerable," pausing, then descending, "not only to the spirits of evil, but what else?" His voice rose again, and the question came out in a high-pitched squeak. "What else?"

Reuven again: "The spirits have come and, depending on how you read it, our souls have departed, right?"

"Correct. Our souls have departed through our hands. Through cleansing, and through the Modeh Ani prayer, our souls return and we are ready for service of HaShem." Everything Moritz said came back around to servicing God.

"What if you wear gloves?" asked Moshe Tzvi. He was still working on his cereal, but he paused to gesticulate with his plastic spoon, spraying little drops of milk across his desk. "You know, while you sleep. Must you still wash?"

Rabbi Moritz paused in his pacing. "This is a good question," he said. "I would say, based on the text, that the gloves would keep your soul in your body. Though of course this would be impractical, sleeping in gloves."

"Okay," Moshe Tzvi said, scratching his bare chin. "Now what if the gloves have a small hole in them? What are the dimensions of the soul? And how ... squeezy is it?"

"I think the question is not how big the hole is in the gloves, but whether or not the wearer of the gloves is aware of the hole," said Rabbi Moritz.

This is always the question. Judaism has rules for just about everything, from how to slaughter your animals, how to watch television without violating Shabbos (our Sabbath, our day of rest), to when and for how long you have to refrain from eating on fast days (of which there are many). But the trick is that you only have to follow the rules if you know about them. If you're a Jew, but you don't know you're a Jew, you don't have to follow any of the rules. It's like if you went to Walmart and stole a bunch of things, and then the police came and they were about to arrest you, and you were like, "Wait, I didn't know it was illegal to take this stuff without paying," and the police were like, "Oh, okay, our apologies. Have a good day. Enjoy the free TV."

I had a question for the rebbe, but I was too busy staring out the window, and it slipped away. So too had the girl—she wasn't there anymore.

"What if the hole is pretty big?" Moshe Tzvi asked. "Big enough that you can't plausibly deny knowing about it? Maybe you turn your hand over so you can't see the hole, but you can feel that it's there."

"Then you have to wash."

Rabbi Moritz picked his book back up, and was about to turn the page, but Moshe Tzvi wasn't satisfied. "What if Hoodie is sleeping in his gloves, and he knows there's a hole in his glove, but then I bash him over the head with a very heavy piece of pipe, and he forgets about the hole in his glove due to his head trauma?"

Rabbi Moritz considered, nodding his head a few times in a slow rhythm. "It would depend on his state of mind upon awakening, after he's slept. Can we move on?"

"No," said Moshe Tzvi. "We haven't talked about sleeping in mittens."

"Oy, Moisheee."

Moritz did move on. Now he was talking about the handwashing itself, how to do it right. I wasn't listening, partly because if I didn't know the right way, I could do it how I wanted. But mostly I wasn't listening because I was too distracted, staring out the window, looking for the Tu B'Av girl in white. Now that she'd disappeared I couldn't be sure that I'd seen her at all. She could have been just a figment of my imagination, a physical manifestation of my thoughts about Tu B'Av, what my mind thought a dancing tribeless grape-harvest girl would look like today.

I had to know for sure.

I got up from my desk. Moshe Tzvi handed me his Styrofoam cereal bowl as I walked by. I left the room, slurping the sweet leftover milk. I tossed the bowl in the can outside and put on my black hat.

Excerpted from The Life and Crimes of Hoodie Rosen by Isaac Blum. Copyright © 2022 by Isaac Blum. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.