Only Yesterday (23 page)
So they bought themselves a plot of land, and every day after they returned in the evening from their work in Petach Tikva, they went out with their wives and children and weeded the thorns and turned over the dust and molded bricks. And water they didn’t have, for the well was far away from their settlement, through sand and thorns and briar, and they walked barefoot, for they were sparing their shoes. But they didn’t spare themeselves and brought water from far away to mold bricks and they built little houses for themselves. And near those houses you find good land that rewards those who work it. They plowed and sowed and planted. And water they didn’t have, for the well was far away from their dwelling place. But they didn’t spare their efforts and brought their water from far away to water their gardens. The gardens grew and flourished and made fine shoots, whose praise was on every tongue, and many people came to buy them. And they didn’t sell the shoots, but grew them into good trees. Toiling men, who suffered hunger and disease, who should have bought a little quinine with their wages to relieve their malaria, but they reined in their wishes for the sake of their hope. And the women too. Even the most tender and delicate of them would take from her own mouth and feed her babies. And daughter like mother, son like father. That’s Eyn Ganim, the first settlement of Hebrew workers in the Land of Israel, who earned their place with their work.
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Let’s go back to Isaac. Isaac walks around among the small houses and the young shoots wearing Sabbath clothes like a tourist, and
wherever he turns a young shoot, a chick, or the window of a house peeps at him, and between house and field a red kerchief flashes on the head of a woman who rules over house and field. You have surely heard of the first people of Petach Tikva and about the first people of Rishon LeTsion and about the Bilu people and about all our other brothers, the settlers in Judea and the Galilee, in the Sharon and the Shomron, in the plain and in the mountain, with what suffering they took possession of their place, but the toil of the first pioneers seems like an ancient legend to us, their heroism makes the suffering forgotten. While here, where the suffering of the toilers is still new, no matter how much you are amazed at their heroism, you can’t ignore the grief of their toil. Nevertheless, Isaac considered himself de-prived. Why? Because he wasn’t blessed like the people of Eyn Ganim. But now he didn’t ascribe the failure to others who rejected him from work on the land, but he ascribed the failure to himself for not enduring the ordeals and for fleeing to the city. Unlike our comrades in Eyn Ganim who stuck with the soil until they got to whatever they got to.
Isaac looked in front of him, but his eyes were behind him. He thought about himself and about those who were uprooted from the Land, and were wandering around all over the world. Even Rabinovitch is wandering around Outside the Land, and even though he left to return, it’s doubtful he will return. And when he remembered Rabinovitch, he remembered Sonya. And when he remembered Sonya, his heart grew sad. He went back to thinking about himself and about those who left and about what that German farmer told him, It’s not money that makes a settlement, but love of the land and love of the soil, and the Jews don’t know what is land or what is work.
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Suddenly there was a peep from one of the chicks poking around in the dung, and it was answered by another chick from a woman’s apron. Isaac lifted his eyes and saw a woman whom he had met in the barn of Petach Tikva soon after he ascended, when he and Rabinovitch were looking for work, for in those days, there weren’t any
cafés in the settlements, and anyone who wanted to lift his spirit would go to the barn. Young and handsome was that woman when we first saw her, and now she looked like an old woman. Like most of our sisters who work in the house and the field, lines and wrinkles furrowed and incised her face, bestowing splendor like drops of grandeur. Isaac knew her by sight, but not up close, for until he met Sonya, he hadn’t talked to a woman. The woman looked and saw Isaac. She said to him, Don’t you want to see my farm? Isaac bowed his head and muttered something, like someone who admits his guilt. And what guilt is it, it is the guilt of all of us who came to work the land and didn’t work it.
That woman smiled at him and took him and showed him a group of chicks her hen hatched, and showed him orange saplings and lemon saplings her husband had planted. And finally she showed him two children any mother would have been proud of. And after she showed him all the great things and wonders not every woman can boast of, she brought him tomato juice and looked favorably with beautiful eyes on every gulp he gulped. After he drank, he held the cup because its base had fallen off and it couldn’t stand. She took it out of his hand and said, You think I made that juice for pleasure and indulgence, but when the Land gave us fine, first-rate tomatoes, my husband said, We won’t eat the tomatoes, but I’ll take them to the market, and he thought about what he’d do with the money he’d get for them, like that peasant woman in the folk parable who found an egg and delighted in imagining the good things the egg would give her and as she did, the egg fell out of her hand and broke. And so my husband took his tomatoes to Petach Tikva and didn’t find a person to buy them because the Arab tomatoes are cheaper than our tomatoes. Ashamed, he came back with the tomatoes and swore to bury them in the ground. So I quickly made juice from them.
While they were talking, Pnina came. She saw Isaac and said, Here something was done, not like in our Jaffa. And Pnina’s words had a triumphant tone for everything that was done in Eyn Ganim, and on the other hand, a sorrowful tone for herself and for Jaffa. To work the soil Pnina ascended to the Land of Israel, and in
the end she is wallowing in the city, like Yael Hayyot and Sonya Zweiering, but they are city girls and she isn’t, she’s a village girl and deserves to settle on the soil. Gorishkin was partly to blame, for whenever she wanted to uproot herself from the city, he found things to keep her. So it was when our comrades went up to the Kinneret she wanted to go along with them, and the same when she wanted to go to Ben Shemen. It’s not good for a girl to rely on men, for most of them want their own good. Pnina looked at Isaac and asked herself, That fellow who isn’t flooded with theories, why does he live in the city? That must be Sonya’s fault. For if not for her city notions, Isaac would have done by now what the Land needs. It’s not good for a man to run after girls, who are all egotists.
Two members of Eyn Ganim came; they weren’t working that day because they had to go to Jaffa to apply for a loan to buy a cow. They saw Isaac and looked at him the way you look at a tourist, even though they knew he was an artisan, but someone who works in the city isn’t like someone who works in the field. And even though there is also conquest of work in the city, there isn’t conquest of the soil in it. And without soil, we are bereft of a foundation, eternal nomads.
Little by little, our comrades’ hearts changed in Isaac’s favor. This one drew him to survey his property with him and that one showed him something you don’t see everywhere. And what did he show him? A pit he dug in his yard. Why? To collect manure, to improve his land with it. The pit is still empty, since he doesn’t have a horse or a cow to make manure. But he had already prepared a re-ceptacle for manure in case he succeeds in buying a cow.
Isaac stood among our pioneer comrades and was happy about this one’s farm and that one’s pit, for in those days we were generous about our comrades and rejoiced at their joy as if it were our own joy.
A Light Conversation
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After Isaac parted from the people of Eyn Ganim, he strolled at the edge of the settlement, thinking about everything he had seen and heard. And it seemed to him that he had already seen and heard such things. Where had he seen and where had he heard? For, from the day they had laid the cornerstone of that workers’ settlement until now, he hadn’t been there. He recalled one of those stories they tell about his ancestor Reb Yudel Hasid, who, once in his wanderings to collect money for dowries, wandered into a village and spent a Sabbath with one of the Thirty-Six Just Men, on whom the world stands. And Isaac started thinking about the things they tell about that hidden saint. That hidden saint dug mud for the daughters of Israel to plaster the ground of their houses in honor of the Sabbath, and on the Sabbath he would speak nothing but the Holy Tongue, and would not call his residence a home, for the residence of a man in the false world is not a home. And when Isaac contemplated those things, he smiled and said, And I, Isaac, descendant of Rabbi Yudel Hasid, spent a weekday not with a hidden saint, but with a host of hidden saints on whom the world stands, and even on weekdays they speak the Holy Tongue, and they dig pits for manure to improve the earth of the Land of Israel. And as for their homes, homes built by the hands of their residents certainly deserve to be called homes.
And thus Isaac thought and walked until he came to the barn. That was the barn where we would sit into the night. Isaac was in good spirits, like a man strolling for his own pleasure. He began singing one of those songs they used to sing in the barn at night.
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In Petach Tikva
Oyfn shayer
vu a glet iz volvl
un a kush nisht tayer
In Petach Tikva in the barn, As everyone can see,
Kisses aren’t expensive, Caresses are for free.
After Isaac walked around the barn, he went into the Laborers’ House and looked at the announcements and the newspapers. And since the air was fine and a good smell rose from the citrus groves and the jasmine bushes, he left the Laborers’ House and went out for a stroll. He came to one of the ruins of Petach Tikva, where he had eaten his first meal on the first night he came to look for work. Great was Isaac’s hope that day when he came to Petach Tikva the first time and great was his pain on the day he left Petach Tikva. Later that pain departed from him and other pain came. Isaac looked at that ruin where he stayed with Rabinovitch. Those days weren’t good, but his heart was pure of all blemish.
A man glanced at him and said, Aren’t you that Galician I saw at Yedidya Rabinovitch’s? You haven’t gone back Outside the Land? Isaac replied, I am that Galician, and it looks like I haven’t gone back Outside the Land. So he greeted him and invited him to his room. As they entered, the bell from the citrus groves was heard. Said the host to the guest, It’s time for lunch. Sit down and we shall eat. He took out three or four oranges and half a loaf of bread and they ate and drank tea from a burnished brass samovar.
That man was called by two names, one name was Mena-hemke the Rabbi and the other name was Menahem Who Stands. Menahem Who Stands, because he did everything standing up. And Menahem the Rabbi, because when his father the rabbi died and left a house full of orphans and the community had no money to support the orphans and to pay the wages of the rabbi, they sat Menahem in the rabbi’s chair until they found his older sister a bridegroom who was fit to serve as a rabbi and Menahem left his place
and ascended to the Land of Israel. He came to the Land of Israel and went to Petach Tikva and looked for work with the farmers like all our other comrades. When he found work, he just plain took it, and when he didn’t find work he didn’t complain. He would say, Just as I am entitled to ask for work, so the employer is entitled to tell me, I don’t have any for you. Any work that came his way was proper in his eyes even if it gave a lot of trouble and a little pay. He used to say, I don’t refuse any work, and even if they appointed me Hakham Bashi of all Turkey, I would take it. In fact, he hated the rabbis, and hated anything that had even a grain of dust of the rabbis on it. Once upon a time, two disputants wanted to make him a judge, and he didn’t want to, even though he was hard up for money at that time. And since he knew there was no work at all times, he saved on his needs. He became so stingy that once he moved from one apartment to another and took the straw of his bed with him, even though it was crushed with age. But he was meticulous about wearing clean clothes and washed his laundry every Friday night, and if he found a rip he would mend it himself. He also insisted on choice tea, and he had a burnished brass samovar which he took with him from his father’s house as his inheritance. Just as he was fussy about clean clothes, so he was also fussy about his apartment. He had no books except for a volume of Talmud he studied. And when he studied, he studied standing up at a reading stand he had made for himself. If his legs became numb from standing, he took off his shoes, put down a bottle and stood on it.
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Isaac told Menahem some of the things that had happened to him in the Land of Israel. Menahem stood on his feet as was his wont, blowing on his cup and listening. When Isaac finished the story of his adventures, he smiled and said, You see, Rabbi Menahem, I ascended to the Land of Israel to work it and preserve it, and in the end, what am I, a painter, a smearer. Menahem blew on his cup and was silent. Isaac closed his eyes and began talking about the Land and about work. In the end, he grew excited and talked about the Religion of Work.
Menahem looked at him with hard eyes, nodded his head, and said, Religion of Work, Religion of Work. People who dismiss the essentials of religion took on that pleasant notion, like those modern poets who mention God’s name in their poems, even though they and the readers of their poems don’t know the Lord and don’t want to know the Lord. You want to hear my opinion, then listen. A per-son has to work, for if he doesn’t work, what will he eat? I myself have no need for ideas, not about the Land and not about work. It’s enough for a man that he was blessed to dwell in the Land of Israel. And may we not have to be ashamed of the Land.
Menahem lowered his eyes and added, In general, a person has to behave a little modestly toward the Land of Israel. And a per-son shouldn’t see himself as if he were doing a favor to the Land. I haven’t yet seen all the greatness that the thinkers of thoughts have done here. And if a little something was done, it was done against their will. A Land, as it is written the eyes of the Lord thy God are al-ways on it, such a Land shouldn’t be as they want, for the eye of Di-vine Providence, as it were, is different from the eyes of planners and advisors, whether they are old or whether they are young and the youngest of the young, whether they write “Truth from the Land of Israel” or whether they lie for the sake of the Land of Israel. But the main trouble is not in ideas, but in the caviling those ideas involve. A greater trouble than that is the trouble of men of action who want to turn idle words into action. Needless to say, our salvation won’t be as they imagine, but when we achieve complete salvation, they will be the first to be fed up with it. I’ve already talked a lot, but this I will tell you, every Jew must try with all his might to dwell in the Land of Israel, for the origin of the nation of Israel is in the Land of Israel. And since the Land is destroyed and desolate and it is hard to dwell in a place of destruction, we must repair the place and make it a place of settlement. If so, if the main thing is to restore it from its destruction, then what does it matter if our work is done by foreigners, as the foolish farmers say. That has an inherent answer, for from the day the Gentiles came to our estate, the Land has not been built, but on the contrary, all the nations, one after another, destroyed it more and more. The hand of Providence was here, for the Land is waiting for
us, the sons of the Land, to rebuild it. Straight words, proved by reality. Once again I talked a lot. If you want to prove the futility of idle words, you have to prove it against your will with words. I see that you won’t return to Jaffa today, and you need a place to spend the night, so stay with me. I won’t make a bed for you, but I will make you a place on the ground. Hospitable people offer their bed to the guest and they sleep on the ground, but not me, so that I don’t give myself an excuse to say that I am fastidious and need a bed, and so I found myself stopped from doing something that every person should do. So sleep here, and if you need to go about your business, come back here for supper, for I eat my main meal at night, and there’s clean bread and olives and halvah in my house, not to mention tea from the samovar.
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