Only Yesterday (30 page)
The boy asked Isaac, Are you a cantor’s assistant? Said he, Why? Said the boy, Because I heard you singing. Said he, I was singing for no reason. Said the boy, Are you a Zionist? Said he, Why? Said the boy, I heard that the Zionists are always singing “Our hope is not yet lost.” Said Isaac, What else did you hear about the Zionists, pal? Said the boy, I heard that they want to hasten redemption through all kinds of sins. Said Isaac, Why through sins? Said the boy, The Messiah, Son of David, comes only in a generation which is all innocent or all guilty, and since it is easier to sin than to keep the Commandments, so they sin.
Isaac heard and didn’t reply. Gone were the days when he was eager to win souls for Zionism. It’s enough for him that they’re not eager to influence him. Nevertheless, he is still influenced. For better or for worse, who are we to know? Externally, he already looks a little like the people of Jerusalem, and maybe internally too. And when his fellow painters stop working to recite the afternoon prayer, he also stops working and prays. And if they eat a small snack together the size of an olive, he joins in the blessing. If not for Bloykof the painter, Isaac would become a complete Jerusalemite. Milk and honey Isaac did not find in Jerusalem, but he did attain a state of equanimity.
Private Thoughts
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Isaac didn’t make much of an impression on folks. There are a lot of fellows like Isaac and you don’t pay any heed to them; Isaac ex-cels neither in looks nor in conversation. If you chanced to talk with him, you wouldn’t be eager to talk with him again. And if you meet him in the market, sometimes you don’t recognize him. Unless you’re fond of Isaac, a fellow like him doesn’t exist for you. He is av-erage height and his face is broad on top and narrow on the bottom. His eyes are calm and do not sparkle. His walk is heavy like a crafts-man whose pace is weighed down by his tools. On weekdays he wears white pants and a short coat of green satin with black stripes, and under the coat is a brown shirt, and a tattered hat sits on his head, and all those garments are speckled with paint. His shoes are flat and his fingernails shine in his black fingers and his hair burgeons on the back of his neck. And when he puts on his Sabbath clothes he looks like a young man from Meah Shearim who fancied himself a Maskil. There are seamstresses and milliners who have complaints about him. Such a fellow shouldn’t push himself into that house whose tenants are all teachers and writers and artists and activists.
Those milliners and seamstresses who crush their bodies to make a living didn’t show favor to that painter. Other fellows won their hearts, fellows whose deeds are like those in novels. Some of them were already exiled to Siberia and some of them took part in the assassination of a Russian General Governor, some took part in the self-defense organization against pogroms, and some organized strikes. Now they dwell here in the Land of Israel like sheep hidden
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by the shepherd from the wolf. Some day they would emerge from the pen and tear the wolf and the shepherd to pieces.
Since there are neither factories nor rioters in Jerusalem at the moment, there is nothing to do here. So they sit here and split hairs about the affairs of the world and give lectures and deliver speeches, and in the evening they come to the seamstresses and the milliners, drink tea and eat sweets, borrow a Bishlik from this one and a Bishlik from that one. And the milliners and the seamstresses enjoy and are happy to give a hand to people with a sign of heroism marked on their forehead by fate. Even though those women need those pennies themselves to buy bread and milk, for Jerusalem is a city where you don’t earn money every day, and that work in a narrow room with stuffy air and without healthy food saps a person’s strength, and even though the days last longer here than anywhere else, nevertheless a person ages faster here than anywhere else. No longer does the mir-ror smile at their approach, no longer does it show a girl’s face with round red cheeks, but shows a countenance as furious as those rocks of Jerusalem that look at you with rage. What was left for them in Jerusalem that they wanted to live there? If not for the People’s Cen-ter and two or three people who usually visit them in the evening— all their lives would be a gloomy experience. In their youth, in their father’s house, every one of them was a substantial being, every ball added luster to her shine and desirable fellows sent her love letters, and here when many of those girls are gathered in one place, each one is more wasted than the next, and all of them are wasted and wasting away. And the days go on, and every day is long. It seems as if it will never end, and it does flow to an end, and so do weeks and months and years, spinning their web on you like that spider who spins a net at the mouth of the cave and no one comes to rip the web.
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Isaac didn’t notice his female neighbors or their ways. No image of their activities took shape in Isaac’s heart. From the day he had ascended to Jerusalem, he had lowered his eyes into himself and fenced himself off from all sides. After a day’s toil, he returns to his room, drops his tools, and lies down on his bed, like a porter unloading his burden and putting it down, or like a burden the porter unloaded. After a while, he gets out of bed, washes his face and hands, and waits until they dry in the air, so as to use fewer towels that need laundering, and the water here is sold in small measures. If he had strength, he made tea or cocoa and two or three eggs. If he didn’t have strength, he took a slice of bread with a tomato or olives and ate and drank cold tea left in the pot since breakfast. After he ate and drank, he picked up a book. If he had strength he sat and read. If he didn’t have strength, he dozed off over his book, sometimes with a bad conscience that he wasn’t doing anything for his soul, and sometimes with pleasure, like toiling people who enjoy the little bit of sleep like a windfall that comes inadvertently. A hard war between body and soul. One wants rest and the other wants knowledge. As the world goes, the strong defeats the weak, while for Isaac Kumer, the weak defeats the strong, that is the afflicted body defeats the educated soul. He recalled Sonya and thought about her, not with great affection did he think about her. The suffering she caused him reduced the affection of her memory. At any rate, a bit of consolation he found in the suffering, that perhaps it would wipe away that sin.
But he didn’t linger much either on Sonya or on Rabinovitch. Father’s letters took him out of a domain that wasn’t his into a domain that was. And thus he sat with his head in his hands and his eyes open and observant. And when he observed, his father’s house appeared in his mind’s eye enhanced with more desolation, the kind of sadness and desolation that is in his heart. It was night now and they hadn’t yet lit the lamp there because they were saving kerosene. Yudele returned from evening prayers and takes Vove and sits him on his knees and rehearses words and their meaning with him, for Vove is already old enough to go to school, but doesn’t go to Heder, because Father doesn’t have money to pay tuition. So Vove sits on Yudele’s knees and repeats everything he learned. Vove chirps,
Av
is father,
le’troakh
is bother,
keder
is Tartar,
kadosh
is martyr.
Le’lekhet
is to go,
sheleg
is the snow,
betsek
you can think is dough. At the same time, his sisters stand at the window and watch the passersby because they don’t have hats and can’t appear outside. What’s in store for Frumtshe and Pesseyle and Zisa and Blumtshe Leah and Sarah Itil?
Maybe a widower or a divorcee with a house full of children will come along and marry one of them to cook his food and mend his shirts and raise his sons. In the end, they won’t even have that pleasure of standing at the window in the evening. While he follows his heart’s desire and runs after the shadow of Sonya and closes his eyes to their suffering. In fact, when he was going to Jerusalem, Sonya treated him pleasantly, but what was all that maiden’s pleasantness compared to his sisters’ grief, and what was all the pleasantness of a brief moment compared to all those days when she offended him. Before he left she promised to write to him. Let’s see if she keeps her promise.
It was not for our good that we went back to Sonya, but we won’t linger on her because of Father’s image that appeared to us. Fa-ther returned from the store and sits and counts his money to see if there is enough to pay a week’s interest. If we hadn’t gone to the Land of Israel, Father wouldn’t have had to borrow and the interest wouldn’t be devouring him. And perhaps he would have laid by a lit-tle dowry for Frumtshe. How old is Frumtshe? At any rate, she had already come of age. Does the daughter of poor people have a hope of finding a bridegroom when fellows are eager for a dowry? Here in the Land of Israel she might have found a mate, for fellows in the Land of Israel don’t run after money, but just as they don’t run after money, so they don’t run to get married. They can’t even support themselves, so how will they support a wife and children? Because they have a hard time making a living, some of them leave the Land. If Rabinovitch hadn’t left the Land, he would have married Sonya. Now that he didn’t marry Sonya, he would have done well to marry Frumtshe. And even if she isn’t what he used to tell Sonya about her—her real virtues are even fi than the ones he made up for her.
Av
is father,
le’troakh
is bother,
rakevet
is train,
tal v’meter
means dew and rain. Dew we praise in the summer, and rain—in the winter, for the Land of Israel needs dew in the summer and in the winter rain, for all the requests we pray for we pray for the Land of Israel. What is the Land of Israel? The Land of Israel is the name of a place where our brother Itzikl lives. What does Itzikl do in the Land of Israel? Itzikl sits under his vine and under his fig tree and
eats carobs. And when do we eat carobs? I don’t know. On the fifteenth day of the month of Shvat we eat carobs. No no no. What do you mean, no no no? No no no. I didn’t get anything on that fifteenth day this year. You didn’t get anything, but you should know that on that day everyone eats figs and dates and raisins and carobs and other good fruits that are the boast of the Land of Israel. And why doesn’t Itsik send us his fruit? Isaac sent, but the Kedar came and snatched them away. What does Kedar mean in Hebrew? Are you stubborn, Vove? If you are, I won’t teach you, and when Isaac comes and talks in the Holy Tongue, you’ll stand like a dummy and won’t know what he’s saying. Tell me, Vovele, is that nice? Vove slips off Yudel’s knees and started crying. And even Yudele started crying, longing for the Land of Israel.
Sara Itil says to herself, We have to eat supper. Pesseyle nods at her and says, Yes Yes, we have to eat supper. Bluma-Leah asks, What will we eat today? Zisa answers, Meat and fish we will eat, and she laughs as she speaks. But since it’s not nice to make fun of the hungry, she turns back to her big sister and asks, Isn’t anything left from dinner? Her sister answers, The dinner we ate today was from the leftovers of yesterday. And she presses her face to the window so they won’t see her tears, even though they can’t see her, since they haven’t yet lit the lamp. For it’s a sin to waste the two or three drops of kerosene left over from the other day, because Father doesn’t have money to buy kerosene because he has to pay interest on the money he borrowed for our trip to the Land of Israel. How old is Sweet Foot? Isaac asked himself. At any rate, he’s at least ten years older than Frumtshe, but he’s taller than most of the fellows. And if his face is withered, his eyes are young, and when he looks at a person not every person can resist those eyes. How many inventions has he invented, how much they could improve the life of folks, but he jumps from one thing to another and doesn’t have time to finish. If Frumtshe were here, she would take care of him.
All the sons of Israel are comrades, especially in the Land of Israel. For a long time, Isaac had suppressed in his heart the answer he gave that old man on the ship, now both of them live in Jerusalem and they might run into one another, but if so, what do we gain?
Their ways are so different from one another. How good Isaac felt when he traveled by ship to the Land of Israel. How many hopes had Isaac hoped. Now all his hopes have gone. The money Father borrowed for his trip he didn’t return, and if a miracle doesn’t happen, the creditors will descend on Father’s house and take the pillow from under his head. That tale of Reb Yudel Hasid and his three sons who came upon a treasure, was that really true? But surely it was Reb Yudel Nathanson, who was very rich, who gave a dowry to Pesseyle, the daughter of Reb Yudel Hasid, and people who are fond of miracles made up the story about the treasure. Whether it’s this way or that way, we don’t gain anything, for benefactors like Reb Yudel Nathanson aren’t around these days, and those who trust in God like Reb Yudel Hasid certainly aren’t around. So, what difference is it to us if we conjure up a miracle that happened to Reb Yudel and he came upon a treasure or if he came upon a rich man who gave him a dowry for his daughter? If we look at the events of the world we see that it’s easier for the earth to open up its treasures than for a rich man to open his hand to a pauper. In fact, our generation doesn’t lack rich benefactors either, but all their righteousness doesn’t stand the pau-per on his feet, but makes it easier for him to exist in his poverty. Let us leave off musing and return to the world of action. Isaac does his work, sometimes alone and sometimes with others, sometimes for dignitaries and consuls and sometimes for simple landlords. Honey and milk Isaac didn’t find in his toil, it was enough for Isaac that he attained a state of equanimity.
A State of Equanimity
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The state of equanimity spread its state over him. Everything that came upon him he accepted magnanimously, he didn’t grumble and didn’t complain. He had gotten used to the caprices of the sun and the whims of the winds. The dry heat waves that lap the marrow of a man’s bones, the dust that shrivels the skin, the yellow light that sears the eyes and the air that infuses boredom, and all the changes in the climate didn’t drive him out of his state. If he found work, he worked, if he didn’t find work, he wasn’t depressed. On days when he was idle, he went to the library and read a book, and in the evening he went to the People’s Center to read newspapers. And if there was a speaker or a lecturer there, he sat and listened, and didn’t get up from his seat until all the discussions were over, whether they were a repetition of things that had already been said two or three times over, or the opposite. And even if he returned home half dead, he returned to the People’s Center the next day for the same things.
In the People’s Center, Isaac met all kinds of people, including a few of the fellows from Jerusalem, who came there secretly, keeping it from their fathers, for anyone who went to the People’s Center they regarded as a heathen and a heretic. With their heavy clothing and black felt hats and their very motion, which looked as if they had to account for every single movement before they made it, and especially with their thirsty eyes, they stood out from all the other visitors to the People’s Center. That thirst in their eyes was partly a thirst for the real purpose the world was created for, for what makes the world worth living in, and partly a thirst for a bit of freedom in life. They don’t yet have any image of that real purpose and
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237they don’t yet know what freedom might be, but they hope that here, in this place, among modern people, they will find what their soul longs for. Whenever those fellows saw the people of the People’s Cen-ter, they were puzzled about them. On the face of it, they looked like everybody else and were even inferior to most of the people they knew, but since one mustn’t say so, they humbled themselves and said, Of course our imagination is low and we aren’t capable of see-ing the brightness in them, and they lived in wait for the day when they would be worthy of having it revealed to them.
As long as they were young, they studied in the Tree of Life Yeshiva. When they grew up, they held out their hand to the tree of knowledge. They left the tree of life and started seeking a path in life, not with Torah studies and Charity, for their eyes were already opened and they saw how much harm comes to those who study Torah and accept Charity. There were four comrades. One wanted to study a trade that supported those who practiced it, and one was eager to buy himself a piece of ground and bring bread out of the earth like those exceptional individuals of Jerusalem in an earlier generation who founded Petah Tikvah, and one wanted to study medicine, and one hadn’t yet decided what he would do.
A man does not do everything he wants to do, especially in Jerusalem, which is not blessed with handiwork. Each one held onto what he found, just not to go back to the Yeshiva. The one who wanted to learn a trade went to work in a shop, and the one who wanted to bring bread out of the earth became a clerk in a charita-ble institution, and the one who wanted to be a doctor became a proofreader at a printing press and copies manuscripts for the sages Outside the Land, and the one who hasn’t yet decided what he would do sits and studies languages. Six working days, they are busy at their trade. Comes the Sabbath, comes rest. When rest comes, the soul desires its pleasures. And what pleasures the soul desires are pleasures the body enjoys too. They gather together and go outside the city and stroll around, for outside the city, among the high mountains in the invigorating air, a person’s mind expands, especially in Jerusalem, where every four cubits grants a person knowledge and wisdom. And Isaac accompanies them. And even though they are learned in the
Torah and their fathers are dignitaries of Jerusalem, they don’t put on airs with Isaac. On the contrary, they embrace him because of his craft. If they did not attain a trade, they are fond of those who do practice a trade. As young people who filled their bellies with the new books, they despised Charity, even though their fathers lived on it. And they enjoyed it too, for you don’t have one single livelihood in Jerusalem that doesn’t have a little bit of Charity in it.
You don’t have one single livelihood in Jerusalem that doesn’t have a little bit of Charity in it, and you don’t have a person in Jerusalem who doesn’t talk about Charity. If he gets it, he complains and grumbles that they give him neither enough to die nor enough to live. And anyone who doesn’t need Charity slanders both those who get it and those who give it. But you must know that if not for Charity, may the enemies of the Jews starve to death like the Jew-ish people, for there is neither trade nor industry in Jerusalem, so where would they make a living? And as for the officers, who pre-sumably hold onto most of the money in their own hands, we have never seen them riding in carriages in parks and citrus groves during their lives, and at their death, they don’t leave any fortune and wealth. The elders of Jerusalem still remember Reb Yoshi Rivlin. Twenty-five years he was a writer and a supervisor of Charity, by day he would wear himself out with the poor and at night he would wear himself out over his learning, and never in his life did he see any good and he bent his shoulder as if to bear troubles and suffering with a good heart and a modest mien, and all the money that came to Jerusalem was distributed by him, and he didn’t eat meat or drink wine even on the Sabbath and holidays, but made do with black bread and black coffee. And when he passed away, he didn’t leave his widow and orphans food for even one meal, but he did leave behind him eleven neighborhoods that he added to Jerusalem.
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Like all the other members of the Second Aliya, Isaac found Jerusalem already crowned with a few neighborhoods, and he regarded its suburbs and hub as one city. And he didn’t know that at first all Jerusalem dwelt inside the Old City walls, and all those places
that are bustling today with so many people were a wasteland, and when the gates of the Old City were locked from sunset until dawn, anyone who remained outside the walls was in danger of being robbed. When Isaac accompanied his Jerusalem comrades, he heard from them how those neighborhoods were built and when they were built, at a time when the Land was full of violence. And about who built them, people of Jerusalem who lived on Charity who dwelt among a riffraff of bribe-taking, bloodthirsty foes. And those Jerusalemites didn’t spare themselves or their families for the settlement of Jerusalem. We who are close to them in time see their faults and not their virtues. But if they hadn’t expanded the border of Is-rael, Jerusalem would have been shrunk between the Old City walls and all those places would be desolate.
By now Isaac had forgotten some of his first opinions, but his opinion about Charity he didn’t forget. When he walked in the neighborhoods and saw their houses, he was amazed, for people we heard were idlers and obscurantists and remote from any settled life were the ones who expanded Jerusalem and prepared a place for fu-ture generations.
Isaac also learned that a young man can revere God even if his forefathers weren’t Hasids. Isaac was from Galicia, from a small town, which was divided between Hasids and Mitnagdim. All sons of Hasids were educated in Heders and study houses, and all sons of those who were not Hasids went to schools and universities. The former were raised to follow the Torah and the Commandments and the latter became free from performing the Commandments. But sons of Mitnagdim who followed the Torah and the Commandments Isaac hadn’t seen until he met his Jerusalem comrades. And to what degree were they Mitnagdim! Once the subject of Hasids and free-thinkers came up, and one of them said, The head of our Yeshiva said that there is hope that a licentious student will repent, but a student who becomes a Hasid won’t ever repent.
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On weekdays, every one of them is busy at his work, and on the Sabbath they rest from work, gather together and go out to stroll in the
city and the surrounding area. Isaac accompanied them. Sometimes they walked around the Old City walls and its seven gates, and sometimes they left from Damascus Gate and went to the Cave of Zedekiah, where King Zedekiah fled from the Chaldeans, and the cave goes underground all the way to Jericho. And opposite the Cave of Zedekiah you see the yard of the dungeon where the Prophet Jeremiah was imprisoned and the cistern where Jeremiah was thrown and the rock Jeremiah sat on and lamented the Destruction. From there they went to the Gate of Flowers, where Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, camped when he came to destroy Jerusalem, and where the wicked Titus conquered Jerusalem. From the Gate of Flowers, they went to the Gate of Tribes, where the tribes came up to Jerusalem. From there they went to Lions Gate where four lions are carved. For once the Ishmaelite King dreamed that if the walls of Jerusalem were not built, lions would tear him to pieces, so he built the wall and ordered them to carve in it the lions he had seen in the dream. From Lions Gate they went along the eastern wall and came to the Gate of Mercy. That was the gate where Ezekiel prophesied This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter in by it; because the Lord the God of Israel, hath entered in by it. And it is still shut, for the Ishmaelites shut it because they fear that Israel’s prayer will triumph there and the Messiah will come. From there they went down to Yad Avshalom and came to Gihon, where Solomon was anointed King of Israel, and there is the ritual bath of Rabbi Ishmael the High Priest. And its waters can cure all kinds of diseases, but are not good for drinking, for from the day Israel was ex-iled, the waters lost their taste. From Gihon they went down to Shiloah, whose waters pour forth four times a day, and those places are adorned with green gardens whose blooming never stops all the days of the year, for they are watered by the waters of Shiloah, and there were the gardens mentioned by Nehemiah in his book. And from there they went to Eyn Rogel and sometimes went to visit Arzef. Arzef was a native of Jerusalem, and like most natives of Jerusalem, he studied in The Tree of Life Yeshiva, and many of the dignitaries and rabbis of Jerusalem were his comrades. And there are those who think he knew Talmud better than some of them. What
made Arzef choose that strange craft of stuffing the skins of animals and birds and insects and reptiles no one knew. Arzef lives alone like the First Adam in the Garden of Eden, with no wife and no sons and no cares and no troubles, among all kinds of livestock and animals and birds and insects and reptiles and snakes and scorpions. He dwells with them in peace, and even when he takes their soul, they don’t demand his blood in exchange, since they enter the great museums of Europe because of him, and professors and scholars flock to his door and give him honorary degrees and money. Arzef doesn’t run after money and doesn’t brag about the honorary degrees. Let those who get all their honor from others brag about them. It’s enough for Arzef to look at his handiwork and know that never in his life has he ruined any creature in the world, on the contrary, he gave a name and remainder to some birds of the Land of Israel who were said to have vanished from the earth. Some of Arzef’s comrades had made wealth and honor for themselves. Their wealth and honor are as important to Arzef as empty casuistry. Some of Arzef’s comrades practice numerology for the names of the wealthy of Israel. Their numerology is as important to Arzef as the research of most of the sages of Jerusalem. What is important to Arzef? Important to Arzef are the livestock and animals and birds and insects and reptiles mentioned in the writings of the Holy One and in the two Talmuds, that dwell in the Land of Israel. Arzef hunts them and throws away their flesh and fills their skin so they will be preserved. All that Arzef does on the six days of work, and on the Sabbath he rests like everybody else, spreads a mat in front of his house, lies and reads Yosiphon and the Fables of Foxes. Yosiphon because there are tales of human creatures there, and the Fables of Foxes because there are tales of livestock, animals, and birds there.
Arzef doesn’t like guests because they pester him with their questions. But if guests come to him, he doesn’t reject them, but tells them not to touch any stuffed animal, for the stuffed animals are irascible. If the visitors listen to him, it’s fine; if they don’t, Arzef roars like a beast or a bird of prey. And even if they know it’s Arzef’s voice, they get scared and run away.
Isaac’s comrades were experts in the merits of Jerusalem and could tell about the city and its chronicles, its builders and its de-
