Only Yesterday (67 page)

Isaac sits in Jerusalem and one of the children of Jerusalem is entertained on his lap. As if he were his own brother. Isaac ponders to himself, My father and my brothers and my sisters live in Diaspora and I dwell in Jerusalem. Isaac looks all around, Am I really in Jerusalem? And in his mind’s eye emerges a host of early visions he had envisioned when he was in Diaspora. And two loves, the love of Jerusalem in the vision and the love of Jerusalem in reality, come and mate and give birth to a new love, which has some of the former and some of the latter.

Next to him sits the landlord and carves his figures and engraves images of Jerusalem on them and inscribes on them the name

Jerusalem, and fills the letters with all kinds of ink. The figures are exported Outside the Land and are sold all over the Diaspora, and the holy Children of Israel who are fond of the Land of Israel come and buy them. This one buys himself a box for the Etrog and that one buys a spice box, this one buys a pair of Sabbath candlesticks, and that one buys a spoon or a fork. The woodcarver recalls that everyone who buys his figures lives in Diaspora and has nothing of the Land of Israel except that little olive wood figure, while he sits in the holy city with his wife and his sons and his daughters. How will he thank the One on High and how will he appease his God? If by reciting Psalms, there is not a single one of the Psalms they haven’t recited thousands on thousands of times, but he has one craft and he tries to do it well so that those who buy his figures will find satisfaction from them. On one figure he draws the place of the Temple, and on another figure he engraves the Western Wall, on one figure he makes an image of the tomb of Our Mother Rachel, and on another figure the Cave of Makhpelah, and on one figure he carves the Tower of David. Our brothers in Diaspora, if you are not blessed to see the holy places, look at their images. And sometimes the artisan draws the image of the synagogue of the Hurbah, with its study rooms and high Yeshivas. Ever since the day the Temple was destroyed, the Holy-One-Blessed-Be-He has nothing but the four cubits of the Law, and it’s enough for the slave to be like his Master and to rejoice that in our destruction we have been blessed with houses of study.

As Isaac treated them so they treated him. He gave his room to the landlord—and the landlady cleaned his room. He put the child to sleep in his room, the landlady made his bed. Within two or three days Isaac became a member of the family. When he became a member of the family, he started behaving like the people of the house, he went to bed early and got up early. And in the morning, he would pray in public. When the Sabbath eve came, Isaac asked the landlady if she could make him a Sabbath dish. Said she, Why not? The fire that cooks her dishes will also cook his dish.

On Sabbath eve at sundown, Isaac went with the landlord to pray. That prayer house belonged to the Mitnagdim. No one there wore Shtraymls and no one wore robes, but everyone wore clean

clothes and a special Sabbath hat. Those simple clothes didn’t change those who wore them, as the clothes of the Hasids do, but accorded them a shining countenance. Every single one stood in his place, like a person who knows before Whom he stands. And when he prays, he makes his prayer a request and a plea. Someone who is accustomed to the Hasids may say that their prayer is more beautiful than the prayer of the Mitnagdim, for the Hasids pray with sounds of joy and excitement, and the Mitnagdim pray quietly. But someone who has the excitement of the Hasids gets excited with them, and someone who doesn’t have it to that extent stands like a mourner among the merrymakers, but that’s not so here where the prayer is open to every soul.

On his return from the prayer house, Isaac found the house lighted and the table set and the landlady in her Sabbath clothes. The ten candles lit in a glass bowl filled with olive oil created a serene calm over the house. Between one dish and another, they sang songs, and between one song and another, the father examined his sons on the Torah portion of the week. After the meal, Isaac borrowed a Hu-mash and read the whole portion. Ever since the day he had left his father’s house, Isaac had not been blessed with a Sabbath night like that one. And perhaps even in his father’s house he had not seen such a fine Sabbath night as that, for the shining countenance of the Sabbath Outside the Land is not like the shining countenance of the Sabbath in the Land of Israel.

With His Townsfolk

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After the midday meal, Isaac went to his fellow townsman, Reb Alter Shub the ritual slaughterer. Reb Alter saw him and didn’t recognize him, not as on the first visit when he recognized him as soon as he entered. Hinda Puah, Reb Alter’s wife, saw him and cried out, Isn’t this the son of Judith. Reb Alter asked Isaac, How come you haven’t come all this time. When he started telling that he had been in Jaffa and had found himself a good livelihood there, he stopped him and said in a singsong, Desires you may not entertain, Consider your accounts as paid, Thoughts allowed and not in vain, Making matches with a maid. As it says in Psalms 128:2, For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee. Go to the next verse. What is written there, Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house. Isaac smiled and said, That’s just what Reb Moyshe Amram told me. Said Reb Alter, Moyshe spoke well. Who is that Reb Moyshe Amram? Isaac told him. Said Reb Alter, According to my accounting, Itzikl, you’re approaching twenty-five. Tell me, my son, isn’t there among your Zionists here a person who has a decent daughter? Are all of them bachelors like you? Isaac sighed and was silent. Reb Alter looked at him and said, Heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop. Do you know how they interpreted that verse in the Talmud? One interpretation is that he will tell it to others. Reb Alter saw that Isaac wanted to weep. He scolded him and put a soft hand on his shoulder affectionately and said, Today is the Sabbath, to rest from any regrets. What is it, Itzikl, that troubles you and oppresses you. Said Isaac, Nothing, Reb Alter. Said Reb Alter, Don’t be a fool, Itzikl, heaviness in the heart of a man

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maketh him talk. Said Hinda Puah, Itzikl, your eyes are more reli-able than your mouth. If your mouth is silent, your eyes are speak-ing. Said Isaac, What shall I tell? Said Reb Alter, Open up, my son, open up, and the Lord will help you to speak words of truth, by virtue of our holy Sabbath that protects us. Isaac started telling.

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After he finished, said Reb Alter, We can discuss things with them. Isaac looked at Reb Alter’s foot wrapped in cotton dressings and dropped his hands in despair. Said Reb Alter, You see, my son, how good it is for a man who has himself a wife? What I can’t do, she can do. Said Hinda Puah, Where do those Hungarians live? Isn’t the neighborhood of the Hungarian Society also in Jerusalem? And if it’s outside the Old City walls, Jews also live there and they’ll show me. And I rely on His grace May-He-Be-Blessed to put words in my mouth by virtue of your mother may-she-rest-in-peace, who will be our advocate in Heaven. Did you see Haim Rafael? Go to him, Itzikl. It’s a good deed to cheer a blind man. And when you come to him, don’t talk Lithuanian, but talk Jewish with him. Isaac called out in amazement, Do I speak Lithuanian? Said Hinda Puah, You mix in words which we used to laugh at in our hometown. So, the Hungarian Houses are near Meah Shearim, so I know where they are. And if I don’t find them, the Holy-One-Blessed-Be-He gave me a mouth to ask a person. And you, Itzikl, are dwelling in Jerusalem and painting furniture and making signs. Who would have pictured Jerusalem as a city like other cities, with houses and shops. I remember how Jerusalem was pictured in my eyes, and I’m ashamed of my stupid-ity. Can a person exist without an apartment and without a shop the way I pictured Jerusalem to myself. In spite of yourself you need a house to live in and a shop to get your food. And I thought people fed on Torah and prayer here. For even when the children of Israel were living in the desert and had Moyshe and Aharon and Miriam and Sarah the daughter of Asher and all the other saints, they couldn’t get along without food, until the Holy-One-Blessed-Be-He brought down manna and quails from the sky for them, and so in the World-to-Come, the Holy-One-Blessed-Be-He will feed Leviathan and

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Wild Bull to all who are worthy. And now that I know it’s impossible to exist without an apartment and without food, once again I’m amazed that they call this ruin we live in an apartment and the food we eat here food. But praise God, on the Sabbath we don’t lack anything. Isn’t that so, Alter? Wait, Itzikl, right away we’ll drink a glass of tea.

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After Isaac left Reb Alter and his wife he went to Reb Haim Rafael. Reb Haim Rafael was blind and had never seen light in his life, and all his days he sat in the dust of the study house, and was expert in the Five Books of the Torah and in the Six Orders of the Mishnah, for ever since the day he knew his own mind, he yearned for the words of Torah, and for him the Lord summoned good people who read to him and taught him and explained to him, and he would re-peat his learning until the words were incised on his mouth.

Reb Haim Rafael lived in a dark room without windows, on the bottom floor in the courtyard of the deserted wife. Since he was blind in both eyes and didn’t need light, he made do with an abode that didn’t have any windows, and since he didn’t find champions to champion his cause with the officers, he made do with a cramped room. But he was grieved by the bad smell in the courtyard, and was amazed at his neighbors, for was it possible that holy Jews who were blessed to dwell in the Holy City that is sanctified with an abundance of sanctity, could they be so contemptuous of its purity? Not that Reb Haim Rafael had been pampered in his youth, but he did yearn for fresh air. Little by little, he grew accustomed to the smell of the courtyard, and when he grew accustomed he found something good in the courtyard, for in the upper story in the courtyard, the Bratslavers had set up their prayer house, and sometimes when they needed a tenth man for the Minyan, they called him, and their prayer was a delight to the soul. And after the prayer, when they danced, they took him among them. And even though he didn’t know the basics of dancing, he did know that it was nice for his feet to fling them about. Another advantage there is that they sit day and night and study together and he lends an ear and hears. And on the Sabbath morning, after the

prayer, when the head of the group reads the stories of Rebbe Nakhman of Bratslav, there’s no greater pleasure than that. In the prayer house of the Bratslaver Hasids, Reb Haim Rafael made himself a friend, a simple man who patched shoes in Jaffa, who left his work and his house and ascended to Jerusalem to serve the Lord humbly. He brought Reb Haim Rafael water from the cistern and fil-tered it and removed the worms from the vegetables, and led him to market to get his food.

Isaac found Reb Haim Rafael sitting and reading by heart the Torah portion of the week, and since he knew him by his voice, he said to him, From heaven you were sent to me. I’m having trouble with one place in Rashi’s commentary. Do me a favor and read it to me. But first I’ll open the door and bring in a little light for you. Isaac sat down and read to him until it was time for the afternoon prayer. From now on, every Sabbath, Isaac went to Reb Haim Rafael and read Rashi to him. And if he had enough time, he read to him from
Or Ha
-
Haim
. If Isaac made a mistake in reading, Reb Haim Rafael would correct him, for Isaac had learned little and had forgotten a lot.

Isaac Is About to Marry Shifra

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Hinda Puah’s visit made an impression. Even though Rebecca wel-comed Isaac, she was ashamed to give her daughter to a fellow whose family they didn’t know. Now that decent people had come and testified that he was from a respectable family, her heart was relieved and she could hold her head up in public.

What was left out by Hinda Puah was filled up by Reb Haim Rafael who accompanied her. She praised Isaac’s forefathers back to Reb Yudel Hasid of blessed memory, and he praised Isaac who studied together with him every single Sabbath. The opinion of that blind man who knew the Six Orders of the Mishnah by heart eased folks’ minds about Isaac for they had thought he was just some Zionist, like most of the Polaks and Lithuanians who come to the Land of Israel to anger the Creator in His own home.

After Isaac paid his landlady for his Sabbath expenses, he asked her if he could eat in her house on weekdays too. She told him, The stove that cooks for the whole house will also cook for him, but not every day does she cook. Sometimes she warms up what is left over from the Sabbath, and sometimes they make a meal of bread and oil and onion. But if he wants cooked food, she’s willing to cook for him, and meanwhile the children will also benefit. And when the landlady laundered the linens, she also took his linens to launder. Isaac was freed from the bother of food and all the trouble. From the bother of food since he didn’t have to go to restaurants. From all the trouble since he didn’t know the language of the Russian laundresses. Ever since the day he came to live in the woodcarver’s house,

most of his time was his to do with as he wanted, like praying in pub-

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lic or studying a book. And if he wants to study a book, he doesn’t have to go to the People’s Center, and doesn’t have to wait until the person in charge of the books answers him. The study houses of Jerusalem are full of books, and anyone who wants to study takes a book from the shelf and studies, and nobody asks his name or his fa-ther’s name and his profession and his place of residence, and they don’t write down what he read, and they don’t ask for library fees. And as for newspapers, good news they don’t announce, and bad news flies by itself. And if we are blessed to live until salvation comes, the Shofar of the Messiah will inform us. Little by little, Isaac ceased to frequent most of the places he had frequented and he moved away from most of his original comrades and he became like one of the Jerusalem people. If Isaac’s cradle had stood in Hungary, Rebecca’s neighbors would have regarded him as one of their own. But since he was a Pole, not all minds were easy about him. In the future, when the Holy-One-Blessed-Be-He returns to reign over Jerusalem, all the Children of Israel will be as important as princes. But now that Jerusalem is in the hands of the Societies and the officers, every Society regards itself as pedigreed and all other Societies as stepsons of the Lord.