the Jews got scattered, or worse, I might never see my wife Reyzl again.
Acosta’s shadow filled the doorway. “Hey, newcomer, shlof gikher, me darf di betgevant .” Sleep faster, I need the sheets, said the night watchman, his rough-edged Yiddish softened by the rolling R ’s and open vowels of his Sephardic accent.
“Did you hear that shouting?” I asked, planting my feet on the cold floor. “Any trouble out there?”
“You just stick to your morning rounds and let the watchmen handle it, all right?”
My knees cracked as I stood up and groped around in the darkness for the pitcher and basin.
Seven people crammed into two beds. Three men in one, a family of peasants in the other, part of the yearly crush of country folk visiting the imperial city for the week from Shabbes Hagodl to Pesach. The country folk had washed their bodies for the Great Sabbath the week before, but their clothes still had the overripe tang of a barnful of animals.
The night watchman took it all in and said, “What, there wasn’t room for the goat?”
I had to cover my mouth to keep from laughing. It wasn’t good to joke around until I chased away the evil spirits that had settled on my hands during the night, and said the first prayers of the new day. Fortunately, the rabbi in Slonim had taught me how to get rid of the invisible demons by washing them off my hands in a basin of standing water.
Every year on Shabbes Hagodl, we listen to the Lord’s words to His servant Malakhi: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the Prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” Then we watch and wait for a mysterious stranger who appears around this time of year and asks to be seated at the Seder. And woe to the family that turns the stranger away from their door! Because he just might be the herald of the Messiah himself.
Such is the faith that has guided us through so many narrow scrapes. When the Romans destroyed the temple in Jerusalem, we rebuilt the temple out of words and called it the Talmud—a temple of ideas that we can carry around with us wherever we go.
And so we outlasted the Roman Empire, and we’ll outlast this empire, too.
The watchman pulled off his boots, grabbed his share of the blanket, and was snoring by the time I faced the eastern wall and said my morning Sh’ma . I paid special attention to the part about teaching your children the word of God in order to prolong your days and the days of your children.
Halfway down the crooked stairs to the kitchen, I could hear Perl the rabbi’s wife issuing orders to the servants to scour the house for khumets , the last traces of leavened bread. So there were no oats or porridge or kasha to keep my stomach from growling, only a mugful of chicken broth and some stringy dried prunes. Hanneh the cook shouldn’t waste a piece of good meat on the new assistant shammes.
I warmed my fingers on the tin mug, while pots clattered and doors slammed all around me. Despite the noise, I overheard Avrom Khayim the old shammes telling the cook, “What do we need a fifth shulklaper for? Like a wagon needs a fifth wheel.”
But—wonder of wonders—Hanneh actually stood up for me and told the old man that the great Rabbi Judah Loew knew what he was doing. She had heard that the new man from Poland was a scholar and a scribe who had only been in Prague a few days, without a right of residency, when the great Rabbi Loew had seen a spark of promise in him and made him the unter -shammes at the Klaus Shul, the smallest of the four shuls that served the ghetto’s faithful.
Maybe Hanneh was thinking of her own husband, dead these many years, because she ended up stirring the ladle around the big pot and giving me a boiled chicken neck. I thanked her for this, one of the first signs of kindness anyone in this strange new place had shown me.
I sucked the bones dry, then went to the mirror to clean the shmaltz off my beard, and noticed with some resignation a few
Acosta’s shadow filled the doorway. “Hey, newcomer, shlof gikher, me darf di betgevant .” Sleep faster, I need the sheets, said the night watchman, his rough-edged Yiddish softened by the rolling R ’s and open vowels of his Sephardic accent.
“Did you hear that shouting?” I asked, planting my feet on the cold floor. “Any trouble out there?”
“You just stick to your morning rounds and let the watchmen handle it, all right?”
My knees cracked as I stood up and groped around in the darkness for the pitcher and basin.
Seven people crammed into two beds. Three men in one, a family of peasants in the other, part of the yearly crush of country folk visiting the imperial city for the week from Shabbes Hagodl to Pesach. The country folk had washed their bodies for the Great Sabbath the week before, but their clothes still had the overripe tang of a barnful of animals.
The night watchman took it all in and said, “What, there wasn’t room for the goat?”
I had to cover my mouth to keep from laughing. It wasn’t good to joke around until I chased away the evil spirits that had settled on my hands during the night, and said the first prayers of the new day. Fortunately, the rabbi in Slonim had taught me how to get rid of the invisible demons by washing them off my hands in a basin of standing water.
Every year on Shabbes Hagodl, we listen to the Lord’s words to His servant Malakhi: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the Prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” Then we watch and wait for a mysterious stranger who appears around this time of year and asks to be seated at the Seder. And woe to the family that turns the stranger away from their door! Because he just might be the herald of the Messiah himself.
Such is the faith that has guided us through so many narrow scrapes. When the Romans destroyed the temple in Jerusalem, we rebuilt the temple out of words and called it the Talmud—a temple of ideas that we can carry around with us wherever we go.
And so we outlasted the Roman Empire, and we’ll outlast this empire, too.
The watchman pulled off his boots, grabbed his share of the blanket, and was snoring by the time I faced the eastern wall and said my morning Sh’ma . I paid special attention to the part about teaching your children the word of God in order to prolong your days and the days of your children.
Halfway down the crooked stairs to the kitchen, I could hear Perl the rabbi’s wife issuing orders to the servants to scour the house for khumets , the last traces of leavened bread. So there were no oats or porridge or kasha to keep my stomach from growling, only a mugful of chicken broth and some stringy dried prunes. Hanneh the cook shouldn’t waste a piece of good meat on the new assistant shammes.
I warmed my fingers on the tin mug, while pots clattered and doors slammed all around me. Despite the noise, I overheard Avrom Khayim the old shammes telling the cook, “What do we need a fifth shulklaper for? Like a wagon needs a fifth wheel.”
But—wonder of wonders—Hanneh actually stood up for me and told the old man that the great Rabbi Judah Loew knew what he was doing. She had heard that the new man from Poland was a scholar and a scribe who had only been in Prague a few days, without a right of residency, when the great Rabbi Loew had seen a spark of promise in him and made him the unter -shammes at the Klaus Shul, the smallest of the four shuls that served the ghetto’s faithful.
Maybe Hanneh was thinking of her own husband, dead these many years, because she ended up stirring the ladle around the big pot and giving me a boiled chicken neck. I thanked her for this, one of the first signs of kindness anyone in this strange new place had shown me.
I sucked the bones dry, then went to the mirror to clean the shmaltz off my beard, and noticed with some resignation a few
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