10. Golovsky’s Son from America

10. Golovsky's Son from America

There are sons and there are, I am sorry to say, sons. Some show love and devotion and honor, as the Torah says, to their parents all their lives – I mean all the lives of the sons. Which means, if you didn't understand me, even after the parents have joined God above. And it doesn't make any difference if they lived right next door or two continents away.

But there are other sons who escape as soon as they can and soon forget that they came not like Adam the First Man from dust, but from two human beings who suffered for him. Don't get me wrong. It's not a matter of gratitude at all. But of honor and justice: if somebody does a service for you, you have to do a service for him. It's that simple. But these sons don't understand.

Like Meir Golovsky's boy, for instance.

You remember Meir Golovsky, he should rest in peace – don't you? The maker of the 'Shivisi' in our shul in Holoscheitz? You remember that he had a son, an only child, who ran off to America when he was 17, 18? Well, twenty years later – twenty years later! – he shows up!

It was the Rebbitzin who caught on to him when … But I'm getting far ahead in the story. So listen from the beginning.

 

March promised a change from the chills of the winter. That was during the day. In the morning, when the men straggled to the shul, it was bone-chilling. At sunset, it was a little bit less cold. In between, it was pretty nice. All in all the weather was nothing to complain about.

It was the practice of the Community Committee to sit with Rabbi Yehoshua on Thursday nights after Maariv. Monday morning would see Mordechai Thaler go off to his lumber mill and Aaron Zvi Levy begin his rounds of distant farmhouses selling his what-nots. Thursday nights they were both back, thanking the Lord that they had returned safely and ready to make decisions for us Jews of Holoscheitz. Only Tuvia Nisselrod the Wineseller, who was added to the Committee for this year, and the Shammas remained in town with the Rabbi.

On this particular Thursday night, they heard the door to the ante-room open and an apparition appeared – nothing less! It was a man, above middle height, but what was strange was his gray suit, large-checked with blue and black boxes and the tall-domed blue derby hat above his handsome, mustached, clean-cheeked face. Not only that, but his shirt was yellow, the necktie reddish with blue and black stripes. His brown shoes, covered now with mud from the "streets" of Holoscheitz, came to such a point that if he kicked you, you would have a hole straight through to the other side. Nothing like this ever appeared in Holoscheitz before.

He placed a large suitcase on the floor and studied the group of men staring at him. Finally he addressed the Rabbi. He started off automatically, it seemed, with a few words in a foreign language, English, I suppose, but then said in Yiddish: "You're Rabbi Yehoshua, aren't you? It's twenty years but I remember." His voice was mild, it didn't match the look in his blue eyes. What was it? Cunning? Suspicion? Hungry, is the best way to describe it.

"I am Rabbi Yehoshua, yes."

The man smiled and came forward, hand outstretched. Rabbi Yehoshua gripped it and nearly winced at the strength of the handshake.

"Good evening, Rabbi. Glad to see you again. I'm Meir Golovsky's son from America!"

They were stunned.

Rabbi Yehoshua was the first to recover. "Chaim, isn't it?"

"Charles," the other said.

The Rabbi looked blank.

"Charles," the other repeated. "That's my American name."

A heavy silence. Rabbi Yehoshua broke it. "You are welcome – Charles" – he was having trouble pronouncing the strange sounds –, "but I regret that I must tell you at once that I have bad news for you – your father and mother, may they rest in peace, died a few years ago. I'm very sorry that you came all this way and will not be able to see them."

Tuvia the Wineseller broke in, "With the Rabbi's permission …. My name is Nisselrod, Mr. Golovsky. I was probably your father's best friend. In fact I said Kaddish for him." His voice took on a slightly sharp edge. "We tried to get in touch with you, so that you as his only son could say Kaddish for him, but you had stopped writing years before. We had no address, nothing – ."

"I know," Golovsky said evenly, without a word of apology or explanation. "I met Dr. Leib Wallfisch some months ago and he told me that Rabbi Yehoshua had written to him and asked him to tell me that my mother and father had passed away. That's why I'm here. I decided that I would come to visit their graves. And to see what they left behind."

Tuvia was about to say something even sharper, but Reb Mordechai Thaler said, "You're welcome in Holoscheitz, Golovsky, but as far as leaving something behind, you can forget it." Ever the business-man, he eyed the other shrewdly. "Even the American money you sent him a long, long time before went into the headstones over their graves. They lived like shul-mice, your parents. I'm Thaler, Chairman of the Community Committee."

"I remember you, Mr. Thaler. You're in lumber, aren't you? Oh, I didn't expect to find much of anything. There never was anything much in Holoscheitz. That's why I left it twenty years ago. I meant sentimental things."

Tuvia Nisselrod was still peeved from the neglect this son of Meir Golovsky displayed to his best friend during the long last years. A few letters for a couple of years containing a few dollars. Then silence, as if this son was wiped off the face of the earth. "A little late for missing them, no?"

The Rabbi noticed that Golovsky's stiffened lips almost physically cut off a sharp reply.

He intervened. "Come, Mr. Golovsky…."

'Charles," said the son from America.

"Charles," the Rabbi smiled. "To my house for wash-up and supper, and we'll fix a nice bed for you."

"I thought that I would stay in my parent's house, if it is still available."

"It's available," said Thaler. "As you said, there's nothing much in Holoscheitz. Nobody is breaking down the gates trying to come to live here."

Golovsky didn't know how to take this remark, so he remained silent.

A little sorry for what he said a moment before, Nisselrod now tried to make amends. "The truth is – Charles, that your parents' house has been shut since Reb Meir died, God rest his soul, with everything inside just as he left it. It will take a few days to air it out and clean it. So after supper at the Rabbi's house, please come to my place. We have room and you can stay with us until the Golovsky house is ready once more. After all, as I said, I was best friend to your father, so why should I not be to his son, as long as he is in Holoscheitz?"

"If I may," Aaron Zvi Levy spoke for the first time, "before you take him away, Rabbi, I'd like to show him the 'shivisi' that his father made for the shul."

He took the son from America by the elbow and went over to the 'shivisi'. The mosaic words made from pieces of crockery – Shivisi Adonai L'negdi Tomid, I keep the Lord always before me – and the gold-thread border played with the flickering lamp-lights. And when all had gone home, here was Reb Meir's 'shivisi' ever catching little lights, no matter where they came from, through the windows from the moon or stars maybe, or even lightning, and casting them here and there like all-night praisers to God until the sun rose. And then it played with the rays of the sun.

Charles gave the plaque a short look. "Very nice," he murmured, and didn't even wait for Aaron Zvi to escort him back to the others.

 

Rabbi Yehoshua led Charles to his home and introduced him to the Rebbitzin. Of course, the Rebbitzin made him welcome, but here eyes flicked up and down over his clothes and she couldn't help a slight drawing of the eyebrows before she turned to pour more water into the thick soup for supper. The Rabbi took Golovsky into his study, and had him talk about his trip until the Rebbitzin called them to the table.

The Rabbi offered Charles a yarmulke. "To be honest with you, Rabbi Yehoshua, I don't observe anymore."

"I'm sorry to hear that," the Rabbi said, his memory pulling out a picture of when this boy became a bar mitzvah. "Perhaps your visit to Holoscheitz will change you back."

Charles laughed. "I doubt that, Rabbi."

The Rabbi rinsed his hands under the big cup, said the blessing, but this Charles skipped. After the blessing over the bread (Charles skipped that, too), they were at the soup. The Rebbitzin asked, "How long do you intend to stay in Holoscheitz?"

"Three – four weeks. Then I go to Warsaw, to see what a big European city is like. I expect it won't be much. After New York, let me tell you, nothing is much!"

"What do you do in New York?" the Rabbi asked.

"I work in a plastics factory. That's where I met Dr. Wallfisch. He works in the laboratory. A few months ago, I started there – "

The Rebbitzin interrupted. "Only a few months? You've been away from Holoscheitz a long time. What did you do before that?"

Golovsky pursed his lips. "Let's see. Maybe it's six-seven months I'm working here. It's a factory in Brooklyn, but I forget, you don't know New York. Before that I did a bit of this, a little of that. Selling, jobbing, delivering. You can always find a job in New York if you're pushy enough, and I'm pushy enough." He turned back to the Rabbi. "When I started in this factory, by accident Wallfisch came across my name and sent for me. He told me who he was and that you wrote to him about my father. So I saved money and here I am." He smiled.

But the Rebbitzin wouldn't let go. "You mean after just a few months they let you go away for a few weeks?"

For the first time, Golovsky hesitated. "Well, actually I left this job before I sailed. It just wasn't good enough. I have something lined up when I get back that's a lot better."

The Rebbitzin scowled into the last spoonfuls of her soup. She didn't follow the conversation that Rabbi Yehoshua and his guest were having until Charles's sharp tones cut into her thoughts.

"Yes, I remember what I learned in cheder, but, to tell you the truth, Rabbi Yehoshua, what you learn in cheder in Holoscheitz is unlearned in America. You learn here that you should love God and He is the greatest power in the world and you pray all the time that He will give you a living. That's OK in a tiny village filled with Jews. But that's not the whole world. I have to tell you, Rabbi, that you don't have time to love God in America – you have only yourself to depend upon and you learn that the greatest power in the world is this!"

And he dug into his pocket and came out with a roll of green money. "This is the greatest power," he announced, riffling its edges. "It buys and sells not only merchandise; it buys and sells people! With it you can buy clothes and live in a nice place. And because you have nice clothes and a nice place, you should see how people come to you. They look upon you with respect. Do you know what has happened to me since I left Holoscheitz? I learned what's what!"

That sort of closed discussion for the rest of that meal. But of course, the Rabbi and Rebbitzin were perfect hosts. The proper treatment of a guest in your home is one of the most important commandments in Yiddishkeit. They offered more soup to Golovsky, but he courteously said no. So after reciting to himself the Thanks-after-a-meal, the Rabbi told Charles he would accompany him to the Nisselrod house.

When he returned, the Rabbi saw that his Rebbitzin had not moved an inch from the supper table. The used dishes and silverware lay where they had been left. The lamp was burning low, but the Rebbitzin didn't seem to notice. Silently, the Rabbi sat in his seat.

"He's a dangerous man, Yehoshua," she finally said to him. "Not evil. Dangerous."

"Oh, come, Gita. He thinks he's an apikoros, but blasphemy is in style these days. It's a fashion. He's not a missionary," he said.

"Worse!" she declared. "A missionary knows what he is doing and we know what he is up to. But this man has a craving inside that he doesn't even know he has, and what he says and does in his life tries to answer that craving. He doesn't want to convert people; he wants to conquer them."

"Gita, even if you are right, I can't ask him to leave town. He's only come to visit his parents' graves and tie up loose ends," Rabbi Yehoshua pleaded.

"Esau came to his father Isaac's funeral, but no Jewish father thinks of naming his son after him! Didn't you hear what this son from America was saying at supper? Nothing talks, only money talks." The Rebbitzin looked squarely into her husband's face. "Listen: He can't keep a job, he goes from one thing to another. In New York, he's a nothing, a nobody. So he buys the loudest suit, the brightest shirt, the tallest hat, and the sharpest shoes so that people will see him. Otherwise, he's afraid he's invisible. In Holoscheitz, he will be seen. Now he comes to Holoscheitz to visit the graves of his parents? Now he becomes a dutiful son? Ach! Coming to visit his parents' grave is only an excuse that he doesn't even know is an excuse. In little Holoscheitz he'll be a big fish."

The Rabbi was stunned by her intensity. "That's terribly strong, Gita. This reading of his mind comes from those morbid Russian novels you read years ago."

"You never made fun of those novels then, Yehoshua, don't make fun of them now. This is serious. He comes from the 'real world,' you see! He comes from places that we hear about only like in a storybook. He flashes strange money. He talks like he knows what's what. What if the Jews of Holoscheitz begin to think so too?"

"It's only for a few weeks," rejoined the Rabbi.

"Plenty of time!" retorted the Rebbitzin. She stacked a few dishes, but her forehead showed she was still deeply troubled. "He'll be staying at the Nisselrods for a few days? The Nisselrods have a 17-year old daughter, Rivka."

Rabbi Yehoshua now thought he saw the real reason for his Rebbitzin's agitation. "Ah, so that's what's troubling you," he grinned. "You're afraid he'll overwhelm her."

She snapped back, "That's the part that I will watch!" With hard eyes she faced around to her husband. "Rabbi, you watch the rest of the town!"

 

THE FIRST WEEK

So Rabbi Yehoshua watched. He watched on Friday night that Charles Golovsky did come to the shul, but sat in the corner – actually just a place or two away from where his father Meir the Porter used to sit – and did nothing. He didn't daven; he didn't even take a prayer-book in his hand. Of course, everyone noticed. He just sat there, hands in his lap, legs crossed, one leg swinging slightly. To Rabbi Yehoshua, it was clear that to Golovsky's son from America what was going on was nonsense, though he probably remembered a good deal of it. He was only waiting with a good show of patience for it to be over so he could go home with Nisselrod for the meal.

And the Rabbi watched that the next morning he again came to shul, but refused to wear a tallis. When Reb Baruch the Shammas approached him with it, he offered in return a smile, a courteous wave of the hand, and a shake of the head. When Reb Baruch bent to ask him his name so that he could call him to the Torah, he whispered (the shocked Shammas told us later), "Give my place to someone who needs it. I will donate a nice sum of money to the shul anyway."

Of course, that didn't sit well with the others, but what can you expect from someone who spent twenty years in America? They said "Sholom Aleichem" to him but during that first week they kept their distance.

Tuvia Nisselrod and a few men and women did help out to clean the old Golovsky house. But a lot had to be done. Reb Meir in his last years, a widower, didn't do a thing in the house. They decided not to rush; Charles would move in the following week. Meanwhile, he could sleep and board at the Nisselrods, with Tuvia and his wife, and the boys, and Rivka.

One day that week, Tuvia took him up to the shabby cemetery and pointed out the Golovsky graves and the headstones that ate up the American money Charles had sent them. He didn't say a Kaddish. He stood there for a minute and then turned back to town.

Now, you know Jews: they will try to find something good to say about another Jew, no matter what. "At least, he's honest," one would say. "He's not trying to be something he isn't." "That's right. He's not putting on a show for us," the other would reply. They studied him from afar so much, that he became, that first week, a curiosity.

 

THE SECOND WEEK

On Shabbos, Golovsky came again to shul but again simply waited until it was time to go back to the Nisselrods.

At the end of services, Rabbi Yehoshua, as always, was one of the last to leave. Outside, he found that a crowd of men engulfed Charles Golovsky. The Rabbi could hear the conversation pretty well. One of the Holoscheitzers was asking him unbelievingly:

"New York has how many people? Five million?"

"You can put three Warsaws and maybe a few more towns into it," replied Golovsky with a pride as if he owned the place. "America is not the place for small things. A hundred people – two hundred people live in one building. The streets are paved, not like the dirt streets here. And if you stand on the corner of Essex Street and Delancey for one hour, you will see ten thousand people pass by. You could take all of Holoscheitz and all its people and put them into the basement of the Grand Central Railroad Station and they would be lost!"

"We heard that America is the 'goldene medina', a land of gold."

"It is," answer the son from America, "but of course you have to work for it. In a short time, though, you can make enough money to buy and sell Holoscheitz and everybody in it, including Mr. Thaler!" Reb Mordechai, who was standing with them, laughed, but he didn't sound like he enjoyed the comment. "Money makes the man in America!" crowed Golovsky's son.

"Are there many shuls?"

Golovsky laughed. "Listen, not everybody in New York is Jewish and not everyone who is Jewish is interested in a shul! But there are plenty of shuls, mainly little broken down ones." (He didn't say "Like this one," but his glance at the Holoscheitz synagogue was enough—they all knew he was thinking it.) "A few Jews here and there go, but most do not. Religion doesn't count for much there. We learned it doesn't pay. Also," and here he winked slyly, "no thunderbolt came out of heaven when I started to work on Shabbos!"

 

And while Rabbi Yehoshua was watching and listening to this, the Rebbitzin was watching the group of girls who stood chattering among themselves. One of them was Rivka Nisselrod. Rivka was not a beauty, but she had a very pleasant face, and deserved a second look, and even a third. Her hair was dark brown and charmingly tucked under a head scarf against the wind. The freckles of her childhood still adorned the nicely-shaped nose. Though she sort of held her end of the discussion with her girlfriends, her dark eyes glanced over frequently to where the men were crowded around Charles Golovsky, and what the Rebbitzin saw in them frightened her.

She saw a kind of possession, a kind of pride that this fellow, who had come from so far away, who was staying in her house, who she could talk to whenever she wanted – this hero was being so admired by the men of the town. The Rebbitzin knew about such looks – she remembered that she cast them when she was seventeen, and saw them frequently fly across from the eyes of  a dozen other girls.

So she said her "Gut Shabbos" wishes almost automatically to the ladies, joined the Rabbi to walk home, but the walk was silent and heavy.

 

On Sunday, Charles transferred his suitcase to what was his father's and mother's home. He felt even more free now to wander around the town, talking to this person and that, sometimes stopping them on the street for a chat. He would stop in a store, and laughter could be heard, for example, coming from Mirele Thaler's needle-and-thread shop. Since the early part of the week is never busy in the marketplace, the stall owners were glad to have someone to pass the time with, someone who seemed to know what business is all about. So they discussed buying and selling and measure of profit, and how these things were managed in America, and what opportunities there were for shopkeepers. Some even asked the man from America for advice.

In Thursday, the heavy market day, the Rebbitzin made her usual tour of the stalls, chatting with the women while buying what she needed for the Shabbos. She made it a point to arrive at Mrs. Nisselrod's side at the fish stall. Here there was always a line, for each woman had to select the fish she wanted and that took time, then to explain to the fish-seller exactly how she wanted it cleaned and cut (something he knew by heart from the hundreds of previous Thursdays he dealt with the same women, but he had to go through the ritual anyway) and that took time, and then to haggle over the price and that took time. The ladies didn't mind; more gossip passed up and down the fish-stall line on a single Thursday than in a year over teacups Shabbos afternoons.

"How's your guest from America?" asked the Rebbitzin.

"Oh, we enjoyed every minute of it while he was with us," gushed Mrs. Nisselrod. "You know that he moved out early in the week. I have to admit that the house is really quiet now, even with the children there. The children love him!"

"Oh?" questioned the Rebbitzin innocently, the kind of "Oh?" that invites more talk.

"He was always telling them stories about how he got to America – about the long train ride to Hamburg, and the big ship, and how he got seasick, that being his first voyage on a ship. And stories about America. I never saw my Moishele so quiet for so long since he had the measles!"

"And Rivka?" the Rebbitzin inquired, searching through her bag of vegetables so that the question would seem to be off-hand.

"She enjoyed it, too. And he was always ready to help her clean off the table, and wipe the dishes as she washed them, and fold the laundry. He didn't seem to think that he was doing woman's work. When I mentioned it to him, he smiled and said that he was used to it: in America, everybody is equal."

The Rebbitzin knew that the next question might overstep the bounds, but she decided she had to risk it. "Weren't you afraid that they were getting – kind of – close?"

Now Mrs. Nisselrod threw a surprised and sharp look at the Rebbitzin. Then she laughed. "Oh, nothing like that, Rebbitzin. After all, he's twenty years older than my Rivka!"

By then it was Mrs. Nisselrod's turn, and no more of the conversation. But the interruption gave the troubled and thoughtful Rebbitzin the chance to idly look over the scene in the marketplace – idly, that is, until she spotted Rivka Nisselrod at the vegetable stall, and Charles Golovsky beside her carrying a shopping bag, and Rivka putting some vegetables into it. It looked like an intimate gesture.

The Rebbitzin looked down at the busy, unaware Mrs. Nisselrod. "You foolish, blind woman!" sighed the Rebbitzin inwardly.

 

 

THE THIRD WEEK

That Shabbos was the same as the Shabbos before. Charles didn't participate in the services, but he did come to shul. He didn't seem to mind the stares – some admiring, some thoughtful, none indifferent. Unease sliced its way into Rabbi Yehoshua's heart, as he observed all this. As yet he didn't see anything he could do.

It was when Reb Mordechai, Chief Gabbai as well as Community Chairman, announced that the annual Adar Melave Malka will take place the following Saturday night that an idea started its life in Rabbi Yehoshua's mind.

I have to explain that the Jewish month of Adar comes towards the end of winter and on the fourteenth of this month is the joyous holiday of Purim. So the Sages long ago coined a proverb: "When Adar comes, much joy comes." To mark the event, Holoscheitz created a tradition that it would have a party, first to say Goodbye to Queen (Malka, in Hebrew) Shabbos, a queen that had ruled our lives for 24 hours, and deserves a ceremony befitting royalty when she goes away. Second, to say Hello to the happy month of Adar.

After shul, the same scene as last week unfolded. The hero from America, in the middle of two dozen ears, hands in pockets of his pants, derby slightly tilted, one eye narrowing with thought before delivering an answer to a question. The Rebbitzin noticed that, when the group broke up and the Holoscheitz Jews began walking home to their cholent, already tasting in their anticipation the thick potatoes-and-bit-of-beef pudding, Rivka Nisselrod contrived to walk slowly enough so that Charles would catch up to her, and they lagged together behind Father and Mother and Moishele.

A hand touched the Rebbitzin's sleeve. One of the townswomen said, "Fruma-Sarah has taken a bad turn, Rebbitzin. I'll stay with her this afternoon, but could you take over after havdalah? Just until her brother's wife comes from Czerno? Fruma-Sarah's husband said she would coming after Shabbas."

Though her eyes followed Rivka and Charles, the Rebbitzin replied, "Of course I can. I'll stay as long as necessary. I'm sorry to hear that she took a bad turn."

The other lady lifted her hands as if to say, "God's will."

And so it happened that the Rebbitzin went over after Shabbas had ended to Fruma-Sarah's house to sit with her. A man, even a husband, is no good at caring for a sick woman. But the vice-versa is not true, as everybody knows. Anyway, it was pretty late when Fruma-Sarah's brother and sister-in-law showed up and the Rebbitzin started her walk home. The sick woman's brother was so depressed that he forgot to offer to escort the Rebbitzin, but she really didn't mind.

The Rebbitzin was walking around the market-square when she noticed a shadow come out from the Nisselrod house and hurry around the other side of the square toward the Golovsky house. Even in the darkness, the Rebbitzin recognized Rivka. The set of the shoulders, the way the head is carried, the walk – you don't need a torch full on the face.

Then she saw another shadow come out of the Golovsky house, and the two shadows came together. The Rebbitzin didn't know whether she was going to cry or faint. She said to herself, "If that girl enters that house, I shall raise such a cry that the whole town will pour out into the square! I don't care if it's all in innocence! I would rather look like a fool than to take a chance on Charles Golovsky from America!"

But the shadowy couple turned away from the house and disappeared toward the river. "A lovers' walk," muttered the Rebbitzin to herself. "Better than a tךte-א-tךte in his house, but not much better!" She rushed into her own house and barged into the Rabbi's study, where he was studying a book. He jumped with surprise.

"That's it!" she cried. "Yehoshua, the situation is becoming desperate!" and she told what she had seen.

"I've been thinking about it, Gita, and nothing occurred to me until Reb Mordechai announced the Melava Malka. Tomorrow I go to visit my old yeshiva. This is my idea," and he told her.

"I hope it works," she said.

"With God's help," he replied.

 

Reb Alter, who had become head of Rabbi Yehoshua's yeshiva after the Old Rebbe died, had aged five years since Rabbi Yehoshua had seen him 10 months before.

"How are you, Reb Alter?" he asked with concern.

"How should I be?" the older rabbi smiled. "Labor in the vineyard of the Lord is hard work. And sometimes not very satisfying. We have many fewer students than last year. Two more years like this, and your yeshiva will be no more, Yehoshua."

"God forbid," said Rabbi Yehoshua. "Competition from other yeshivas?"

Reb Alter sighed. "I wish that were so. The competition comes from Warsaw and St. Petersburg on one side, and America on the other."

Rabbi Yehoshua shook his head sadly. "It's a different, changing world." Then he said, "You know, your mention of America leads right into the problem I'm facing." And he told him the whole story of Golovsky's son from America, from first arrival to the night before. "But he isn't an evil man," the Rabbi concluded. "He did travel all the way from America to visit the graves of his parents."

Reb Alter rejoined, "Esau came all the way from Edom to attend his father Isaac's funeral, but that doesn't make him a tzaddik."

Rabbi Yehoshua had to laugh. "My wife made the same allusion."

"Ah, your wife," grinned Reb Alter, eyes dancing. "I remember her as a bride. A girl to contend with, and now, I am sure, a Rebbitzin who is not a wilting lily."

"A tiger lily, rather," smiled Yehoshua. "Now, I have an idea," and he repeated to Reb Alter what he expressed to his Rebbitzin the night before. "So what I need is a student who is personable, sharp, a good speaker. And unmarried. It's a tall order, I know."

Reb Alter considered. "I may just have him. There's a young man learning here …. In fact, he reminds me of you: serious, but worldly, self-confident, but not arrogant. Wait a moment."

He walked to open the door and accosted a passing student. "Can you find Avrumele Rostover for me? I must see him."

"Certainly, Reb Alter. He's probably in the beis medrash."

So the two rabbis chit-chatted until a knock on the door announced the arrival of Avrumele Rostover. "Come," called Reb Alter.

Avrumele Rostover was tall but not too thin. He didn't have the grayish, sallow skin of a student who spent all his time peering into a book and paying no attention to the rest of God's world. There was color in his cheeks which were beginning to sport a brownish hedge. His eyes were alert as they looked at the guest curiously. And then they turned to Reb Alter.

"My master, you sent for me?" said a pleasant strong voice.

"Yes, Avrumele. This is Rabbi Yehoshua Garfinkel, Rabbi of Holoscheitz, a former student of this yeshiva. He came to invite one of the boys to address his Melava Malka next Shabbos night. Would you be interested?"

Taking his cue not to connect the Melava Malka with the problem of Charles Golovsky, Rabbi Yehoshua explained how it was an annual event in his shtetl and that the discourse should be a serious discourse, because no rabbi or future rabbi should be merely an entertainer, but, on the other hand, it should reflect the coming joy of Purim. "My Jews are plain Jews," Rabbi Yehoshua said, "not learned, but they appreciate learning, even if they don't understand all of it.

"If you agree to come, Reb Avrum," Rabbi Yehoshua said – and noticed how pleased the young man was to be addressed in such an adult way, as if he had already attained a rabbi's status – "I would be very pleased to have you spend the Shabbas in my home."

The young man considered – Rabbi Yehoshua saw in his eyes how his mind raced from thought to idea. Then he smiled, "Thank you, Rabbi Garfinkel. It's a challenge. To be serious and humorous, to be learned and plain. I'd like to try."

Specific arrangements were quickly made. Yankel the Holoscheitz wagoneer would call for him at ten o'clock next Friday morning and bring him back Sunday morning.

On his return home, Rabbi Yehoshua reported to his Rebbitzin that the project was well underway. He had found the young man to do the job, if the job was to be done at all.

 

 

THE FOURTH WEEK

So another week went by and so did the fourth Shabbos of Charles Golovsky's stay in Holoscheitz. Only once in that interval did Rabbi Yehoshua refer to the problem to his wife.

"Did it ever occur to you that Rivka may have a good effect on Charles, rather than Charles have a bad effect on her?"

"Yes," she told him, "but I don't believe it. She is too young, too inexperienced. At least I had read books and learned about the world a little bit that way. And that led me into a bit of skepticism about people, I admit. But Rivka admires Charles for the wrong reasons. To her he is a hero because he is different and strong and twenty years older. She has had no chance to build confidence in herself. She doesn't see him as an experiment that she can control. Rather, she is a victim to his need to lord it over someone."

"But – " he pursued.

"Yehoshua," the Rebbitzin interrupted, "you may be right. Only God knows what is truly in a person's heart. But tell me: are you ready to consider sacrificing Rivka to the possibility of changing Charles Golovsky around? I am not! And I will do everything possible to let him go his own way without her, and let her find someone else to admire!"

A tiger lily, thought Yehoshua and said no more.

 

Of course, all eyes were on the proud young man who appeared that Friday night at the side of Rabbi Yehoshua. When he was introduced to each worshipper as they walked to their seats on the Eastern wall, he smiled and shook hands. He won the heart of Reb Mordechai Thaler, who was introduced as "the lumber merchant and our Chairman," when he said, "An ideal combination of the worldly and the spiritual. I lack the former and only hope for the latter."

Reb Mordechai announced that Avrum Rostover, a young rabbi-to-be, from the Rabbi's old yeshiva, will deliver the address at the Melava Malka. This caused some stirring, because never before had someone so young, without status, not even a rabbi yet, ascended the pulpit of the Holoscheitz shul. It wasn't the Great Synagogue of Warsaw, but it was the only shul they had, and they were proud of it. So excitement was high when they came back after Shabbas and eyed the cakes and the drinks prepared by the ladies for after the event, the watchful women reminded them. They were rather impatient with Reb Mordechai's announcements about Purim arrangements. Finally came the introduction of Avrum Rostover.

The young man ascended the pulpit and looked into the silence and the packed audience of men and women. Including Charles Golovsky, ready to be bored. "When Rabbi Yehoshua invited me to speak before the Jews of Holoscheitz on this occasion, I want to tell you that I was pleased to accept the invitation, and also scared. To give a lecture on a Talmudic topic, is not easy, but you do have a topic and the sources are at hand. To speak about one of the Yomim Tovim, one of the Holy Days of the Jewish calendar is not easy, but here too one has a topic and sources at the fingertips. But what can one say about Purim, except that you are commanded to listen to the Megillah of Esther and to get drunk! So I decided to be safe and to speak about a yom tov, in fact, the holiest day of the year.

"Now, before you say to yourselves, 'How out of place it is to talk in Adar, with Purim coming almost tomorrow, about Yom Kippurim, I want to tell you straight out, nevertheless, that my topic will be Yom Kippurim." And then with a fine sense of timing and raising of his eyebrows young Reb Avrum added, "But with a twist. In the Holy Tongue, Hebrew, the k at the beginning of a word means 'something like,' 'similar to.' So the very name of the Holiest Day of the Year – Yom K'ppurim – tells us it is something like the Craziest Day in the Year – Purim. So this is what I'm going to talk about – how these two days of the Jewish calendar relate to each other."

There was almost an audible sigh from the rapt audience, even a few smiles crossed faces. He started with a homey topic. "Take the question of eating, for example. On Yom K'ppurim, we are commanded to eat a lot the day before and to drink and eat nothing on the day of the yom tov. On Purim, we are commanded to eat and drink nothing on the Fast of Esther the day before Purim and to eat a lot on the afternoon of Purim itself. Something like, but reversed."

And then he let fly over all over the shul quotations from the Mishna, citations from the Gemara, parables and aphorisms from Hassidic rebbes, challenging his audience to see connections. They laughed with him, were solemn with him, learned from him.

Finally he came back to the beginning: "And so we come back to what we started with – eating and fasting. What is the purpose of fasting? Is it to save food for a day? Is it to give the wife a little rest from the kitchen? Fasting is the opportunity to show God in Heaven that we can do something to control our own destiny. We can choose to eat or not to eat, to drink or not to drink. Just as we can choose to accept the yoke of the Torah or to reject the yoke of the Torah. Once we have fasted, we can say to God, we have done our job: we have shown You that we have chosen You. Now, Almighty King, You please do Your job: give us life and health. Thus the Jews of Shushan and all of Persia fasted and God gave them such a great victory over Haman and all their enemies that we celebrate it to this day. Thus we hope every year that at the end of the Yom K'ppurim fast, He will give us a great victory over the Satan and the enemies of this world, and that we shall enjoy life and health.

"And speaking of eating and fasting, I wish only to say, that my talk has caused you to fast long enough at this Melava Malka, and frankly, I myself am thirsty and hungry. So let us eat, drink, and be merry, as Kohelet said. Happy Purim!"

Well, you should have heard the thunderous thumping of hands on tables and benches in appreciation of the lecture. Dozens of men scrambled forward to shake the young man's hand. In the midst he stood, face glistening with sweat, but a broad grin on his face. On the side stood Rabbi Yehoshua, pleased beyond what he hoped, looking up to the Ladies Gallery to catch the Rebbitzin's eye. A significant look passed between them.

In his corner, Charles Golovsky sat alone, glowering at the unshakable innocence of these Jews.

 

It seemed to the Rebbitzin that all the male Jews of Holoscheitz were accompanying Rabbi Yehoshua and Reb Avrum Rostover back to the Rabbi's house. Outside the shul, Charles Golovsky yawned and stretched, and accompanied by no one, sauntered toward his house.

The Rebbitzin joined Rivka Nisselrod. They walked a few steps before the Rebbitzin ventured, "A lovely event, I thought. You enjoyed it?"

"Very much," murmured Rivka, walking slowly, steadily, head a bit bowed, studying the ground before each step. After a while she said, "He's something to dream about."

The Rebbitzin caught her breath. "Who?" she asked.

Surprised, Rivka turned her head to stare at the Rebbitzin. "Why, tonight's speaker, the young-rabbi-to-be, of course."

A stone dropped from the Rebbitzin's heart. She laughed and took Rivka's arm under her own, "Oh, Rivka, there will be others like him to dream about. And young men like him who will dream about you! And then will come the destined one to fulfill those dreams. Let me tell you what happened to me when I was 17, long before I met Rabbi Yehoshua…."

 

The next morning, just as Rabbi Yehoshua and the Rebbitzin were saying Goodbye to Avrum Rostover, they heard Yankel's horse and wagon stop outside their door and a knocking. The Rabbi opened the door to Charles Golovsky.

"I've come to say Goodbye." The Rabbi thought that his smile was wan.

"Oh?" the Rabbi said.

"I'm off to Warsaw, spend a few days there, and back to New York." He handed the Rabbi a note. "This is a letter to Mr. Thaler. I'm turning my parents' house over to the town. I can't imagine that I'll ever come back to Holoscheitz again. So Goodbye to you and the Rebbitzin."

Rabbi Yehoshua said, "Good luck to you. I wish you a safe journey and … peace of mind."

Charles turned back. "I told Mr. Nisselrod, and I want you to know, too, that I intend to say Kaddish on the dates my mother and father died. But that's all! Don't get the idea that I've become a hassid!"

"Ah, Charles, who knows?" the Rabbi answered. "That may be a start, not the finish."

With the Rebbitzin alongside him, he watched him climb up to sit beside Yankel, followed by Avrum Rostover, after he had shaken Rabbi Yehoshua's hand and accepted his words of thanks. The Rabbi noticed as they drove away that Avrum was trying to engage Charles in conversation. In the doorway, the Rebbitzin actually clutched the Rabbi's hand in satisfaction. Of course, nobody saw her do that!

 

Copyright © Dan Vogel