2. A Curse on Mirele

2. A Curse on Mirele

I'll tell you the truth. Most of the happenings and what was said I got from my cousin Zissele, who got it from Mirele-Rochel herself. Zissele was always that way, even when we were kids. We used to hide under the table in Zayde's study and she used to tell me everything she saw and heard. The Czar made a mistake when he didn't draft her for his Secret Police. With her ruddy little ears, and freckles across her nose, and big innocent eyes, and those carrot-colored curls on top, everybody just wanted to tell her all their secrets.

Anyway, a shtetl is a small place. Zissele could easily make sure that she was everywhere and heard everything, and talk to people and get out of them what happened and what was said when she couldn't have been there. And, as usual, she passed it all on to me.

I can't swear that every word I'm about to tell you is the truth. It's been quite a number of years now. When it all unraveled, I was about 20, and Zissele all of 17, and she always embroidered a bit, and I have to admit that I filled in a bit, too. But it's mainly true. So listen….

Zissele tells me that it had been going on for a few months. All the girls knew about it, but of course never mentioned it publicly. Only in whispers on Shabbos afternoon when they all got together.

Finally it broke open at Mirele-Rochel's wedding. Zissele, of course, was in the mob of girls and women chattering around the bride's throne, so she heard it all.

"Why, Chaya Leya, what are you doing here?"

The bride's words escaped before she knew what she was saying. All eyes of the women and girls turned to the young woman who approached the bride's throne. She was tall, but her raven hair was in disarray, and her dark eyes glowed fire. Her lips were twisted.

"You didn't even invite me," she sarcastically cried.

"I-I didn't think you would want to come," stammered the poor bride looking around her for help.

Her mother, somewhat stout and tough, stepped in front of the bride to confront Chaya Leya. The others simply stood rooted where they were.

"Come," said the bride's mother soothingly, "come, Chaya Leya, this is a wedding, a joyous event. Let bygones be bygones. A zivic, a blessed marriage, is made in heaven, not by human beings."

But Chaya Leya was in no mood to swallow it. She brushed past the older woman. "You stole him from me! He was mine! We were nearly engaged when you came between us with your blonde hair and blue eyes and simpering mouth!" she shouted at the bride.

Murmurings of "For shame!" "Bite your tongue!" came from the crowd of females.

"But Chaya Leya," tried the bride, "if he was really yours he would never had looked at me…."

"By rights, I should be sitting in that chair," wailed Chaya Leya. "I should be waiting for him to come to bedek my face."

She shook off Mirele's mother's hand and waved her arms to quiet the murmurings. Her own face was now close to the bride's. Everyone was quiet, eyes wide, mouths open, a feeling of doom in the air.

"I curse you, Mirele-Rochel!" intoned the distraught Chaya Leya, in a voice of baritone seriousness.

Now the shrieking began. Everyone shouted and berated the angry Chaya Leya and bore down on her so that she retreated backwards until she was outside the hall and then she turned and ran away. Then everybody turned to comfort the bride who had gone as pale as the dress she was wearing and to revive the mother, whose bosom was heaving with fright and nearly fainting.

"But the joy had gone out of the affair," Zissele told me a few hours afterward. "Everyone was carrying a weight on her heart. A curse, on a wedding night!"

It is not known whether the groom had heard the uproar, or was told about what had happened. But it is known that the bride was absolutely white when he came to her to place her veil over her face, and there was no smile when she joined him under the Canopy. The sadness in her eyes the men took for innocence and modesty, but the women knew better. The groom never said a word about it. I was there as the groom's friend, and we danced but even the men felt that the happiness was stunted. Of course, we didn't hear about the curse until after the wedding. Zissele couldn't hold out. Although it was midnight, she came home with us, and she and I walked behind, so she could tell me what had happened before the bedecking.

With this memory to start off married life, the sparks in Mirele's eyes died and the smile that was always on the edges of the lips died with them. At one time, I had hopes of something between her and me, though in my heart of hearts I knew that nothing would come of it. I used to watch her chatting with her girlfriends, and once in a while she would glance at me but I knew she never noticed.

Mirele-Rochel's father-in-law bought a small store almost next to the butcher shop for his daughter-in-law. "Sell needles, and thread, and pieces of cloth, Mirele," he told her. "The women coming to the butcher shop will stop in as they pass by… That way you will support Froike – " Froike was what everybody called her bridegroom – "while he learns in the beis medrash, until the first little one comes along."

He knew business, being himself a fairly wealthy dealer in lumber. And he was right. The women coming to shop at the butcher's saw the attractive little store, and the attractive young bride behind the counter, and was there ever a Jewish housewife who wasn't always in need of another needle, or a skein of wool or a spool of thread? So the store prospered, not enough to say that Mirele and Froike became rich, but enough that they didn't need to borrow from his father (Mirele had no father) and Froike could sit in Rabbi Yehoshua's beis medrash with a clear conscience.

The store actually was a kind of intimate fun. At night Mirele emptied her purse for Froike to count the money she collected that day and mark it down in the business book. He figured the costs and the profit and settled the prices. He asked his wife carefully what was selling and what was not and he suggested what to order and when to stock certain items before Rosh Hashana and before Pesach. Mirele loved these moments of companionship and sharing and admired her husband for his acumen. Admired? She worshipped him.

(I still don't know how Zissele got all this from Mirele. It's so personal.)

But on their first anniversary, there was no baby in the Thaler household. No crying, no diapers. Emptiness.

"Don't worry," her mother said to her. "It's only the first year. Sometimes it takes time."

Mirele was terribly disappointed, but there it was. The good thing about it was that Froike never mentioned the emptiness. He seemed content with his learning and the closeness with his wife at the end of the day, tallying up the success at the store.

Time went on. Mirele's friends were almost all married. On Shabbos mornings in shul she would notice the look of smug self-satisfied unconcern of the just-pregnant on their faces and how they would sit in a corner and trade whispered intimate secrets that were not for her ears. Mirele attended the bris milah of more than a dozen boys already, counting friends who had a second one. And she visited those new mothers who had girls. Mirele saw, or thought she saw, the looks of pity these friends lay upon her.

And so the second anniversary went by.

Mirele began to worry. Her mother-in-law was no help. It became a practice that she and her father-in-law would come by Shabbos afternoons. All she talked about were her grandchildren by Froike's two brothers' wives. After each story she would look meaningfully at poor Mirele, who smiled with all the appreciation of a dutiful, supposedly loving, aunt. But she knew very well what her mother-in-law was thinking.

Once, the vagabond thought flitted through her mind, "Why doesn't she look at her son? Maybe it's his fault!" But she destroyed the thought even before she finished it. To think that was nothing short of betrayal. So she sat, and smiled, and suffered.

Her shrewd father-in-law tried to intervene sometimes. "Enough, Frumele. Enough about the grandchildren."

"Why, I would think that a loving aunt would want to hear about them. Mirele?"

"Of course," Mirele smiled wanly.

Froike would say, "Save some stories for next time, Mama. Now is time for tea."

Half-way through the second year, Mirele adopted the practice of sneaking around the alleyways of the town to reach the mikveh. The shame of possibly being seen was too much for her. The old lady who took care of the mikveh and the other women there – well, that couldn't be helped. But she could imagine what they were saying among themselves.

One day, well into her third year of marriage, Mirele had closed the store early because she had a headache. At home, she discovered that the headache was due to the fact she had become niddah again. She took off the pretty dress she was wearing, donned a black skirt and gray blouse, which was the sign of her condition for her husband to know without immodestly telling him, sat down on her bed and finally let herself go with crying and wailing.

"You know," she told Zissele a long time afterwards, "I heard myself cry out, 'It's Chaya Leya's curse!' I believed it then … and, you know what, Zissele?"

"What?" Zissele asked. (I could imagine her eyes as wide as soup plates never letting up staring at Mirele's own eyes.)

"I believe it still now."

"It's Chaya Leya's curse!" she cried that day in the third year of her marriage. "I am being punished! I am suffering, so terribly suffering, Oh God! Help me! Help me!"

She wept some more. She actually pulled at her hair – Mother Sarah, Mother Rivkah, Mother Rachel, my namesake. All of you were barren and then were rewarded with children: Pray for me. Intercede for me. I shall lose the love of my husband! I shall be bereft of everything in this life. Oh mothers, help me!"

Never before had she felt so alone. She walked about the room and paused at the window to look out on the darkening street. Froike is just finishing his learning, she thought. He will daven minchah soon and then maariv. Then he will come home. He dare not see me like this, she thought. And was about to turn away from the window to go wash her face, when she saw the figure of Rabbi Yehoshua hurrying along the street to the beis medrash.

"All of a sudden, Zissele," she told my cousin on that day later when she told her everything, "I felt a weight go off my heart. Seeing Rabbi Yehoshua, I felt, was an omen."

So, a day or two later, after Froike had gone to the beis medrash, she didn't even open the store. She put on one of her Shabbos dresses and her wig, and the hat with the two thin feathers rising up, and went off to the Rabbi's house. She knocked on the door.

It was opened by the Rebbitzin, an alert, middle-aged pleasant woman who was never seen without her wig and warmth in the eyes. Of course she noticed the way Mirele was dressed; this was no visit about the kashrus of a chicken. Through Mirele's mind ran the uncontrolled thought that the Rebbitzin had married off her last son just a few months ago and was already waiting for another grandchild.

"Come in, Mirele," said the Rebbitzin. "It is nice to see you."

Mirele entered and the Rebbitzin closed the door behind her.

"I suppose you came to see the Rabbi," smiled the Rebbitzin.

Afraid she would burst into tears, Mirele only nodded.

"Come. He's in the study. He just finished breakfast and wouldn't have started on anything yet. You came at a good time."

Much encouraged, Mirele followed through the pleasant hall past a warm-smelling kitchen. The Rebbitzin knocked on a door. A muffled "Yes?" and she opened the door.

"Mirele-Rochel Thaler has come to see you."

Rabbi Yehoshua was sitting at his desk, his coat draped on the back of his chair. Without rising he struggled into it.

"Wonderful," he beamed, lips smiling through his beard, eyes glowing over his glasses. Then they turned serious. Mirele knew he guessed why she had come. Rabbi Yehoshua was a very wise man. "Gita, please close the door."

The Rebbitzin did so and sat down on a chair in the corner. Mirele looked at her uncertainly.

"It is forbidden – even for a rabbi – ," Rabbi Yehoshua joked, trying to lessen the sudden tension in the room, "to be alone in a room with a woman. You can rest assured that the Rebbitzin has heard everything that I have in this room, but no one would ever know it."

And he waited, gazing softly at the young woman. Mirele drew her lips together and looked down at the floor. "Rabbi, it is hard for me to speak, because my problem is – very intimate. To speak of it is not – modest." She blushed.

The Rabbi nodded, glanced at his wife, and waited.

Mirele drew a breath and plunged. "Rabbi, I have no children. I am married nearly three years, and no children!" Tears escaped from her eyes. "I have tried everything my mother told me to try that she learned from the other women – I ate what she told me, I wore what she told me, I drank what she told. I have carried amulets to the mikveh and from it, and placed them under my pillow." Here she faltered. "I – I tried different po-po-positions. But nothing has worked."

She dabbed at her eyes with a tiny handkerchief.

"The truth is, Rabbi Yehoshua, that I am cursed. Chaya Leya Greenboim cursed me the night of my wedding…."

"Yes," the Rabbi interrupted, "I remember hearing about that."

"Can it be that the curse is working on me in this way? Is God so cruel that He will listen to the curse of a girl who was disappointed in love? My husband is a fine man – must he suffer because of the anger of a woman against me?" She was really crying now.

The Rabbi noticed that tears had formed in his Rebbitzin's eyes, too.

He coughed a polite cough.

("I really put him into a terrible position," Mirele admitted to Zissele. "I was so desperate that I asked questions I knew he could not answer. But I was ready to jump up from my chair and run out of the house if he gave me a syrupy answer that meant nothing.")

"Mirele," Rabbi Yehoshua said, "I am not a wunder-rebbe. I do not perform miracles, I do not know how to lay hands on a sick person and cure him, I cannot predict the future. I do not say that the wunder-rebbe cannot do these things. I just don't know what powers such a person knows or has. I only know that I cannot."

"Then what am I to do, Rabbi? Say more Tehillim? I have said the Book of Tehillim countless times in the past three years…."

"Mirele," he went on, "I must begin with the natural and the normal. I want you to go to a Doctor Zigelman in Warsaw. He is a specialist in these matters. You and Froike."

Mirele was shocked. "I – I could never suggest that to Froike. It would be an insult to him."

Now for the first time the Rabbi really smiled broadly. "Amazing! That's exactly what Froike said to me about you when I made the suggestion to him."

("Zissele," she said to my cousin months later, "I always thought that a mouth open in surprise was the writer's imagination. But I actually felt my mouth drop open!")

"You mean Froike had been here to see you?" she asked the Rabbi.

"Yes, Mirele. And he has been patiently waiting for you to come to me yourself because he was afraid he would insult you if he suggested it. Now he is waiting for you to make the suggestion that you both go to Warsaw. Let us see if there is a medical reason for your childlessness. It may be as simple as that to clear up." He drew a piece of stationery to him and wrote a short note, which he placed in an envelope and sealed. He handed it to Mirele. "Give this to Dr. Zigelman. He knows us well." And he glanced at his wife. Mirele did not miss the glance.

So with a lighter step Mirele returned home and waited for Froike on pins and needles.

At the train station, Mirele's mother spoke to her with concern, her mother-in-law looked at her with silent suspicion, and her father-in-law was talking to his son with man-of-the-world advice.

"Here's the name of the Jewish hotel in Warsaw that I always use when I go there on business, and how to get there from the terminal." He stuffed a piece of paper into his son's hand. "Register first so when you return from the doctor's clinic you'll be able to go right up to your room to rest."

Mirele recognized the look of pained patience on her husband's face whenever he listened to the obvious.

In the train carriage, on the journey, Mirele sat next to the window, but did not remember seeing the new strange countryside as it slipped past the window. She did remember reaching for her husband's hand. His fingers tightened on hers and they sat holding hands, a unique display of public affection, all the way to Warsaw.

After registering at Eichhorn's Hotel and leaving their bags in their room, Froike inquired about getting to the street where Dr. Zigelman's clinic was located. Rabbi Yehoshua was right. His note did open doors, even without an appointment. Froike went into the doctor's office, and Mrs. Zigelman took charge of Mirele.

(She asked me all sorts of questions," Mirele reminisced to Zissele. "About my mother and then about me. And such questions! I'm still blushing!"

Zissele probably wanted to ask Mirele to tell her what questions they were, but curiosity on such a subject was not to be tolerated.)

Mrs. Zigelman wrote everything Mirele answered on a sheet of paper and then said, "Now, Mrs. Thaler, please get undressed." She smiled at Mirele's reaction. She was used to it. "Come, Mrs. Thaler, the doctor must examine you, you understand. You are not the first woman who wears a wig to come here and unfortunately you will not be the last. I shall be with you every second you are with the doctor."

Mirele decided that if the Rabbi sent her (and she strongly suspected that the Rabbi and his Rebbitzin had been to Dr. Zigelman's clinic) it must be all right. So she removed her clothes and slipped into the light white robe Mrs. Zigelman gave her.

The doctor was short, his beard frazzled and grayish, his hair stood up above his ears and nowhere else did he have any. His eyes were bright, busy, and always thinking ahead.

He hardly spoke, his examination was quick and impersonal. "Thank you Mrs. Thaler. You are a fine patient. Please dress now and join your husband. When you are ready come into my office."

Froike smiled when she came to him. "How was it?" he asked her.

Mirele adopted a woman-of-the-world attitude. "All right. Lots of questions right back to my baba. Then a quick examination by the doctor, as expected, and here I am. And you?"

Froike actually blushed to Mirele's astonishment. "Well, I sort of expected what would happen because I was warned by Rabbi Yehoshua. But it was all right."

In the doctor's office, they sat in front of a huge desk that was too big for such a small man. He was busy reading the notes in front of him. Then he looked up.

"Basically, you are both healthy, thank God. About pregnancy, we'll see in two days. Meanwhile I must consult my notes and the specimen" – Of course Mirele didn't know what a specimen was or how it was gotten – "Please come back in two days. Enjoy Warsaw."

Which they did, but naturally they would have enjoyed it more if there were no cloud hanging over why they were there. Two days later they were back in Dr. Zigelman's office.

"Kinderlach," he said, with a warmth and familiarity that they never expected, "what I have to say is both good and bad news. On the basis of my physical findings, there is no reason why Mrs. Thaler cannot conceive. That's good, but it's also bad, because now you have to look elsewhere for the reasons why not. I cannot help you. Give my regards to Rabbi Yehoshua and his wife. Goodbye … and good luck."

They held hands again on the train-ride back to the shtetl, but wonder and bewilderment and yes, a disappointment flooded their minds. Silently, Mirele was saying to herself over and over again, "I know why. I know why. Chaya Leya's curse! Chaya Leya's curse!" The refrain fitted into the clickety-clack of the train wheels, and she remembers that she slept, head on her husband's shoulder, which, she told Zissele, was the nicest part of the trip.

They had gone on a Monday and returned on a Thursday, market day in our shtetl. Zissele was buying a piece of fish for Tante Sarah when she heard the Rebbitzin say from somewhere near the fish stands:

"Mrs. Thaler, a moment, please."

Zissele looked over and saw that the Rebbitzin had stopped Mirele's mother-in-law. "It took me a much longer time than usual to find just the piece of fish I wanted," Zissele told me with a mischievous smile.

The Rebbitzin was saying, "I am speaking to you on behalf of the Rabbi. It has come to him that you are speaking about your daughter-in-law's intimate problems in a critical manner with the women of the town. The Rabbi has judged that this is loshon hara, the wagging of the evil tongue. He wanted to call in your husband and instruct him to tell you to stop!"

("Mrs. Thaler went gray as the belly of the fish I was holding in my hand, that mother-in-law," Zissele laughed to me.)

The Rebbitzin continued. "But I said to my husband that it is a very serious matter to instruct a husband to criticize his wife. I promised him I shall talk to you privately."

("Not as privately as possible," I reflected as Zissele was relaying this sensational piece of gossip to me.)

The Rebbitzin concluded, "Now I have done so. The rest is up to you!" And she just turned around and walked off. Zissele and the woman at the fish stand exchanged a quiet wink of delicious conspiracy.

It must have been that afternoon that Mirele and Froike told Rabbi Yehoshua Dr. Zigelman's conclusions. The Rabbi gravely heard them out. He was pained by the look of distress in Mirele's eyes.

"It's Chaya Leya's curse, Rabbi," Mirele burst out.

Froike looked at her in astonishment. It was obviously the first time his wife had mentioned it in the three years of their marriage and he was absolutely dumbfounded.

Said the Rabbi, with a sigh, "I told you once, Mirele, I'm not a wunder-rebbe. I don't understand such things. I must think about what to do next. I shall not tell you not to worry anymore, or to be happy, everything will be all right. I shall not lie to you. But know that I shall try to help. Now leave me and do not come until I call you. You must trust me."

Of course Froike and Mirele protested that they trusted him completely, and left, mystified, as is understandable.

Now comes the part where I have to fill in. Zissele was not told what happened precisely, but people see things and hear other things and put thing to thing and come out with a story that it must have happened this way. For example, on the next Tuesday, if I remember correctly, Yankel the Wagoneer was seen rushing into the Rabbi's house, obviously because he was hurriedly summoned, and coming out immediately with a letter in his gruff hand. On his way out of town, he stopped at Yitzchak the Blacksmith's shop and was heard to call out:

"Yitzchak, I have to go to Trompetz for the Rabbi. But I promised Tuvia I would haul his wine barrels to the river this afternoon. Could you do it? We'll split the fee."

The answer was probably, "Yes," because Yankel whipped up his horse and flew out of town. Late the next day, he came thundering back.

Trompetz. What was the Rabbi's interest in Trompetz? It's a shtetl only a couple of houses larger than our shtetl. But in Trompetz lived Rabbi Yosef Drobles. Who was Rabbi Yosef Drobles? He was a young man, single, maybe thirty, but already well known for his published studies of … Cabbala! Our Rabbi in communication with a Cabbalist!? If so, why? Well, leaped the Talmudic minds that pondered the problem that evening between mincha and maariv, it could only have to do with Chaya Leya's curse. Anything dealing with a phenomenon that was not of our daily lives was dealt with in the Cabbala. The conclusion was clear. (And correct, I may add!)

That Friday afternoon a beautiful horse regally pulled into our shtetl a beautiful carriage carrying one young man and his driver. It drew up in front of Rabbi Yehoshua's house.

Within five minutes every Jew above the age of five knew that "Drobles" had come to visit our Rabbi for Shabbos. That night all eyes in shul gazed upon the handsome Cabbalist who wore a white suit and a white shtreimel encompassed by the glossiest fur skins. I peeked at Rabbi Yehoshua to see how he was taking the total interest in his guest. He was amused. Our Rabbi Yehoshua! He may not be a Cabbalist, he may wear his ordinary black suit on Shabbos, the velvet of his shtreimel may be somewhat faded. But he is the wisest of men!

The next morning the Ladies Gallery was filled to beyond capacity. One would think it was Kol Nidre night. Especially all the single girls were there, Zissele told me. And then in came Chaya Leya Greenboim. No one had seen her in the Ladies Gallery since the last holiday. For three years she hardly showed up on a Shabbos, but now, "she sneaked in," according to my cousin, Zissele.

"The girls had their siddurim open," Zissele went on to me, "but you can imagine how much praying was done. It sounded up there like a trillion bees were excited. Then we saw Chaya Leya quietly move slowly down along the wall to the edge of the curtain and daintily move it aside to look down on the men's shul. You better believe that we all saw it but made believe we didn't. After a minute she stole back to her seat, but she never davened a word." After shul, the Rebbitzin was seen to speak to her and she nodded her head.

Zissele admits that she spent the entire Shabbos afternoon figuring out an excuse to visit the Rebbitzin after Shabbos. Her instinct was faultless: she somehow knew that Chaya Leya was going to visit the Rabbi that Saturday night. Finally she thought of something. She ripped a few rows of the shawl she was knitting and reknitted it with a few mistakes. My Tante Sarah, her mother, could have corrected it in a minute, but, no – only the Rebbitzin could fix it, because the Rebbitzin had given her the pattern.

So soon after the kindling of the candle that marked the end of Shabbos, Zissele was sitting in the Rebbitzin's parlor, her eyes on the Rebbitzin's skilled fingers and her ears tuned to a knock on the door. Naturally, it came.

"Please sit here, Zissele," the Rebbitzin told her, "I must see who it is."

The Rebbitzin closed the door to the parlor, but it didn't help. Zissele heard her greet the one who knocked. "A gut voch, Chaya Leya. Please come in. The Rabbi is expecting you."

Zissele desperately was trying to think of an excuse to get closer to the study door, but this she couldn't do. The Rebbitzin came back and didn't even sit down. "It's all correct now, Zissele. Please give my regards to your mother and father and wish them a gut voch from the Rabbi and me."

Poor Zissele knew a dismissal when she heard it, and she could do nothing about it, so she went. But it didn't really matter. She heard all about what happened that evening in the Rabbi's house, second hand, but she heard it.

Chaya Leya modestly entered the Rabbi's study, and sat demurely in the visitor's chair. Before her, on the other side of the desk sat Rabbi Yehoshua and Rabbi Drobles. Rabbi Yehoshua spoke.

"Chaya Leya, it is well known that on the night of Mirele-Rochel Thaler's wedding you delivered a curse upon her head. It is no excuse that you were under a terrible emotional strain, and if you were in your normal mind, you would never have done so, I am sure. Nevertheless, a curse is a powerful malediction. It is an opening for the Satan to do his wicked work. Indeed, it may very well be that the Satan has actually been successful on the strength of your words. Frankly, I myself do not know or understand such things. I therefore asked my esteemed and honored colleague, Rabbi Yosef Drobles of Trompetz, who is knowledgeable in these matters, to interview you and try to annul the curse. I hope you will co-operate, Chaya Leya."

When Chaya Leya told her part of the story to Zissele (who else?), she admitted that at that moment she broke into a sweat and would have fainted if she did not see the glass of water on the desk, and reached for it, making certain, however, that both rabbis saw her lips pronounce the blessing over water. She also admitted to my cousin that she had been much troubled by that curse. Though she was well read in worldly books and part of her disbelieved in such things, yet part of her could not help believing. And she knew very well that Mirele had never conceived a child. Thus the words of Rabbi Yehoshua had struck her deeply, there in the shadowy study, lighted by only a lantern, the eyes of two rabbis boring into her.

After she had composed herself with the drink of water, she murmured, "I shall do as you advise me, my Master."

"Good," beamed Rabbi Yehoshua, and rose from his seat. "I shall leave you two alone now, so that there will be no chance of your embarrassment before me."

Chaya Leya was startled. Alone with Rabbi Drobles! At the door Rabbi Yehoshua intoned, "According to the halacha you may not be alone with a man unless the door is open and people may enter at any time unannounced. But do not fear to speak freely, Chaya Leya, no one will be near the door to hear." And he was gone, leaving the door ajar by ten inches.

Chaya Leya looked at the floor, but she felt Rabbi Drobles' eyes on her. She waited.

"Why did you pronounce that curse?" he asked. His voice was low, warm, but compelling.

Chaya Leya took her time answering. She raised her head to gaze at him, chin a little high. "I had been proposed by the shadchan to Ephraim Thaler, whom I – admired greatly. It was clear that he – he was not unhappy with the idea. The arrangement was developing and I already began to look forward to setting a date for the engagement and then the wedding." Unwelcome tears came to Chaya Leya's eyes, she remembers. "I even discussed my wedding dress with my mother, the happiest conversation that a Jewish girl can have with her mother."

She paused. "Then I was told that the whole thing was off. Someone had introduced Mirele-Rochel Greenfest to Ephraim Thaler, and he – he came to prefer her. Rabbi Drobles, it is difficult to speak of this period of my life. I felt deeply disappointed – no! injured, humiliated before the other girls, the whole town! How could I walk the streets after that? How could I allow myself to sit in the Ladies Gallery on Shabbos – I – I who never missed a Shabbos since I was eight years old! – where the young women could see me and gossip about me? I do not believe that a man can fully understand the torture that I went through."

Sympathetically: "And now?"

"Like everything else, the affair died down. I am three years older, but, Rabbi, I have never allowed anyone again to propose a marriage to me. The hurt is not so sharp, but it is not dead, either."

"However, are you sorry you pronounced the curse?" Rabbi Drobles asked.

It took a while for Chaya Leya to answer. "I wasn't then, but I suppose I am now. After all, Rabbi, I'm a Jewish girl, brought up in the traditional way. I know what is expected of us. I can imagine the anguish of Mirele-Rochel."

"One more question. Would you like to annul the curse?"

This time the answer came more quickly. "Yes, Rabbi, I would. I am fearful of it going on. It is enough. I meant to punish Mirele-Rochel, not to condemn her."

Rabbi Drobles smiled. He rose up and walked to a dark corner of the room. After a moment he returned to the circle of light.

"Chaya Leya, Rabbi Yehoshua has spent the whole of this Shabbos afternoon talking about you and your family. I have read and studied the book your grandfather wrote on the gematria of Biblical names and their connection with the Sefirot of the Cabbalists. It is a work that informed me and inspired me. It is clear, I think, that Rabbi Yehoshua had two purposes in mind when he invited me to visit him this Shabbos. First, to ask my aid in annulling the curse on Mirele-Rochel Thaler. The second to introduce you to me for the possibility of our becoming a shidduch."

Chaya Leya later said that she almost fainted again. But now she looked at Rabbi Drobles with different eyes. Now she saw how tall he was, how high his forehead was, how nicely trimmed his beard and hair were, how the nose fitted the long powerful face, how the lips fascinated one as they peeked between the beard and the mustache, how his eyes revealed intelligence – and humor! She admits not falling in love at that moment – she plunged into it!

Rabbi Drobles went on. "I have heard you speak your mind, now allow me to speak mine. People call me a mystic and they have come to believe I am a seer, a wunder-rebbe, because I am versed in the Cabbala. Maybe I am. I do know that what I feel one day, the next day becomes a reality. I do not speak modestly or immodestly, I speak the simple truth. I have a gift, and that gift is a great responsibility. I am suffering from it, because I am alone. I need a woman, a wife at my side to help me, if she can understand me."

He gazed at her intently. "From the way you have expressed yourself, I perceive you are an honest person, without false airs to impress someone. It is clear to me that you are educated beyond the normal minimum of a shtetl girl, yet you are traditional and pious. You are intelligent – and – and beautiful. If you are willing to consider such a shidduch, I am very willing."

And now he smiled. "From the tonality of your words, I think that it was very wise that Rabbi Yehoshua arranged it for us to discuss the matter first, before I go to your father. I rather think that you would make the final decision anyway."

("I shall never forget those words," Chaya Leya said sometime later. "I think I may have laughed – for the first time in three years!)

That Saturday night in the study of Rabbi Yehoshua, Chaya Leya said quietly, "I shall be pleased and honored to consider becoming your bride. If you can remain one more day with us, I shall be pleased to invite you to call upon us for tea tomorrow afternoon – after I have spoken with my father and my mother."

"So be it," smiled Rabbi Drobles. "I have not forgotten the matter of the curse. But I prefer leaving that until a bit later. I do not think a delay in erasing it will cause further harm. A good week to you, Chaya Leya. You have made me very happy."

"A good week to you, my – Master."

On her way to the front door, Chaya Leya saw the Rebbitzin standing in the parlor. On impulse, Chaya Leya approached her and silently embraced her. Over her shoulder the Rebbitzin looked to the Rabbi sitting in the corner and lowered her eyelids to signify success.

Well, there isn't much more to tell. Chaya Leya visited the Drobleses in Trompetz on the very next Shabbos and the engagement was announced and the two towns rejoiced. There was one more matter to take care of, however, and it was taken care of soon after the announcement on one of Rabbi Drobles' more frequent visits to Rabbi Yehoshua.

"I was really scared," Chaya Leya said when she described the ceremony of annulling the curse. "They took me into the dark shul one night, only one candle burning on the Aron Kodesh. There was Yosef and Rabbi Yehoshua and Reb Baruch, the shammes sitting in front of it. They placed a chair for me facing them and the candle.

"Yosef said to me: 'Chaya Leya, daughter of Reb Shulem, of the family of Greenboim – do you accept the three of us as your tribunal?"

"I nodded.

"'You must speak,' he said.

"I said, 'Yes, I do.'

"'Do you now repent of the curse you pronounced on the head of Mirele-Rochel daughter of Reb Melech, may he rest in peace?'

"'Yes,' I said. I think I shouted it.

"Reb Baruch, the shames, climbed the steps to the doors of the Aron Kodesh and pulled the curtain aside and opened the doors. Spots of light were reflected from the silver on the Torah scrolls.

"Then they each donned a tallis and pulled it over their heads to hide themselves completely, and together they chanted: 'With the consent of God and His angels, with the consent of the Torah, with the consent of the Heavenly Court and with the consent of this earthly tribunal, we, a beis din of halachic sanction and spiritual power, declare this curse, and all consequences of this curse, to be null and void, and like unto a clay vessel that has been shattered.'

"'Repeat the words after me,' Yosef's voice said to me from the depths of his tallis: 'Null and void … like unto a clay vessel that has been shattered….'

"Then they rolled their talleisim back and Yosef said to me: 'That is not all, Chaya Leya. It is not enough for a beis din to declare that the curse is ended. You, yourself, must show repentance and the breaking of the curse. You must go to Mirele-Rochel daughter of Reb Melech of blessed memory and beg her forgiveness and invite her to your wedding."

Chaya Leya chose the hour when Froike was in shul for mincha and maariv. She knocked on the door of the Thaler house. Mirele answered the door, and stood in shock.

"Chaya Leya!"

"May I come in, Mirele?"

Terribly flustered, Mirele said, "Of course."

Mirele tucked a wisp of hair back under her kerchief, wiped her hands on her apron, offered Chaya Leya a seat and tea. She refused the tea and they both sat across from one another at the table.

Mirele sputtered, "First, let me wish you mazel tov, Chaya Leya. Your chosen is the greatest catch in all Poland. I hope you will be very happy."

"Thank you," murmured Chaya Leya. Then she burst out, "Mirele, I have something to say. Would you mind if I stood up to say it? It has to do with the last time I said something to you, and you were sitting and I was standing."

She took a deep, deep breath. "Mirele, I am deeply, sincerely, totally sorry that I – I said what I said to you on the night of your wedding. I beg you to forgive me." She bent to take Mirele's hands in hers. "Please forgive me, Mirele and I pray that it will be forgotten." And before Mirele could think of what to say, Chaya Leya cried, "And you must come to my wedding. Say yes! I shall be the happiest bride if you say yes!"

Mirele stood up too and fell on Chaya Leya's neck. "Oh, I forgive you, I forgive you, I forgive you! I am so happy, I am overjoyed that the spell is broken. And of course I shall come to your wedding. Make it soon, before I become too heavy to dance. There's nothing yet," she laughingly added, "but now I am sure there will be!"

When Froike came home, he was astonished to see the two women sitting at the table, crying and chattering away. They had three years to make up. His dinner was late, but he didn't mind a bit.

So Chaya Leya was married and went to live in Trompetz. She was a great success as a rebbitzin of a Cabbalist rabbi. She certainly was not of the old type of rebbitzin, but her husband was not of the old type of rabbi.

You know, the Master of the Universe takes His time to make His plans clear, but when He moves, you realize it. Less than a year after the wedding, Chaya Leya gave birth to a girl. And wouldn't you know? Mirele gave birth to a boy in the same week. Already the women of the two towns were planning the shidduch between them.

Copyright © Dan Vogel