4. A Chazzan for Yom Kippur

4. A Chazzan for Yom Kippur

There's a passage right near the beginning of Psalm 104, the Barchi Nafshi that we say on the first day of every month, that reminds me every time I say it of an incident that happened in my old town of Holoscheitz many years ago. The words go something like this:

"Thou art He Who covers His chambers in the waters; who makes clouds to be His chariots; Who walks upon the wings of wind; Thou art He Who makes the winds his messengers, flaming fires his servants."

This the Holoscheitz Jews believed down to their toenails. If anything unusual happened, they saw it as a divine message. They didn't exactly believe or disbelieve in demons from the Other Side – incubi, succubi and all that; they just didn't think about them. They believed fervently in "He Who" does all those wonderful things the psalm says.

Nevertheless, when something did happen, the Holoscheitz Jews broke into two parties, naturally (did Jews ever act otherwise?) – the optimists and the pessimists. Like when we woke up one Lag B'Omer, right in the middle of May to see a windstorm that even the oldest of us couldn't remember when such a thing happened before. Roofs of barns flew like playing cards above our heads and even the strongest trees bowed like slaves before the wind. To the pessimists it seemed like a message right out of Psalm 104. They insisted that it was a judgment on the parents and the rebbes in the cheder because the wind kept the kids at home instead of playing "Jews against the Romans" in the woods on Lag B'Omer. The optimists said that it was a blessing, for the wind cleared away all the old leaves and dried weeds and garbage from the marketplace after a snowy winter and a rainy spring.

Or when a fire broke out in Pinye's bakery ten days before Pesach. After we all pitched in to control it, the pessimists were reminded of the "flaming fires that are His servants." "We'll all have to go to Trompetz to buy matzas," they wailed, "and we'll have to pay twice as much. It's a judgment on us!"

"What are you talking about?" retorted the optimists. "Don't you see that the fire has helped to kasher Pinye's bakery for Pessach? All we have to do now is to wash it clean." That time the optimists were right: there were plenty of matzas ready for the Seder.

So you can imagine what went on in town that year when "He Who makes clouds to be his chariots" sent a rain that started two days before Rosh Hashana and continued for six days! If it was a soft rain, we wouldn't have thought much about it. But it had periods of angry, spurting showers. And it didn't help that the streets of Holoscheitz were immediately turned into mud lakes. Each step spattered globs of mud up our trousers, while tiny streams of water squiggled down our back – not even our arba kanfos was a protection, it felt like they didn't absorb a drop. The wives were irritable, the daughters just slouched around the house, the little ones were impossible.

So, at the season of the year when the Heavenly Books are open to inscribe our fate for the New Year, how could you not wonder if maybe the rain really was sent by "He Who" is the manager of the elements to tell us something?

The optimists insisted that the rain was a harbinger of a good year – in the Bible, rain was always seen as a blessing. The pessimists said that it was like the angels weeping because they knew what dire things were being inscribed in our Book of Life. The truth is that they were both nearly right. Nearly, I said, as you will see if you stay long enough.

At the beginning, the position of the pessimists was much strengthened by what happened on the morning a few days after Rosh Hashana.

All of the worshippers had folded their tallesim and put away their tfillin and left the Shul, except for the Community Committee – Reb Mordechai Thaler, Chairman (of course, being the richest man in town) and First Gabbai, Aaron Levy, Second Gabbai, and Reb Baruch, the Shammas – and Rabbi Yehoshua. There were still some odds and ends to prepare for the awesome Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur.

They heard the rapid clomping of horses' hoofs and the creak of wagon wheels. Their heads snapped to alert. Bitter experience had taught them that these sounds so early in the morning meant that possible disaster would follow.

When they heard the door of the anteroom open, Reb Baruch went to see what the emergency was. The others sat very still and waited. Reb Baruch stuck his head back in and whispered, "Rabbi, please come."

Rabbi Yehoshua rose from his seat and joined him in the anteroom. There stood a small woman wrapped in a soaked shawl, behind her loomed a gentile, obviously the wagon-driver who brought her, shaking off the rain like a great furry beast. The Rabbi recognized the woman as the wife of Reb Yossl, their Chazan for the High Holidays. He also recognized the bright, wet look of fear and desperation in her eyes. The woman was on the edge of hysteria.

"Rabbi," she said, her voice barely under control, "Rabbi," she said again, and now the dam broke: "Reb Yossl, my husband, your Chazan, is dying!"

I have to tell you that Reb Yossl Chanovsky was the Chazan in the Holoscheitz Shul on the High Holy Days for more years than any of us was willing to count. He lived in Preboyve, and stayed over the holidays with his wife in Aaron Levy's house. He was a blacksmith, but we all looked at his permanently stained hands as the snow-white hands of a saint. He was medium height, somewhat round, his face like two concentric circles: the cheeks and brow formed one circle, his short beard and sidelocks the other. We loved him. His voice was not particularly strong, but it was sweet and it reached the back of the Ladies Gallery, so it was fine. Someone called him the sweet singer of Holoscheitz, which pleased him no end.

To hear that Reb Yossle was dying! It was incredible! It was noticed, of course, that his hair turned gray in the last few years, and deep trenches had formed from his nose to the edges of his lips. But his voice hadn't changed. It still could move an angry God to pity!

Even Rabbi Yehoshua, who was known never to become excited, never to lose control, always to stare disaster calmly in its ravening maw, even Rabbi Yehoshua was shocked and chilled by the announcement.

"How? What?" he stammered. "On Rosh Hashana he was perfectly fine."

"Now he is dying, my Yossl!" she wailed.

Reb Mordechai and Reb Aaron crowded into the doorway of the anteroom. The Rabbi took the woman's elbow and seated her on the nearest bench. He had recovered his calmness. "Reb Baruch, please, a glass of tea for Mrs. Chanovsky. And the driver. Hurry." Baruch went to light the flame under the samovar that was always ready in the beis medrash for those who sat and learned. "What happened?" Rabbi Yehoshua asked the woman who now simply sat, hands in her lap, eyes overflowing streams of tears.

"We came home after Rosh Hashana," she said in a low voice, "and I saw that Yossle had a fever, so I put him to bed and made some soup. The next morning he began to cough. But such coughing! I prayed, 'No blood, Gottenyu, God of my mother, God of my father, no blood.' But the spit was dark. So in the afternoon, I ran for the doctor." She paused, and continued bitterly, "He came right away, I'll say that for him, but he took half the money that Yossl received from you for davening Rosh Hashana! He said that Yossl's lungs had fluid in them. He left medicines, that I have to give Yossl around the clock. The doctor said that either he will get better, or he won't, no use calling him again because he can't do anything more for him. This morning the coughing was worse. So I called a neighbor to sit with him and I came here to tell you – " now she ended her story with a rasping cry – "My Yossl won't be davening for you Yom Kippur. Maybe for no Yom Kippur ever again! Oh, Jews, friends, pray for him!"

Tea arrived and the woman began to sip at the glass. Unable to understand what was going on, the driver slurped his tea from the other glass.

At a sign from the Rabbi, the three men put their heads together a few steps away.

"A disaster!" whispered Reb Baruch. It was well known that between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, Baruch spoke only in whispers. That was because he davened the Shacharis service – three long hours – starting at six o'clock in the morning, when the air was still cool and damp from the dew – or this year from the rain. And right afterwards, he read the Torah. By the end of the reading, his voice sounded like a croak, and he spent the next eight days whispering, so that he would get his voice back strong enough to daven the morning service on Yom Kippur. "A disaster!" he repeated. "I wonder what it means." Baruch was one of the pessimists.

Reb Mordechai, neither pessimist nor optimist, but a hard-headed businessman, replied, "It means that we shall have to find a chazzan for Yom Kippur. That's what it means!"

The Rabbi murmured, "Reb Mordechai, I wish to suggest that we pay Mrs. Chanovsky the rest of Yossl's salary. After all, this is not a breach of contract; it is an Act of God."

The Chairman looked at Aaron Levy for a sign of agreement.

"I was about to suggest the same thing," Aaron Levy said.

"Fine, I agree" said Reb Mordechai and disappeared into the alcove of the beis medrash where the Committee kept its funds and the Pinkas Book of the community. In a moment he came out with some folded money in his hand. He approached the weeping woman and shoved the money into her hand.

"What is this?" she asked.

"The rest of Yossl's salary," he told her.

"But I just told you, he won't be davening on Yom Kippur. Who knows whether he will live until Yom Kippur? This is charity!" she cried, shoving it back.

"Charity!" retorted Reb Mordechai gruffly to hide his overflowing heart. "Who said anything about charity! It's an advance on next year's salary. A year from now, God willing, we'll straighten it out."

The woman couldn't speak her thanks. Rabbi Yehoshua took her by the hands. "Go home now. Yossl will need you. We shall pray for him. Do not worry on that score."

The woman stood up. "His mother's name is Freude. She had a middle name, but I've forgotten what it is. Will 'Freude' be enough?"

"Let us hope so," said the Rabbi and walked her to the door of the beis medrash, where her driver was waiting. "And tell Yossl not to worry. We'll find a chazzan for Yom Kippur."

When she had gone, the four men sat down to consult. But not a word was said yet. Then, Reb Mordechai looked at Reb Baruch. Before he could say anything, the Shammas whispered, "I know what you're thinking. I've never done Mussaf before. Four, five hours at least. I don't have the voice for it. You know that. How would it be if in the middle of the Avodah, just as I'm describing the ceremonies that the High Priest performed in the Temple of Jerusalem on Yom Kippur – the most dramatic moment of the whole Mussaf – my voice went dead. Simply dead! How would it be?"

Reb Baruch could over dramatize at times, but no one argued with him or urged him. They knew he was right. So total silence descended on the beis medrash again. Through the minds of Rabbi Yehoshua and the gabbaim flitted visions of faces and names of the worshippers among the men of Holoscheitz. At some, there was a pause accompanied by a silent "Maybe," a few rated an unspoken "Perhaps," but at the end all were judged with an almost out-loud "No."

"If we announce to our worshippers one word about this emergency," growled the Chairman, "we'll have fifty chazonim on our necks, every one ready to sound like Balaam's jackass. Whatever we do, we'll have to do it quietly."

"Then when we spring the surprise at Kol Nidre time that Reb Yossl, may he live and be well to 120, will not daven," added Aaron Levy, "the Rabbi might explain the situation to them."

The Rabbi, distracted, nodded.

Another silence. "I can't think of anything at the moment," said Thaler. "Maybe I'm too upset. Rabbi?"

Rabbi Yehoshua said, "Gentlemen, no matter what, the Kol Nidre will be chanted, the Shacharis and Mussaf will be recited, the Ne'ilah will be prayed – maybe without a beautiful voice and maybe without the traditional chants, yet they will, nevertheless, be said, somehow. But we still have two days. Let us hope that a good thought will strike us."

"We'll get together again this evening after Maariv. Maybe we'll get a good idea by then," Reb Mordechai said in dismissal.

Only Rabbi Yehoshua stayed longer in the Beis Medrash. After a moment, he recited by heart several chapters of the Psalms, those that we always say as entreaty for a sick person. Then he said the Prayer for the Ill, on behalf of the holy congregation of Holoscheitz, clearly intoning the name of "Yosef ben Freude." Then he added a few personal words on behalf of himself as a Rabbi of the children of Israel. Finally, with a sigh, he rose, left the Beis medrash and walked home in the rain.

As usual, he told his Rebbitzin everything.

"Why didn't you send for me?" she flared. "I would have gone back with her, the poor woman!" Already she had her head-scarf on and pulled her cape around her against the rain. "I'll have Yankele take me to her in his wagon. I'll be back sometime tonight." And she was gone.

After a brief moment marveling about his wife, Yehoshua went into the kitchen to make his own breakfast. Afterwards, he faced a lonely day, unable at the moment to cope with the problem of a chazzan for Yom Kippur.

I tell you, the fact that Rabbi Yehoshua didn't have a single idea in that wise head of his, is still frightening, even after so long a time since this whole incident happened. Up to then, it seemed that the pessimists were having their way, that the rain boded no good, though they had no knowledge of what happened to Reb Yossl. But now the optimists' chance was about to come. Naturally, nobody knew that at the time. "He Who" doesn't work that way. He doesn't make announcements or tell stories.

Well, maybe God did give a little sign. The next morning the sun shone, a late September sun, which in our region meant a fairly weak, not very warm sun. But it did shine. So Aaron Levy, who, you will remember, was a traveling peddler, told his wife that business was business, that he couldn't go out the two previous days, so he would have to go out today. She did succeed in making him promise that he would travel only in the neighborhood and be home for supper.

Thank God, it was worth going, he told himself on coming back into town that evening as his horse slowly raised each hoof from the clinging mud. He had sold some merchandise to several peasant wives, but more important, to the wife of the Town Clerk of Krasijanov, just as the Town Clerk walked in for lunch. He let the Town Clerk bargain him down to his normal profit-line, and thus made a friend of him. You never know when it will be a good thing to be the friend of a Town Clerk.

As usual, he steered his horse aside to the inn of Pyotr, he who had the best honey-mead in all of southern Poland. He stomped on the threshold to shake off some of the caked mud on his boots and went inside. The drinking-room was empty except for Pyotr who was chewing a chicken-leg with great concentration.

"Ah, Pan Levy," he muttered around the stripped bone. While chewing the meat, he tossed the bone to the floor, wiped his hands on his pants and went to draw the honey-mead for his steady customer.

Levy took a long sip of the cool liquid and all but smacked his lips. But he almost dropped the mug when he heard from the dining-room a rich voice, with a pleasant quaver to it sing out:

"Aley-y-nu l'sha-a-be'ach" in the traditional chant of the paragraph introducing the Avodah part of the Yom Kippur Musaf. It is at this part that the whole congregation of men fall down on their knees and faces in bowing low to the Lord. It's the only time of the year that we are permitted to prostrate ourselves. Whenever I think of that moment, even if it's in the middle of July and I'm sweating like a peasant, I feel chills.

Pyotr noticed Levy's astonishment. "A member of your tribe," he grinned. "Been here for two days, drinking slivovitz. You can tell."

The voice trailed off in a drunken disregard to finish what it started.

"K'va-koras roeh edro-o-o," sang out the voice, this time reaching the rafters with the hymn that describes the children of Israel as sheep passing before the Almighty Shepherd, Who is deciding on the future destiny of each, one after another. "Ma'avir tsono, ta-acha-as shivto." The last words were trilled in a rich, piercing-to-the-heart falsetto.

Levy approached the door to the dining room and slowly opened it to peer inside. There he saw, seated on a bench against the farthest wall, a bottle of slivovitz in front of him, mug in hand, several bottles on the floor, empty, Pinchas the Beggar. Pinchas's clothes were spattered with mud. His shapeless hat rested on the bench beside him, but a grimy yarmulke, once black, now a filthy gray, hung on the side of a grizzled head. Whatever beard and mustache he had were unkempt. His eyes were shut, and on his face a look of clear rapture.

The door creaked, the voice stopped abruptly, the eyes flew open.

A foolish grin formed on the beggar's lips. "Ah, Mr. Aaron Levy. Shalom. You found me, Pinchas the Beggar! Were you looking for me? I cannot imagine why you should be, but, nevertheless, were you looking for me?"

Before he answered, Levy finished his mead and gazed for a few seconds into the empty mug to control himself. He was angry, even though it wasn't any of his business what Pinchas the Beggar did with himself when he wasn't scrounging among the slop pails for tidbits to eat, or standing outside the Beis Medrash for handouts from the men. But it was one thing to drink in a goy's tavern like a gentleman. It is quite another thing, a shameful thing, to bring shame upon the Jews of the town by becoming drunk in a goy's tavern.

Levy closed the door behind him. He walked over to the table where Pinchas was seated. Deliberately, he took the bottle of slivovitz and turned it upside down and poured out what was left onto the floor.

Impassively, Pinchas watched the ritual. When Levy had placed the empty bottle before his eyes, the beggar murmured. "Bravo! A mighty gesture! A heroic gesture! But useless. I'll only order another one." And he grinned again.

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself, making yourself drunk before the goyim, acting like a clown, giving them the chance to laugh at us? Where is your pride?" hissed Aaron Levy.

Pinchas drew his eyebrows down into deep drunken thought about the words Aaron Levy had spoken. Then he beckoned to Levy to bend over to him, pushed his face up to Levy's ear. "I'll tell you a secret, my friend, my judge, my Jew-defender, Mr. Aaron Levy. One – " he put up the index finger of one hand – "the goyim laugh at us anyway; if I were to walk in here straight up like a – like a paragon of the Community of the Children of Israel, they would still laugh at us. Two – " two fingers pointed to the ceiling – "how should I – I, Pinchas the Beggar! the Beggar! Have pride to begin with? H'mmm?" he concluded triumphantly.

"Ach!" snorted Levy, flung open the door, dropped a few coins on the bar in front of a slyly smiling Pyotr, and strode out of the inn. A rendition of "Kol Nidre" accompanied him to his wagon. He flung himself into it and actually applied the whip instead of the reins to his innocent horse in his agitation.

The beggar's voice had just died with the distance when the idea hit him. He shook his head No, traveled a few more meters, stopped his horse, gave it a bit of more thought, again swung his head No, went on a bit more. "Why not?" he asked himself aloud, and pulled on the reins to turn the horse around. Once more back at Pyotr's tavern, he strode into the barroom, snapped at the startled Pyotr, "I'm taking him home," and barged into the dining room.

He slammed the Beggar's hat on his head, pushed a hand under his shoulder and dragged him up. "You are coming with me!"

With total indifference, inebriate foolishness spread on his face, Pinchas said, "You could have asked."

They lurched into the barroom. Levy barked at Pyotr, "Does he owe you anything?"

"Well –" began the innkeeper.

"Here!" said Levy, tight-lipped, and tossed a coin to him.

He pulled the unprotesting Pinchas to the wagon. The Beggar's legs were unsteady, and three times his foot slipped off the step to climb up the front bench. Finally, Levy leaned him against the wagon, climbed up and physically hauled the other man onto it. The beggar gave him neither cooperation nor resistance. Morosely, he slumped down as the wagon started off. Levy had to steer his horse with one hand and hold on to the beggar's coat with the other so he wouldn't fall off.

He decided to take a longer route into the town, one that would avoid the curiosity of those on the street or peering from windows. For what he had in mind, it would do no good for them to see how they were coming into town.

Finally, he stopped alongside the Rabbi's house on the side not easily seen from the street. There happened to be no windows on that side of the neighboring house, so that was a help. Again with his hand under his shoulder, Levy dragged the drunken Pinchas the Beggar around to the front door. He knocked, impatiently looking this way and that along the street. As far as he could tell, no one was looking at them. Finally, the Rebbitzin opened the door and Levy hustled his burden inside.

"What's this?" asked the astonished Rebbitzin.

"Let's get him seated somewhere, please," said Levy.

"In here, the Rabbi is in the Beis Medrash for minchah and maariv." The Rebbitzin led the way into the Rabbi's study and gestured to the sofa. "Drop him there."

"A proper choice of words, Rebbitzin," said Levy and did exactly that. "I'll go to the Beis Medrash now myself. I'll explain everything later." And he left.

The Rebbitzin regarded the beggar, hands on hips, disdainful pursing of the lips, angry gleam in her eye.

"Well, Pinchas? How could you let yourself go down into this terrible condition?"

The beggar gazed up at her, spread his hands upward in a sign of "No Defense," gave her a smile, cocked his head on his shoulder, and went to sleep. Shaking her head sadly, the Rebbitzin returned to her kitchen.

When Pinchas's eyes blinked open a couple of hours later, he knew where he was immediately. He hadn't been that drunk. He saw Rabbi Yehoshua at his desk, lamp burning, writing. The Rabbi didn't look up, until Pinchas coughed to let him know that he had come back into this world. But he didn't say anything.

"If I could – ah – wash my hands," said Pinchas, "I'll be on my way."

"The Rebbitzin will show you where," returned Rabbi Yehoshua, "but I will ask you to return here. There is something of great importance I must talk with you about."

The beggar left the study. In a while, he returned, somewhat more presentable. At least his clothes were straightened and the dirty gray yarmulke rested on the center of his head. Now one could see that the way he carried himself made him look like he was taller than middle height. His nose was long and narrow and his eyes and lips were sad. His beard would have added to the look of wise dignity on his face if it had been combed.

Behind him the Rebbitzin came with a tea tray. She closed the door, served the tea, and then sat in her usual corner near the door. The beggar sipped tea together with the Rabbi. Finally, both placed their cups on the desk, and Pinchas looked up at the Rabbi.

"I'm – I'm really sorry about this. It wasn't meant to be. For me, sad to say, this is the season of depression. Mr. Levy found me, and thought he was doing me a favor by bringing me here. If I've caused any inconvenience – ."

The Rabbi waved his hand.

The beggar went on, "One thing, Rabbi Yehoshua, please do not lecture me. I'm not ready for that."

Rabbi Yehoshua said, "I don't intend to lecture you. I said once before to you that I think you are a very educated man who has, for his own reasons, chosen this way of life. Even with periods of drunkenness. What can I lecture you about that you don't already know?

"Mr. Levy did not bring you here as a favor to you," the Rabbi went on. "We are faced with a severe problem and he thinks you can help."

The beggar's usual stoic look broke for a second. His brows rose with surprise. He waited.

"Our chazzan, Reb Yossl Chanovsky is ill – dangerously ill, I'm afraid. He cannot daven on Yom Kippur. Reb Aaron heard you singing in that – that tavern and thought that you could substitute."

The proposal was so astonishing that it took Pinchas the Beggar a full minute to absorb it. Then a guffaw burst through his lips. "Rabbi, if this were Purim, I would understand the idea and actually accept it. But for Yom Kippur – pardon me, - it's laughable."

"Why so?" asked the Rabbi mildly. "Tel me, have you ever served as a chazzan for the High Holy Days?"

The beggar replied, "I won't lie to you. Yes, I have, quite a number of times, in fact. But I'm a beggar. You don't really know about me. I don't – I don't have the necessary level of faith to stand as a messenger of your congregation before the Lord."

"It is not written that one must have an exalted position in the community to be a messenger of the congregation before the Lord. As for your level of faith … I see you sneak into the Shul every Shabbos."

"Habit," said the beggar.

"I see you daven …"

"Habit," repeated the beggar, a bit more forcefully.

"…though I will admit you daven with a look of pain on your face as if you were fighting the desire to do so. True, I do not know what you have suffered in your former life to turn you to the profession of beggary, but I suspect that all I could say, if I did know, is that others have suffered as much or more. Which would not take away your individual hurt. Does suffering disqualify one for being a chazzan on Yom Kippur?"

Pinchas hung his head then lifted it. "I don't believe as I did. I cannot sustain the faith I once had."

"Who of us," answered the Rabbi, "has been able to retain the pure faith and idealism of our youth? Life doesn't allow it. Even for Solomon the Wisest of Men. When he came to realize that, he wrote the Book of Koheles. It is not a crime to doubt. It is a crime to blaspheme. Have you cursed God?"

"No, but I have come close sometimes."

"I have never observed that you violated the Shabbos and I dare not, under the halacha, ask you to confess to private violations if any. So what level of faith are we talking about?"

In desperation, the beggar looked over to the Rebbitzin. "One thing I never doubted, Rebbitzin: that there was good reason that they call your husband Yehoshua the Wise. I appeal to you: how can the congregation accept a beggar for a chazzan?"

"Pinchas," the Rebbitzin replied with a steely note in her voice, "whether the congregation will accept you or not I leave to my husband, Rabbi Yehoshua the Wise, as you called him. But I would like to say this:

"When you came to this community five or six years ago, we accepted you for what you said you were. When you stood outside the Beis Medrash door, hand diffidently out to receive the gruschen that the men put into it, you were always treated with respect and dignity. No one sneered at you, no one judged you. We didn't consign you to the House for the Poor, because we felt there was something special about you. It was not a matter of falling on hard times. It seemed more a matter of a suffering heart, a need to escape from yourself for a while. You needed our community of Jews to hide yourself in maybe, so we served you as you needed to be served.

"Now the community needs you to serve it. How dare you refuse?"

After a silence that grew heavy in the steady light of the lamp, Pinchas the Beggar again raised his hands, palms up and spread out, in the gesture of "No defense."

(Later, Rabbi Yehoshua said to his Rebbitzin, "You know, he and I could have argued philosophy all night. It was your words that convinced him."

"Men!" was all the Rebbitzin exclaimed.)

When Reb Mordechai Thaler and Aaron Zvi Levy arrived later at the pre-appointed hour, the thing was settled.

"It's taking a chance. We all know Pinchas the Beggar looking into garbage pails and holding out a hand. Suddenly to see him standing at the chazan's stand, facing the Holy Ark…"

"Leave it to me," the Rabbi said.

Reb Aaron Levy only smiled.

With a smile of his own, Pinchas said to him, "I don't know whether I should curse you or bless you for this."

"Just pray for me," Reb Aaron Zvi answered.

And so on Kol Nidre night, there was the normal buzzing in Shul before the awesome prayer was said. The women were settling themselves in the Ladies Gallery. The men were donning their white robes and talleisim, the only night in the year that they worshipped wrapped in its holiness. Friends wished one another a good year with tearful fervor, enemies embraced. Rabbi Yehoshua stood facing the wall, whispering to himself the long petition entreating God for forgiveness and to see him as His worthy servant. Beside him sat a figure huddled in the shadow of his tallis.

The time had come. The Rabbi faced the congregation from his seat. He signaled the Shammas, Reb Baruch, to pound the lectern a few times for order. Silence descended on the crowd. Everyone sat. This was unique. Never before had Rabbi Yehoshua spoken before Kol Nidre.

"Fellow Jews, I regret that I must report to you that our chazzan, Reb Yossl Chanovsky, is very ill. Tomorrow, please God, we shall say a special prayer for the return of his good health. In his place, I have recommended to the Committee that they request Pinchas Brauner to be our Messenger, standing before God, praying on our behalf … and his." He waited for the shocked exclamations and buzzing to descend into silence. "Let us remember what we shall say in our prayer several times: that God waits until the very day of a transgressor's death, if need be, and He is ready even then to forgive him. The same is true of a King or a Rabbi as it is for a worker … or a beggar. Let us poor mortals be forgiving to our friends and neighbors, regardless of their acts, regardless of their station in life. We dare not be holier than God Himself.

"So let us begin."

The Ark was opened. The Rabbi led the procession carrying the Torah scrolls to the center platform where the chazzan awaited them, face set with seriousness, eyes closed with concentration, intoning the ages-old declaration:

"With the consent of the Almighty, with the consent of this congregation, by the authority of the Heavenly Tribunal, and the authority of the Earthy Tribunal, it is permissible to pray with those who have transgressed."

Then, surrounded by the Torah scrolls and the bowed heads of the Rabbi and the elders of Holoscheitz, Pinchas Brauner raised his head, faced God squarely, and declared, "Kol Nidre …."

It was said afterwards that Pinchas reached the rafters and beyond with a voice that was both pleading and accusing, begging for a decent future, but with an undertone of "You better do it if You know what's good for You." At one point Aaron Levy murmured to the Rabbi, "He's davening like Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev." Rabbi Yehoshua placed a finger on his slightly smiling lips. All in all, it was a most satisfying Yom Kippur. The Committee heard not one word of protest.

But early the next morning, Rabbi Yehoshua was greeted by a fluttering sheet of paper when he opened his door to go to the morning service. The writing was clearly that of an educated person, and it said:

Dear Rabbi Yehoshua the Wise,

Quite obviously, it is impossible for me to return to my profession as beggar in Holoscheitz, so this is a Goodbye note. I shall continue my wanderings that I interrupted five years ago to sojourn with you.

I want to tell you, though, that for 24 hours I recovered that deep faith which marks, as you said, the days of our youth. For that short time, I felt – how shall I say it – exalted. And I thank you for the experience.

But this is the morning after.

I hope that one day it shall return, and it may be that one day I shall return to Holoscheitz. Meanwhile, I wish you and your remarkable Rebbitzin, a Year of Inscribed Health and Satisfaction – indeed, many such years.

Pinchas the Beggar

We learned later that Pinchas had visited Reb Yossl and found him much improved. In fact, it was Reb Yossl who told us when he came to Holoscheitz one day to thank us for the "advance" on his next year's salary. I don't know if he will ever daven for us again – he still has a slight cough and wheezes somewhat. We'll worry about that next year.

Nu, so what do you say about the rain that fell on Rosh Hashana? A good omen or a bad one? On the one hand, it might have caused the pleurisy in Reb Yossl's chest, but on the other, it kept Aaron Zvi Levy at home until the destined moment when he would meet Pinchas the Beggar in a goy's tavern. And that rain may even possibly have saved a soul! Like everything else in life, I suppose, the rain was both good and bad, good for some people, bad for others.

By the way, He Who sees all and controls all and sends mysterious messages, gave us a nice steady downpour on the first night of Succos that year. So what's your opinion about that?

Copyright © Dan Vogel