7. Abraham (Grigory) Plannck

7. Abraham (Grigory) Plannck

Tonight Abraham (Grigory) Plannck married Dvora Tuffleman.

I suppose this bald sentence is commonplace to you, whoever may read this.

I'm sitting here at my kitchen table after midnight, one lamp lighting my paper and pen. I am surrounded by the silence of the town of Holoscheitz asleep. My husband, Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi of Holoscheitz, is also asleep after his final glass of tea. The unusual guests have all departed.

I am driven by a desire to write out how the marriage of Abraham and Dvora came to pass. It is not an ordinary love story. It concerns one young man's perseverance not to a woman, which every love story entails, but to an idea. It concerns two other people who had to compromise with the power of their heritage and their pride.

I do not have the talent of the authors of the Russian and French novels I used to read in my youth; I cannot build up the experience into a universal vision. I must tell it plainly. Naturally, I know enough, though, to begin where all my novels began – at the beginning:

One morning a number of months ago, a young man appeared at the doorway to the beis medrash just as the men were putting away their prayer-shawls and tfillin. He didn't enter, but waited patiently. Next to my husband stood Reb Mordechai Thaler, Chairman of the Community Committee, a lumber factor who frequently travels around our district on matters of business. He studied the young man from under his eyebrows and then muttered to my husband, the Rabbi:

"I know that man, but I can't place him."

Rabbi Yehoshua glanced up, but the not unhandsome face meant nothing to him. The fellow was in the last half of his twenties, elegantly dressed – fashionable shoes, long light coat against the early spring-time cool, cravat to match, new-style soft hat. A large, expensive traveling bag lay at his feet.

Reb Mordechai said, "I'll go over and find out what he wants."

He walked to the doorway. "Good morning. You want something here?" Being a business man, Reb Mordechai is very direct.

"Good morning, sir. My name is Grigory Plannck, from Warsaw. I would like to speak to the Rabbi."

My husband told me later that he noticed that Reb Mordechai's eyes widened and he paled a bit. "Wait here a minute."

He came back to the Rabbi. "Now I remember him. He's Grigory Plannck, the youngest of Count Henryk Plannck's three or four sons, from Warsaw. The Planncks have family connections with old royalty, and have fingers in business, politics, Church – all over. He wants to talk to you."

Rabbi Yehoshua shrugged his shoulders a bit and said, "Why not? I'll speak with him," and walked over to the doorway where the young man stood patiently, a smile on his pleasant face.

Young Plannck looked down at a small piece of paper to read, "Rabbi Yehoshua Garfinkel?" He looked up. "My name is Grigory Plannck, from Warsaw. I've been recommended to you. I want to convert to Judaism."

A straightforward statement. You can imagine that my husband was stunned for a moment, then he told the young man: "You've come a long way for nothing. I do not undertake conversions. Go back to a Rabbi in Warsaw."

The smile remained fixed. "Oh, I've been there. I must explain, worthy Rabbiner" – (that's the formal title among the gentiles) – "that I have already consulted a Rabbi in Warsaw – and was rejected. I went to Cracow and was rejected there, same thing in Lemburg, but someone in Lemburg, a Samuel Fenster, suggested that I see you, so here I am. I assure you, Rabbiner, that I am serious."

Rabbi Yehoshua now became a little testy. "You are serious, but so am I. I do not undertake conversions! Shmuel Fenster doesn't know my thoughts on this matter."

Grigory Plannck's eyes clouded and his smile became a bit tighter. "Rabbiner, you are my last chance."

"Go to Berlin, Vienna, anywhere," the Rabbi told him. "Better yet, be satisfied with your fate that you have been born gentile. If God did not want you to be a Jew, don't fight it. In the countries of Christendom, it is an honor only amongst ourselves."

Plannck persisted, "I know that Jews discourage conversions, but if someone is serious – "

"Serious or not," Rabbi Yehoshua interrupted, quite annoyed now, "I-do-not-undertake-conversions!"

Plannck looked down at his shoes, his eyes were disappointed when he turned from the Rabbi, picked up his traveling bag and went away.

Rabbi Yehoshua reported to Reb Mordechai in a whisper. Our Chairman looked troubled. "The Planncks are nobody to play around with, Rabbi. I wonder what's behind this."

"Is it a new fashion among Warsaw youth to try out converting to Judaism?" Rabbi Yehoshua asked the worldly Mordechai Thaler. "An attack of Liberalism among the new generation in the city?"

"Haven't heard of it," muttered Reb Mordechai.

The weather turned nasty during the day. The spring-time glow gave way to invading clouds from the north, reminders that winter was not entirely over, and near sunset we were getting quite a nice storm. The Rabbi went out for evening prayers and came back soaked. Late that night, on his way to bed, the Rabbi glanced out of the front window to observe the rain. Lightning lit up the little river that the roadway in front of our house had become.

Suddenly I heard the Rabbi call to me. I got out of bed and joined him at the window.

"Wait for the next flash of lightning and tell me what you see across the road," he said to me.

Three or four flashes sliced through the darkness and I saw a figure just standing there – hands in pockets of his long coat, head bowed against the rain, a small waterfall actually streaming off the front of his hat.

"That's Grigory Plannck, the young fool!" said my husband.

I know he didn't sleep restfully that night. When he left the house early the next morning to go to the beis medrash, the rain had petered down to a soaking drizzle. And there was Grigory Plannck, still standing across the road, facing our doorway. Their eyes met, and Plannck turned to walk away.

You can imagine that Rabbi Yehoshua's mind was somewhat upset.

He didn't see the young man the whole of that day.

The weather returned to rain, not as strong as the night before, but strong enough to stimulate people to hurry about their business and get home to a dry corner. But that night again, in the dim glow of rain and racing clouds, we saw Grigory Plannck standing cross the road in identical posture – patient, hands in pockets of his coat, head bowed, hat being ruined.

And again in the morning, the meeting of the eyes and Plannck's walking away. I don't think that my husband had his normal devout concentration on his prayers that morning.

The rain did not let up, and, on this third day, in addition to fretfulness about the weather, we had a fearfulness about what we would see that night. As you may have guessed, Grigory was there again.

It may have been impatience with the weather that led me to interfere. "How long will you allow this to go on, Yehoshua? You must do something!"

"Nothing!" he retorted in a tone that I believe I had never heard from him before.

But the next morning he beckoned Plannck to come into the house.

"Are you insane?" the Rabbi attacked him without even a "Good morning."

"No," smiled the young man, "persistent."

A pool was literally forming around his soaked shoes.

Rabbi Yehoshua raised his arms in impotence and let them drop. "I cannot have your illness or even death on my hands. To have a Plannck suffer and die in Holoscheitz – my community will themselves suffer for it."

The young man only smiled, said nothing.

The Rabbi asked, "Where do you stay during the day?"

"I have an arrangement with your wagoneer. I rented a corner in his stable. It is isolated and dry. I hang up my wet clothes and change my outfit." He added, "I must admit I am running out of dry clothes."

"Listen," the Rabbi said to him, "do you know what trouble will descend upon me and my community if it gets out that you have come here to be converted? We live under a cloud of fear of governmental decrees and peasant outrages as it is. This may cause bloodshed!"

The smile left Grigory's lips. "Maybe so," he replied with utter seriousness, "but from what I have read of your history in this part of the world, my conversion will not cause a pogrom, nor create hatred of the Jews in the heart of a single official or peasant – it's there already! My becoming a Jew may, I admit, merely hasten the inevitable."

Rabbi Yehoshua gazed at him. The boy was unfortunately too right. "Come to see me here at 10 o'clock."

Grigory came, and sat with the Rabbi for two hours. When he left I noticed that he was carrying several volumes with him, at least two were a history of the Jews and The Kuzari in German. Frankly, I didn't remember that Yehoshua had kept my old books together with his sacred books in the study.

Two weeks passed, and Grigory came faithfully to sit with the Rabbi. Still unreconciled to converting Grigory, Rabbi Yehoshua growled, "He has a good head and a sympathetic nature. Unfortunate. I cannot use incapacity as an excuse to chase him away."

I have to admit I was taken with the young man, so I said, "Is it possible, Yehoshua, that you are trying to thwart God's plan?"

My husband glared at me. Then his eyebrows contracted. "It is true that two of our most influential ancient sages, Shmarya and Abtalyon, were converts or descendants of converts."

I smiled. "Does that salve your hesitancy? It seems to me that if the Code of Law describes what must be done to convert a gentile, there must be a need for it. Go along with the Sages."

He smiled back. "Wise woman. Maybe a witch."

I may have smirked a bit, and returned to the kitchen.

Time and the sessions rolled on. Grigory showed more than intellectual interest. One Friday morning he invited himself into my kitchen. "I've never seen an uncooked chicken in my life," he said to me. "How can I know even what questions to ask about its kashrus?"

"You'll leave it to your wife," I rejoined, "but come in anyway."

So we inspected the chicken I was preparing for Shabbos and I let him nose in the cabinets to see how I separated dishes and utensils – for meat, for dairy, and for neither.

I took the opportunity to broach a subject that was troubling me. "Does your family agree to your conversion?"

He went back to probing the wing of the chicken to avoid my eyes. Then he said, "I didn't tell them. I simply disappeared. I left a note telling them not to worry. Only last week, when I felt sure, when I felt that Rabbi Yehoshua was – less grudging, I sent off a letter explaining what I was doing and where I was."

"I feel for your father and mother," I said to him, to which he didn't answer.

I wasn't present at the first reaction to Grigory's letter. My husband told me about it the night it happened.

¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯

This is the way my husband related it afterwards:

This stranger walked into the beis medrash while I was learning with the men between afternoon and evening prayers. Quietly he sat down and joined them.

It was clear that he understood the learning. He even asked a quiet question in Yiddish. After the evening prayer, I found myself alone with the stranger.

"A moment, Rabbi Garfinkel, if you don't mind," he said to me.

I was surprised he knew my name, for I never had seen him before. "Are you a guest in town?" I asked him. "Do you have a place to eat and sleep?"

"No need," he said. "My carriage is waiting for me outside." He looked at me keenly and told me, "My name is Albert Christiani. In my former life I was known as Aharon ben Moshe Halbhandt."

"A mishumid!" I cried.

"As you say, a mishumid. What is more appropriate than to send a convert from the Jews to talk to you about a convert from the Christians?" he inquired. "I make my living now by performing discreet missions on behalf of my new powerful patrons."

"What do you want with me?" I asked.

"Count Henryk Plannck wants his son back, and he has hired me to come and talk with you."

"Don't talk with me. Talk to Grigory. You convince him! After all," I sneered, "you know about both faiths. Talk to him about changing beliefs!"

"Faiths! Beliefs! Pah! Pretty words. I'm talking about survival!" he retorted.

"What do you mean?"

He said, "Listen, I was born in Prebeshiya. We had our share of peasant outrages when I was growing up. I'll tell you a secret: I have one Polish corpse to my credit. The Christians care only about wiping out the Jews. This generation, next generation. It will come. Who needs it? I decided only to join the winning side. But I won't talk to the boy, his head is filled with philosophy and romantic notions. I am instructed to tell you to stop teaching him, to cast him out, to deny him access to the Jews. Plannck wants him home in three days!

"Count Henryk," he went on, "is making no threats, but he cannot be responsible for the consequences when the Christian world of Poland finds out that a Plannck has run off to the Jews. The word, worthy Rabbi, will fly from bishop to priest, from priest to peasant. In a sense, Rabbi Garfinkel, I am trying to help my former co-religionists to survive a little while longer." And he grinned.

I was repelled by his self-confidence, his lack of shame, his self-assurance. I barked at him, "Now you listen to me! Oh, I will report your visit to Grigory, but the decision will be his. I have my duties as a Rabbi to perform, the rest is up to God. But let me tell you what this young man said to me when I tried the same argument on him about the consequences of his actions: He said, Christians will rise up against Jews now and again no matter what he does or does not do. Perhaps it will hasten the event. But that's all. You seem to subscribe to that theory as well. So don't dally here. Hurry back to your haven with the Gentiles!"

He showed no resentment at my words. Apparently, he expected nothing else from me. He wagged his head. "Then I must report my failure to Count Henryk. I admire your courage, Rabbi, but I am convinced once more of Jewish futility. Goodbye and good luck."

And he strode out.

¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ ¯

And then one day, while my husband had shut himself into his study and I was in my kitchen, I heard a loud clatter of hoofs stop in front of our door. I looked out the window and saw four matched dappled horses come to rest. Two men sat atop the coach behind, one jumped down to open the door of the coach on which was emblazoned with some kind of heraldic symbol. First came out a gentlemen of middle years and middle height, richly dressed, carrying a walking stick that had, to my eyes, a golden knob on top. After him, he helped down his lady dressed in an outfit that was just on this side of gaudy. The gentleman knocked on our door peremptorily with the head of his stick.

I removed my apron and opened the door. "Yes?"

"Is this the home of Rabbiner Yeho-shu-a Garfinkel?"

His tone was such that I fearfully peered behind him expecting to see police.

"Yes, it is. Who…."

Gruffly he interrupted me. "I am Count Henryk Plannck. I demand to see the Rabbiner."

"Of course," I said evenly, but I had to control my annoyance. He needed only to ask. I stepped aside. He preceded his wife inside. I led them to the study door. "Wait here a moment." If he could talk the way he did, I didn't have to say, "Please." Childish? Maybe. But we are all human.

I entered the study. Yehoshua looked up at me. "The Count and Countess are here to see you," I announced.

He didn't seem surprised. "Naturally," he said. "Bring them in."

So I led them in and took my accustomed seat near the door. The Count strode forward, holding his walking stick in front of him almost like an official mace.

"Sir," he bellowed, "I am Count Henryk Plannck of Warsaw. I have come to see my son! I intend to remove him from your clutches! Do not deny me! I have powerful friends in…."

Rabbi Yehoshua inserted a bit of steel into the tone of his voice. "I have no intention to stop you from seeing him, and, in fact, I wish you would take him home with you!"

The Count must have been rehearsing his opening speech all the way from Warsaw, for he continued on until the Rabbi's words penetrated. "– high places in government and police and…." Finally, he paused. He looked keenly at Rabbi Yehoshua. "You do not object? I was told that you hide them away and do not allow anyone else – especially not family – to speak with them."

"You have been misinformed," the Rabbi said, with a bite in his tone. "That is not our way, Count Plannck." He was too much of a diplomat to tell him that hiding the prospective convert was a practice of the Church, not of the Jews. "Your son came to me of his own mind, and persisted over my objections. We are not interested in converts. They are only trouble for us. You see? Here you are, threatening all sorts of dire actions against us. Who needs it?"

The Count looked bewildered. It took him a moment to shift ground. "May I see him now? Is he in this house?"

"No," answered my husband. "At present, he decided he wants to live in a corner of a stable."

A little gasping cry escaped the lips of the distressed countess. "Grigory … in a stable … Oh, Henryk!"

The Count turned human at this. "Grigory is our youngest," he explained as if that said it all. "I – we – would like to see him."

"Of course," said the rabbi. "I am sorry you are distressed, but believe me, he is well." He reached for his hat and coat. "You come, too, please," he said to me.

There is no way that a beautiful coach, with a device on its doors and matched horses will go unobserved in Holoscheitz. A few of our Jews tried to look unconcerned as they stood around the front of our house. We said nothing to them, crossed the roadway, walked along the semi-circular pathway behind the market, and came to Yankel the Draymen's stable door. It was a fairly substantial structure – after all, the horse Yankel housed in it was the source of his daily bread and Shabbos wine. The barn actually was an addition to his little house.

The Rabbi pulled the door open. There were no horse or wagon in the stable at the moment, but the inside smelled quite horsey. Off in a corner, under a high window, reclined Grigory Plannck on a bale of hay, reading. He was in relaxed dress – no cravat or jacket.

He looked over to us. Surprise suffused his face. "Father! Mama!"

He jumped up and pulled his jacket on. We observed that he had appropriated some pegs for his clothes, stretched a length of cord for laundry, and that on another bale was stretched a sheet and folded blankets.

Grigory tried to introduce jocularity into his next words. "Welcome! I'm afraid that I do not have the amenities of furnishings that befit you, but that bale of hay is both strong and soft. Please sit down."

His father muttered, ice dripping from his voice: "No, thank you very much. We won't be staying long." Count Plannck glanced over to Rabbi Yehoshua and me.

I knew it was a signal. I tugged at my husband's coat. "We'll wait outside," I said.

We left them to themselves, but as we walked away the rabbi said to me, "I'm sorry, Gita, if I am about to do something unforgivable in ordinary circumstances. But these are not ordinary, I want to hear what they say to each other."

So, around the side of the barn, we stood at the crack that joined it to the house, and we could hear quite well.

The Count spoke first, of course. "All right, Grigory. Another of your mad adventures has come to an end. Pack your bag and let us go home! The family will never mention this foolishness again!"

"No, Father, not this time."

"No son of mine will become a Jew! Our family have been good Orthodox Catholics for a thousand years…."

"Father, don't try to impose the family tradition on me. I respect your desire to remain Christian; please respect my desire to become a Jew."

"What the devil is there about the religion of Christ-killers that has seduced you?"

I could almost hear Grigory's sigh. "I will not argue history or theology with you, Father, there would be no end to it, except to say: History does not support the prejudice that they killed Christ, but that is really beside the point. The point is, I have studied their history and their beliefs. I have observed the way they live, to the extent that they permit an outsider like me to do so. Not everything makes sense, but there's a lot in Christianity that strains Reason, too. Simply, Father, Mama, when I am among them, I feel I belong. Honestly, I never felt that way in the church."

Now his mother spoke. "But you live in a stable…. It is filthy, smelly, and you've been brought up to value decent living. Is it required that you live this way?"

Grigory laughed. "Certainly not. I did not dare to rent a room in a Christian peasant's house since my intention is to become a Jew; I did not feel right living with Jews until I become one. And remember, Mama, Jesus was born – born Jewish! – in a stable." He meant the levity to diffuse the heaviness of the confrontation.

His father broke in. "Enough of this palaver! Come home now, or, Grigory, my house will always be closed to you and you will receive not one gruschen from my estate! You will be cut off from your family and your friends – and your people! Your name will never pass our lips! You will be cursed!"

At this Grigory's mother wailed, "Henryk … Be patient … Grigory was always strong-headed, but with time and patience he always came round."

"Mama, do not be overmuch concerned," Grigory said in a harder voice. "In a way, Father is making it easier for me. Now I shall have nothing to look back. I'm afraid this is a final goodbye. Mama, may I kiss you?" We heard a slight movement. "Father, may I shake your hand?"

"I do not shake hands with renegades and traitors!" barked the Count. "Come, Maria. Back to Warsaw. There is nothing for us here. We have lost a son! So be it! I am disgusted!"

The tramp of their footsteps headed directly to their coach and in only a few minutes we heard the clatter of hoofs. There were no goodbyes to us. I wanted to go into the barn, say a few words to Grigory, who probably felt so alone, but my husband kept me back.

"No," he said, "this is the test – parental love, family, honor among his own kind, a future, all can still be an alternative for him. Let him consider, alone, with their words still in his ears. We'll see how serious he really is."

Grigory continued his studies with Rabbi Yehoshua. He never referred to the last meeting with his father and mother. The touch of a new sadness in his eyes may have been in reality my own sentimental imagination seeing things that were not.

He had come far enough along toward the rocky goal of becoming a Jew that Holoscheitz accepted him as a fixture. In fact, when he requested to be apprenticed to learn a trade, he was apprenticed to Reb Beryl Tuffleman, our town candle-maker. It so happened that the candle-maker in the shtetl where Reb Beryl learned his trade died, and Beryl inherited his customers, and needed help. The conjunction of events caused a comment to me from my husband:

"It seems like fate that these events have come together." Then he looked at me queerly: "Maybe, Gita, you are a witch. You felt that this was destiny months ago."

What does a woman do upon hearing such remarks? I smiled enigmatically.

On a day when Yehoshua was in the beis medrash and Grigory was in Beryl's candle shop, came a knock on the door. I was amazed to see Count Henryk Plannck on the doorstep. Alone. Dressed in an ordinary business suit. In his hand was a plain walking stick.

I had heard no horse and carriage. He said, "I came by train. At the station I hired a coach and a driver who knew the back way into town. May I come in?"

"Certainly," I said and we entered the study. "My husband is not home," I told him, "but he is expected any minute." Being alone in a house with a man not her husband is not the halachic thing to do, so I made certain that I moved a chair to a window so that I would be seen from the outside. I waved the Count to another chair, and waited for him to speak.

His hands were clasped in his lap, and he seemed to be studying every pore. Finally: "I just had to come back." He looked up at me with damp eyes. "A light has gone out in my house," he said. "I love him. He's difficult, always was. But he has life about him, a – a joy. The French have a word for it: joie de vivre, and it's – gone. I said some terrible final things, last time, and I have wept over them since. And yet I cannot bring myself to retract."

I studied him for a moment. I have no love for the Polish gentry, God knows, but for this torn man I felt a twinge of sympathy. After all, through no decision of his own, he was born into arrogance, an aristocratic family that expected immediate obedience and taught its children the necessity of being haughty. And now his own son was rebelling against him – not only against him, but against his whole secure and superior world. It was so hard for so haughty a man to admit his weakness to a stranger – and a Jew – like me.

I was glad that I heard Yehoshua coming in. I excused myself to go to him. The Count needed the few minutes alone to restore himself. I reported to Yehoshua, practically word for word. "Be careful of what you say to him, Yehoshua," I concluded. "You must be a Rabbi to this Christian."

When the Rabbi came into the study, the Count actually stood up. Rabbi Yehoshua strode over to him and offered his hand and the Count grasped it. He said, "I have business dealings with Samuel Fenster in Lemburg. I confided in him. He vouched for you. He said you were a very wise man."

The Rabbi replied, "I will leave that to others to decide. I know my limitations. Why have you come, sir?"

"Honestly, I don't really know. I just felt I needed to come to find out how Grigory is."

"He is fine. He is near the end of the period of study. Soon he will be tested. Grigory wanted to learn a trade, so he is learning how to make candles. For us that is a very necessary and honorable trade."

The Count's lips may have moved a millimeter in a smile. "For us, too. Our church loves candles." Then, after a pause, "I suppose that I came as a last attempt to persuade you to break off this – this conversion. I – I cannot reconcile myself to it. Grigory wrote that you are not anxious for him to continue – perhaps you can find a way to stop it."

Rabbi Yehoshua shook his head. "Believe me, I have tried. But you have reared a headstrong – and intelligent – young man. As I said, he is almost at the point where he is ready to be examined by three rabbis and undergo the ritual of final acceptance into the Jewish people."

The Count said quietly, "So he has persisted." He looked terribly unhappy.

I chimed in, "Your son is happy, Count Plannck. And I am sure that, as a loving parent, you can be happy because he is. It may not be in the way you had hoped for him, but he is fulfilling the dream that we parents all have for our children – he is content and at peace with himself and those he has chosen to be around him. Can you not find that as a balm?"

The Count sat silent for a full minute, the thumbs of his clasped hands crossing and uncrossing each other. "I'm afraid I cannot. Do you think I should see Grigory?"

The Rabbi considered. "No, not yet. He will think that you have come on a last, desperate mission to persuade him to come home. It will only harden the disappointment he feels from your last visit to him. Let it ride. Perhaps there will be an occasion in the future when you will get together."

"My last visit to him," echoed Count Plannck sadly. "I spoke in anger and confusion. Can he not understand that?"

The Rabbi waved his hand. "One ought not take offense at words uttered in anger and confusion. But all of us do. I doubt that he can be reconciled. But I want to say this to you: Our view of conversion is that the convert is reborn. As far as religious practice is concerned, he is dealt with as if he had no ancestors. That is why, to give him some sort of ancestry, he is sometimes called Abraham the son of Abraham, the first Jew in the Bible. However, that does not release the convert from fulfilling the commandment of honoring one's physical father and mother, though they still retain the old faith from which he was converted! I promise you, sir, that when the time comes, I shall remind Grigory of that obligation, and see to it, as his religious teacher, that he fulfills it."

The Count simply stared at Rabbi Yehoshua. "I – I thank you for that. But I'm afraid it is not enough for me. I still feel a loss – a terrible loss." He looked around vaguely. "I think I should go now. I have what to say, at least, to Grigory's mother."

Just a short time after Count Plannck's visit, Rabbi Yehoshua organized Rabbi Drobles of Trompetz, Rabbi Cohen of Tedowicz, and Rabbi Himmelfarb of Czerno to examine Grigory. Of course, they found him knowledgeable of Judaism and worthy to be admitted to the people. The next step was circumcision, and to everyone's surprise, including Grigory's, it was found that he had already undergone circumcision, probably because of a babyhood infection. All Rabbi Cohen, the circumcisor, had to do was to draw a bit of blood as the physical sign that this male has joined the Covenant. Then the final stage of the process: immersion in the special ritual bath. My husband and Reb Baruch, the shammas, accompanied him as witnesses. He went into the water as Grigory, and came out Abraham son of Abraham, a new man. Everyone shortened his name to Avrum.

Meanwhile, young human nature being what it is, Avrum's presence in Reb Beryl's candle shop and sometimes in his house brought him and Beryl's daughter Dvora closer and closer. Dvora is a remarkable girl: it was she that ruled the family between the death of her mother, Reb Beryl's first wife, and his marriage to her step-mother. It was she who led her brothers and sisters to accept the new mother. But when Dvora and Avrum spoke to Beryl about an engagement, he refused to give his consent. His head was filled with the son of the butcher in Tedowicz, who was suggested by a marriage-broker.

Even Rabbi Yehoshua couldn't break through. "The Talmud says that in the place of a righteous convert not even a tzaddik, a saint, can stand. Is that what's worrying you?"

All Reb Beryl did was shrug his thin shoulders and say, "But she's promised."

Even I tried, with my speech about the happiness of a father who witnesses the happiness of his child. Unfortunately it didn't work with Count Henryk Plannck, and it did not work with Beryl Tuffleman.

Then, Dvora told me afterwards, she and her step-mother conspired, and one evening, when all was quiet in the house, Dvora brought up the subject again. Reb Beryl responded reasonably, "But I agreed with Reb Yekl, the shadchan, that you are promised to the son of the Tedowicz butcher."

Here his wife stepped in. I couldn't believe that that sickly girl who became his second wife could speak up the way she did. "Beryl, you and I and the whole world knows that what a marriage-broker tells you is fifty per cent gilded truth. This Yekl told you the fellow is thirty-five, you can depend on it he's forty-five. He told you that he works in his father's butcher shop and will inherit an excellent business. So how much does he earn now and what if the father lives for another twenty-five years, he should live to a hundred and twenty? You want your Dvora to beg for a new pair of shoes meanwhile? Yekl said he's a pious, learned fellow. Nu, was he ever examined by three rabbis with questions all the way from the Creation of the World to yesterday's decision by the Rabbi? Like Avrum was? And what do you really know about this Tedowicz bocher? How do you know he will not beat Dvora once every day and twice on Shabbos?"

"But…." tried Beryl.

"Don't give me 'buts' until I'm finished, then you'll give all the 'buts' you want. Now look at Avrum: how many months is he working with you? Doesn't he show himself to be a good man, a good worker, religious, steady, smart? Didn't he save you a pile of money by suggesting you change the wick threads? Tell me, tell Dvora here, what more do you want?"

Beryl blinked his eyes, shrugged his shoulders, and said, "I'll think about it," to which the two women nodded to each other, for experience had taught them that Reb Beryl's "I'll think about it" meant "Yes."

So plans for the wedding began. Yekl the Shadchan, not a bad man, who thought that his profession was meant to bring happiness to two strangers, accepted Beryl's withdrawal of his promise gracefully. He knew that the son of a butcher was a saleable commodity anytime.

It was decided that, since the nice weather was upon us that the wedding would take place at sunset in the market place. All the stall keepers would put something on their stalls – cooked fish, cakes, cookies, wine – as a sign of their acceptance of Avrum and their happiness for Dvora.

As was his custom, Rabbi Yehoshua called in Avrum for pre-marital instruction in the parts of the Code of our Law that dealt with married life. And I sat with Dvora in the kitchen and talked Rebbitzin to bride, and then wife to wife-to-be. She left with scarlet cheeks but glowing eyes.

When Avrum was about to leave, the Rabbi and I broached a topic that we had discussed between ourselves: "Do you intend to invite your father and mother to the wedding?"

Avrum's lips hardened. "They won't come," he said.

The Rabbi retorted, "That's not your decision, Avrum. Your decision is whether to invite them or not. Remember, they are your father and mother and deserve respect and honor."

"They won't feel comfortable with my Jewish friends," said Avrum.

That was my cue. "I'll tell you what, Avrum: Along with your invitation, I will send my own – to come to this house and observe the wedding from the window. The marketplace can be seen if you look at a sharp angle. Afterwards, you and Dvora will come here to greet them."

After a moment of silence – I don't think he was considering Yes or No; I think he was getting his emotions and voice under control – he said, "If you think that is the proper thing to do, then it should be done." I believe there were tears in his eyes when he left us.

And so it came to pass. We sent the two invitations (mine discreetly worded so that if they did not feel that they would be comfortable at the wedding itself, they could "attend" it from the Rabbi's house). No reply was received. Meanwhile, the Rabbi saw to it that the marriage canopy was situated where it could be seen from our window and the space in front of it was to remain clear for dancing.

On the night of the wedding, the groom, who dressed in our house, and the Rabbi went off to sit with Dvora's father and work out the Marriage Contract, as custom demanded. Then the hoped-for knock on the door came. I admitted Count Plannck and his wife. They had come from Warsaw by plain hired coach.

"We didn't write," the Countess explained, "because we were afraid that the postman would talk. Warsaw is a big city, but my husband is a very prominent man. How would it look if he wrote to a rabbi in an out-of-the-way town?"

(This sounded like any-excuse-is-better-than-none. I rather think the Count didn't make up his mind until the last day.)

I set them up at the window with wine and cakes and off I went to the wedding. It was a joyous affair. The Rabbi danced with the bride, he holding one end of a handkerchief and Dvora the other; I with Avrum the same way; and the bride and groom, too. Tuvia Nisselrod delivered the long comic rhymes about married life, the groom and the bride, and her parents – but not a word about Avrum's past. Avrum was too busy all evening to think about his parents.

It must have been close to midnight when Rabbi Yehoshua, Dvora, Avrum, and I returned to our house.

He saw the Count and the Countess waiting for him. "You came!" was all he said and fell into his father's arms and then his mother's embrace.

"This is Dvora, my bride, my wife," he announced to them and the happiness and pride shone in his simple words.

Of course there was a bit of strain at the acknowledgements. Then the babbling began, like in any family. All in Polish. Mainly between the Countess and Grigory. Dvora understood most of it but gave up trying to join in.

My husband found himself in a corner with the Count. "Well, you have fulfilled your promise, Rabbiner. But I still have the feeling – perhaps, irrationally, but strongly, nevertheless – that you are an accomplice in the theft of my son from my house. Maybe I am looking for a scapegoat, because if I believed that I am at fault, I shall not be able to live with myself."

"Count Plannck," my husband said to him, "my religion teaches that a father is responsible for his son's actions only until a certain young age. Then he is burdened with his own decisions."

"Burdened with his own decisions," the Count reflected. "I only hope that the burden will not be death by the sword of some drunken gentile peasant. That would be an irony!"

They rejoined us.

"Grigory – you will always be Grigory to me – I will never be able to welcome you in our home in Warsaw, and I do not see myself visiting you in some Jewish town somewhere. There are some things that are irreconcilable and unthinkable. I cannot leave you anything in my will – I have the responsibility of not perpetuating this stigma on our family – I must speak frankly, Rabbiner – in an official document.

"Nevertheless, you told me now you soon will leave Holoscheitz to open your own candle shop in another Jewish town, so I will send you a sum of money that will help you establish yourself in your business."

"Thank you, father, but allow me to refuse. I've started a totally new life and…."

Dvora interrupted in Yiddish. "But Avrum, why do you wish to deprive your father of the satisfaction of giving his son a present to start him off on married life? And we can use the money!"

Avrum burst into laughter and he translated for his parents. Even the Count smiled, the first one I ever saw on his face. "Thank heaven you married someone of this world, your head is in the next one."

They didn't stay long after that. The Count and his wife were going as far as a hotel in Lemburg tonight, and would continue on to Warsaw tomorrow. There was a decorated room waiting for Dvora and Avrum in the Tuffleman house, and Dvora's cheeks were scarlet again as they left.

As for us, I served my husband his cup of tea in the kitchen.

I noticed that his eyes were downcast, but I know him well enough to wait until he is ready to share his thought. "Gita, if, God forbid, the Blood-Red Dawn does break over the heads of the Jews of Holoscheitz, I shall always wonder if I contributed to its cause."

I said, "I shall refer to the words of a wise man. The Rabbi must perform his duties, and be content that he has done so faithfully. The rest is up to God." What else could I say or do, except to reach across the table and grasp his hand.

From his tired smile he uttered one word: "Witch!" and he went off to bed.

I took a pen in hand and sat down at the lamp. I enjoyed reviewing these events. I am not at all sure whether I detected, even unconsciously, a destiny running through them, but that there was a destiny, undoubtedly divine, I am sure of. It is not far off to dawn, but I do not feel any more anxiety than usual that it will be a Blood-Red Dawn.

I wonder how Count Henryk Plannck and his Countess will respond when their Jewish grandchildren come along!

Copyright © Dan Vogel