All Who Go Do Not Return (5 page)

Chaim Elya, my source for all things Skver, explained it to me: “When you hold the towel,” he said, “the rebbe wipes his hands, and that’s it. The towel is still the rebbe’s. But with Psalms, it’s your Psalms. You make a note inside that the rebbe used it. You get to keep it for life.”

Other students, too, offered to exchange privileges, always making sure to emphasize that the rebbe couldn’t use my Psalms anyway, and so I’d best take what they offered or I would end up with nothing.

Suddenly, my indifference was gone. I had won the privilege fairly. I approached the dean, Reb Chezkel, to ask if my Psalms was good enough for the rebbe, and he waved his hand to dismiss the critics. “Your Psalms is fine. The rebbe won’t care.”

Still, some of the students would not let the matter rest. “You’re not even a Skverer Hasid,” one argued, “What does it matter to you?”

One student offered me ten dollars in exchange for the privilege, and for a moment I wondered whether I might capitalize on the affair, sell it to the highest bidder. I thought of the chocolate Danishes at the corner grocery store, the shelves of Yiddish books at the Judaica shop on Bedford Avenue, the hot dogs turning in the window of Landau’s delicatessen on Lee Avenue. But selling the Psalms privilege would be unseemly, an insult to the rebbe. Besides, now it all seemed like a pretty big deal. I was keeping my privilege.

I stood with the rest of the student body, lined up in the study hall waiting for the rebbe to appear. The door opened slowly from the outside.

“Shh, shh,” the crowd hushed.

An elderly man with a salt-and-pepper beard and bulbous nose, looking both morose and self-important, appeared, and it took me a moment to realize that he was not the rebbe but his attendant. He began brushing away imaginary specks of dirt on the floor with the tip of his shoe and shoving aside students whose elbows stuck too far into the cleared path. Several paces behind him came a stout man with a reddish beard gone slightly gray, his brow wrinkled, his wide-brimmed hat pulled low over his forehead, his eyebrows narrowed into an insistent scowl. This, evidently, was the great man himself: His Honorable Holiness, Our Master, Our Teacher, Our Rabbi, the Righteous Foundation of the World, the Rebbe of Skvyra, May He Live Many Good and Long Days.

He did not look like a rebbe. He did not look regal, he did not look scholarly, he did not look
rebbish.
His beard was not white, and not nearly long enough—fist-length, at most. He did not sport long flowing white sidelocks but small reddish ones, and he kept them tied in a small knot in front of his ears. I had always thought rebbes were supposed to have a languid air, eyes downward or lightly closed or rolled upward, otherworldy. But this rebbe’s eyes looked shrewd and present. When he walked, his head pointed forward, but his dark eyes, under thick, slanted eyebrows, shifted with alertness. He said not a word and made no unexpected gestures, and yet, his presence in the room was thick; I felt it in the utter silence, in the unblinking, staring eyes and the bated breath of all around me. The rebbe approached the special lectern prepared for him, then whipped his densely woven prayer shawl out of its cowhide pouch and flung it in one sweeping motion over his head and torso, sending a gentle breeze over our sweaty foreheads.

Prayer began moments later. We stood in a tight semicircle around the rebbe, whose face was obscured, only the bulk of his large, swaying body visible from behind. A handful of burly students were stationed in the front row, creating a force field of empty space around the rebbe while behind them the rest us elbowed for a better spot.

He who makes peace among the heavens, may He make peace among us.
The prayer leader called out the last verses of kaddish, and I readied myself with my little Psalms.

With the last chorus of “Amen,” I pushed my way through the tight semicircle and approached the rebbe. My hands trembled as I laid the book on the lectern and watched as the rebbe’s thick hands reached for it. From behind the folds of his tallis, his eyes met mine for a quick second, piercing me with their silent scrutiny. I took several steps backward and watched as he glanced at the volume, flipped the front cover, and read my gold-embossed name. For a moment I held my breath, waiting for the rebbe to turn and say that it was not the right kind. Instead, he glanced once again in my direction, and I saw a hint of a smile, as if an acknowledgment of my boldness in offering a volume so ordinary. I felt a flutter of victory.

It was all over very quickly. After prayers, the rebbe was led around the premises by Reb Chezkel as the student body surged several paces behind. As soon as the rebbe’s car left, taking off with its strobe lights flashing and siren shrieking to announce the rebbe’s departure to the Hasidim of Williamsburg, we took to analyzing each moment of the visit. Every step, every glance, every twitch of the rebbe’s eyebrow, had been carefully observed and scrutinized, and for the rest of the week, it was all the students talked about.

Inside the front cover of the little volume, following the guidance of my friend Chaim Elya, I wrote:
In this Book of Psalms, the Rebbe of Skvyra, may he live many long years, recited chapters 91 to 95 on Thursday, the 27th day of Cheshvan, 5748.

It wasn’t until my first visit to the village of New Square that I came to understand what really set the Skverers apart. The death anniversary of the rebbe’s grandfather, Reb Duvidel of Skvyra, was approaching, and the yeshiva organized an official trip to the sect’s headquarters. The rebbe would be leading a memorial tisch, a traditional communal meal.

I wasn’t eager to attend. Rebbes were still not on my mind much. In Borough Park, where I lived, there was no shortage of those who laid claim to the title. They all seemed indistinctive and uninspiring, caricatures of pietistic pretense, each with his gauzy white beard, glazed eyes under thick eyeglasses, blue or white floral caftans: the Munkatcher, the Bobover, the Stoliner, the Skulener, the Rachmastrivker; Hungarian and Polish, Romanian and Galician, even the occasional Lithuanian. On the rare occasion that I would attend one of their tischen, I would listen as they spoke, mumbling in odd singsong voices, always variations on the same themes, about Torah study and prayer and the Sabbath kugel and good Jews and bad non-Jews. There were songs, on occasion, as often as not uninspiring, tepid melodies sung half-heartedly and off-key by sparse crowds. Usually, I would attend only with friends, if it was a special occasion and there was the promise of entertainment—a Purim play in Munkatch, the menorah lighting in Rachmastrivka, dancing till dawn at Bobov on the seventh night of Passover, which was pleasant enough for about five minutes but surely not for five hours. For the most part, little of it held my interest; I was far more concerned that my black caftan would become creased, that my polished black shoes would be scuffed, and that my Sabbath beaver hat would get knocked into a bowl of chicken soup.

Reb Chezkel, however, made it clear that attending the tisch in New Square was mandatory.

The shtetl was only an hour from Brooklyn, but as our yellow school bus made its way through the strange village, I found myself intrigued. Young boys wore black suspenders over dull-colored shirts and black pants, their unkempt sidelocks down to their chests—unlike us Brooklyn boys who snipped our sidelocks at chin-length and kept them perfectly curled. Their hats appeared rain-speckled, and every man and boy appeared to be wearing “Medicaid glasses,” cat-eye frames of thick black or brown plastic. Their
gartels
, thin black prayer sashes, were wound tightly around their waists over ill-fitting gabardines; their shoes looked worn-out, scuffed at the toes and encrusted with mud. Even the women had a more pious appearance, kerchiefs bound over their wigs more tightly than in Brooklyn, their expressions more severe. There was something slightly repellent about these people and, at the same time, strangely enchanting. I half expected to see a yard full of squawking chickens and a milk cow at pasture.

The bus stopped in front of a large, plain-looking rectangular structure in the center of the village, its only adornment a narrow roofed porch and two concrete square columns at its entrance. This was the village’s main synagogue. Inside the sanctuary, an enormous table was set up, made up of dozens of smaller tables, each covered with what was once a white tablecloth but was now grease-stained and yellowed. Seated on benches with tall backrests along both sides of the table were elderly men, and behind them, leaning on the backrests, were more men, middle-aged, some with small children in their arms or standing beside them. Behind them were rows of bleachers, five stories each, about fifteen feet tall. On the bleachers, young men and teenage boys stood pressed against one another, and more were climbing to take their places among them, all of them looking toward the head of the table, where the rebbe was soon to appear.

I felt a tap on my shoulder. A thin, tall man stood behind me and extended his hand.

“Shulem aleichem,”
he said. “Welcome.”

I looked to see if I knew him, but he took off without another word. Soon another man approached to shake my hand, and then another. Some smiled but most didn’t, as if these welcoming gestures were a solemn duty. Some asked for my name and where I was from, but most moved on quickly. The handshakes were as varied as those who offered them: limp, firm, pumping—even a two-handed one from a middle-aged gentleman who smiled broadly as if we were old friends, but he offered no words at all.

Suddenly, there was frantic hushing, and I watched as men and boys of all ages made a final dash for their places. I tried to get a peek between the many hats and heads and shoulders but couldn’t see much past the jostling men in front of me. The rebbe, I presumed, had just entered from a room at the front.

Another tap on my shoulder. Chaim Lazer, one of my classmates, stood behind me.

“Come up onto the
parentches
,” he said, and pointed to the bleachers, rows and rows of boys our own age.

“It looks full,” I said.

“They’ll make room for you. In Skver, there’s always room for another.”

I followed Chaim as he climbed to the top row of the last set of bleachers. Already cramped, the boys squeezed together to make room for us and reached across to shake our hands. There was a faint musk in the air, from the compressed bodies and layers of clothes; on occasion, my nostrils were hit with a strong whiff of it.

The hall fell silent. All focus was on the rebbe, who now sat on a tall gilded chair at the head of the table, its seat and back of rich red leather, a gold crown in wood relief rising from the chair behind the rebbe’s head. I watched as he raised a large loaf of challah, the size of a small child, and cut a slice for himself. He ripped a small piece and chewed slowly, his head swaying from side to side, as if in prayer. Meanwhile, the attendant took the rest and cut it into smaller pieces. The challah chunks, soon shredded into hundreds of pieces, were passed from hand to hand all the way across the shul. Some received only crumbs, and those crumbs were split into even smaller crumbs. These were the traditional sacred morsels,
sherayim
, leftovers of the tzaddik’s food, each morsel bringing untold blessings: it healed the sick, brought good fortune, and instilled in one the fear of God.

More food was placed in front of the rebbe, all of it in enormous silver dishes: a whole cooked salmon, chicken noodle soup in a covered silver tureen, a large platter piled high with dozens of chicken legs, and another with brightly glazed carrots. From each dish, the rebbe ate only a few morsels, swaying from side to side as he chewed, after which the attendant passed around the leftovers, which were then passed, hand to hand, through the rest of the crowd.

An elderly man began to sing a familiar song, a coarse and boisterous melody, its simple notes taught in every Hasidic kindergarten:
Grant us the good inclination, to serve You with truth, with awe and with love.
The rebbe rested his forehead on his right hand, covering half his face. His cheeks were flaming red over his reddish-gray beard as his body swayed softly to the rhythm.

The crowd joined in, and slowly their voices grew louder, more robust, the song filling the sanctuary. Moments later, the rebbe removed his hand from his forehead and began to pound his fist on the table. The crowd responded, stomping their feet in time to the rebbe’s pounding. Even the brass chandeliers vibrated to the beat of the song. The simple passage was repeated over and over, until the crowd was like a single massive organism screaming its desperate plea:
Grant us, grant us, the good inclination! Grant us, grant us, the good inclination!

During a pause in the singing, men removed kerchiefs from their pockets and wiped the sweat from their brows. Above us, latticework panels covered the balcony areas, the women’s section, and here and there a slender finger gripped a wooden strip from behind the partition. Through the slats, I could make out the vague outline of faces, the few women who cared to attend, to observe this otherwise male-only event.

Another dish was placed in front of the rebbe, and then quickly removed for disbursement. The crowd grew tense with anticipation, soft murmurs followed by expectant silence. The rebbe gestured to one of the elderly men at the table. The man began to sing a slow tune set to words I remembered from the penitence prayers of the High Holy Days, a prayer not to God but to his ministering angels:

The crowd took up the tune, again starting out weakly, their voices growing stronger with each stanza. The song came to an end, and the crowd took it up again from the beginning. Some of the men appeared to be weeping. The boys around me swayed vigorously with their eyes closed. Even the children stood remarkably solemn, all eyes on the rebbe: