The Chosen (14 page)

‘The Hasidim had great leaders—tzaddikim, they were called, righteous ones. Each Hasidic community had its own tzaddik, and his people would go to him with all their problems, and he would give them advice. They followed these leaders blindly. The Hasidim believed that the tzaddik was a superhuman link between themselves and God. Every act of his and every word he spoke was holy. Even the food he touched became holy. For example, they would grab the food scraps he left on his plate and eat them, because the food had become holy through his touch, and they wanted some of this holiness inside themselves. For a while, the tzaddikim were kind and gentle souls, like the Besht himself. But in the next century the movement began to degenerate. Many of the positions of tzaddik became inherited posts, going automatically from father to son, even if the son was not a great leader. Many tzaddikim lived like Oriental monarchs. Some of them were out-and-out frauds, and they exploited their people terribly. Others were very sincere, and a few were even great scholars of the Talmud. In some Hasidic sects, the study of the Talmud became as important as it had been before the time of the Besht. Secular literature was forbidden, and the Hasidim lived shut off from the rest of the world. Anything that was not Jewish and Hasidic was forbidden. Their lives became frozen.

The clothes they wear today, for example, are the same Polish style clothes they wore hundreds of years ago. Their customs and beliefs are also the same as they were hundreds of years ago. But not all of the Hasidic communities are identical, Reuven. The Hasidim of Russia, Germany, Poland, and Hungary are different one from the other. Not very different, but they are different. There are even Hasidic groups that believe their leaders should take upon themselves the sufferings of the Jewish people. You are surprised? But it is true. They believe that their sufferings would be unendurable if their leaders did not somehow absorb these sufferings into themselves. A strange belief, but a very important one, as far as they are concerned.’

‘Reuven, Reb Saunders is a great Talmudist and a great tzaddik. He has a reputation for brilliance and compassion. It is said that he believes the soul is as important as the mind, if not more so. He inherited his position from his father. When he dies, the position will go automatically to Danny.’

My father stopped, looked at me with a smile, and said, ‘You are not asleep yet, Reuven?’

‘No, abba.’

‘You are a very patient student. I think I am going to have another glass of tea. My throat is a little dry.’

I took his glass, poured into it some strong-brewed tea from the teapot, filled it with water from the kettle, then brought it back to him. He put a cube of sugar between his teeth and sipped slowly from the glass, letting the tea soak through the sugar. Then he put the glass down.

‘Tea is a blessing,’ he said, smiling. ‘Especially to a schoolteacher who must always give long answers to short questions.’

I smiled back at him and waited patiently.

‘All right,’ my father said. ‘I see you want me to continue.

Now I am going to tell you another story, also a true story, about a Jewish boy who lived in Poland in the second half of the eighteenth century. As I tell you the story, think of Reb Saunders’ son, and you will have your answer.

‘This boy, Reuven, was brilliant, literally a genius. His name was Solomon, and later in life he changed his long Polish name to Maimon. When he was young, he found that the Talmud could not satisfy his hunger for knowledge. His mind would not let him rest. He wanted to know what was happening in the outside world. German was by then a great scientific and cultural language, and he decided to teach himself to read German. But even after he learned German he was not satisfied, because the reading of secular books was forbidden. Finally, at the age of twenty-five, he abandoned his wife and child and after many hardships came to Berlin where he joined a group of philosophers, read Aristotle, Maimonides, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hume, and Kant, and began to write philosophical books. It is astonishing how he was able to gobble up complicated philosophical treatises with such ease. He had a great mind, but it never left him in peace. He wandered from city to city, never finding roots anywhere, never satisfied, and finally died at forty-seven on the estate of a kind-hearted Christian who had befriended him.

‘Reuven, Reb Saunders’ son has a mind like Solomon Maimon’s, perhaps even a greater’ mind. And Reb Saunders’ son does not live in Poland. America is free. There are no walls here to hold back the Jews. Is it so strange, then, that he is breaking his father’s rules and reading forbidden books? He cannot help himself. It is unbelievable what he has read these past few months. You are a brilliant student. I tell you that now very proudly. But he is a phenomenon. Once in a generation is a mind like that born.

‘Now, Reuven, listen very carefully to what I am going to tell you. Reb Saunders’ son is a terribly torn and lonely boy. There is literally no one in the world he can talk to. He needs a friend. The accident with the baseball has bound him to you, and he has already sensed in you someone he can talk to without fear. I am very proud of you for that. He would never have told you about his library visits if he believed for a moment you would not keep his words a secret trust. And I want you to let him be your friend and to let yourself be his friend. I am certain you and Reb Saunders’ son can help each other in such a friendship. I know you, and I know him. And I know what I am saying. And now, Reuven, the lecture is over, I am going to finish my tea, and we will go to bed. What a lecture it has been! Do you want some tea?’

‘No, abba.’

We sat in silence, while my father sipped from his glass.

‘You are very quiet,’ he said finally.

‘It all started with a silly baseball game,’ I said. ‘I can’t believe it.’

‘Reuven, as you grow older you will discover that the most important things that will happen to you will often come as a result of silly things, as you call them—“ordinary things” is a better expression. That is the way the world is.’

I shook my head. ‘I just can’t believe it,’ I said again. ‘This whole week has been like something from another world. The hospital, the people I met there, Mr Savo, little Mickey, Billy all because of a ball game.’

My father sipped his tea and looked at me over the rim of the glass. He said nothing, but he was watching me intently.

‘I don’t understand it,’ I said. ‘Weeks and weeks go by, one Shabbat follows another, and I’m the same, nothing has changed, and suddenly one day something happens, and everything looks different.’

‘Different? What do you mean, different?’

I told him how I had felt that afternoon when I had come home from the hospital. He listened quietly, all the while sipping his tea. When I finished, I saw him smile. He put down the glass, sighed, and stopped, his voice breaking. He was quiet for a moment. Then he looked at the clock on the shelf over the refrigerator. ‘It is very late,’ he said; ‘We will talk some more tomorrow.’

‘Yes, abba.’

‘Reuven -!

‘Yes?’

‘Never mind. Go to sleep. I am going to sit here for a while and have another glass of tea.’

I left him sitting at the kitchen table, staring down at the white cloth.

The next day I met Danny’s father.

My father and I woke early so as to be in our synagogue by eight-thirty. Manya came in a little before eight and served us a light breakfast. Then my father and I started out on the three block walk to the synagogue. It was a beautiful day, and I felt happy to be out on the street again. It was wonderful to be outside that hospital, looking at the people and watching the traffic. When it didn’t rain and wasn’t too cold, my father and I always enjoyed our Shabbat walks to and from the synagogue.

There were many synagogues in Williamsburg. Each Hasidic sect had its own house of worship—shtibblach, they were called most of them badly lighted, musty rooms, with benches or chairs crowded together and with windows that seemed always to be closed. There were also those synagogues in which Jews who were not Hasidim worshiped. The synagogue where my father and I prayed had once been a large grocery store. It stood on Lee Avenue, and though the bottom half of its window was curtained off, the sun shone in through the uncurtained portion of the glass, and I loved to sit there on a Shabbat morning, with the gold of the sun on the leaves of my prayer book and pray.

The synagogue was attended mostly by men like my father, teachers from my yeshiva, and others who had come under the influence of the Jewish Enlightenment in Europe and whose distaste for Hasidism was intense and outspoken. Many of the students in the yeshiva I attended prayed there, too, and it was good to be able to be with them on a Shabbat morning.

When my father and I came into the synagogue that morning, the service had just begun. We took our usual seats a few rows up from the window and joined in the prayers. I saw Davey Cantor come in. He nodded to me, looking gloomy behind his glasses and took his seat. The prayers went slowly; the man at the podium had a fine voice and waited until each portion of the service had been completed by everyone before he began to chant. I glanced at my father during the Silent Devotion. He stood in his long prayer shawl, its silver trim bathed in sunlight, its fringes dangling almost to the floor. His eyes were closed—he always prayed from memory, except during a Festival or a High Holiday Service—and he was swaying slightly back and forth, his lips murmuring the words. I did not wear a prayer shawl; they were worn only by adults who were or had once been married.

During the Torah Service, which followed the Silent Devotion, I was one of the eight men called up to the podium to recite the blessing over the Torah. Standing at the podium, I listened carefully to the reader as he chanted the words from the scroll. When he was done, I recited the second blessing and the prayer that thanks God when a serious accident has been avoided. As I left the podium and walked back to my seat, I wondered what blessing, if any. I would have recited had my eye been blinded. What blessing would Mr Savo make if he were a Jew? I asked myself. For the rest of the service I thought constantly of Mr Savo and Billy.

Lunch was ready for us when we got home, and Manya kept adding ‘food to my plate and urging me to eat; food was necessary for someone who had just come back from the hospital, she told me in her broken English. My father talked about my work at school. I must be careful not to read until Dr Snydman gave me his permission, he said, but there was nothing wrong if I attended classes and listened. Perhaps he could help me study. Perhaps he could read to me. We would try it and see. After the Grace, my father lay down on his bed to rest for a while, and I sat on the porch and stared at the sunlight on the flowers and the ailanthus. I sat like that for about an hour, and then my father came out to tell me he was going over to see one of his colleagues.

I lay back on the lounge chair and stared up at the sky. It was a deep blue with no clouds, and I felt I could almost touch it. It’s the color of Danny’s eyes, I thought. It’s as blue as Danny’s eyes. What color are Billy’s eyes? I asked myself. I think they’re also blue. Both Danny’s and Billy’s eyes are blue. But one set of eyes is blind. Maybe they’re not blind anymore, I thought. Maybe both sets of eyes are okay now. I fell asleep, thinking about Danny’s and Billy’s eyes.

It was a light, dreamless sleep, a kind of half-sleep that refreshes but does not shut off the world completely. I felt the warm wind and smelled newly cut grass, and a bird perched on a branch of the ailanthus and sang for a long time before it flew away. Somehow I knew where that bird was, though I did not open my eyes. There were children playing on the street, and once a dog barked and a car’s brakes screeched. Someone was playing a piano nearby, and the music drifted slowly in and out of my mind like the ebb and flow of ocean surf. I almost recognized the melody, but I could not be sure; it slipped like a cool and silken wind from my grasp. I heard a door open and close and there were footsteps against wood, and then silence, and I knew someone had come onto the porch, but I would not open my eyes. I did not want to lose that twilight sleep, with its odors and sounds and whispered flow of music. Someone was on the porch, looking at me. I felt him looking at me. I felt him slowly push away the sleep, and, finally, I opened my eyes, and there was Danny, standing at the foot of the lounge chair, with his arms folded across his chest, clicking his tongue and shaking his head.

‘You sleep like a baby,’ he said ‘I feel guilty waking you.’ I yawned, stretched, and sat up on the edge of the lounge chair. ‘That was delicious,’ I added, yawning again. ‘What time is it?’

‘It’s after five, sleepyhead. I’ve been waiting here ten minutes for you to wake up.’

‘I slept almost three hours,’ I said. ‘That was some sleep.’

He clicked his tongue again and shook his head. ‘What kind of infield is that?’ He was imitating Mr Galanter. ‘How can we keep that infield solid if you’re asleep there, Malter?’

I laughed and got to my feet.

‘Where do you want to go?’ he asked.

‘I don’t care.’

‘I thought we’d go over to my father’s shul. He wants to meet you.’

‘Where is it?’ I asked him. ‘It’s five blocks from here.’

‘Is my father inside?’

‘I didn’t see him. Your maid let me in. Don’t you want to go?’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Let me wash up and put a tie and jacket on. I don’t have a caftan, you know.’

He grinned at me. ‘The uniform is a requirement for members of the fold only,’ he said.

‘Okay, member of the fold. Come on inside with me.’

I washed, dressed, told Manya that when my father came in she should let him know where I had gone, and we went out.

‘What does your father want to see me about?’ I asked Danny as we went down the stone stairway of the house.

‘He wants to meet you. I told him we were friends.’ We turned up the street, heading toward Lee Avenue.

‘He always has to approve of my friends,’ Danny said. ‘Especially if they’re outside the fold. Do you mind my telling him that we’re friends?’