Only Yesterday (39 page)

He went in among the trees and found himself a hidden place. He sat and looked out. He saw a few schoolgirls, some Ashkenazim, some Bukharans, some Georgians, some Aleppans, some Medeans, some Sephardim, some Persians, some Yemenites, and some from all the other ethnic communities in Jerusalem, and all of them wearing blue dresses and all of them grimacing their faces and twisting their mouths, and strange and various sounds were coming out of them. He recognized that they were speaking the tongues of a Gentile nation, but which nation he didn’t recognize, even though he knew seventy tongues like most of the dogs of Jerusalem, for the tongue of that nation was not yet common in the Land, but since that was a school founded by our brothers the sons of Israel in England, he put two and two together and understood that the language was English. He smiled to himself between his teeth and spoke to himself, The daughters of Israel are intelligent, and just as their brothers learned the tongue of the Alliance Israélite and the tongue of the Gehilfsverein, so they will also learn that tongue. If Sholem Aleichem were here, he would make a fine story. He would take a girl from this school and marry her off to a boy from another school, he doesn’t know her tongue and she doesn’t know his tongue, they get fed up with their lives and go to the judge to get a divorce, but the judge, who doesn’t know foreign languages, doesn’t understand what they want and doesn’t open a case. They return home without a divorce, adding insult to injury. The husband sees that languages were created only so that humans will not understand each other, and takes matters into his own hands. His hands carry out their missions and hit and beat and wound. And she is a pampered woman worn out by learning and she has no strength to hit. So what does she do? She takes one pot after another and throws it at her husband, until all the pots are thrown and broken. Since the pots are broken and there’s nothing to cook in, the man has nothing at home. He goes down to Jaffa and sets sail for distant lands. The woman is left with no husband and no livelihood and she goes and hires herself out as a servant. The mistress of the house speaks Russian or Yiddish with her and she replies in English. The mistress of the house is angry that the servant dares to know a language the lady herself doesn’t know, and the servant doesn’t think much of her mistress because she doesn’t know English. The mistress torments her so much that she runs away from her to another place, and from there to another place, and every place she goes they expel this woman because they don’t understand her language. That miserable woman goes back home and sits forlorn and sad with no livelihood, with nothing.

Encounter on the Road

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Balak sat wherever it was he sat and laughed at the woes of the children of Israel. Meanwhile, the day began to grow dark. He recalled where he wanted to go and recalled all those calamities that came upon him from there. He thrust his feet into the ground and folded himself and lay back down and shrank up, and it looked as if he wouldn’t budge from here. Suddenly, his ears pricked up and he started sniffing and spinning his tail like half of a wagon wheel and he stood up and went away. And where did he go? To a place we doubted he’d go. And since he knew that the place was a place of danger, why did he go there, for it is forbidden to get yourself into mortal danger, but just then, he saw Reb Grunam May-Salvation- Arise, and Reb Grunam’s cloak was dragging below his feet. He stuck to him and hid in the hem of the cloak and went in with him, and folks didn’t notice that a dog was walking with Reb Grunam.

And when Meah Shearim saw Reb Grunam, they began running toward him, for everyone is eager for words of ethics and they love chastisement. They showed him love and affection and asked him to preach. Reb Grunam shrugged, one eye turned down to hint to the Holy One how meek was that man, and one eye turned to see how many are those who wanted to hear him. At last, he raised both his eyes to heaven to tell the Holy One that we are far from boasting and preaching in public, but since a Commandment has come to us to be fulfilled, to bring human beings back to repentance of course it is desirable for the Almighty that we preach. He turned to the crowd and said, Bring me a bench out to the courtyard of the big synagogue. Perhaps I’ll say a word or two.

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All Meah Shearim gathered together and came to hear him, for Jerusalem wasn’t yet filled with theaters and circuses and places of entertainment, and they yearned to hear preaching. They immediately brought a bench out to the courtyard. Reb Grunam mounted the bench and people held him up on all sides. Balak huddled in the hem of Reb Grunam’s cloak and mounted with him. Reb Grunam wiped his nose with the hem of his cloak. And why with the hem of his cloak and not with his sleeve? Because with his sleeve he filters the water before drinking. He rubbed his eyes and glared straight ahead. They started predicting what the sermon would be and what he would preach. Paupers robbed and widows exploited and orphans enslaved and bad judges who become prominent and there isn’t any-one to tell them what to do. Moreover, that year was a drought year and the reservoirs raise the cost of water, and a poor person can’t af-ford water anymore. And needless to say, the activities of the Societies which aren’t always legitimate, because they give more Distribution to anyone who has a lot, and to anyone who doesn’t have anything, they don’t give even the little bit he deserves. And there are a few more harsh issues here, and there is no one to stand in the breach. Even those who came intending originally to kill time, started looking with respect at Reb Grunam, who was about to denounce the flatterers who fill the city with enmity and hatred and envy and the evil eye and quarrels, and make Jerusalem a disgrace in the Diaspora.

Reb Grunam spread his legs and stood submissively, and moaned a few times, the moans preachers moan before a sermon, and shut his eyes so they wouldn’t seek honor. And once again he spread his legs, for it seemed to him that something was pressing them. And if he hadn’t spread his legs, Balak wouldn’t have survived. And here we must praise Balak, who controlled himself and didn’t eat Reb Grunam’s shoes. Not because he was sated just then, and not because he feared that Reb Grunam would tie a ban on his tail, but because he was fond of sitting in the presence of Reb Grunam. But, from praise of Balak, we come of necessity to censure of Balak. Why did Balak like to wallow in the dust of Reb Grunam’s feet? Because of the rebuke to the children of Israel, which he heard from the

mouth of Reb Grunam, for in those days Balak’s heart was full of resentment against the children of Israel because of those calamities they had caused him, and he found satisfaction in their humiliation. Balak lay in the place where he lay and Reb Grunam stood in the place where he stood. And Reb Grunam already threw out his first identity and took on a second identity. His head, drooping like a ves-sel declared unfit whose owners threw it into the garbage, now stood erect. And he too stood erect and started jumping up, jumping and preaching.

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God created one thing against another. On the one hand, He made synagogues and study houses for the Torah and prayer, and on the other hand, He made shops for merchandise. On the one hand, He made preachers and castigators and sermonizers, and on the other hand, merchants and shopkeepers. While Reb Grunam stands and preaches, a shopkeeper stands in the door of his shop and sells pot-tery to an Arab. The Arab examines the pots to see if they’re not cracked, and Reb Grunam examines the deeds of the Jews. And the voice of Reb Grunam and the sounds of the empty vessels blend together. Reb Grunam shouts, Who is making noise? And all the lis-teners shout, Close your shop. Said the shopkeeper, All day long I haven’t seen a penny and now that God brought me a customer, you want to ruin my livelihood. A sturdy Mughrabi night guard, one of those who are feared in Jerusalem, happened by. He grabbed the shopkeeper and shook him this way and that and shouted at him, Jew, close your shop. The shopkeeper pulled himself out of the Mughrabi’s hands and said to him, Where were you the day they robbed my merchandise from the shop? When you want him he doesn’t come, and when you don’t want him, he comes. Did you see that one, the zeal of the Lord of Hosts hath eaten it up. Just as Grunam is trying to make a living, so am I trying to make a living. The guard took the shopkeeper and flung him around until he was about to give up the ghost, and all the children of Israel were shouting at him, Shaygets, Shameless, Arrogant, We’ll uproot you. When

the shopkeeper saw that trouble had overtaken him, he closed his shop and went off frustrated.

Reb Grunam’s voice grew louder and both his eyes were filled with mucous, the mucous folks mistake for tears. All the women started weeping and making their husbands weep and all Meah Shearim was filled with weeping. Reb Grunam raised his voice and screamed, Woe unto us for the Day of Judgment, woe unto us for the Day of Rebuke. A man walks in the marketplace and he doesn’t think he is a sinner, but I say that he is a sinner and a criminal. How? A cart stood harnessed to an ox and an ass, and that man took a pinch of snuff and sneezed and the animals were shocked and moved, and he has violated the prohibition Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together. A man stands in the synagogue and prays in public and responds Amen, you would think that here in a holy place he is clean of all transgression, but I say to you that he is a sin-ner and a criminal, for who doesn’t respond Amen with all his might. Gentlemen, you all stand here today in our holy town of

Meah Shearim, and here a man should be clean of all transgression. And what do we see, Gentlemen, there isn’t one among you who isn’t a sinner. Here’s a man who sat all day fasting, wrapped in a Prayer Shawl and crowned with Tefillin and he completed one hundred blessings, not over coarse food, Heaven Forfend, for he fasted, and he lies down to sleep and recites the Shema and gets into his bed and shuts his eyes so as not to see evil and doesn’t entertain any alien thought, Heaven Forfend. You say he is clean of all transgression. But I say to you, Gentlemen, woe unto him, that man who fasted all day and studied all day and didn’t walk without Tefillin and prayed all day long and recited the Shema with devotion and did not engage in idle conversation and no profane word crossed his lips and no trace of an alien thought rose to his heart, nevertheless, this is a sinner. How? Gentlemen, here I am telling you, and why won’t I tell you? Better you hear it from my mouth and not from the mouth of the An-gels of Destruction, for if you hear it from the mouth of the Angels of Destruction, it’s impossible to repent, but if you hear it from my mouth, you still have time to repent. For that man slept and the

Yarmulke fell off his head, it’s not enough that he sins physically, that he violates the prohibition against baring your head, but he also makes his holy soul sin. How? For just then, his soul rose on high and wrote his deeds of that day. And there, they say to the soul, My daughter, have you written everything? Says she, I wrote everything. They say to her, And you didn’t forget anything? And she replies, I didn’t forget anything. They say to her, Perhaps you’ve made a mistake. And she swears she didn’t make a mistake. Immediately all seven heavens are shocked at the false oath and fling her down and she returns to the body, and what does she see, woe to the eyes that see such a thing, she sees him lying with his head uncovered. Lest you say this matter is over and done, I say to you it is not, but that one sin produces another. The next day, he gets up early to go to the study house and says,
My God, the soul You placed within me is pure
. Gentlemen, it is not bad enough that he lies bareheaded and sins physically and makes his soul sin, but he gives false testimony about himself.

At that moment, the whole audience was shaken. If you turn this way, woe, if you turn that way, alas. If they sit in the study house, woe, if they get into their bed, alas. Reb Grunam knows they want to hear one word of consolation, but his heart is bitter as wormwood and he cannot bring any words out of his mouth except words bitter as wormwood.

During Reb Grunam’s sermon, sleep descended upon Balak and he dozed off. He saw all kinds of dreams and became alarmed. He wagged his tail and barked in his sleep. His voice blended with the voice of Reb Grunam, but fortunately for him, Reb Grunam’s voice was strong and they didn’t hear the voice of the dog. After Reb Grunam concluded his sermon and they were about to recite the evening prayer, Balak woke with a start and sneaked out from between Reb Grunam’s legs and pulled himself out of Meah Shearim, so as not to press his luck. And thus he walked until he came to the Hungarian Houses. We don’t know what made him go here and not somewhere else. Anyway, he didn’t lose anything. He came to the Hungarian Houses and found himself a corner to hide in. He sniffed a bit here and a bit there and circled his place a few times and

checked to see if there weren’t those harmful reptiles. He went in and curled up. Sleep came to him and he dozed off.

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The moon disappeared in its clouds and light winds began blowing and swaying the olive trees and the dew descended upon them and their fragrance wafted. Balak stirred and peeped into the sweet darkness, and listened to the bells of the camels who come in caravans to bring us food and subsistence. The song of the bells and the nocturnal dews calmed Balak’s spirit and took away the anger that permeated his body like venom. Balak looked at the body of the world and feasted his eyes on the nocturnal sights, and was glad that his Creator had given him the intelligence to sleep during the sermon and to be awake at night, when good dews descend and cool winds blow and a good smell comes from the trees, not that smell that human creatures perfume themselves with, but the good smell that the Holy-One-Blessed-Be-He perfumes His world with. And when Balak saw himself steeped in this tranquility, he was proud, as if he were the only one who could enjoy the goodness of creation. But he who is haughty is brought low in the end. An evil wind began rattling, say-ing, All that tranquility may be only fleeting, for no one saw you when you came in, but in the morning, when the Holy-One-Blessed-Be- He lights up His world and they see you, they’ll come against you with sticks and stones, and may you not pay for your enjoyment with your body. He grew dejected, and his nose seemed to stop its moisture. He started lamenting his bad luck, and even when he was enjoying himself his enjoyment wasn’t complete, because of his worry about tomorrow. He looked around to see if they weren’t coming to pester him. He saw that the whole world was sleeping and there was no reason to be afraid. His spirits revived and he lifted his tail and wagged it to and fro, as if all his worries were fleas and mosquitoes. He lay down in his place and relied on the people of that neighborhood not to get up soon, for those Hungarians aren’t like the other people of Jerusalem, for they had come to build their houses in a lush place, their livelihood is provided for them and their sleep is sweet.