Spinspace: The Space of Spins (The Metaspace Chronicles Book 2) (11 page)

Chapter 27

Nathan
:
according to his deeds

הוא לא תעובד לכל גבר עם המעשים שלו

“And will He not render to
each
man according to his deeds?

– Proverbs 24:12

Once Isaac had made his decision the rest was just tedious and tearful details.  For a while Nathan wasn't sure what he feared more, to have to leave family and friends, or to be left behind with them. 
One of their nearest neighbors was Rebekah's brother, who promised to to watch over her in Isaac's absence.  Uncle Shlomo stopped by the day before they left and brought some carp from his pond, so they had gefilte fish with their dinner.

Dinner was a quiet affair that night.  Shlomo tried his best to jolly them into a better mood with amusing anecdotes from his farm, but he was playing to a tough crowd.  Even Nathan was moody, picking at his balls of chopped fish and matzo meal, wondering if they had snow in Denver.  Only little Samuel seemed to be unaffected by the coming separation.  The rascal was probably looking forward to less supervision.

Nathan was slow to finish his fish, but had no trouble with his
latkes
.  He had always preferred the potato pancakes since they had them with applesauce.

That evening they lifted the middle “helper” candle of the menorah and lit the last of the eight candles of Hanukkah.  His mother looked sad and Nathan realized she had no idea when they would be celebrating the Festival of Lights as a complete family again.  Would they be together next year? 

After the meal was finished and Isaac said the thanks for it the children received their final presents for the season.  Nathan's was a pair of sturdy leather boots from Mr. Friedmann the shoemaker in the nearby village.  The thick soles and rawhide laces, he thought, were a prediction of heavy snows to come.

As they waited for the other wagons of the caravan to join them Nathan was marveling over how little his father had packed.  “Don't you want to take more things to remind you of home?”

“No,” said his father.  “Every item I leave at home will help your mother and siblings to remember us while we're gone.  Besides, I'm sure we'll find new things in Denver.  When we come home again we'll probably have too many possessions.”

He could see another wagon pulling up now, its horses snorting puffs of steam in the chilly air of the last week of December.  He kicked at the snow with his new boots.  “How many more wagons do we have to wait for?”

“Five, I think.  Don't scuff your new boots.  I'm sure Mr. Friedmann worked hard to make them.”

He obeyed but his restlessness was difficult to subdue.  Now that the day had finally come he was impatient to be off.  “Will we be able to fit in at Denver, do you think?  Are there any other Jews there?”

“Oh, we'll fit in, I'm sure.  We Kaplans have always found ways to fit in, while keeping our cultural identity and traditional values.  Did you know your great-great-great-great-great grandfather Yacob was a publisher, back before the Fall?”

He knew that, because his father liked to mention it a lot.  Isaac was a great lover of books.  He had brought some of his favorites on this trip.  “Saul Rosen said the Christians have more books in their Bible than we do.  Does that mean they are wiser?”

His father laughed.  “They are much the same as us, Nathan, neither wiser nor more foolish.  If the number of books a man had showed his wisdom, I would be one of the wisest men in New Israel.  But I'm not.  Owning a book does not make one a scholar, any more than owning a sword makes you a great warrior.  Both depend on how much you actually use them.”

At this point they finally caught sight of the rest of the caravan coming over a hill.  With snow covering the ground for miles around, it wasn't hard to discern wagons in the distance.

When the wagons pulled up, this father went down the line of them talking to the drivers.  He also seemed to spend a moment in silent thought by each vehicle, as if praying.  When Nathan finally got into their wagon with him, he was surprised at how much warmer the air was on the inside than it was outside.

When he asked his father about it, Isaac just shrugged and said it was a miracle.  “Like that ice melting on the farmer's pond was a miracle?”

“A little like that,” his father admitted.  “It is like your mother's coldbox, but inside out.  The warmer air stays in and the colder air stays out, the opposite of the coldbox.”

He was glad it was that way, since they had a long cold journey ahead of them.  “Is that what you were doing when you stood silently by the other wagons?”

“Yes, I prayed for their wagons too.”  Isaac opened a book on his lap and it fell open to a page marked by a card covered in delicate and fine engraving.

“What's that?”  He had never seen it before.

“That's our money to get us settled in Denver,” said his father, looking a little embarrassed by it.

“I thought we used coins for money.”

“We do.  But this much would be a lot to carry, so I have a gold note instead.”  Following up on this, Nathan learned that while some countries used paper bills for money, the most commonly used form of it for large merchants transacting business over long distances was the gold certificate. 

“When we get to Denver,” said Isaac, “we will present this to the bankers there and they will credit our account with the amount of gold it represents.”

“What if they don't?”

“They will.  Banking is based on trust, and they know when they send someone East with this to new Israel, our bankers will do the same thing so they will get their gold back.”

Nathan thought about that, exchanging promises of gold instead of coined money.  “But couldn't someone copy it and trick them into giving them free gold?”

“That's called
counterfeiting
and it's a serious crime, especially to bankers,” his father told him.  “That's why the gold note is so fancy.  See all the ornate engraving and the banker's delicate signature?  I'm sure the bank in Denver has some of his notes already to compare it with.  A forger would have to be incredibly skilled to fool them.  It happens, sometimes.  But not often.”

Nathan frowned but accepted that.  “So that's why you carry it?  Because it's lighter, yet hard to imitate?”

“That, and the fact that it is easy to hide.  Bandits don't usually look in books for money.  Most of them can't even read.”

The wagon jerked and began to move, and they rode in silence for a while.  “Father...how did you come to join the
Tzaddikim
?”

Isaac turned a page.  “I'm not really supposed to talk about it,” he said.  “Not even to family.”

Oh, really?
“Were you a Tzaddik when you married Mother?”

“Yes.  Well, in training for it, anyway, but I guess that counts.  I couldn't stop just because I was in love.  It might have been awkward if they had expected me to...but they didn't.”

“So did you try to keep it secret from her, that she was marrying a Tzaddik?”

Isaac sighed and closed the book and looked at him.  “How could I?  Sometimes I might have to do something, to solve a problem even if I am with her.”

“So you had to discuss it with her, didn't you?  Because you loved her, and didn't want to keep secrets from her.  Right?”

Isaac glared at him, as if he sensed the logical bear trap closing on his leg.  “Yes.  Because I love her.”

Nathan wore an innocent smile. “Don't you love me too, Father?” 
Checkmate!

“Not exactly the same way, but I see your point, you scamp.  I suppose I can tell you a little.”

Nathan straighten up, alert to catch whatever he could.

“It was back when your great-grandfather Josiah was still alive.  I was only five, and there was a great controversy still raging in the older people of the village about everflames and the Shabbat.”

“I don't understand.  What does an everflame have to do with Shabbat?”

“You know about the rule that says we cannot kindle a flame during Shabbat, since it is considered work to do so and we are not to perform work until it is over.  Back in the days of the Ancients they had electric lighting that used no flame and also electric heating, so the rule was interpreted to mean one could not turn on an electric light any more than once could light a candle, once Shabbat had begun.”

“Why not, if the electric light did not make a flame?”

“Closing an electric circuit might make a tiny spark, and it is forbidden to do that, because making sparks is part of starting a fire, as many people still do with flint and steel. Since electricity could make a spark, completing a circuit even by flipping a switch was held to be in the same category as starting a fire, and thus it was work and we cannot perform work during Shabbat.”

“What does all this have to do with everflames?”

“An everflame can be used either for heating or for lighting.  It is very convenient because it does not burn fuel and thus it cannot be accidentally blown out like a candle can.  The question they were grappling with was this: is it forbidden to turn up an everflame during Shabbat?”  Isaac paused and looked at Nathan.  “Before I continue, what do you think?  Is it allowed?”

“I don't know, father.  It sounds to me like it would not be allowed.  I know it is not really a flame or a spark, but if you have to do something to make it happen, wouldn't that be work?”

“That was the reasoning of some.  The more technically minded, however, pointed out that an everflame is never
completely
off, so stroking the side of the metal disk is not activating it or kindling a fire in any stretch of the imagination.  It is more a matter or turning it up or down.”

“So it is allowed, then.”

“Not so fast!  Because the common word for it contains the word for fire, there were those who were concerned that allowing the controlling of everflames during Shabbat might cause people, eventually, to be more careless about actual fire.”

“In school, I have heard that people are allowed to put more wood on the fire during Shabbat, in homes that do not have everflames.  Isn't that work?”

“Indeed.  But that is an exception made in cold weather when allowing the fire to go out could lead to sickness.  We have long winters in New Israel and so we cannot tell people to let their children freeze in order to avoid putting wood in the fireplace.”

“But isn't that inconsistent?  If you allow people to do work like that during Shabbat to stay healthy, shouldn't they be allowed to turn up an everflame on cold nights to keep warm?”

“Of course,” said his father.  “But that wasn't the issue.  We have Shabbat in the summer, too, when fires are not needed for health.  Normally, your mother prepares our cholent during the day on Friday and puts it in our everflame oven to slow cook so that no one has to cook during the Shabbat.  But suppose she was ill, or fell asleep, and forgot to set the everflame in the oven?  Can she turn it up, on a warm Summer night?”

“You're going to tell me she can't right?  Because some would consider that work?”

“No, she can.  The issue has been settled.  But back when I was a young boy, much younger than you are now, it had not been settled yet.”

“Being a Jew is too complicated,” Nathan complained.

“If you wanted a simple religion, you should have been born a Christian,” his father retorted.  “That have different beliefs, and not so many rules.”

“I didn't choose to be born Jewish.”

“Well, neither did I choose to become a Tzaddik.  But I still became one.  Do you want to hear the story or not?  If you want to hear it you must stop these interruptions.”

I had my bar mitzvah years ago
, Nathan thought,
but he is still treating me like a child
. “Yes, father.”

Isaac cleared his throat.  “Now where was I?  Yes, the controversy was still going on back them.  It might have seemed silly to our Christian neighbors, or moot to the poorer families that had no everflame.  But those who had them took it seriously.”

He glanced out the window at snow-clad hills in the distance.  “As it happened, I was young, and had not had my
bar mitzvah
yet.  For that reason,. I was deputized to turn the everflames up or down as needed during Shabbat until the question could be resolved.  As you know, Jewish children are not held strictly to the Commandments until they come of age.  Thus, since I was underage, I could turn the everflames up during Shabbat whether it was allowed or not.”

He looked back at Nathan.  “After doing this for some time, one day a miracle occurred.  I was about to turn up a neighbor's everflame, reaching toward it, thinking about how much to stroke the side, when it seemed to turn up hotter by itself!  I was dumbfounded, but I quickly learned that it was no accident.  At the next house it happened again.  I no longer had to touch them to turn them up or down.  Someone must have seen it happen, because two days later a Tzaddik came to our house and talked to me about it.

“At the time, I didn't know if this was a reward or a punishment for what I had been doing.  He just looked at me for a moment silently, like he was praying, and then he said, 'You will be a Tzaddik.'  Just like that.  It was not a request or a question.  It was just a statement of fact, like saying that seedling will grow up to be an oak tree.”