Chelm for the Holidays

by Valerie Estelle Frankel

  Minna scattered mandelbrot, Peizel scattered pumpernickel, and Moshe scattered muffins. Velvel even gave in and scattered his matzah ball seeds. From all corners of the sky, birds descended, chirping and squawking. They flapped over the square, gobbling all the offerings until they were too fat to fly. They waddled along the ground, bulging like feather pillows with feet.

  But they left the new gardens in peace, so the people of Chelm could get on with their planting. They planted all sorts of seeds: apples and oranges, lemons and blackberries (and, perhaps, a few yarmulkes). And all the plants started to grow. Well, almost all. The nail bush still refused to grow.

  There was a motion to make Tzipporah an Elder, but the people had forgotten that Tzipporah would have to be able to sign her name. The Elders quickly ruled that a handprint in jam was not sufficient, so they ruled unchallenged, while Tzipporah made tasty mud pies for her winged friends.

  The Queen Esther Mix-Up

  A Purim Story

  One special spring night, everyone dressed in Purim costumes and came to hear the reading of the Megillah, the story of Purim. Everyone loved the story of how Esther went before King Ahasuerus, begging to save the lives of the Jews in Persia. Through her bravery, she saved her people. Dozens of little girls attending the megillah reading were dressed as Queen Esther. Fishel the Foolish wore a goose costume, with feathers glued all over. Itzik the Silly was a goat. Ehud the Baker dressed as a giant hamentaschen. And Schlemiel had only one wish—to be dressed up as the king.

  He took his wife’s Shabbat tablecloth—the white one with the blue border—and draped it around his shoulders for a cape. Then he took a pot of geraniums from beside the door, uprooted the flowers, and dumped out the soil. He cracked the pot into two jagged halves to make the perfect (if a bit lopsided) crown. And with his new finery, he paraded into town.

  On his way, he saw the little girls of the village all dressed as Queen Esther. After services, Schlemiel dawdled in the center of town. The baby had been cranky all day, and Mrs. Schlemiel would probably yell at him when he got home.

  When Schlemiel reached the meeting hall where the Elders made their judgments, the place was deserted. He was unable to resist the tall wooden chair that belonged to the Chief Elder, and he sat down. Once in the chair, he stretched and smiled. After all, why shouldn’t he sit in the Chief Elder’s chair? He was the king. As he sat on his new throne, Itzik the Silly wandered into the room in his goat costume. He was crawling on four legs, circling in distress.

  “I need some advice and a judgment. Where are the Elders?” He had forgotten that he was supposed to be one.

  “Elders!” Schlemiel thundered. “Why do you want Elders when you have a king? Don’t you know that I am King Ahasuerus?”

  “Very sorry, I’m sure, Your Majesty. Now, if you could just listen to my problem . . .”

  “Our problem,” said a voice from somewhere around the goat’s stomach.

  Schlemiel straightened on his throne and gazed down at the goat standing so far below him. “Go ahead.”

  “Well, a goat has four legs. Everyone knows that. So I asked my wife to help me out and be the two back legs. But she—”

  “I don’t want to be the hind end of a goat,” the goat’s stomach interrupted. “I’d much rather be a duck.”

  Schlemiel considered the matter. “A duck has two legs, doesn’t it?”

  The goat nodded. “Everyone knows that, Your Majesty.”

  “Then my royal decree is that you both be ducks. That way you can be equal, as a husband and wife should be.” And the husband and wife took off the goat suit and applauded King Ahasuerus’s judgment.

  After they left to tear apart their feather mattress to make two duck costumes, Schlemiel went to the window. Where were all the other Elders? Across the road, he saw Gimpel the Great Fool dressed as the man in the moon. He was building a very, very long ladder. He’s probably planning to climb back up to the sky, thought Schlemiel.

  Down the street, Simon the Simpleminded was dressed as a chicken, sitting in the chicken coop beside the real birds. He clucked and flapped his wings and scratched around for corn. Leib the Lackwit stood beside him, dressed as a tree. He kept begging people to plant him. Schlemiel smiled. At last, he had his chance to rule all of Chelm. Best not to waste this opportunity. He sank back in the chair and fell into a deep sleep.

  Schlemiel awoke to the sound of little girls’ voices. Morning had arrived and with it a full day of Purim. Costumes, treats, plays, and carnivals would fill the village until sundown. He turned to see the little troop of Queen Esthers walk into the meeting hall. Some were crying. Others glared and stamped their feet.

  “What’s the trouble, young ladies?” he asked.

  “We can’t figure out which one of us is really Queen Esther,” Little Tzipporah said. “And we don’t know how to decide.”

  “That’s simple,” Schlemiel said. “Since I am King Ahasuerus, and all of you seem to be Queen Esther, we must have a beauty contest.”

  He sat down on his throne, and all the little girls paraded before him. About halfway through, Schlemiel realized that he would have to marry the winner. Not only were all of these girls far too young for him, but he already had a wife. What should he do? Without a word to the young Queen Esthers, he burst out of his chair and hurried home.

  When he reached the house, he flung open the door. Mrs. Schlemiel screamed in surprise and dropped the baby’s spoon.

  “Come, come, dear. I am King Ahasuerus, and so you must come to the village center with me and be my Queen Esther. You shall sit beside me on my throne and tell me how wise I am.”

  “Schlemiel, what are you talking about? Why must I come to the center of town; today is a holiday, and I want to rest. Wait a minute, is that my Shabbat tablecloth?”

  “Stop fussing. It’s Purim. We should celebrate! Now, since I’m the king, you must be my queen.” He held his hand out. “Please, won’t you come?”

  Mrs. Schlemiel smiled, as the Purim spirit filled her. “You truly wish me to be your queen?”

  “None but you.”

  Schlemiel found the flowerpot he had broken, and miracle of miracles, the jagged crack had split the pot perfectly in half, making two crowns, not just one. He placed the smaller crown on the head of his wife and dug into the chest at the foot of their bed until he found her wedding veil. He draped it around her shoulders so that the embroidered hem drifted to her feet. “There, my dear. Now you’re truly my Queen Esther.”

  They walked hand in hand to the meeting house with the sleeping baby. As the Elders all appeared to be otherwise engaged in their various Purim costumes, Schlemiel and Mrs. Schlemiel happily judged the disputes of the people of Chelm for the rest of the day.

  At long last, night fell. Now, in Chelm, there was no electricity. When night came, no one could see once they left the main street. All the people stumbled off to their dark little cottages, got into their pajamas, and climbed under the covers. In the morning, the villagers woke up as themselves again, their costumes no more than piles beside their beds. The foolishness of Purim had ended, and it was time to begin a new day.

  Holey Matzah

  A Passover Story

  The people in the village of Chelm worked together to bake the matzah each year. Rivka mixed all the flour with just the proper amount of water. Each father took a large lump of the dough, and each mother rolled it to just the proper thickness. Then the children pushed the spiked wheel over each piece, making neat little rows of holes. Mendel the Baker’s Helper popped the matzah into the big oven, where it toasted for exactly eighteen minutes. A warm, wonderful smell filled the room as trays of the flat crackers emerged from the oven.

  The people of Chelm always baked on the day before Passover so the matzah would be fresh and crisp for the holiday.

  This year, when it was time for the matzah baking to begin, Mendel carried the big bag of flour into the bakery, then stood there staring at it.

  Ehud the Baker no
ticed him standing like a sun-addled bird. “Nu, Mendel, what’s wrong?”

  Mendel scratched his head. “Well, we use flour to make the crunchy part of the matzah, don’t we?”

  “Yes.”

  “And we use water to soften the dough so we can roll it flat.”

  “Of course.”

  “So where do the holes come from?”

  Ehud the Baker scratched his head. “The holes? They appear when we roll the matzah with the little wheel.”

  “But that’s impossible. Holes can’t just come out of nowhere for free. Don’t we have to buy them, like flour?” asked Mendel.

  “You’re right! Please go to the market and buy a big bag of matzah holes, a bag just as big as the sack of flour.”

  Mendel hurried off to the market. He asked at every farmer’s stall. He pestered the peddlers with their imported spices and even the traders with their baskets of household goods. No one had any matzah holes.

  He dragged his feet as he returned to the bakery to make his report.

  The baker dropped his head into his hands. “This is a catastrophe! How can we make matzah without holes? The entire village depends on us to provide the proper ingredients, and we don’t have them. What can we do?”

  “I’ll ask the Elders,” Mendel said. “They can solve any problem.”

  The Elders scratched their heads and stroked their beards. “This is a catastrophe! We can’t bake matzah without holes.”

  “Could we use bagel holes?” Leib the Lackwit asked.

  “Of course not! Too large,” the other Elders thundered.

  Gimpel the Great Fool cleared his throat. “We’ve been making matzah in this town for years and years. Surely, somewhere we have a stash of matzah holes.”

  The Elders looked everywhere. Farfel the Fat checked between the cracks in every bird’s nest. Fishel the Foolish looked under doormats and between the wooden floorboards. Leib the Lackwit climbed on top of the houses to look between the straws in the thatched roofs. Itzik the Silly took a spoon and plunged it into every keyhole. Simon the Simpleminded and Uri the Unwise scoured the insides of puppies’ ears, and spaces between chickens’ toes. And Gimpel the Great Fool looked everywhere that the other Elders might have missed. But they couldn’t find a single matzah hole.

  In the last house in the village, a poor little hut built with sticks and straw, Sarah said to her husband, Caleb the Woodcutter, “Husband, what can we do? We don’t have any food. How can we hold a Passover seder with no food?”

  Caleb squeezed her hand. “I have our seder plans all decided. In a few hours, Passover will start. Then our wealthy neighbor Avram will open his door and say, ‘Let all who are hungry come and eat.’ And then, my dear, our worries will be over.”

  A knock sounded on the door, and Caleb hurried to open it. There stood all the Elders, along with Ehud the Baker, Mendel the Baker’s Helper, and a dozen other villagers. Caleb quickly stepped back. “Why are you wandering the streets on Erev Passover? Shouldn’t you be baking the town’s matzah?”

  “That’s just the problem,” Fishel the Foolish said. “We can’t bake matzah without matzah holes.”

  The village’s problem struck Caleb deeply. If not even the wise Elders of Chelm could find matzah holes, how could the village celebrate Passover? “Oh no! This is indeed a tragedy for our village. I wish I could help. But in truth, my wife and I are so poor we don’t even have enough food for a Passover seder, let alone matzah holes.” He held up an empty sack. “You see, we’ve used our last cup of flour.”

  Gimpel the Great Fool stared into the empty sack. “Hashem be blessed! Look!”

  Sarah scratched her head. “I don’t see anything. Our sack is empty!”

  “Far from empty. We’ve searched all day to find matzah holes. And here, you and your husband have an entire sack! Look how empty it is. The holes must be spilling out of this bag, full as it is.”

  Ehud the Baker lifted it as if the sack held precious crystal wine goblets. “I must buy these holes from you. The sun will set soon, and there’s no time to waste. I will pour the holes onto every piece of matzah, before we bake them in the oven.” He threw a handful of silver coins into the hands of Caleb and his astonished wife.

  “I will go buy flour and wine and bitter herbs,” Sarah said to Caleb.

  “Oh, but you must be my guests for tonight’s seder,” Leib the Lackwit proclaimed. “The words of the Haggadah say, ‘Let all who are hungry, come and eat.’ Besides, you and Caleb have rescued Passover for our whole village.”

  “No, you must be my guests,” Simon the Simpleminded said. “My sister and I would be honored to have you join us.”

  “I am the Chief Elder,” said Gimpel the Great Fool. “Of course you must celebrate Passover with my family.”

  And as they argued and argued, it was a miracle that the bakers managed to bake enough matzah for the entire village in time for Passover, but somehow Ehud and Mendel managed it. And they all had a very happy Passover, especially Caleb and Sarah, who were heroes, since they had saved Chelm with their precious sack of matzah holes.

  It Will Get Better

  A Lag Ba’Omer Story

  The people of Chelm spent weeks organizing the perfect Lag Ba’Omer holiday celebration. First, they’d have a huge picnic out in the fields, to remember the Jewish students who hid in forests to read their holy books when the Romans forbade it. The villagers would sing and dance and pick flowers until evening, when they would end the day with an enormous bonfire.

  On the morning of Lag Ba’Omer, all the people of Chelm, down to the smallest children, took their picnic lunches and a pile of brightly colored blankets out to the fields. For a time their celebration went happily, with plenty of songs and laughter. Then dark clouds appeared in the sky. A raindrop landed on someone’s cheek. Then another and another. Soon the rain was pelting down.

  “Shlomo’s barn is right over there!” Rivka shouted.

  “We can’t picnic in my barn,” Shlomo bellowed. “My animals are using the barn.”

  But it was hard to argue with an entire village of cold, wet people. Even as Shlomo complained, everyone herded into the barn. They chased the sheep and cows outside, and spread their blankets on the hard wooden floor.

  Now the barn was dusty and filled with straw that scratched under the villagers’ tushies, but they opened their picnic baskets and started to eat. Then someone said, “This doesn’t seem much like a picnic. We’re indoors!” Since no one wanted to go out into the rain that pounded on the roof like a wild animal, Uri the Unwise ordered everyone to open the windows. Immediately, the wind whistled through the building, chilling everyone inside.

  “This isn’t much fun,” said Ehud the Baker.

  “It’s Lag Ba’Omer,” Grandma Faina said. “Let’s just keep celebrating. It will get better.”

  “Picnics need the sun to be shining overhead,” Little Dov said. “Let’s open the roof.”

  As Shlomo loudly voiced his objections, Leib the Lackwit and Itzik the Silly tugged two boards out of the roof. Everyone sat back down to enjoy the picnic. But now, along with the wind, freezing raindrops tumbled into the room. The winds spattered the rain about, ensuring that everyone was soaked and miserable.

  “I want to go home,” Little Dov moaned.

  “It’s Lag Ba’Omer,” Grandma Faina said. “Let’s just keep celebrating. It will get better.”

  Then the animals started banging at the door. The barn was their home, after all, and they weren’t used to the wet and cold. “Let them in,” Shlomo said.

  So they let the animals into the barn. Before, it had been freezing and wet, with damp prickly straw scattered all around. Now livestock mooed and baaed, smelling as only wet animals can smell. They greedily helped themselves to the picnics, as the villagers inched away.

  “This is ridiculous,” Schlemiel said.

  “It’s Lag Ba’Omer,” Grandma Faina said. “Let’s just keep celebrating. It will get better.”

 
Since it was so cold, the villagers agreed that the best course of action would be to light the traditional bonfire.

  Farfel the Fat and Fishel the Foolish piled sticks in the middle of the barn and started a small blaze. The people huddled close, grateful for the warmth. Unfortunately, the fire spread surprisingly quickly, roaring along the floor, devouring straw. Leaping flames closed in on the villagers from all directions.

  “Ai! Ai! Ai!” Everyone screamed and ran in a panic. The animals howled and ran in circles, trampling all in their path. Children climbed up into the loft, ignoring the fire as it followed them up the ladder. This could have been a very tragic story, if it hadn’t been for the rain pouring through the roof. It quickly doused the fire, making everyone sigh huge sighs of relief.

  Shlomo’s face boiled bright red. “Look at these horrible burns on my barn. It will take forever to rebuild. And my poor animals, look how frightened they are. Two of the cows have run off, and the rest are mooing as if they’re about to be slaughtered.”

  “It’s Lag Ba’Omer,” Grandma Faina said. “Let’s just keep celebrating. It will get better.”

  But most of the adults were finished celebrating. A few of the boys pulled out bows and arrows and offered to start the archery tournament.

  Although most people agreed that this had already been the most dangerous Lag Ba’Omer ever, even without bows and arrows, the tournament began.

  Minna pulled out a few chunks of soap that she had brought to wash the jam from her children’s faces. “These will just make white marks when they hit the wall. That won’t hurt anyone. It might even clean up this dirty barn.”

  The archery tournament began, each boy or girl shooting arrows, tipped with soft white soap, at the walls. The spent arrows tumbled to the ground. Soon the children began to slip and slide on the soapy floor. The littlest ones giggled and skated along the floor, twisting and twirling. Then the older children dropped their bows and arrows to slide. Soon all the adults were trying it too. The rain trickled to a stop, and a few glimmers of sunlight shone through the holes in the roof. The people of Chelm paid no attention; they were having too much fun.