Cullinane had learned not to expect Catholic Ireland and Catholic Spain to share common views, and he doubted that Muslim Turkey and Muslim Syria ever would, either. For religion was not a solid basis upon which to construct either a nation or a congeries of nations, and he could foresee the distant time when Pan-Arabism, not religion, would unite true Arab states like Syria, Iraq and Arabia, while surrounding non-Arabic states would go their historic ways: to the west Muslim Egypt would assume a position of leadership among the nations of Africa; to the east Muslim Iran would concentrate on Asia; while to the north Muslim Turkey would associate herself with the problems of Europe. Nationalism, not religion, would decide, and he often caught himself wondering whether the new state of Israel had been wise to commit herself so completely to one faith, no matter how ancient and deeply rooted in the local soil that faith might be. He was surprised at the power of religious parties in the government, at the religious emphasis in schools and at the fact that Israel, like Turkey of old, had handed civil problems like marriage and inheritance to religious courts composed of rabbis if one were Jewish, priests if one were Catholic, or ministers if one happened to be Protestant. As a good Christian he could not help concluding: This is where Byzantium was sixteen centuries ago. Why would a new nation of its own free will insist upon repeating such mistakes? He felt that one of these days he ought to ask Eliav about these matters, for apparently Jews felt that their religion contained special features which exempted it from errors which had overtaken other faiths.
• • •
Shmuel Hacohen wanted land. He had to have land. More than any other man in Palestine this sway-backed, hard-working Jew from Russia had to find land; and as twilight ended on this hot summer day he became desperate, for the same messenger who had brought the dispatches from Akka to Kaimakam Tabari had brought word to Hacohen that the first shipload of Jews from Europe had landed two days earlier at that port. Tomorrow they would begin marching to Tiberias, and unless there was land awaiting them Hacohen would face disaster.
Four years ago, when he first came to Tiberias, he had thought that buying land for a Jewish settlement would be a simple task, but months and years had slipped by in tantalizing negotiation, in bribery and confusion, and Hacohen found himself in 1880 no nearer to having acquired his acres than he had been in 1876. For example, two full years had elapsed since his last petition had been forwarded to Istanbul. How could any government postpone making such a decision for two whole years?
At six o’clock on this very hot day Shmuel sat in his miserable room, wondering what to do. He lived in a hut that marked the border between the Ashkenazi and Sephardi sections, and not even in the worst of Russia had he known such a room, for in Russia one had at least a floor and—if he tried hard enough—a freedom from bedbugs; but here in the hopeless filth of Tiberias there was nothing except old men studying the Talmud, women living their pointless lives like animals, and children growing each year in ignorance. It was a hideous perversion of the way a Jew ought to live in his homeland, and Shmuel Hacohen was morally outraged.
He groaned in the heat. Obviously he must again implore the kaimakam to release the land needed by the incoming Jews, but as he visualized the kaimakam he shook his head: I can’t understand him at all. He recognized that Tabari was corrupt beyond any standard existing in Russia, and he knew that the kaimakam intended to squeeze out of the Jews every piaster possible. He was also aware that Tabari used the mutasarrif in Akka and the wali in Beirut as convenient excuses for extracting additional baksheesh, but what Hacohen could not understand was the man’s apparent lack of any moral base from which to operate.
Shmuel was willing to concede that Kaimakam Tabari was at heart a good man; otherwise he could have played Jew against Arab, and Christian against both, generating rifts within the community as Russian governors did, but this Tabari refused to do. He handled each religious group in his community in the same corrupt manner, thus preserving a kind of happy-go-lucky peace, and after Hacohen’s experiences in Russia he knew how to appreciate such peace. In his homeland Hacohen had learned to work with men who were mostly good or mostly bad, and with such men he knew where he stood. But with Kaimakam Tabari the problem was more complex, for the man could never bring himself to announce forthrightly what was to be done. Even when Hacohen bought him off with many pounds, things could not be considered settled, for the next man who brought the kaimakam a few more pounds could buy him back the other way. Trying to purchase land through such a man was frustrating to the point of despair, and Shmuel Hacohen had reached that point.
In his steaming, filthy room, not fit for sheep or goats, the wiry little Jew pulled on his western clothes, jammed his feet into hot leather shoes and prepared to wrestle yet again with the slippery, smiling kaimakam. But this day was going to be different. He was determined to get land. He would get the land he had paid for or …
He did not finish the sentence, because even in his state of anxiety he knew that he had no weapon with which to threaten the amiable official. A Jew could not protest to Akka or go to Beirut. He must deal only with Kaimakam Tabari. Nor could a Jew, like a Frenchman, appeal to his ambassador for aid—because the Jew had no ambassador. All Shmuel Hacohen could do was to pay more baksheesh to Tabari, and then more, and then still more.
Consequently, on this last desperate day Hacohen knelt in the dust at the head of his mattress and rummaged among some stones, from which he withdrew his final cache of funds. He had nearly a thousand English pounds, the last of his money from Russia, and this must close the deal. He brushed his trousers and started for the door, then stopped, considered for a long time, and returned reluctantly to the foot of his bed, where he dug into the earthen floor, coming up at last with a beautiful, shining gold coin. He studied it with love and regret, concluding that on this day of judgment even that coin was expendable.
He had found the ancient piece on one of his first scouting trips along the southern end of Bahr Tubariyeh where he had stopped to kick at the soil to see if it was promising. When he uncovered a dark, rich earth, capable of yielding fine crops if properly farmed, he took a stick and continued digging as if the land were already his, and in so doing turned up this antique coin covered with Arabic writing. It was waiting for me, he told himself.
It had been Shmuel’s intention to spend this lucky coin toward the purchase of his own home in the new settlement, and he had resisted all temptations to waste it otherwise, but now he was trapped. He must have land for his Jews, and if this gold coin could help him get it, the coin would have to be spent.
Into his right pants pocket he put what little Turkish money he had left. Into his coat he put the roll of English bills. And into his left pants pocket, where he could feel its reassuring weight against his leg, he placed the gold coin. Putting on his Turkish fez he brushed his suit again and prayed, “God of Moses, lead me out of this wilderness.”
Shmuel Hacohen had been born Shmuel Kagan in the little village of Vodzh along the western boundary of Russia. His father was a thin, pious man who collected rents for Russian landlords, and Shmuel’s first argument came when he was nine: his orthodox father had forced him to wear soft curls dangling down beside his ears, the Hasidic mark of piety as demanded by the Bible, but young Shmuel, a sickly and sway-backed child who walked with his left shoulder thrust forward, was learning that boys with curls were apt to be set upon by the Russians, so, borrowing his mother’s scissors, he had shorn himself. At the time his mother said nothing, but when Kagan senior returned from collecting rents she burst into tears and Shmuel’s father took him into a darkened room, where he recited the terrifying admonition of Moses our Teacher: “ ‘If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; And they shall say unto the elders of
his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die.’ ” His father had paused before adding, “You let your hair grow in curls.”
Shmuel had been impressed by his father’s threat, and was for some weeks haunted by a vision of the punishment recommended by the Torah, but even this failed to make him pliable to his father’s ideas. He refused to wear the curls. The conflict became intensified when his parents wanted him to enter the yeshiva to prepare himself for a lifetime of study, since they recognized that he was an able boy. Again Shmuel refused, for he had already decided to enter some kind of business.
“There’s no business nobler than studying Talmud,” Kagan said.
“It’s not for me.”
“Shmuel, listen. Each morning when I pass the synagogue I ask God to forgive me. That I’m collecting rents. For Gentiles. And not reading Talmud as I should.”
“Me, I want to work.”
The senior Kagan, knowing the disappointments that Jews faced in Russia, fearing the pogroms that were becoming frequent along the Polish border, said with certainty, “Son, you’re a weak boy with a swayed back. For a Jew like you there’s only one safe course. Study Talmud. Become a pious man. And trust in God.”
This reasoning the stubborn boy could not accept, so in their impasse father and son agreed to place their differences before the holy man of Vodzh and to abide by his decision. Accordingly, they left their home and walked along the muddy road until they reached the village pump, across from which stood a courtyard surrounded by a rambling wooden house. Hasidic Jews, with fur caps, long black gowns and side curls, clustered about the door, and through them Kagan led his son. Without knocking he entered the house, announcing, “Rebbe, we come seeking judgment.”
The saintly man before whom they stood scarcely seemed a religious leader. He was a tall, robust man in his forties, with a ruddy face, smiling eyes and a bushy black beard, a rabbi who loved dancing and the shout of folksongs; at weddings he would sometimes throw the bride on his massive shoulders and race about his courtyard, kicking his heels and bellowing marriage songs until his congregation cheered. If at midnight some wanted to halt the festivities, it was he who kept the musicians playing, and once when he was reprimanded for continuing a marriage celebration till dawn he said, “The Jews of Vodzh have neither carriages nor gold nor expensive wine. If we cannot be lavish with our dancing and our music, how can we celebrate?” And when his questioner remained quizzical, the big rebbe grabbed him and shook him, saying harshly, “Jacob! This bride has not the dishes to lay a table. All her life she will live in poverty, consoled only by the memory of this night when she was beautiful. For God’s sake, dance with her now, before the roosters make us finish.”
He was known simply as the Vodzher Rebbe, a Hasidic rabbi who alleviated the misery of his Jews by the joy of his religious experience. In Vodzh he maintained a court, which the rebbes of his family had conducted for three generations, a house in which transient Jews could find a place to sleep or local Jews a center for discussion. It was a holy place from which he dispensed justice among his people, who could not find it in the local courts. In all the villages of western Russia and eastern Poland the Vodzher Rebbe was recognized as one of the saints of Judaism, and often on Saturdays he would have at his table as many as fifty Jews from different communities who had come to hear wisdom from his lips, but what they usually heard was his lively voice singing old Jewish folksongs.
Across his left cheek he carried a scar which further detracted from an appearance of saintliness, but this was his badge of honor about which Hasidic Jews would speak for generations: “One Friday afternoon the woodcutter Pinhas ran to the Vodzher Rebbe, saying, ‘Poor Mendel! He does not have with what to make Shabbat.’ That winter our rebbe had no money, for he had given it all away. But the idea of a pious Jew unable to celebrate the coming of Queen Shabbat was too painful to bear, so he put on his fur cap and marched to the great house of the nobleman, saying, ‘Sir, your poor Jews of Vodzh have no money to make Shabbat. What can you give me?’ The nobleman was insulted by this interruption and with his sword cut the rebbe across the face. Without flinching the rebbe said, ‘That blow was for me. Now what have you for the needy Jews?’ And in this brave manner he got the kopecks so that Mendel could make Shabbat.”
Now, as the Kagans stood before him, this huge saintly man smiled at the close-cropped boy and asked, “Shmuel Kagan, what have you been up to?”
“My son refuses to wear his curls,” the father complained. “He will not enter the yeshiva.”
“He won’t?” the rebbe asked.
“I want to work,” Shmuel replied.
The big rebbe threw back his head and laughed. “How many fathers in Vodzh would be happy if their lazy sons once said, ‘I want to work.’ ” He reached out and grabbed Shmuel, saying, “Sit on my lap, son,” and with one enormous hand he clutched the frail boy to him, rumpling his short hair with the other. “I noticed that you were running through the village like a lamb newly shorn.” At this witticism the Hasidim in the room laughed, as courtiers should, but the rebbe ignored them, saying to the boy, “Your father is right, Shmuel. Israel can’t exist without a fresh supply of new scholars each year. My own son is at the yeshiva, and he makes me proud. Your father would be proud if you were studying Talmud.” He hugged the boy and asked, “What’s the matter? No mind for studies?”
“I want to work,” Shmuel repeated.
“And so you shall!” the rebbe cried joyously. “Kagan, Israel needs not only scholars but practical men as well. Shave your hair, Shmuel. Go to the Russian schools. Go on to Germany and attend university. Do the wonderful things that Jews are capable of. But never forget your God.” He rose, and keeping the boy in his arms, began to dance, jumping up and down in one place so that his beard brushed across Shmuel’s face, and the Hasidim began clapping their hands. One by one stately men with long beards and side curls joined the dance, and the rebbe’s court echoed with shouts of praise as the holy men danced.
“We are dancing for Shmuel Kagan!” the rebbe cried. “For he is the child of God and in the world he is to do great things.” Toward the end of the long dance, when all were chanting and beating their hands, the big rebbe kissed Shmuel on the cheek and whispered, “You are the child of God, the son of Abraham.”
The dancing ended, and with reverence the big man placed Shmuel beside his father, to whom he said, “The paths to God are manifold.” Then, as if he were experiencing a visit from God, he clutched the boy to him and burst into tears, great animal-sobs coming from his beard as he mourned, “You will do all these things, child, but in them you will not find happiness. Nor you,” and he pointed to one of the visiting Hasidim. “Nor you. Nor you.” He returned to his chair and sat trembling like a child, for he had been allowed a vision of the tragedy that faced his Jews.
So Shmuel Kagan, with his father’s consent, avoided the yeshiva and went instead to the Russian school; he was a good student, but no small village like Vodzh could provide the funds to send a boy to university, so at the age of twenty he found a job as timber buyer for the government, and in this capacity traveled much of western Russia, a small Jew with an odd way of walking, who went from town to town, acquainting himself with the strange winds that were beginning to blow across that vast land. In Kiev he met young men who argued, “The only hope for the Jew is to join the socialist movement and build a new Russia in which he can find an honorable home.” In Berdichev he came upon a group who met in the home of a poet who insisted, “Jews will come into their own only when they return to Zion and build there a new state.” But at the end of each trip he returned to Vodzh, where he sat like a penitent in the court of the rebbe, listening as that bearded saint developed his view that the true salvation of the Jew could lie only in sanctity and the Talmud. To his surprise young Kagan found himself more attuned to the rebbe than to the voluble men
in Kiev and Berdichev and he was always pleased when the spiritual leader ceased talking and began chanting some Hasidic song. Shmuel joined in, and the rebbe’s court would echo with their noisy voices: this was permanent, the joy that poor Jews could find in praising their God.
But at the rebbe’s court there was contradiction: although he himself relied solely upon the Talmud, he did not deny validity to men who thought they had found alternative routes for the Jews. One day in 1874, when Shmuel was twenty-eight, the rebbe surprised the young timber merchant by observing, “What the poet in Berdichev told you is correct. The day is coming when we Jews of Russia and Poland must combine with the Jews of Eretz Israel to build a new land for ourselves. We shall till the soil and work in cities like other men, and if I were younger I would elect this new life.”
That year Shmuel was further perplexed by the arrival in his father’s home of a bearded, unctuous middle-aged Jew named Lipschitz, who nodded to everyone, kept his mouth in a fixed smile and shook hands limply like a woman. He hiked from village to village through Russia, carrying with him a list of Jews who could be counted upon to give him lodging, and in Vodzh he had thrust himself upon the Kagans. “I am from Tiberias,” he announced. “Tiberias, in Eretz Israel, and I shall be living with you for a few days.” He made himself at home, ate voraciously, and visited all Jewish families, begging funds with which to support the Talmudic scholars of Tiberias.
Shmuel disliked Lipschitz and suspected that he was keeping much of the money for himself, but the man’s mention of Eretz Israel so close upon the rebbe’s comments excited Shmuel’s imagination, so that while the guest fed himself Shmuel asked many questions. Between mouthfuls the visitor explained how the holy town nestled beside the Sea of Galilee, how Arabs dominated the town, how the Turks governed, and how the Jews lived.
The Source: A Novel Page 108
