The important thing now is to make sure Charlie gets the land for himself, without Mr. Mittleman’s money or help! If he really has all the money he told Anita he did, that should be enough.
Will Charlie spend Shabbos with Dr. Fogel?
Also: Where is his beloved Uncle Sol, and what happened at their meeting??
It’s almost sundown now. I promised to wash myself for Shabbos and change into my other set of underwear and clean shirt. If I wash the clothes I’m wearing and put them out to dry before Shabbos I’ll be safe because Dr. Fogel and Charlie won’t ride here on Shabbos.
I’ll make a blessing over the grapes, for the wine.
SATURDAY NIGHT
Today I observed Shabbos by doing no work: no writing or carrying or cooking or lighting matches or buying or thinking about money. I left my money out of my pocket all day on a board next to the front door and I never touched it.
After I ate bread and grapes I prayed all morning, doing the entire service except for the part of taking out the Torah. I sang the prayers out loud and my voice sounded nice inside the cabin. It’s not like a girl’s voice anymore. When my praying was over I spread 3 napkins out in the middle of the floor and made lunch. I made Kiddush over the grapes again, washed my hands, and made a Motzi over the bread and when I was done eating I washed my fingertips and said the blessings after meals. Then I took a nap and I didn’t dream.
When I woke up I studied the way old men study Talmud in Orthodox synagogues on Saturday afternoons and I tried to see how many points of view I could give on the same question.
This is the question I asked: CAN A JEW BE A JEW ALONE?
I gave Murray’s answer and Dr. Fogel’s answer and Sol’s answer and Ephraim’s answer and Charlie’s answer and Mr. Mittleman’s answer and Rabbi Akiba’s answer and Maimonides’s answer and Danny Ginsberg’s answer.
Guess whose answer was best? Danny Ginsberg’s!
MURRAY‘S answer was yes, a Jew can be a Jew alone but he’s a better Jew when he’s part of the Jewish people.
DR. FOGEL quoted God’s promise to Abraham, saying “I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.” Dr. Fogel asked: Why would God say “everlasting” if He didn’t mean it?
SOL said he learned that God promised the Jews that the Messiah would come 1 day and His people would be there. But if there were 1 Jew left that would mean there would be an end to all Jews and that would mean the Messiah’s time had come. Then God’s promise to His people would not have been fulfilled. All Jews should be proud of their heritage! he added.
EPHRAIM said a Jew could be a Jew alone because his father had been a Jew alone. He said the word “alone” shouldn’t be taken literally. He said he thought I meant it to represent the way you felt about being Jewish.
CHARLIE said he believed that a Jew could not be a Jew alone, but he said he didn’t have to give reasons for his feeling.
MR. MITTLEMAN said my question was Anti-Semitic and that an Anti-Semite is somebody who hates Jews more than is necessary.
RABBI AKIBA said no.
MAIMONIDES said yes.
DANNY GINSBERG said a Jew could be a Jew alone because Abraham had been a Jew alone. Everybody had to agree with me, because it was in the Torah.
Then we talked about whether a 2nd Jew alone would know if he were a 2nd Abraham. How would God talk to a man if he wanted to in today’s world? (Mr. Mittleman said he would come through on an answering service!) What are His signs? If there were no Jews would there still be a Sabbath? Is there any place in the Bible where it definitely says the Messiah will come, or did Sol make that part up? If Dr. Fogel doesn’t believe in Israel and does believe in the Bible coming from God, how does he explain God’s promise to Abraham to give him the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession?
Also: If God gave the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai, how did Dr. Fogel explain who wrote the last 8 parts, after Moses dies?
I asked Charlie why he didn’t want to give reasons for his feeling and he got angry with me and told me not to feel so proud because I knew how to use words. He surprised me and quoted the saying about God being concerned above all with what is in a man’s heart.
This is what he asked me: Where in the Bible does it say that Abraham knew how to read and write?
Mr. Mittleman said that God was too smart to have ever put his promise in writing.
Sol said, God bless the state of Israel!
Then it was time for Minchah and Maariv. When I finished praying I went outside and when I saw 3 stars I went back inside and I lit the lanterns for Havdalah and sniffed salt and pepper from the palm of my hand. I kissed the backs of both my hands and wished myself a good week.
I sat on the step of the cabin making myself think of nothing until it became chilly, when I came back inside and had supper.
If I had enough food and money, could I go on forever like this, filling my days with nothing but prayer and study and eating and washing and sleeping?
The answer is no.
SUNDAY
It’s the middle of the afternoon now and here I am, sitting next to my own pond and thinking how lucky I was to have thought to come here instead of staying in the city. I wonder if Dr. Fogel sat here when he was a boy and his father was the leader of the colony.
I just gave myself my 1st music lesson on the Tonette, learning to read notes and how to blow to get a good pure tone. I bought one in a drugstore this morning.
My promise: to practice music one hour every day. This will give me a start for when I come out and can take up a real instrument. I think the sweet fragrance of the Sabbath is going to stay with me all week long, because when I realized this morning that Charlie was not going to come today it didn’t make me unhappy. Sunday is his big day for selling houses.
Charlie’s fatal trouble: He’s too good. If he had the ability to reject me he wouldn’t be worried the way he is now and I wouldn’t be able to make him do what I want. Mr. Mittleman would agree with me. This is what he would say: If you want to get ahead, learn to be bad! Too many people like Charlie, even after what he did to Murray, whether by accident or not.
My question: Why is he so good? If he were less good, would I have seen that in his eyes also, even in the photos, and would that have kept me from trying to find him? And if I hadn’t wanted to find him and if everything hadn’t happened the way it had and if I hadn’t just thought what I thought about him being too good, would that have made him something else, and would anybody else ever have thought the same about him?
If I think the thought he will too!
Does that mean there’s hope?
A fact: THE JEWISH PEOPLE ARE LESS THAN ⅓ OF 1% OF THE WORLD’S POPULATION, INCLUDING CHILDREN.
To do: list the great contributions of the Jews to civilization, including not only those of people everybody knows like Einstein and Spinoza and Freud, but also others. In America, for example, find out if Jews really run the publishing industry and garment industry and movie industry and diamond industry and Democratic party and radio and TV and universities.
Some examples I remember of things even Jews don’t know about famous Jews: Emil Berliner invented the gramophone and the microphone. A Jew discovered petroleum in Galicia in 1853. The International Postal Union was invented by Joseph Michaelson. The telephone was really invented by Philip Reiss in 1864. Nahum Salamon was the 1st man to manufacture bicycles. Bubonic plague serum and typhus fever serum were invented by Jews. The repeating rifle was invented by a Jew. In 1854 in Germany a Jew made and drove the 1st electric automobile. (Look up names I forgot!)
The question: What would happen if the whole world were Jewish?
The answer: There would be a shortage of Rabbis.
If I’m feeling so good now, is Charlie feeling the opposite?
Things that are not in my notebook: what I dream about when I dream. What each person I meet
looks like. What I think between the time when I finish writing in my notebook until I go to sleep on that day. What I eat at every meal and/or between meals.
Also: I don’t put down every single detail of what people look like, or everything they say, or what rooms I’m in are like. I don’t put down what kinds of shoes people wear or what color the pants and shoes and socks and underwear and shirt I’m wearing now are. I don’t put down how each thing I eat tastes and every time I drink water or go to the bathroom.
I don’t put down only the important things either. Sometimes I forget the important things.
How different am I when I write things down from when I do the things I’m writing about?
I don’t put down the stories I see all the time when I think of how people’s lives, like Charlie’s or Dr. Fogel’s or Hannah’s, would be so different with small changes and when I follow their lives along different lines, coming from them saying things or making decisions or having things happen to them that are different from the way things are.
When I imagine how their lives might become different lives from the ones they have I always see them in my head as if they’re walking away from me on a path covered with leaves and I’m seeing them from behind. Then I see them come to places where there are several directions they can go in, including straight ahead. I imagine what lies ahead on each road. Each road has new turning points and I see them making choices or being forced on to paths and I see them in the future with different lives being led right there on the paths, and when I look from behind I can see 8 or 10 or 12 or more different lives being acted out by them at stopping points on the road, as if on theater stages. Sometimes I see all the lives being led at the same time and I can see which ones would have been the best choices. But sometimes a good choice at 1 point leads to a bad choice later and vice versa. And sometimes the paths intersect and the people shake hands with themselves and kiss themselves in delight at meeting themselves.
Now I’m going to do what I mean, in an opposite way, going backward.
Do I really know everything my mind went through during the instant in which I had the idea to do what I’m going to do and during which it sped backward in time even while it was writing in time right now and saw everything that happened in time back then and which I’ll now put down?
What did my mind do with all the years in between??
Without further ado, Danny Ginsberg presents:
THE STORY OF NEW ZION
a story by
Daniel Ginsberg
One bright day in the 3rd quarter of the century in which we now live, a young boy of indeterminate age chanced to be walking through a deserted section of some woods in upstate New York, where he had been sojourning, on his way to freedom (for the boy was an orphan who had run away from the orphanage which had held him—and in those days there were still orphans, though they were forgotten by the public at large), when he spied a tree trunk that attracted his attention by the strange light flickering from it. Upon closer examination the boy discovered that the strange light came from sunbeams dancing upon the filaments of an intricate spider web, which web covered a hollow in the old tree, and below which web the boy saw what it was that was causing the marvelous light to glisten at him.
He stuck his fingers through the sticky web and took out the box. It was made of highly polished metal, and though the boy could tell that it was very old, it still shone as if it were new. Upon the lid of the box was a Star of David, and the initials, in Hebrew .
The brass hasp of the box gave way easily to the pressure of the boy’s fingers, and inside he found an envelope addressed as follows:
A LETTER TO MY JEWISH AMERICAN GRANDCHILDREN LIVING IN ZIONAMERICA
The boy, looking around stealthily to be sure he was not being spied upon, for he was fearful of having his whereabouts detected before he could establish a new existence for himself (he had, upon quitting the orphanage which had held him in bondage, made sure to destroy all records of himself, including fingerprints and photographs, so that, when he had come to some new town which was not hostile to children like himself, he would be able to start anew), then made his way to a bold rock beside a pond, where he sat himself down.
As he was wondering whether or not he had the right to look within the letter, a shaft of bright light seemed to fall upon his hand where he held the letter, and the boy was so transfixed by the nature of the curious light that he did not even realize for a while that it was burning his knuckles. When he released the letter with a cry of pain, it floated to the ground, but though it fell upon mud, when the boy lifted it, it showed no signs of dirt, and his hand too had no mark from the burn.
Was the boy religious? Did he believe in signs from above? Did he believe that the same light which had attracted him first to the tree was now offering him the letter as his own?
Alas, dear reader, we shall never know what went on inside him! All we know is that, without any seeming thought, he did in fact reach inside the envelope and from it he plucked the letter.
The paper was remarkably well preserved, and showed no signs of aging, not even at the corners. The script was quite legible, the boy was pleased to see, and he looked around once more, to assure himself of his privacy amidst Nature (did a frog croak? did birds twitter above him? if they did, would he even have noticed, so lost was he in contemplation of his treasure?) and then he read:
MY DEAREST GRANDCHILDREN,
As I write this letter, who can know if you exist or if you do not because how do I know if my son who has long ago deserted me will have married, and if he married, will have had children? Remember what the Talmud said (I’m telling you this in English because who knows if anyone will speak Hebrew anymore in the time in which you will be living?): “The unmarried person lives without joy, without blessing, and without good. He is not a man in the full sense of the term.” Which shows that He wanted us to have children, also from when it says that a man may divorce his wife if she is barren for 10 years and a wife may divorce her husband if he is impotent.
So if you are there somewhere reading me and hearing my voice I want you to know about how I came to America and founded my colony of New Zion and how it all ended so maybe you will not repeat my mistakes and will have a better life as Jews than I or your father, who calls himself, so I am told by those who see him, “Doctor” Fogel.
Was I to blame? In the Talmud the Rabbis blame the evil nature of Absalom who revolted against David the King on David himself, who brought him up with too much freedom, but who could say that of me?
Listen for a minute, my grandchildren. This is a voice from the past and even from the Old Country, as it is called, telling you to be good Jews and to remember Israel, for does it not say that it is an inheritance unto you?
Remember this: GOD, THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL, AND THE LAND OF ISRAEL ARE ONE. If you are born a Jew, you remain a Jew always, and a stranger in all lands but your own. And I Eliezer Fogel know this better than any man, for I tried to establish God’s land here in America and my end is that I end alone, without my wife or my son or my followers, so that I am condemned never to have the blessing even of praying in a Minyan, or of knowing if my children and grandchildren will follow after me and redeem my life for me!
I am hoping you understand what these words mean, coming to you now, across the years. This is what you should remember if you are a Jew: Trust Nobody, not even other Jews. I trusted in man, and was paid in kind!
What was my life like in the Old Country, where I was a student in the Cheder of the great Riminova Rebbe, may his name be blessed? I might have become his prize pupil and a wise man myself but I was too eager. This is what Eliezer Fogel says: “Don’t be so eager!” In my village we were taught to honor the stranger and when he came into our midst and stayed with us for Shabbos and told me of the land of Palestine and of the people who were going there to make it a Homeland for the Jewish People, I trusted in him.
May the worms feast on his flesh!
; And what was my life like in our Shtetl in Europe before I left it? Now I have beautiful memories of a community devoted to God and Torah and one’s fellow Jew, but the truth is, my grandchildren, the Shtetl had a smell like rotting onions! It stank like poverty stinks and sickness stinks and sadness stinks!
You should study what life was like for Jews in the Shtetl and through the centuries, wherever they were, unless they catered to the Goyim, and then you will see that the great miracle is our survival and that you are alive and still a Jew despite everything!
This is what we said: “If God lived in the Shtetl His windows would be broken.”
But more than His windows broke. Didn’t His heart break to see our suffering? Or was the Rebbe right, that Suffering was our lot, that it showed we were His people, and that the New Doctrine of Zionism was trying to take from God what was His, who had to work through His time and in His way?
My son left me when he told me this was so, but what did he ever know of sorrow and hardship, having been born here in America?
I declare this: God wanted us to regain the land of Israel, of our forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whenever we could, for why else did He choose us to be a blessing to the nations, and how could we be a blessing to the nations in these terrible times if we have no nation of our own, no land which is our own, where we can be safe from Destruction? Remember this: “If there is no bread there is no study.”
On our Holiest day, Yom Kippur, God himself cannot forgive us all our sins. We must ask our fellow men for forgiveness. Do you understand me? We Jews are a people of this world!
Here for you is another way of seeing what I mean. The Rabbis say “If a person who withholds himself from wine is called a sinner, how much more so is one a sinner who withdraws from all of life’s enjoyments.”
An Orphan's Tale Page 21
