Джеймс Миченер - The Source

The world knows about this golden period of Safed, when Zaki taught love and Abulafia mysticism and Bar Zadok the law, because of an accidental traveler. In 1549 a Spanish Jew who had fled to Portugal and then to Amsterdam foresaw the Spanish-Dutch war that was about to sear his new homeland, and he concluded that this was as good a time as any to visit Eretz Israel, so after two years of dangerous travel he reached Jerusalem, where all men spoke of Safed as the jewel of Israel, and in the winter of 1551 he came north to Tubariyeh and then over the hill to Safed. Dom Miguel of Amsterdam was a perceptive traveler, one much concerned with Judaism, and the comments in his journal, while sometimes naïve, were always enlightening:From afar I had heard that the great rabbis of Safed earn their living by doing each in his own way manual labor, but I was not prepared to find that Abulafia the Mystic holds daily doctor’s hours or that Zaki the Good mends shoes. One saintly man from Portugal, much respected by his fellows, cleans chimneys, and the poet who wrote Lecha Dodi , which all in these parts sing, makes his living selling fodder to the caravans bringing wool from Akka.And wives work too. At home they are expected to clean, sew, cook and care for their children. But many go to the factory of Rabbi Yom Tov ben Gaddiel ha-Ashkenaz, where they spin and weave. Others work in the fields of farmers, but all who work expect to be paid in Turkish coins which, to my disgust, proclaim Allah, the God of Moses, is God.If I were asked to name the glory of Safed it would be the children. Those who recall the pale-faced youth of the Jewish quarters in Europe would be surprised to see the children of Safed, During the recent snowstorm I saw them rolling in the drifts with ruddy cheeks and now that summer has come I watch them playing games with Arab children and their faces are brown. They’re noisy. They sing songs brought here from all parts of Europe, but at ten or eleven the girls become proper household helpers and boys begin their study of the Talmud. I would that the Jews of Germany and Portugal might produce such children.The daily life of Safed, I am happy to report, is governed by the commandment which Moses our Teacher gave us after he had delivered the tablets of the Ten Commandments: “And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.” These warnings were observed by all Jews in Safed, for the Torah was constantly in the heart of the great rabbis like Zaki and Abulafia. I found that it also governed the behavior of businessmen like Rabbi Yom Tov. Even children were taught the laws, for the words of God were discussed in each home I visited. If I met Rabbi Zaki walking through the streets, he was reciting the Torah. The first thing we did each morning and the last each night was to pray, and I wish the Jews of Amsterdam did the same. I am pleased also to report that when a man prays he binds the leather phylacteries, one about his left arm, the other to his forehead. And each Jewish home I saw in Safed bore on its right-hand doorpost a small metal container in which rested the great law of the Jews: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” It was a most sweet and pleasant experience to be living within the law, and to be reminded of it at all times, both in the going out and at the coming in.Like most strangers who visit Safed, when I walked into town cold and dirty from my travel, I was taken at once to the shoemaker shop of Rabbi Zaki, for he used to have three daughters, but all are married, and he finds pleasure in entertaining strangers. His good wife Rachel complains at times, but Zaki takes no notice of this nor do his guests. Sharing a home with this simple man is like living with the sages in the old times, and the seven days of his week are a string of amulets, each with its peculiar significance.Half an hour before dawn each day throughout the year, a messenger from the synagogue comes tapping down the alleyways and at our door calls softly, “Rise, Rabbi, and greet the dawn.” Zaki dresses, brings a candle for me, and leaves his house in darkness to join with other men who head for the synagogue, where candles have been lighted and where in brief joyous ceremonies, joyous that is, except on Sunday, the new day is hailed. “O God!” Rabbi Zaki cries at these dawn services. “We men of Safed dedicate ourselves to Thee.”Tuesdays and Wednesdays, Rabbi Zaki sets aside for hard work, applying himself to the making of shoes. But on Mondays and Thursdays he looks forward to additional religious services. He is so faithful in fasting on these days, touching neither water nor food till sundown, that I wonder at his fatness. Sometimes he spends the better part of Thursday at the synagogue, either reading or leading his Jews in prayer. In Safed, as in all Jewry, Monday is also the market day, observed since the time of Ezra, and Zaki enjoys moving along the stalls and greeting his friends.But for Rabbi Zaki, Friday is the memorable day, complex and encrusted with those hidden meanings we Jews love. It is, in many ways, the best day of the week, not even excepting Shabbat with its special responsibilities. On Friday, Rabbi Zaki lies awake in the darkness, listening for the running feet and the knocking at his door, and he says to himself, “What joy! Another Friday.” He comes to my room and kisses me, crying so that his breath makes the candles flicker, “Rejoice, Dom Miguel! It’s Friday.” Then he takes me to the synagogue, where he sings in a loud voice, after which he stands at the door and breathes deeply, saying to himself, “Same sun. Same breeze. But somehow this day is different.” He spends his morning winding up his week’s business, and tries always to attend one of the yeshivot, where by tradition each Friday the great teachers sum up the principal truth of the week’s discussion or expound the basic tenets of Judaism.In this report I have spoken much of Rabbi Zaki, and perhaps you would rather hear about Dr. Abulafia or Bar Zadok, but when I tell you what Zaki does at Friday noon, before he lunches, you will understand. He leaves the synagogue where the great ones are expounding and he goes to his shoemaker shop, where he studies the box in which he keeps the money earned by mending shoes. “This week, Dom Miguel,” he tells me, “we can spare a little more,” and he takes from the box almost half of what he has earned. Hiding the coins in his long-coat he starts walking through the narrow streets, and wherever he finds a poor man, or a widow who has not with what to make Shabbat, he pauses and asks how this person is and as he talks he quietly places a few coins in some inconspicuous place. But when the meeting ends he always says, “Shmuel, you are a man who bears misfortune with dignity. You must know God better than I do. Give me on this happy Friday your blessing,” and he makes the man feel that it is he who is doing the rabbi a favor. And thus he disposes of his wealth.His charity completed, Rabbi Zaki goes home, where Rachel has been cleaning her house and doing much cooking, with all her pots bubbling at once. Carefully Zaki lays out fresh clothes, from stockings to robes, then walks to the ritual baths, where he cleanses himself for the moments that lie ahead. His lunch on Friday is always frugal and he grows impatient for the hours to pass, but by mid-afternoon a kind of benediction settles over him, and over the town itself, and he takes down his handsome prayer shawl, white with black stripes and knotted fringe, and he leaves his home and begins to walk sedately toward the edge of town, then out toward open fields, saying to me, “Keep up, Dom Miguel. You are going to meet your Bride.” As he moves through the narrow alleys, men join up with us until he leads as many as sixty or seventy into the countryside—a fat, round little man with a black beard, whose neighbors trust him. We are not in the fields long before we see Dr. Abulafia coming, tall and princely, his graying beard long and his manner of walking courtly. He is always attended by students of the Kabbala. Then Rabbi Yom Tov, dressed in expensive robes and with an air of command, comes marching toward us with his business assistants; and finally through the fields comes a man alone, Rabbi Eliezer bar Zadok ha-Ashkenaz, his eyes wearied from reading. Four times since I came to Safed I have been told that in Germany, Rabbi Eliezer was a man who could dance all night and drink endless amounts of German beer, but if that was ever the case, sorrow has changed him much in the intervening years.In the shadow of the mountains we sit upon the ground and speak of holy things. We sing hymns composed by poets of the town and study the flowers of the meadow, but as the sun drifts toward the west Rabbi Zaki feels himself gripped by an acute excitement, and he rises and returns to town, first in a slow walk, finally in a donkey-like gallop, his gown flapping about his fat legs as he calls behind, “Run faster, Dom Miguel! Your Bride is coming!” Through the narrow alleys of Safed he hurries, up and down the hills, crying, “Queen Shabbat is about to appear. Let us go forth in our finest clothes and in our sweetest breath to greet the Queen!” He knocks on doors and cries at street corners, lest any miss the Queen. Then, in a kind of ecstasy, he waits as the other rabbis return from the fields singing songs of praise to the imminent moment of our joy. Each man proceeds to his own synagogue, the Sephardim like Zaki to one of the many Spanish congregations, the Ashkenazim like Eliezer to one of the two German synagogues, and men sit upon the floor, while women give praise in the balcony masked by gauze curtains, and after the evening prayers have been chanted, all join in the great Safed hymn that we would do well to sing in Amsterdam: “Come, my Beloved, let us meet the Bride. The presence of Shabbat let us receive.” And as the sun sinks, the day of the Lord begins in Safed, that mysterious day on which the communion between God and man is reaffirmed.