Джеймс Миченер - The Source

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 andwalked 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.