Sholem Aleichem - Tevye the Dairyman and Motl the Cantor's Son

So let’s see now, what did I start to tell you? Oh yes! With a little help from God, there I was penniless, poor as a beggar, with a wife and kids, starving to death three times a day, not counting suppers, may it not happen to any Jew. I slaved like a jackass lugging full wagonloads of logs from the woods to the railroad station. I am embarrassed to tell you all I got was half a ruble a day, and not every day at that. Just try to feed, kayn eyn horeh, a houseful of hungry mouths, may they stay healthy, and, please forgive the comparison, a freeloading boarder of a horse like a starving yeshiva boy, but one who doesn’t know from Rashi and insists on having his belly filled every day, no excuses accepted.

So how did God arrange it? He is, how do you say, a great and all-powerful God who nourishes and supports all living creatures. He manages this little world wisely and well. He sees how I’m struggling for a crust of bread and says to me, “Do you think,

Tevye, the end of days has come and the sky has fallen on you? Feh, you’re a big fool! Soon you’ll see how, if I so decree, your luck can change in a split second, and where there was darkness there will be light. It will be decided, exactly as it says in the Yom Kippur prayer U’netaneh tokef, God decides who will ride and who will go on foot. The main thing is — hope.” A Jew must hope, must keep on hoping. So what if he goes under in the meantime? What better reason is there for being a Jew? As it is said: Thou hast chosen us— there’s good reason for the whole world to envy us. Why am I telling you all this? So you’ll see how God dealt with me, performed great wonders and miracles. It won’t hurt you to hear about it.

As it is said, And there came the day. It was a summer evening, and I was riding back home through the woods having just finished delivering logs. I was downcast, my heart heavy with worry. The little horse, poor thing, was on its last legs, barely stumbling along, no matter how hard I beat it or flayed its hide.

“Crawl on your belly,” I shouted, “ shlimazel ! Suffer like I suffer! If you’re going to be Tevye’s horse, you also have to know what it’s like to starve on a long hot summer day.” In the silence all around us, every crack of the whip echoed through the woods. The sun was setting, the day fading. The shadows of the trees grew longer like our Jewish exile. It turned darker and gloomier. Many strange thoughts and old memories ran through my head, and all kinds of images of people long dead came to me. Then I thought of my own home, God pity me! Inside the little hut it was dark, dismal; the poor children, may they stay healthy, were naked and barefoot, awaiting their father, that shlimazel, hoping he’d bring home a fresh loaf of bread or at least a baked roll. And she, my old lady, was grumbling, just like a woman, “I had to bear him children, and seven at that! I might as well throw them into the river, may God not punish me for these words!”

Do you like to hear such words? After all, a man is no more than a man. As they say, “We are all either of flesh or of fish.” You can’t fill the stomach with words. If you eat a piece of herring, you have a yen for tea. With the tea you need some sugar, and sugar, you’ll say, only Brodsky has. “A crust of bread the stomach can manage to do without,” says my wife, long life to her, “but without a glass of tea in the morning, I’m as good as dead. The baby,” she says, “drains me dry all night!”

Still and all, a Jew is a Jew, and when it’s time for the evening prayers, pray you must. Imagine what kind of praying it was. I was standing alongside the wagon reciting the shmone esre, the Eighteen Benedictions, and right smack in the middle of them my horse goes crazy and takes off. There I am running after the wagon, hanging on to the reins for dear life and chanting, “God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob.” What a way to recite the Eighteen Benedictions! And wouldn’t you know, just then of all times, I really had the desire to pray!

So there I was, tearing after the wagon and chanting at the top of my lungs as if I were, pardon the comparison, a cantor chanting in shul, “Thou sustaineth the living with loving kindness and keepest thy faith with them that lie in the dust and are brought low.” We have our own way of saying it: “Even those who lie in the earth and bake bagels.” Oy, I think to myself, do we lie in the dust! Oy, are we brought low! I’m not talking about those rich people from Yehupetz, you understand, who while away the whole summer in Boiberik in their dachas, eating and drinking and swimming and enjoying the good life. Oy, God in heaven, why do I deserve this? Am I not a Jew the same as any other Jew? For heaven’s sake, dear God, see our affliction. Look down, I said, and see how we are struggling. Stand by the unfortunate, the poor. Who else will look after them if not You? Heal us, and we shall be healed. Send us the cure — the affliction we already have. Bless us with a good year. May crops flourish — the corn, the wheat, and the barley. As I think of it, what good will all that flourishing do a shlimazel like me? Does my horse care whether oats are expensive or cheap?

But feh, God doesn’t ask for advice, and a Jew in particular has to accept everything on faith and say, “That too is for the best. God probably wants it that way. And for the slanderers,” I sang on, “and for the slanderers and the high and mighty who say there is no God, just wait till they arrive over there . They will pay for their scoffing with interest because He hath a long memory, He keeps His word. You don’t trifle with Him, with Him you walk humbly, you pray to Him, cry out to Him, “‘Oh merciful Father! Compassionate Father! Hear our cries. Have pity on us. Have pity on my wife and children. They are, alas, hungry! Accept Your beloved people Israel, as in olden days of the Holy Temple, as Thou didst with the Priests and the Levites.’ ”

Suddenly — halt! The horse stopped in its tracks. I polished off the Eighteen Benedictions, lifted my eyes, and saw coming straight toward me out of the woods two strange-looking figures, their faces covered, and dressed oddly. . Robbers! flew through my mind, but I quickly caught myself: Feh, Tevye, you’re an idiot! Really, how many years had I been driving through these woods by day and by night? Why would I suddenly start worrying about thieves? “Giddyap!” I said to the horse, giving him a few extra smart blows on his rump, making as if I didn’t see them.

“Wait! Listen, I see you’re a Jew,” one of the two exclaimed in a woman’s voice, and waved to me with a corner of her shawl. “Stop for a minute! Don’t run off. We won’t harm you, God forbid!”

Aha! An evil spirit! I figured, but then reconsidered. Stupid, ignorant ass! Why did ghosts and demons suddenly fall onto my head out of nowhere? And I pulled up the horse and took a careful look at the two figures. They were ordinary women, the older one wearing a silk kerchief on her head, the younger one wearing a wig. Both were flushed red as beets and perspiring heavily.

“Good evening!” I tried to sound cheerful. “What can I do for you? If you want to buy something, you’re out of luck, unless you’re looking for bellyaches fit only for my enemies, heartaches enough for a full week, headaches, wracking pains, killing anguish, rehashed troubles—”

“Hush, hush!” they replied. “Just listen to how he goes on! Say one word to some Jews, and you’re not sure of your life! We don’t want to buy anything. We just wanted to ask if you know the way to Boiberik.”

“To Boiberik?” I almost burst out laughing. “That,” I said, “is like asking me if I know my name is Tevye.”