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

“ Sholem aleichem, Reb Tevye!” I heard someone call from behind me. “How are you?”

I turned and could have sworn I knew him. “Aleichem sholem,” I said. “Where do I know you from?”

“From where? From Kasrilevka,” the man said to me. “I’m a friend of yours. I mean, I’m your second cousin once removed. Your wife Golde is my second cousin.”

“Say now,” I said, “can you be Boruch-Hersh Leah-Dvossi’s son-in-law?”

“You got that right,” he said to me. “I am a son-in-law of Leah-Dvossi’s, and my wife’s name is Sheyne-Sheyndl Boruch-Hersh Leah-Dvossi’s son-in-law. Now do you remember who I am?”

“Be quiet a minute,” I said. “I believe your mother-in-law’s grandmother Sora-Yente and my wife’s aunt Frume-Zlate were cousins, and if I’m not mistaken, you are the middle son-in-law of Boruch-Hersh Leah-Dvossi’s. But do you know, I’ve forgotten your name, it’s just flown out of my head. What is your name? What do they actually call you?”

“They call me Menachem-Mendl Boruch-Hersh Leah-Dvossi’s — that’s what they call me at home in Kasrilevka.”

“If that’s so, my dear Menachem-Mendl,” I said to him, “I really have to give you a proper sholem aleichem ! Tell me, my dear Menachem-Mendl, what are you doing here? How are your mother-in-law and father-in-law, long life to them? How are things going for you? How is your health, and how is business?”

“Well,” he said, “as for my health, thank God, one lives, but business is not so rosy these days.”

“God will help.” I stole a glance at his shabby clothes, patched in many places, the shoes almost worn through. “You can be sure God will help you and things will get better. As it says in the Bible: All is vanity . Money,” I said, “is round, one day it rolls this way, another day it rolls that way, so long as you are alive. The most important thing is faith. A Jew must have hope. Ay, what if things really go bad? For that reason we are Jews. As they say, if you’re a soldier, smell gunpowder. The whole world is but a dream. But better tell me, my dear Menachem-Mendl, what brings you to, of all places, Yehupetz?”

“What do you mean? I’ve been here for a year and a half.”

“Is that so? Are you a native? A Yehupetzer?”

“Sshhh,” he said, looking around. “Don’t shout so loudly, Reb Tevye. I am living here, but it must remain between us.”

I stared at him as if he were crazy. “You’re here illegally,” I said, “and you’re out in the open in the Yehupetz market square?”

“Don’t ask, Reb Tevye,” he said. “That’s the way it is. You obviously aren’t acquainted with Yehupetz regulations. Come, I’ll tell you, and you’ll understand what it means to be a resident and not a resident.” And he gave me a long, drawn-out account of how you go crazy trying to get a permit to live there.

“Listen to me, Menachem-Mendl,” I said, “come to my place for a day, and you can at least rest your bones. You’ll be my guest,” I said, “and a welcome one too. My wife will be happy to have you.”

In short, he agreed. We drove home together, and everyone was delighted to see him — a guest! Here was our own second cousin, no small matter. As they say, “One’s own are not strangers.” Golde’s grilling began: “How are things in Kasrilevka? How is Uncle Boruch-Hersh? How are Aunt Leah-Dvossi and Uncle Yossil-Menashe and Aunt Dobrish? And how are their children? Who died? Who got married? Who got divorced? Who has given birth and who is expecting?”

“Why do you need to know about other people’s weddings and other people’s brises ?” I said. “Better see that there is something to eat. Let all who are hungry come and partake —you can’t dance on an empty stomach. If you have a borscht, good, and if not, it doesn’t matter,” I said. “We’ll have knishes or kreplach or knaidlach or maybe even blintzes. You can decide, but be quick about it.”

We all washed our hands and ate well, as Rashi said: And thou shalt eat, as God commanded . “Eat, Menachem-Mendl,” I said to him. “As King David said: ‘It’s a foolish world and a false one.’ Health, as my grandmother Nechama, of blessed memory, used to say — she was a wise woman, sharp as a tack—‘seek health and pleasure in the dish before you.’ ” My poor guest’s hands were trembling, and he couldn’t praise my wife’s cooking enough, swearing to God he could not remember the time he had eaten such a delicious dairy meal, such tasty knishes, and such savory knaidlach. “Nonsense,” I said. “You should taste her taiglach, her poppyseed cookies, and then you’d know what paradise really is!”

After we finished eating and saying the blessings, we chatted, I about my business, he about his, telling stories about Odessa and Yehupetz, how one day he’s rich and the next a pauper. He was using strange, complicated words that I had never in my life heard of, like stocks and shares, selling high and buying low, options, the devil only knows, and accounts and reckonings, ten thousand, twenty thousand — money like water!

“To tell the truth, Menachem-Mendl,” I said to him, “what you are telling me about your financial dealings is impressive. You must know a lot about such things. But there’s one thing I don’t understand. I’m surprised your wife lets you run around like this and doesn’t come after you riding on a broomstick.”

“Ah,” he said to me with a sigh, “don’t remind me of it, Reb Tevye. I have enough problems with her. You should see what she writes me. You yourself would say I’m a saint to take it. But that’s a small matter. That’s what a wife is for, to put you down. I have a much worse problem. I have, you understand me, a mother-in-law to deal with! I don’t need to tell you. You know her!”

“You are telling me it’s like in the Bible: streaked, speckled, and spotted, which means a blister on a boil on an abscess.”

“Yes, Reb Tevye,” he said, “you said it exactly. A boil is a boil, but the abscess, oy, the abscess is worse than the boil!”

We went on chatting idly this way till late into the night. His stories of wild business deals involving thousands of rubles flying up and down in value, and the fortune that Brodsky was earning, made my head spin. My dreams that night were a tangle of Yehupetz shopwindows, half shares, Brodsky, Menachem-Mendl, and his mother-in-law. Not until morning did he finally get to the point: “Here’s how it’s been going for us in Yehupetz for some time now. Money is scarce, and goods are just sitting there not sold,” he said to me. “You now have the chance, Reb Tevye, to make quite a few groschens and also save my life, literally bring me back from the dead.”

“You’re talking like a child,” I said. “The difference between what I have and what Brodsky has, we should both earn between now and Passover.”

“Yes,” he said, “I know that. But you really don’t need a great deal of money. If you were to give me a hundred rubles right now, in three or four days I would make it into two hundred, three hundred, six or seven hundred, and why not a thousand?”

“That’s certainly possible,” I said, “but what would make it possible? You must have something to invest. But if there aren’t a hundred rubles, then as Rashi says: If thou investeth in an illness, thy profit shall be the ague .”

“Really now,” he said, “are you telling me you can’t find a mere hundred, Reb Tevye, with your business, and your reputation , kayn eyn horeh ?”

“What good comes from a reputation?” I said. “A reputation is certainly a good thing, but what of it? I have my reputation, and Brodsky still has the money. If you want to know, I can barely pull together a hundred, and there are eighteen holes to fill with it. First of all, I have to marry off a daughter—”