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

“Don’t interrupt me, Golde,” I said to her. “Maybe your Grandma Tzeitl knows better than you. When I heard such a mazel tov from Grandma Tzeitl, I said to her: ‘Why are you saying, Bubbe’nyu, that Tzeitl’s betrothed is called Motl and he’s a tailor? You mean his name is Lazer-Wolf and he’s a butcher.’

“ ‘No,’ Grandma said again, ‘no, Tevye, your Tzeitl’s betrothed is called Motl. He is a tailor, and with him, God willing, she will grow old in wealth and in honor.’

“ ‘But Bubbe’nyu,’ I said to her again, ‘what shall we do with Lazer-Wolf? After all, just yesterday I gave him my word!’ As I spoke those words, I looked up, and Grandma Tzeitl was gone! In her place stood Frume-Sarah, Lazer-Wolf’s wife, and she said to me these words:

“ ‘Reb Tevye! I always thought of you as an honest man, a man of learning. How then can you do this to me, let your daughter take my place, live in my house, carry my keys, wear my clothes, my jewels, my pearls?’

“ ‘It’s not my fault,’ I said to her. ‘Your Lazer-Wolf wanted it that way.’

“ ‘Lazer-Wolf?’ she said. ‘Lazer-Wolf will come to a terrible end. And your poor Tzeitl, a pity on her, Reb Tevye, she will not live with him for more than three weeks. And when the three weeks are up, I will come to her by night and take her by the throat, like this. . ’ And with those words Frume-Sarah grabbed me by the throat and began to choke me so hard that if you hadn’t woken me up, I would by now be far, far from here!”

“Tfu! Tfu! Tfu!” my wife said, and spit three times three. “May that dream fall into the river, may it sink into the earth, may it crawl over roofs, may it lie in the forest, but may it not harm us or our children! May that butcher be visited by such a dark, angry dream! May it fill his head and paralyze his arms and legs! He isn’t worth Motl Komzoil’s littlest fingernail, even though he is a tailor, because if he was named after my Uncle Mordecai, he is certainly not a tailor by birth, and if Grandma, may she rest in peace, took the trouble to come here from the Other World to give us a mazel tov, then we must say it is all for the best and could not be better. Amen selah !”

To make a long story short — why should I go on? — I had to be stronger than iron that night, lying under the blanket, to hold myself in and not burst into laughter. Blessed be God that He did not make me a woman —a woman remains a woman. The very next day we held the engagement party and soon afterward the wedding. The couple, blessed be His name, is living happily. He is a tailor, goes around Boiberik from one dacha to the next picking up work, while she is busy day and night cooking and baking and washing and scrubbing, carrying water from the well, barely a piece of bread in the house. If I didn’t occasionally bring her some milk and cheese, sometimes a few groschens, it would be very bad. I talk with her, and she says she is happy as can be as long as her Motl is healthy.

Nu, can you argue with today’s children? It turns out, as I told you in the beginning: I have nourished and brought up children —you labor for your children’s sake, knock your head on the wall, and as Isaiah says: They have rebelled against me —they say they know better. No, say what you will, today’s children are too smart!

But I have a feeling I’ve filled your ear more than I usually do. Please forgive me, be well, and have a good life!

WRITTEN IN 1904.

Are you wondering, Pani Sholem Aleichem, why you haven’t seen Tevye lately? Doesn’t he look like he’s suddenly aged, turned gray? Ah, if you knew what troubles, what heartache Tevye carries with him wherever he goes! How is it written— Man is but dust and dust is all that remains of him —a man is weaker than a fly and stronger than iron. That describes me perfectly! Wherever you find a misfortune, a problem, an affliction — it is not permitted to bypass me. Do you have any idea why this is so? Maybe it’s because I am by nature an overly trusting simpleton. Tevye forgets what our sages told us a thousand times: Respect him and suspect him —in Ashkenaz that means a man can’t trust his own dog. But what can I do, I ask you, if that’s the way I am? As you know, I am a trusting soul and never complain about the ways of Him the everlasting. Whatever He ordains is good. Just try it the other way around and do complain. Will it do you any good? As we say in the Slichos during the High Holiday prayers: The soul is Thine and the body is Thine —what does a person know and what worth has he?

I always argue with my Golde: “Golde,” I say, “you are sinning! We have a midrash—”

“Who cares about a midrash?” she says. “We have a daughter to marry off, and after that daughter, kayn eyn horeh, there are two more, and after the two — three more, may no evil eye befall them!”

“Ah, don’t worry your head about it, Golde! Our sages also prepared us for that. We have a midrash on that too—”

She doesn’t let me speak. “Grown daughters,” she says, “are midrash enough.” Try to argue with a woman!

Anyway, from what I was just saying, you can see I possess goods to choose from, one prettier than the other, kayn eyn horeh, may I not be sinning with these words. It isn’t proper for me to praise my children, but I hear what everyone calls them: “Beauties!” Especially Hodl — the eldest after Tzeitl, the one who fell in love with the tailor. Hodl is beautiful, believe me. As it is written in the holy Megillah: For she was fair to look on —pretty as a picture! And to make it worse, she has a head on her shoulders, writes and reads Yiddish and Russian, devours books like dumplings. You will ask, How does Tevye’s daughter come to books when her father deals in cheese and butter? Listen, that’s what I ask those fine lads who don’t own so much as a pair of trousers, begging your pardon, and all they want to do is study. As we say in the Haggadah: We are all wise, we are all learned —everybody wants to learn, everybody wants to study. Ask them: “What are you studying? Why are you studying?” They know the answer about as well as goats know why they jump into other people’s gardens! Especially when they aren’t even allowed to look at a book. Guard the cream from the cat! Still and all, you should see how hard they study! And who are they? Workers’ children, children of tailors and shoemakers, may God help me! They go off to Yehupetz or to Odessa, they sprawl in attics, they live on the ten plagues of Egypt, and for months on end they never see a piece of meat. Six of them can dine on a single loaf of bread and one herring, and as it is written, Thou shalt rejoice in thy feast —live it up, you paupers!

One of that crew made his way into our corner of the world, some shlimazel who didn’t live far from us. I knew his father, he was a cigarette-maker; there are no poorer. Well, I don’t blame the young man for that, because if the great rabbi Yochanan Hasandler could sew boots, why should this young man be above having a father who rolled cigarettes? There’s one thing that bothers me: why should a pauper be eager to study, to learn? True, to give him credit, he has a good head, a very good head on his shoulders. Perchik is his name, the shlimazel, but we called him Fefferl in Yiddish, and he actually looked like a little pepper. You should see him — like a little squirrel, small, dark-haired, homely, with a quick sharp tongue, but bursting with confidence.

Well, one day I was riding home from Boiberik, having sold my wares, a whole wagonload of cheese, butter, sour cream, and greens. I was deep in thought about man and God, about this and that, of course not leaving out the Yehupetz rich folks, how well they live, kayn eyn horeh, and about Tevye the shlimazel and his horse, who becomes more wretched every day. It was summer, the sun was hot, the flies were biting, and the world was in every way pleasant, ample. You felt like flying in the air, swimming in the river!