Gregor von Rezzori - An Ermine in Czernopol

But most of all we loved this class on account of the teacher. Dr. Aaron Salzmann had a captivating way of treating each of us as creatures that were at once human and all-too-human, whose understanding of the world, from the least things to the greatest, was limited solely by our lack of practice in clear and logical thought — in other words, in merely thinking. He accepted neither ignorance nor stupidity, which he considered mere excuses. Whenever he encountered a lack of understanding, he never lost his patience, but closed his eyes, arched his eyebrows, and repeated the question or sentence that had not been immediately understood in his soft, rich tenor, adding a sigh of ponderous contentment — for as long as it took until he finally came out with the explanation or answer himself, because it was part of his internal vision. His standing expression was: “I’m thinking out loud.”

He was very fat — his stomach stuck out so far it seemed to push him backwards; his face had a glossy, reddish tinge with the olive undertone of his race, and he had sparkling black eyes and a thick, assertive mustache. His bearing was warlike. Embedded in the cushions of fat around his cheeks we could still make out the features of his youth: the face of a young David, bold, clear, and beautiful. His mouth was defiant, soft and sensuous, with finely molded scarlet lips. A profusion of oily ringlets formed a wreath around his neck inside his collar, which was always a little grimy.

He came into the classroom and said: “What am I doing? I am thinking out loud. I will speak about religious matters. So I step before God. Who am I to step before Him whom we do not name, out of respect for the first commandment — who am I to step before Him with my head bare, combed or not, just as I am? Am I subject to the order to cover my head? For the Orthodox it is imperative, and for the liberal, half-imperative — one doesn’t have to, but one should. I’m thinking out loud. Maybe the liberal isn’t wrong when he says that God sees his reverence even though he isn’t wearing a hat. Because He sees everything that is over a hat and everything that is underneath. But next to me is maybe an Orthodox man who finds my uncovered state offensive to his religious feelings. In order not to offend his religious feelings, I therefore put on a yarmulke.” He pulled out a round black silk yarmulke from his pocket and put it on. “There was once a man in Russia who saw an officer approaching with soldiers. The man thought to himself in fear: ‘Now they are going to beat me. Because if I let them pass with my head covered they will yell at me: Why didn’t you remove your hat to greet us? — and they will beat me. But if I take off my hat, they will yell at me: Who are you to be greeting us by removing your hat? — and they will beat me. Probably they will beat me to death. And if I die, I don’t wish to come before His countenance, whom we don’t name, with an uncovered head. So I keep my hat on my head.’ In this way the man died for Kiddush Hashem … The Orthodox wants to be certain at all times and ready for all things, and so he wears both, a yarmulke as well as a hat.”

Dr. Salzmann had a watch that always stopped. Several times during the lesson he would pull it out of a small pocket on his waistband below his enormous stomach — he never wore a vest — listen to it, shake it, knock it on the table, and listen again, all the while patiently speaking. The watch seldom seemed to run, and hardly ever on time. Because there was no bell to mark the end of this last period on Wednesday mornings, it occasionally happened that Dr. Salzmann kept us past time in the classroom. That would prove to be our undoing.

For one day Aunt Elvira, who had come to pick us up, no longer had the patience to wait for us outside the institute. She knew from Herr Tarangolian or Uncle Sergei how free and easy things were at our school, for instance that one could visit Madame Aritonovich during ballet class. So she ventured into the corridor of the Institut d’Éducation and asked “some woman”—whom she took for a cleaning lady — how to find our classroom. She was completely taken aback when this same woman accompanied her into our room: it was our mathematics teacher, Dr. Biro, who was on her way to fetch Dr. Salzmann, in order to walk home together, as usual. And, as usual, Dr. Biro was chewing on something — this time a richly buttered poppy-seed bun that we called a “braid.”

Aunt Elvira entered the classroom with the put-on smile of grown-ups who view children as half-dangerous, half-idiotic creatures. She nodded and uttered a semi-sour, semi-friendly “Good morning,” which Dr. Salzmann answered with a sonorous-relaxed “Indeed it is!” Aunt Elvira’s smile froze at the sight of his black yarmulke, which she stared at as if transfixed.

“If the ladies will be so kind as to wait one more minute,” said Dr. Salzmann, shaking his watch and holding it to his ear. “I’m thinking out loud. The course — that is to say this class — in this Institute Dedication combines students from the cheyder as well as from the yeshiva. What is the cheyder? The cheyder is the basic religious study. So what is the yeshiva ? The yeshiva is the place of advanced religious instruction. But what is this Institute Dedication ? A private school with expensive tuition. The students of this institution are therefore children of rich people. Being rich doesn’t make one grateful. The children of rich people are seldom brought up in the faith. I am the teacher of this course. So what is my duty? My duty as teacher of this course is to make up for what has been missed. What tells me whether the pupils of the yeshiva master the basic instruction of the cheyder or not? My presumption as well as my knowledge. My presumption that the pupils of the yeshiva in this course have not mastered their basic instruction from the cheyder is based on the experience that children of rich people will have paid inadequate attention to religion. What confirms this supposition? My knowledge of the students of this class confirms that my supposition is correct. I repeat: my duty as teacher of this course is to make up for what has been missed. So the students of the yeshiva will repeat the greatest of the prayers in the faith, the Krias-Shema . What is this prayer? This prayer is the Shema Yisrael . The Shema Yisrael is the only prayer that must be prayed in Hebrew. Other prayers can be prayed in Hebrew as well — they should be, but they don’t have to be. This is half-imperative. That’s why one of our assignments is Taitsch. What is Taitsch ? It is the Germanization, the translation of the prayers. We will translate the Shema Yisrael as well, but we will pray in Hebrew:

Shema Yisrael adoshem eloheynu adoshem echad!

Taitsch— I’m thinking out loud … Shema Yisrael— Hear, O Israel. Shema Yisrael adoshem. What is adoshem? Adoshem comes from joining adonai and shem. What is adonai? Adonai means God. So what is shem? Shem means the word for name. But what is the name? The name is God. Adoshem means the name of God, both literally as a compound drawn together and symbolically. The class will repeat:

“Shema Yisrael—”

We repeated it as a chorus.

“Hear, O Israel. Shema Yisrael adoshem— ”

We repeated: “ Shema Yisrael adoshem— ” and so on, with the translation in Taitsch , until the end.

Dr. Salzmann had not yet put his yarmulke back in his pocket when Aunt Elvira walked right up to him. “Excuse me,” she said. “Am I standing before a teacher of this institute?”