Legends of Our Time (18 page)

Actually, I should have been disappointed. I had in fact anticipated a certain letdown, and had even prepared myself for it. No holiday can be real unless it has something of the miraculous about it, and by definition a miracle must be a single, unique event. In this case, I had seen it all the year before: the ecstatic prayers of the Hasidim on the night of Shemini Atzeret; the processions in the Central Synagogue on Simchat Torah; the furtive questions put in a whisper to foreign guests; the communal singing; the sudden appearance of thousands of youngsters, demonstrating in public their unshakable
solidarity with the Jewish people. Such images—sorrowful and sublime at once—had been indelibly engraved upon my memory from my last visit to Moscow in the fall of 1965. My experience then had been so strong, and so deep, that I feared a mere duplication of it would rob the event of one of its most important dimensions, and myself of a priceless memory. What would happen this year had already happened before. It would no longer be a mystery, or a surprise, but would seem somehow natural and routine. I had already seen everything to be seen, and had said about it everything I was prepared to say. There are some visions which I am convinced we must not behold more than once.

Yet I decided to return. Why, I don’t myself know. Perhaps because I needed to confirm, for myself, that what I had seen and heard the year before was not in the nature of a momentary dream that had suddenly ignited my imagination. Or perhaps I returned because I felt an inner need to spend this particular holiday with these particular Jews. Something, at any rate, drew me to them—to their songs, to their enthusiasm, to their pride. And once among them, I witnessed a second miracle. Far from being disappointed, far from having to undergo the mere repetition of a previous experience, I found myself caught up in new surprises, and overcome by a new shock of recognition. The report I brought back last year was true—that much has not changed; but now I have come to see that its import is both more valid and more serious than even I had thought at the time. It may even be for this new knowledge that I returned.

I arrived in Moscow on October 5, the sixth day of Sukkot. Upon reaching my hotel I learned that a performance would be given that same evening by one of the Soviet Union’s few troupes of Yiddish actors, led by the famous singer, Anna Gozik. It is virtually impossible to
get tickets to these programs, even though they always consist of the same play: Sholem Aleichem’s
Wandering Stars
—the only offering in the troupe’s repertoire. People who have seen the performance twenty times return avidly for a twenty-first; the troupe visits Moscow only once a year, and the theater is always packed.

I noticed in the audience a considerable number of young people, who followed the action of the play through the whispered translations of their parents and grandparents. Whenever an actor delivered a line that suggested a double meaning, the audience burst into applause and loud bravos—as for instance when Miss Gozik, portraying Uriel daCosta, declared, “I am a Jew, and a Jew I shall remain!” The significance of such an affirmation for the Jews of the Soviet Union cannot be overestimated. The musical theme that evening was
Hava Nagilah;
at the end, everyone in the audience sang it together with the cast.

During intermission I spoke with some of the youngsters I had spotted in the audience. Although I asked them dutifully why they had bothered coming to a Yiddish performance rather than attending a Russian play or ballet, I knew beforehand what they would answer. In fact, they will go to anything that is Jewish, and are irrepressibly curious about the fragments which still remain of a Jewish culture that was once quite powerful in their country. Should a Yiddish theater be established again in Moscow, there would be no difficulty filling the auditorium. Of that I am sure.

The next day I went to the Central Synagogue on Arkhipova Street. The sanctuary had been redecorated since the last time I was inside; it seemed better lit, more attractive. By contrast, however, the venerable Chief Rabbi, Yehuda Leib Levin, appeared to have aged. It was clear from the weariness and grief reflected in his dark eyes that he had not yet recovered from the incident that had occurred in his congregation on Yom Kippur, and
about which I had heard the night before. In his sermon on that day he had spoken in passing of the “two million” Jews murdered by the Germans twenty-five years before. A number of those present in the synagogue protested, “Six million, not two!” The unfortunate rabbi was forced to explain that he had been referring only to Jews who were Soviet citizens. Unable—or unwilling—to understand why the rabbi felt constrained to differentiate among Jews, especially dead Jews, the congregation protested again. One supposes that they were justified in their complaint, although it is not for us to judge. The rabbi speaks as he is told to speak, and there is no guarantee that another man would have spoken differently.

The sexton had also changed. He too seemed older, less sprightly than a year ago. Who knows what he had gone through since then. Standing some distance from him was the most notorious of the Moscow “informers,” a short hunchbacked man—wearing a green hat—whose features bore ugly testimony to his vocation. I myself saw him strike a Jew who dared to ask me for a prayer shawl and
siddur
. It is estimated that there are at least twenty informers in the Moscow congregation—a number large enough to ensure the perpetuation of a constant sense of fear and suspicion among the others. It was this sense of fear that had been most strongly impressed upon me in my last visit, and that had haunted me throughout the year.

This time, however, I had come not in order to witness Jewish fear, but to participate in a Jewish festival. The following evening was Simchat Torah, the occasion which tens of thousands of Jewish youngsters have chosen as their annual evening of public celebration. During the previous week, posters had appeared on bulletin boards around the university: “The ‘symphony’ of Simchat Torah will be performed on the night of October
6, as usual, at the usual time and place.” On that night, between thirty and forty thousand young Jews appeared outside the Central Synagogue, where they remained almost until dawn, singing and dancing in Hasidic abandon.

By now, this holiday has become something of a tradition in the Soviet Union. The numbers of the participants have steadily increased over the years, and this year—although estimates vary according to the hours at which they were made—there appear to have been close to forty thousand youngsters at the Moscow synagogue. The police closed off the neighboring streets to traffic, and doctors and ambulances were stationed nearby in case of need. They were never called upon. Throughout the entire night of dancing, not a single person was injured; no one fainted, no one needed emergency first-aid. No one became drunk or got out of hand. Not a single person was arrested.

(About two or three years ago, the authorities had in fact tried to discourage similar festivities in Leningrad. The young people were asked to disperse. When they refused, about ten of them were arrested on the spot, but the others simply went on singing as if nothing had happened. Since then, the government has taken a more tolerant position: it allows Jewish youth to have its one holiday a year.)

As the first young people began to gather in the street outside the Moscow synagogue, I sat inside, waiting for the religious ceremonies to begin. Despite the unbearable crowding, the sanctuary seemed to exude a distinct air of lighthearted cheer. No one complained about the need to stand for long periods of time, or about the lack of room. Everyone—men, women, and children—waited patiently for the processions to begin. Of the four generations that had gathered together this evening, only the oldest knew what it was to pray. The oldsters still keep the tradition, while their grandchildren clearly have no concept of
what the Jewish religion entails. They are interested not so much in the Jewish God, as in the Jewish people. Yet they too had pushed their way into the synagogue, to see for themselves what was to transpire in front of the Holy Ark.

This year, too, the ceremonies began only after a considerable delay. The congregation was not in a hurry. Friends shook hands, strangers exchanged smiles of greeting. Men and women mixed freely rather than remaining in their customary separate sections. Tonight, all barriers had fallen. Tonight it was permissible to talk, to laugh, to trust in the future. Even to converse with guests from abroad. Tonight, the hunchbacked informer, his eyes bulging with the rage of thwarted authority, was powerless.

The time came to begin. The foreign guests were invited to participate in the first procession, which was led by the Chief Rabbi himself. Each of us took a Torah scroll, and we set out together on our circuit of the hall. Within a matter of seconds, we had become separated, each of us surrounded by a sea of heads. The Jews refused to let us move. Kissing the Torah I held in my arms, they showered me with blessings and personal requests: “Tell them in Israel we’re with them”; “Be strong, be valiant”; “Don’t forget us, we haven’t forgotten you.” Later I was to find little slips of paper that had been thrust into my pockets: “Next year in Jerusalem”; “Blessings from an old Jew who will die on foreign soil”; a verse from
Hatikvah
. One of these pieces of paper had a characteristic request: “Please, give me a Hebrew grammar book for my son. He wants to learn. I’ll wait for you tonight at ten. Outside.” Just like that. No name, no place of meeting.

I tried to move forward, to complete our circuit of the hall; the procession had lasted a long time. Each step forward was like crossing the Red Sea. They refused to let me go. At that moment I had become for them a living link with world Jewry. Here and there I met persons I
had spoken with the year before. We managed a few hasty conversations. “Has anything changed?” Nothing. “Is the situation better?” No. “Worse?” No. Three Jews had been sentenced to death for “economic crimes.” In one city or another, the warden of a synagogue had been ordered to sever connections with his co-religionists in Moscow. “Are you still afraid?” Still. “What will happen?” Hope for the best.…

On the dais stood a young man wearing glasses; he was an army officer, recently discharged. He held in his arms a Torah scroll which he refused to relinquish. He stood close to the microphone, and his voice rolled out over the hall: “Blessed is our God who has created us for his glory … O, O, for his glory.” The old rabbi began to sing along with him: “Yes, Yes … for his glory.” Hundreds joined in. Only the sexton seemed serious, abstracted—as if he had for the first time discovered the meaning of the words and was quietly taking pity on him who created such a world for his glory; or perhaps on himself for having been forced to live in such a world.

Last year, the younger people who came to the synagogue had remained separated from the older Jews. This year, however, they too took part in the festivities, if only as enthusiastic onlookers. Here and there one of them overcame his embarrassment and, following the example of his neighbors, kissed the Torah (even though no one ever told him what is written in it), or sang a Hasidic tune he had just learned (without pronouncing the words). A girl clapped her hands, another girl grinned broadly. Behind her stood a boy, preoccupied with his thoughts. I turned to him: “What are
you
doing here?” He answered, “No, you tell me.” I knew the answer, even if it had not yet penetrated his own consciousness. He knew that I knew. He smiled at me: he was looking for himself.

This boy’s education had failed him. He had been taught to despise his origins—yet he had returned to
them. Every attempt had been made to poison his attitude toward Judaism—yet he had retained his ties. Nothing he had learned in school, or in libraries and youth clubs, had succeeded in cutting him off from his community. He had been taught that Judaism was an anachronism, that only criminals frequented the synagogue—yet this too had failed to sway him. He does not, to be sure, come to the synagogue to pray, but he does come to see Jews praying. And that is enough. There are certain silent glances that are worth more than all the prayers composed by the ancients.

As was the case last year, however, the real holiday did not take place inside, but outside in front of the synagogue, where two gigantic floodlights had been installed to illuminate the street. It seemed as if the entire city had emptied its youngsters here, where now they formed into groups, singing and dancing. One circle stood around a girl strumming her guitar and singing Yiddish folktunes. Further away, hundreds of students listened to a young man coaxing a melody from his balalaika. There in the corner someone played a harmonica, and there again I found an amateur poet reciting satiric verses about anti-Semitism in Russia. All these voices and melodies seemed to swell together into one pure crescendo of sound, overwhelming the listener and drawing him inexorably into the mounting wave of excitement. Last year the youngsters knew only two or three Yiddish and Hebrew songs. This year they had managed to learn another, and yet another. But their own unique anthem had not changed. It is a song we used to sing at Jewish weddings, when the guests were invited to greet the bride and groom; but the lyrics have been altered by these youngsters so as to refer to their new-found identity: “Come let us go, all of us together, and greet the people Israel.”

Walking among them, I suddenly recalled a story by I. L. Peretz about a village lad who played his flute in the synagogue because he didn’t know how to pray. Like
him, these youngsters also do not know how to pray—nor, perhaps, are they interested in prayer. But they know how to sing, and how to dance. And as a Hasidic Rebbe once put it, it is also possible to bring the Messiah through the power of dance.

At a certain moment, close to midnight, the lights went out. The two floodlights in front of the synagogue suddenly went dark and stood like blind men. A gloom descended over Arkhipova Street. The crowd stood silent, confused, waiting. Short circuit? No. A subtle hint from above that it was time to break up. One mustn’t overdo things. Tomorrow was a schoolday, a workday. It was time to stop, time to go home for another long year. One could return in 1967.