stroyers. And sometimes they cited a biblical verse about an event. Whenever Isaac heard he was amazed. Isaac knew, of course, that we had seers and prophets, but he didn’t know that their words still lived and existed, and most of their words or some of them relate to issues we see here in Jerusalem. In his Heder, Isaac had learned a little Scripture and in the study house where he prayed in his youth, there were some torn books of Holy Writ he had never looked at. For he was used to the light books a person reads to keep boredom at bay or to acquire information. All of a sudden Isaac stands in Jerusalem at the place where Isaiah and Jeremiah and the other Prophets stood, and their words are still ringing among the stones of the place.
Isaac’s comrades walk with Isaac and tell about Jerusalem of the past and about Jerusalem of our own day. Some of the stories seem to us like stories of legend yet in fact they are events that happened, for Jerusalem is experienced in miracles, for the eyes of God roam in this city, and He doesn’t remove His vigilance from her even in her destruction. And some of the stories aren’t stories, but since they were told about Jerusalem, the human heart is drawn to listen. From praise of Jerusalem, they come to praise of their forefathers, the men of Jerusalem. Some of these stories seem legendary to us, but in truth they were events that actually happened, for their forefathers were great men and great events happened to them. Isaac hears and is also stirred to tell about the feats of Reb Yudel Hasid, his ancestor, whom the Lord raised from the dust, but when he came to tell he couldn’t connect one thing to another. In his childhood, when his grandmother was still alive and told the wonders the Lord did for His pious follower Reb Yudel Hasid and his three modest daughters, Isaac didn’t have the intelligence to understand. In his youth, when his aunts would tell the tale of Reb Yudel their grandfather, Isaac was eagerly pursuing other stories which were wont to mock the Saints and the Hasids. Now when he longed to tell, he didn’t know how to begin because he wasn’t expert in the chain of events. Isaac was like his father who, if you asked him to tell even one thing that happened to his ancestor, he groans and says, What do I know, one thing I do know, in the past it was good and now it’s no good. Someday, the deeds of that Hasid will be forgotten, as if they
had never existed. And there are already progeny of that Hasid who forget the whole tale and say that the poets of Brod made up those things to amuse themselves. But it is Yudele’s merit that he began setting the tale of his ancestor to rhymes, for Yudele is a poet and can make rhymes like the poets do.
Isaac walks around Jerusalem and his spirit is roaming somewhere else. There too it is the Sabbath, and there too it is summer, but the times are different, that is we’re not twenty-five years old anymore but are seven or eight. And Isaac’s grandmother has already finished the weekly Torah portion in
Tsena Ve-Rena,
the women’s Yiddish Bible, and comes and sits down outside on the stone bench in front of the house. Her hands are laid on her knees and a kind of sweet sorrow spreads over her wrinkled face. A few of the neighbor women gather together and come and sit with her and she tells them in the same sweet, sad voice the wonders of the Lord that He did for His pious follower Reb Yudel Hasid. Sometimes the women groan and sometimes they raise their voice in joy. But she doesn’t change her voice. A few years have gone by now. The old woman has already departed this world, and of all the women who listened to her stories not many are left. But that tune still plays, and from it Yudele makes the tale of Reb Yudel.
Isaac lifts his eyes as if he is seeking his brother and he sees his comrades. He surveys them all and thinks to himself, This one is worthy of this sister and that one is worthy of that sister. And right away he remembers that they dwell Outside the Land and knows that this one will never meet up with this sister, and that one will never meet up with that sister. Those who descend to America bring their brothers and sisters to them after a year or two; but as for those who ascend to the Land of Israel, it’s enough for them if they themselves don’t return outside the Land. The money Father borrowed for Isaac he hasn’t yet returned, and how can he hope to bring his sisters up to Israel?
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At that time, Isaac moved out of the convert’s house. Ever since the day he had come to live in the convert’s house, he had not been
happy with his room. In summer because of the heat and in winter because of the cold, by day because of the dark and by night because of the mice. One day, it turned out that one of his neighbors brought his mother from Russia and she couldn’t live with her daughter-in- law. Isaac agreed to leave her his room and he rented himself a room in Zikhron Moshe.
That neighborhood was built a year before we ascended to the Land of Israel, and is better than the other neighborhoods, for it was made according to a fixed plan and the laws of health. Every house stands by itself, and a street goes down the middle, and trees are planted on the sides of the street, which will provide shade on sunny days and branches for Sukkoth. And even though a wise doc-tor warned not to plant trees, for trees need water and water brings mosquitoes and mosquitoes bring malaria, nevertheless they planted trees, and they stint their own mouths and water them, and a woman measures her little children on them. Just as the neighborhood is exquisite, so are its residents. They are pleasant to God and pleasant to men, and don’t persecute one another because of their opinions. Some of them are merchants and shopkeepers and some are teachers and writers. Some of them write for the newspapers and some are secretaries in Charity institutions. And because their houses are big-ger then their incomes, they rent out a room or two. Students of the teachers’ college live there, modest young fellows seeking knowledge and speaking Hebrew, humble and docile people. Once it happened that they didn’t come to the seminary and the teachers imagined that the students were on strike, and when they went to look for them, they found them sick in bed, for the bad food and the foreign studies sapped their strength and made them ill.
Isaac became friendly with four of them from Galicia, who had sneaked out of their father’s house, with a Tefi bag in their hands and a little food in their clothes and a good hope for the future. Unlike Isaac, they didn’t ascend to plow and sow, but to study Torah and wisdom on the Holy Soil in the Holy City on pure Holiness in the Holy Tongue. And they maintain the Torah out of poverty and accept suffering gladly and don’t rebel, but on the contrary, sing songs of Zion and its hope, and stir longing for the Land in the heart of their comrades in Galicia. And even though they are scholars and seminary students and Isaac is only a laborer, they are friendly to him and affable with him. And when they heard that he has a girlfriend in Jaffa, they saw her in their dreams ascending to Jerusalem and coming to Isaac and they would get to meet her, for when they were awake, they did-n’t meet a girl up close. One of the group set his longings in rhymes and published them in
The Young Laborer
or maybe somewhere else. Their dream didn’t come true. Sonya didn’t ascend to Jerusalem and didn’t come to Isaac. But she did keep her promise to write him letters.
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Sonya kept her promise. Once a week she wrote to Isaac. Her letters are better than Isaac’s and longer than Isaac’s, and another advantage of her letters is that there is nothing superfluous in them, whether she writes about herself or whether she writes about others, and even things that have nothing to do with Isaac take on importance and charm for him. Sometimes Sonya amuses herself and attaches to her letters matchmaking notes from some shopkeeper who owns a big store in Jaffa or some farmer who owns fields and vineyards, who want to marry her even with no dowry. Foolish lads, you think Sonya will take on the yoke of marriage. Those matchmaking notes Sonya sends to Isaac for sheer amusement do some good, for from them you learned that everyone sees Sonya as being unattached, and Isaac doesn’t have to see her as if she still belonged to Rabinovitch, and his guilt is purely gratuitous.
The day a letter comes from Sonya is a happy day for Isaac, like one of the early days when Sonya was close to him, but in the early days his heart struck him and now he is calm, and if his spirit rouses him, he binds it up in words and writes to her. And even though our comrade Isaac isn’t used to writing, he occasionally finds a pretty word in his quill, and when he puts it on paper it soothes his soul and calms his body. If Isaac recalls all those good hours he saw with Sonya and longs and yearns and wants to see her, he evokes in contrast all the bad hours he saw with her of late, and finally he returns to a state of equanimity, as if there is no difference if Sonya is here or if Sonya is not here.
In time, the letters decreased. He wrote her at length and she answered him briefly. He wrote her briefly and she didn’t answer him at all. He wrote her, Why don’t you write so often? She answered him, What shall I write you? Nothing’s new and all that’s old grows older.
He also began to write less. He wants to write a lot and he writes a little. He wants to write a little and doesn’t write anything. Sometimes he composes a long letter in his heart, and when he sits down to write, he sees that it’s not worth writing; week in and week out go by and he doesn’t write her and she doesn’t write him. Even though the two of them are doing the same thing, that is, not writing, he complains about her because she stopped first and because it’s easy for her to write, go to the post office, take paper and ink and write on the spur of the moment without any toil or exhaustion; while it’s not like that for him, who needs peace of mind and calm of soul. When a few weeks passed without a letter from her, he recalled those notes she attached to her letters and wondered if she was betrothed or had set her sights on someone else, not exactly for marriage, but for no good reason. That girl had a strange power, she did whatever her heart desired and her heart didn’t admonish her for her acts. Isaac knew he should be jealous but he wasn’t. Didn’t he care about anything? Does a man see his fiancée given to someone else and remain silent? A person can accept suffering and even rejoice in it, to regain his balance, but to see his fiancée given to someone else and to be silent, not every man can bear that.
Once one of his acquaintances came up from Jaffa to Jerusalem and brought regards from Sonya. Isaac didn’t ask him if she told him to ask how he was or whether the man did it on his own. And when he parted from the man, he didn’t send regards to her. Had Isaac let him open his mouth, the man would have told him things he longed to know. But Isaac didn’t let him open his mouth and he didn’t open it himself. After he parted from him, Isaac sat and grumbled, Somebody who doesn’t have anything to do with Sonya sits in Sonya’s city, and I sit here far away from her. He realized that he should go down to Jaffa. And since it wasn’t clear to him what he wanted there, his soul vexed him, as a man’s soul is vexed whenever his thoughts aren’t clear. After a few days, his thoughts began to fall
into place, and every single thought received a shape and speech, but they were divided. One said Go to Jaffa and loosen your bonds, and another one said, No, on the contrary, tighten and strengthen them. And one mocked and said, Before the sand disappears from Jaffa, jump down there and fill your hand with sand and weave yourself a rope and tie your Sonya with it so she’ll be attached to you forever. When Isaac imagined going down to Jaffa and standing before Sonya, his heart wasn’t arrogant, but he saw himself as someone who forces himself to do what he cannot do. Isaac sensed dimly that all his power was nothing but the power of the love of others for him, and when that love was lacking, any little thing could intimidate him. Therefore, he was afraid to appear before Sonya and left the matter hanging in the air.
The Curtain the Artist Pulled
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The state of equanimity transformed Isaac’s face. Never in his life had his heart been haughty or his eyes arrogant, and when he reached that state, he hung his upper lashes on his lower lashes, like a person whose educated soul has completed its activities and his whole body took on meekness, which was manifest in his walk and his speech and his voice. Once Bloykof looked at him, and said, What is it, Kumer, you’ve abandoned your world. Another time Bloykof looked at him and said, There’s a special quality you’ve got and I don’t know what it is. Too bad you weren’t born an artist. Because a person doesn’t become an artist unless he is born an artist, but he can learn an art that is an art, so he started teaching him sign-painting. Isaac found sufficient reason not to go to Sonya in Jaffa, and he found a new craft to occupy him.
The very first day Isaac came to Bloykof’s house, Bloykof treated him like a brother. Now that he became his pupil, his brotherly feeling was doubled. Isaac savored the taste of friendship as in the days when he was with Rabinovitch. Isaac didn’t compare Bloykof to Rabinovitch or Rabinovitch to Bloykof, for even when Rabinovitch didn’t have work, he was a practical man, while Bloykof floats in the upper worlds even when he is busy with practical things. But they do have one quality in common, a self-effacing love of friends and affection for comrades.
Bloykof was an experienced teacher and knew how to make his pupils love their trade. When he sat with Isaac to teach him, he told him, Here’s a sheet and here are paints. Ostensibly, they have nothing in common, but you want to mate them. So, try to make the
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mating succeed, so that everyone who sees them will say, Those paints were created only for the canvas and the canvas was created only for the paints, and needless to say, the letters and the images have to be exquisite, for if not they’ll haunt your dreams. How much I regret those frames I made and most of the paintings I painted. I was foolish and I thought everything preceded from ideas and I didn’t know that the main thing about painting is painting. A person who scatters his fingernail clippings everywhere has to return after his death and collect them. And what’s true of the fingernails is so much truer of a person’s handiwork, which is the essence of his existence in the world. How much grief and suffering are in store for that man when he’ll have to go into the houses of those who bought his pictures and see their faces in the frames he made. That kind of rein-carnation I don’t wish even on my enemies. And you must know, Kumer, that I hate my enemies. There may be good people who love even their enemies and forgive them, I’m not a good man and I’m not likely to forgive. The quantity of love is limited and I keep it for those I love. Pick up your brush and don’t spare your efforts, for you are not the main thing, but what you do, and what you do isn’t the main thing, but the act itself. And don’t say, Is it worth it for me to put all my strength into that shopkeeper’s sign. His merchandise will rot, but the sign you make must be beautiful.