Text copyright © 2019 by Valerie Estelle Frankel
All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.
KAR-BEN PUBLISHING
A division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.
241 First Avenue North
Minneapolis, MN 55401 USA
1-800-4-KARBEN
Website address: www.karben.com
Cover illustration by Sonja Wimmer.
Main body text set in Bembo Std 12.5/17.
Typeface provided by Monotype Typography.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Frankel, Valerie Estelle, 1980– author. | Wimmer, Sonja, illustrator.
Title: Chelm for the holidays / by Valerie Estelle Frankel ; [illustrator, Sonja Wimmer].
Description: Minneapolis : Kar-Ben Publishing, [2019] | Summary: Presents ten holiday stories set in the tiny Jewish village of Chelm, where it is said that the angels distributing silliness throughout the world tipped their bowls and spilled it all.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018047733 (print) | LCCN 2018052994 (ebook) | ISBN 9781541560901 (eb pdf) | ISBN 9781541554610 (th : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781541554627 (pb : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Fasts and feasts—Judaism—Juvenile fiction. | Children’s stories, American. | CYAC: Fasts and feasts—Judaism—Fiction. | Jews—Poland—Chelm (Lublin)—Fiction. | Judaism—Customs and practices—Fiction. | Chelm (Lublin, Poland)—Fiction. | Short stories. | Humorous stories.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.F7514 (ebook) | LCC PZ7.1.F7514 Che 2019 (print) | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018047733
Manufactured in the United States of America
1-45735-42369-12/6/2018
Contents
Introduction
The Honeybees of Chelm
A Rosh Hashanah Story
The Fast that Almost Didn’t End
A Yom Kippur Story
The Very Best Guest
A Sukkot Story
The Oiliest Miracle
A Hanukkah Story
The Day the Birds Flew Down
A Tu B’Shevat Story
The Queen Esther Mix-Up
A Purim Story
Holey Matzah
A Passover Story
It Will Get Better
A Lag Ba’Omer Story
Elijah Brings the Blintzes
A Shavuot Story
The Disappearing Challah
A Shabbat Story
Introduction
A long time ago in the Old Country, there was a tiny Jewish village called Chelm. Many people say that when the angels were distributing silliness throughout the world, their bowl tipped, spilling all the silliness into one town—Chelm. They say that the people of Chelm once sentenced a rebellious fish to death . . . by drowning. Did they really milk their horses so the cows wouldn’t feel pressured? And when the man who knocked on people’s doors to wake them for morning services grew too old to leave his house, did the foolish people of Chelm really pull their doors off the hinges and bring them to him, so he could knock on their doors without the lengthy walk?
The people of Chelm of course celebrated all the Jewish holidays, from Rosh Hashanah through Shavuot, and then round and round again. But on holidays in Chelm, the foolishness always seemed to get in the way . . .
The Honeybees of Chelm
A Rosh Hashanah Story
Rosh Hashanah was coming, but for some reason, this year there was no honey in the marketplace in the village of Chelm. What would the people of Chelm do? How could they bake their honey cakes? How could they dip their apples in honey?
How will we celebrate Rosh Hashanah without honey? thought Schlemiel. He was the most useless man in the village. He liked to lie on his back and nap all day long, but even he knew something needed to be done about the honey.
Schlemiel had a wife, Mrs. Schlemiel, and a baby, Little Schlemiel. Mrs. Schlemiel was always yelling at Schlemiel for being useless. But now her lip quivered. “No honey for Rosh Hashanah! The baby’s first New Year and not a drop of honey.”
Schlemiel shuffled his feet. The New Year was much like the old year, he mused. The old year had ended with Mrs. Schlemiel yelling at him, and it seemed the New Year was starting the same way.
“I remembered to buy honey in the market last Rosh Hashanah. And I remember what happened. I traipsed all the way to market and back, in the burning sunshine, and I bought a big jar of honey. But the truth is . . .” Schlemiel cleared his throat. “. . . after all that work, I thought a tiny taste wouldn’t hurt. So I stuck in my finger and tried just a drop. Then I tried a bit more. And a bit more. It was so good! Then I resolved to stop, and I had a drink of water since the honey was so sticky. But after my drink, all the honey taste was gone. So I had to try just a nibble more. And after that taste—what could you guess?—I needed more water. Well, after a while, all the honey was gone!”
But this year there was no honey to be had in the market. Schlemiel paced the house. Even if there was no honey in the marketplace, surely he could find honey somewhere else. He stopped so suddenly that he tripped over his feet and nearly went sprawling. The pasture south of town!
It was a beautiful meadow, filled with succulent blossoms and, of course, bees. And the bees made honey, didn’t they? But how to collect it without being stung?
“I will disguise myself as a flower,” Schlemiel decided. “Bees like flowers so much they would never sting one.” Schlemiel hurried into the bedroom and pulled the yellow-flowered quilt off the bed. With a flourish, he draped it around himself. The back dragged in the dirt, but from the front, he fancied that he looked quite colorful. A handful of Mrs. Schlemiel’s daisies, plucked from the garden and stuffed into his scraggly gray beard, completed his disguise. Thus prepared, he picked up his empty honey jar and scoop and went out.
When the villagers saw him, they mumbled and whispered. What was Schlemiel doing? “Have you gone crazy?” asked Ehud the Baker.
“No. He’s bringing flowers to his wife but carrying them in his beard,” Grandma Faina cackled.
“I’m hunting for honey,” Schlemiel explained. “The bees will think I’m a flower, so they will let me take their honey and will not sting me.”
“Dressed like that?” Avram hooted, chewing on an apple. “All you’ll get is dirt. Some hunter!”
Children ran behind Schlemiel giggling and shouting. Adults stuck their heads out the windows, attracted by the commotion. By this time, quite a crowd was following Schlemiel as he trooped to the bee pasture. The pasture was beautiful, with autumn flowers blushing pink and orange against the grass. The bees were buzzing in fuzzy yellow spirals.
“Ignore him, bees. He’s just a flower,” called little Tzipporah. Soon everyone took up the cry. Schlemiel clutched his honey scoop and jar.
Bees zipped around him in confused circles. Who was this giant creature invading their hive? Schlemiel’s face burned red and hot from the sun, so much so that the bees couldn’t fail to spot it. One of the boldest flew at him, aiming straight for his bulbous, sunburned nose.
With a shriek, Schlemiel swatted the bee away. Too late! His nose bulged to twice its normal size, throbbing with a painful bee sting. Schlemiel turned around and dashed for home with the entire angry swarm of bees behind him.
It was a hilarious sight. Schlemiel raced through the fields, pudgy arms pumping, flushed face sweating, red
nose throbbing. His beard blew in his face, nearly masking the swollen nose and covering his eyes. Daisies from his beard scattered in all directions. Mrs. Schlemiel’s yellow-flowered bedspread flapped behind him like a bedraggled cape. Following him came the swarm of bees, all intent on puncturing his backside. How he ran! How they flew!
At last, Schlemiel reached his house, flung open the door, and raced inside. He slammed the door before any of the bees could reach him.
Later that day, Schlemiel sat slumped in his favorite chair. His wife continued to wail about the lack of honey.
“Oh, the baby’s first Rosh Hashanah. Ruined, ruined!” Her sobs pulsed in time with Schlemiel’s aching nose until he was ready to cry himself. And still no honey for the holiday. At last, Mrs. Schlemiel slammed the bedroom door and left him with a cool cloth on his swollen nose.
Suddenly, there was a knock at Schlemiel’s door. Very cautiously, he opened it a tiny crack. Bees had never knocked politely on his door before, but there was a first time for everything.
It wasn’t the bees. It was his neighbors. Ehud held out a large jar. “It’s honey,” he said. “And you certainly earned it. L’shana tova.”
“Where did you get honey?” Schlemiel protested. “Don’t you need it to make your own honey cakes?”
“Oh, it’s not our honey, it’s yours,” Ehud said, beaming. “After you led all the bees away from the hive, we gathered all the honey. This was a great idea, Schlemiel! Maybe next year you can do it again and we’ll all have honey for Rosh Hashanah!”
Schlemiel stood there in his tattered bedspread, covered in dirt and sweat. He’d lost one of his shoes in a mud puddle. A few drooping daisies hung from his tangled beard. The bee sting on his nose throbbed achingly. “I may be a schlemiel,” he said. “But even I know this is no job for me!”
He thanked his neighbors, took the honey, and shut the door.
Even though Schlemiel refused to be the future bee distracter, the people of Chelm weren’t about to discard a good idea. Every year from that day on, one of the villagers donned a colorful quilt and pretended to be a noisy flower until the bees chased him away and the other villagers could collect the honey. Every Rosh Hashanah, Schlemiel could be found hiding under his kitchen table, in an old bathrobe with a protective bucket on his head, awaiting his share of honey.
The Fast that Almost Didn’t End
A Yom Kippur Story
Yom Kippur had nearly come to an end. People had stopped saying, “Have an easy fast,” and were beginning to mutter under their breaths, “What’s for dinner?”
The elders of Chelm clustered in their council room. “The afternoon break is almost over,” Leib the Lackwit murmured. Beside him, Uri the Unwise snored, with his head in his arms.
“Then we’ll need to daven the Ne’ilah service to end the fast,” said Fishel the Foolish. His belly rumbled loudly. The bellies of the other Elders echoed the sound.
“It’ll take another hour to get through all those pages,” said one Elder.
“So much time until sundown,” said another.
“Maybe we could sleep through it,” said a third.
“Or maybe we could end the fast early, right now,” Uri the Unwise suggested unwisely.
Farfel the Fat raised his eyebrows. “You mean, we could just say that it’s dark enough and have our dinner now? Break the fast early?”
“We’re the Elders. We’ll simply declare that the holiday is over.”
Simon the Simpleminded cleared his throat. “Isn’t that the rabbi’s job?” They all thought about the devoted rabbi, praying in the synagogue.
Uri the Unwise shrugged. “The rabbi won’t mind. He must be hungry too. Let’s declare that it is now night and everybody can eat!”
Quick glances to the kitchen convinced the Elders that it was indeed time for Yom Kippur to be over.
The Elders always ate together to break the fast, ever since the time Farfel the Fat ate so much he couldn’t pass through his front door. The Elders hadn’t noticed he was missing, and they left him out of an entire week’s decision-making! When he finally emerged from his house, he was the only one not wearing his hat upside down to catch low-flying ducks.
The Elders went out to check the sundial, but as the villagers had built a roof over it to protect it from the rain, it no longer told time. They couldn’t tell whether the fast was over. They went to check the synagogue’s skylight—which was always open so that sunlight wouldn’t be permanently trapped indoors.
Fishel the Foolish pointed to the ceiling. “Look, it’s dark. Clearly, day’s already gone.”
“I think it’s a cloud over the sun,” said Leib the Lackwit hesitantly, but nobody paid attention.
“Rivka, the fast is now over,” said Gimpel the Great Fool. “Please bring us our dinner.”
Rivka climbed the stairs from the kitchen and burst in on the Elders, hands on her hips. The tight little bun at the back of her head made her face look as round as a potato. Normally she wore a huge, flour-covered apron, but today she wore her simplest white dress, the one with the wide belt with embroidered doves.
“Oy,” she muttered. She’d been napping after a morning of telling stories to the littlest children. “The fast isn’t over until the rabbi declares the holiday completed. You know that.”
“Ridiculous! We’re the Elders, and we’re ready for our supper.”
“Yes, where are the boiled eggs and gefilte fish?”
“And the bagels? We must have bagels.”
All the Elders roared their approval.
Rivka smiled an odd little smile. “I’m afraid all the food is gone.”
“What!” they chorused.
“Before Yom Kippur, you were afraid the people of Chelm wouldn’t have the willpower to fast all day. Don’t you recall the orders you gave?”
Leib the Lackwit shuddered. “We’re leaders. You can’t expect us to remember our decisions.”
“Or care about the consequences,” Farfel the Fat chimed in. “Now feed us. We want to eat.”
At that point, Uri the Unwise’s stomach growled, setting the table to shaking.
“Nu, so what did we order, Rivka?” asked Gimpel the Great Fool, seeking the quickest way to get the food served.
Rivka smiled again, enjoying the moment. “Yesterday evening, when everyone felt completely stuffed, you ordered the people to put all their food into a giant sack. That way, you figured, no one would sneak even a bite before services ended. Then you—”
“I remember, I remember,” Itzik the Silly said. He winced. “We hoisted it into the tallest tree, didn’t we?”
Gimpel the Great Fool straightened. “Get the ladders and ropes!”
“No, wait, we thought of that,” Simon the Simpleminded said. “In fact, we threw all the ladders and ropes into the river. No sense hiding the food where we could reach it.”
“Well, since we can’t eat now, we’ll have to wait.” Farfel the Fat blinked back tears. Beside him, Itzik the Silly rubbed his empty stomach.
“And what happens after sundown?” Rivka asked. She was hungry herself, after all. “Will the food magically fall from the sky?”
The Elders exchanged worried glances. “The people will go home, looking for their dinners . . .”
“And they’ll see the food’s all gone . . .”
Gimpel the Great Fool’s head thudded onto the table, barely muffled by his enormous whiskers. “They’ll be furious. The year’s barely started, and already they won’t trust us.”
Uri the Unwise nervously began to twist his long beard in knots. “So what do we do? We’re the leaders of this town, and the people look to us to solve their problems. Even the ones we created.”
They exchanged panicked glances. Then the Elders said in one voice: “Let’s ask the rabbi!”
Everyone trooped into the sanctuary.
“Ah, back for Ne’ilah,” the rabbi said happily. He was long used to Chelm’s foolishness, although he had been born in a town f
ar away.
“Of course,” Uri the Unwise said guiltily.
“Yes, yes,” the others chorused.
“Although . . .” Gimpel the Great Fool added.
“Yes?” encouraged Farkel the Fat.
“I’m afraid we tied all the town’s food up in a tree so people wouldn’t be tempted to break the fast early, so after services no one will be able to break the fast,” he said.
The rabbi’s forehead creased. “Surely a ladder—”
“We threw all the ladders and ropes into the river,” Gimpel the Great Fool said in an even faster rush.
Just then, the people of Chelm flooded into the synagogue for the Ne’ilah service. They were hungry, and anxious to break the fast. The rabbi straightened his kittel and his tallis.
“What do we do?” Fishel the Foolish asked in a frantic whisper. “If the people find out there’s no food—”
“There’s no food?!” a dozen voices exclaimed. The entire village of Chelm now filled the synagogue.
“Of course there’s no food,” the rabbi said in a loud voice. “Today is Yom Kippur, and we should be focused on healing our souls and asking forgiveness. At last, we’ve reached Ne’ilah, the time when the heavenly judgment Hashem inscribes on Rosh Hashanah is finally sealed.”
“But after services—?” Itzik the Silly asked in an even more unsteady whisper. “They’ll be so hungry, they’ll eat us. And we’re not even kosher.”
The rabbi rested a hand on Itzik’s shoulder. “All the Elders of Chelm are here, awake from their naps. In fact, they were the first ones through the door for the Ne’ilah service. Now, I consider that a miracle. Let us pray to Hashem to protect the people of Chelm in the coming year.” He smoothed his beard.
“They surely need it,” he added under his breath. “And then,” he added in a louder tone, “perhaps Hashem who loves us and shelters us may produce yet another miracle. If the Elders stay through Ne’ilah, another miracle is not much to expect.”
Chelm for the Holidays Page 1