Small Worlds

by Allen Hoffman

  With a sudden force, he flung her up and forward, calling hoarsely, “Clean Beast,” as he returned to caress the source of her cleanliness and purity. Experiencing agonies of delight, she pulled away from his kisses and, reaching below, guided him into her. As they writhed in love, he called her Queen of Krimsk instead of Queen of Zmargard and Samael’s Wife. Shayna Basya, resplendent in love, repeated only her husband’s name—“Yaakov Moshe, Yaakov Moshe” and thought of nothing else.

  Yaakov Moshe, too, was competing against himself, the false self of their earlier false performances. The Temple had been destroyed because of two wicks in one lamp, and the Krimsker Rebbe had been guilty of something similar; one wick in two lamps. It was even a sin to make love to one’s own wife and to think of another woman. How much guiltier he had been in debasing his own wife by calling her the devil Lilith.

  The Krimsker Rebbe was thinking of other things, too. From the day the Temple was destroyed, the spice of sex was taken from man and wife and given to transgressors. The Temple had effected the holy union between the divine and man’s world upon which the holy union of marriage depended. With the Temple’s destruction, only the complete union with sin remained. Rebbe and rebbetzin as man and wife were not transgressors. The rebbe intended this act of love to redeem their previous encounters as false transgressors. He continually called Shayna Basya “Clean Beast” as she tore at his lip and tongue. She easily surpassed her performance as Lilith. Yaakov Moshe felt that he was falling. He emphasized the word “beast” and thrust with a fury that would have done justice to any transgressor.

  He hoped that his sexual union was to end all transgression. The Messiah was to be born on Tisha B’Av. No doubt this was metaphoric. The rebbe understood that conception and birth were equivalent. The Krimsker Rebbe had not fulfilled the commandment to be fruitful and multiply. He had fathered Rachel Leah, and he had fathered a son who died, but to fulfill the commandment properly, he needed both a living daughter and a living son. With the incredible progression from impure to pure in the events of this Tisha B’Av, culminating in Shayna Basya’s pure movements upon him, he sensed that this was the most propitious of moments for Israel, for him, and for his family.

  He had sent the sexton to bring the groom for Rachel Leah, but now he realized that the moment offered opportunities far beyond marrying his daughter to a local talmudist. The Krimsker Rebbe himself was to fulfill that most basic and first of all commandments, to be fruitful and multiply. What would be more appropriate than the messianic era beginning with the first of all the six hundred and thirteen commandments?

  The Krimsker Rebbe closed his eyes and tried to attain his wife’s impassioned rhythms. He knew that he should not think of the child’s name, but precisely that thought kept coming to mind. It spurred him on to the inflamed ardor that rivaled his love with Lilith. He thought of their son’s name, Emmanuel, and sought to accomplish in purity with his wife what no one had ever accomplished before. And he succeeded in bursting through into a world no less enchanting, no less passionate, no less exhilarating, no less exhausting, no less complete than that of the transgressors. And, certainly for Shayna Basya, more spicy than Lilith ever held upon her dark, moist, receptive tongue.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  REB YECHEZKAL STOOD OUTSIDE THE BEIS MIDRASH AND observed Krimsk flowing by, but he did not see Yechiel Katzman. No one asked whom he was looking for, and he asked no one if he had seen Yechiel. Everything Reb Yechezkal had done for the Krimsker Rebbe, he had executed in the strictest confidence. Krimsk understood and appreciated that. As Reb Yechezkal stood reviewing the marching crowd, he felt a surge of pride that everyone knew that he represented the Krimsker Rebbe. Reb Yechezkal partially repented of this inflated feeling. Insofar as it represented the majesty of the Torah in the person of the rebbe himself, he felt perfectly justified in his pride. Insofar as it represented Reb Yechezkal’s vanity, he felt that it was reprehensible and inappropriate, especially on a day of mourning. These concerns, however, were not paramount; locating Yechiel Katzman was. When he began to notice the same faces passing before him for the second time and he still had not seen Yechiel, he decided to try the Katzman home.

  He joined the crowd as it circled away from the beis midrash in the direction of the forest. Everyone nodded to him with an almost conspiratorial glee that seemed to say, Yes, we know that the rebbe has returned, and you are doing his sacred bidding. Reb Yechezkal maintained a serious demeanor, but in his heart he shared their joy and their desire to savor it with the community, so he continued to nod seriously, almost ponderously, to almost every Jew who looked his way. His head moved up and down almost constantly, and as much as he enjoyed it, it tired him and he was relieved to turn off the main street into the lane where the Katzmans lived.

  Reb Nachman Leib Katzman mended shoes, boots, bridles, and harnesses in a small front room of the low building. In the back lived the family—Nachman Leib, his wife, Hinda, and their four children. Yechiel, their oldest, had escaped the workshop through his considerable intellectual talents. Reb Yechezkal, as many other townspeople, took delight in Yechiel’s success. Nachman Leib and Hinda were simple, hardworking people who were always courteous to all who entered their shop or home.

  Yechiel was the apple of their eye. Every parent wanted a son to stand and say kaddish for him after “a hundred and twenty years,” but the merits of such a great talmudist’s kaddish must be incalculable. Nachman Leib was a very fortunate man, and if he were to become the Krimsker Rebbe’s in-law and, presumably, the father of the next Krimsker Rebbe, well then, what could possibly be left for him in the World to Come after enjoying such rewards right here in Krimsk? There was no envy in Reb Yechezkal. Yechiel was a fine scholar, and although not as simple as his father—how could he be with his knowledge?—he was equally distant from vanity.

  Reb Yechezkal should have been very happy about his mission, but he approached the leatherworker’s low home with misgivings. He slowed his pace in the shadows that hid the uneven dirt path beneath his feet. Reb Yechezkal was afraid of other shadows. He was worried that Nachman Leib and his family might be severely embarrassed before the episode was over. After all, Rachel Leah was already engaged to Yitzhak Weinbach, a man not to Reb Yechezkal’s tastes, but a man not easily given to graceful withdrawal. A man not given to learning either. The Katzmans would be humiliated because of their poverty, and this greatly distressed Reb Yechezkal. It upset him for the basic reason that it was just plain wrong, but it deeply disturbed him because of the Krimsker Rebbe’s principles. The Krimsker Rebbe, almost alone among the important rebbes, had never let money influence him. The most famous case concerned the Angel of Death synagogue, but that was only the most famous. Anyone who came to pray in the Krimsker beis midrash knew that the rich would not be favored over the poor—or the poor over the rich. On the latter point, the rebbe had been very explicit with his sexton many years ago: it is as unjust to favor the poor, the unhappy, the lonely, as it is to discriminate against them.

  If this policy had kept the Krimsker beis midrash poorer than those of the other rebbes, it had also kept it purer and more respected. The hasidim, though few in number, were loyal and had no illusions about why they came to the Krimsker Rebbe. He would not flatter them; he would not tell them what they wanted to hear; he often did not acknowledge them. One wag from a distant, glamorous hasidic court in Galicia spent a Sabbath in Krimsk and, as he was leaving, remarked that it was a good thing that the Jews of Krimsk took their petitions directly to the Holy One, otherwise they would never get any response. He added that what worried him most was the possibility that the Holy One might take his petitions to the Krimsker Rebbe, because there was no chance that the rebbe could be influenced, much less bribed.

  As Reb Yechezkal approached the door, he hoped that the rebbetzin had kept her word and had gone to the rebbe’s study as she had said she would. If the rebbetzin and the rebbe were in agreement, things would certainly reach a satisfactory conclusion.


  When Nachman Leib told Reb Yechezkal that his son had gone out almost immediately after they had returned from the beis midrash, Reb Yechezkal was relieved. The more time the rebbetzin had to speak with the rebbe, the better it would be. Reb Yechezkal did not press the matter; he simply mentioned that the Krimsker Rebbe wished to see Yechiel. The urgency of the matter did not need to be impressed upon Nachman Leib, however. The fact that the holy rebbe wanted to see Yechiel was in itself a majestic summons. Yechiel’s absence embarrassed Nachman Leib. He assured Reb Yechezkal that Yechiel would go to the rebbe as soon as he came home. Reb Yechezkal, disguising his own feelings, assured him that that would be fine. He said good evening and turned to leave.

  Nachman Leib held the door open for him, throwing a weak, flickering beam of light onto the uneven surface of the lane. It did help, but Reb Yechezkal concentrated on his footing and did not look up until he had reached the street. He quickly composed himself for the veritable flood of greetings that he expected to encounter. When he did look up, expecting to find a sea of approving, almost worshipful faces, he could not understand what had happened. The street was deserted. For a brief second the thought flitted through his mind that without realizing it, he had spent the night at Nachman Leib’s. There were many hasidic tales in which such things happened: a man closes his eyes for a moment and opens them to find the sun blazing down on the world.

  But Reb Yechezkal had no memory of having closed his eyes. He could recall the entirety of their brief conversation. Not more than ten minutes had passed since he turned off the main street. In that time the flowing throng, nearly all of Krimsk, had disappeared. As curious as it all was, Reb Yechezkal was not overly concerned. Had anything catastrophic occurred, he and Nachman Leib surely would have heard the accompanying shouts. Standing near the door, they had heard nothing. On some vague level, he supposed there was justice in his not receiving admiring glances as he returned to the beis midrash. He had violated the spirit if not the letter of his mission. He had neither found nor wished to find Yechiel Katzman—at least not immediately. As he walked in solitude, he thought he detected that the air was slightly cooler than it had been, but he paid no heed to such frivolity.

  He strode purposefully into the beis midrash and threaded his way down the rough aisle between the overturned benches until he reached his own bench. He sat and began to recite the compilation of penitential laments and prayers for the night of Tisha B’Av, but his mind was far from their anguished refrains. He positioned himself so that he could see the study door. If Yechiel did not arrive within a half hour, then he would knock on the door and explain that he could not locate the boy. As he glanced at the rebbe’s door, he was curious as to how the rebbetzin was faring with the rebbe. No one had told him why the streets were empty, but as he stared at the rebbe’s study door, the outside world held no interest for him at all.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  AFTER CALMLY WAITING UNTIL THE FRAMED SHAFT OF light ceased to illuminate Reb Yechezkal’s path, Nachman Leib quietly closed the door and then hurried to the room immediately behind the shop, where he met his wife, Hinda, who wore an expression of grave concern.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked shrilly.

  “Nu, wake young Shraga,” her husband said.

  “How would he know where Yechiel is?” she asked in desperation.

  “Nu, just wake him and bring him to me,” her husband insisted.

  She did as he asked, and soon Shraga stood before them, rubbing his sleep-filled eyes. He looked up at his father.

  “Shraga, are you awake?”

  Nachman Leib gently placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder. Although thirteen, the boy had not yet matured physically and was short for his age.

  “What?” Shraga said, but he had heard his father’s voice, and although he continued to rub his eyes, he did so differently, more vigorously, as if trying to push sleep from them.

  His father, noticing his efforts, said, “It’s all right.” Had it not been Tisha B’Av, Nachman Leib would have kissed him. Shraga was always willing to help, and so many burdens seemed to find their way to him. Tonight as usual his small, discolored, and calloused fingers eagerly executed his father’s instructions.

  Every day by his side in the workroom Shraga mended shoes, patched harnesses, replaced bridle straps. He put all his undersized body’s weight behind the sharp gouging awl and the biting leather punch, and most difficult of all, he forced the large needles through the hard-baked, weatherbeaten leather in regular stitches. Nachman Leib tried to reserve the more difficult tasks for himself, but there was so much to do.

  For himself, Nachman Leib was satisfied with his share, but when he saw Shraga bruising his young fingers on a broken harness, the air seemed thick and stifling. He would rise from his bench and step outside to breathe the fresh air, but even that was not satisfactory. He would turn to see Shraga slaving inside, and the father would feel as if he had deserted his young, good-hearted son to his immutable, squinting, secondhand fate, stiff and unyielding as the used leather.

  What was it the peasants said about their cracked and torn harnesses? “It’s easy enough to kill them, but it’s another matter to bury them.” They couldn’t afford to bury them, so they brought their ceremonially dead objects to the shop to be renewed. Until late in the night Nachman Leib and Shraga cut, tore, twisted, glued, stitched, nailed, and wrestled them back into usefulness. Nachman Leib did it all resolutely, but he was haunted by the image of Shraga placing his own young son next to him on the workbench.

  If the Messiah were to arrive in Krimsk, Nachman Leib would not waste time in welcoming him. But what if the Messiah decreed that the first order of business was to fix everyone’s shoes? Nachman Leib smiled to himself: all the rebbes would suddenly present themselves as shoemakers, their pale, soft hands resting on their spotless, unsoiled aprons. Well, not quite all. The Krimsker Rebbe wouldn’t. He would simply take off his shoes and humbly get into line.

  In past years, Nachman Leib had noticed on many occasions that the rebbe’s shoes always needed repair. Earlier in the evening he had instinctively looked at the rebbe’s feet, but the rebbe had entered in stockings. In five years the rebbetzin had not sent him the rebbe’s shoes once. The leather body was probably in bad shape, especially if the splashing everyone heard really was from Miriam’s well. There is nothing harder on leather than water.

  Nachman thought of the rebbe leaping in his stocking feet with Itzik Dribble, and he was overcome by desire to send Yechiel to see the rebbe as soon as possible. He felt his calm resignation deserting him as he pictured the rebbe pounding up and down on the table. Yechiel was thought to be his blessing, his joy, his assurance of post-earthly delights. The boy’s grandmother, however, had been correct in pronouncing “Little children, little problems; big children, big problems.”

  “Shraga, are you listening?” The boy nodded. “Go to the watchman’s house at the Soffer match factory and tell Barasch Limp Legs that Yechiel must come home immediately.”

  Shraga slid out of his father’s grasp and slipped out the door. “Barasch Limp Legs?” Hinda mused in a puzzled whisper. She turned to her husband for an explanation.

  “Yes.” Nachman Leib nodded with a sad certainty that kept Hinda from pursuing the subject.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  NACHMAN LEIB HAD GUESSED CORRECTLY. YECHIEL HAD left for Barasch’s home at the match factory as soon as the beis midrash services had finished. He was confused, and there he could feel most comfortable with his uncertainties. Barasch’s home, however, had its limitations, too. Yechiel knew that he would be welcome only as long as the socialist revolutionaries who met there thought that he would become one of them. Everyone demanded belief—that one item that Yechiel did not have in abundance.

  Barasch himself passionately espoused social revolutionary views. Yechiel was not very impressed with the social revolutionaries, if for no other reason than that Barasch himself was one. Although the cripple w
as a warm, generous host, he was not to be taken seriously. Not intellectually, at any rate. Yechiel appreciated him for what he was: the sexton of Krimsk’s modern, heretical congregation of unbelievers. In his way, he was as conscientious as Reb Yechezkal in the Krimsker beis midrash or Reb Zelig in the Angel of Death. Barasch as heretic sexton suffered from a serious problem. He had no rebbe, and he himself, although not of rabbinic stature, was forced to lecture and teach. Yechiel was aware that technically Reb Zelig had no rebbe as well, but that situation was entirely different. Reb Zelig, Yechiel was willing to argue, did have the Krimsker Rebbe for his spiritual mentor. The Krimsker Rebbe, after all, had determined the fate of the Angel of Death, and Reb Zelig had accepted that decree willingly and without complaint.

  The ameliorating aspect of Barasch’s uncomfortable rabbinate was the small number of congregants. Counting both Yechiel and Barasch, there were only three altogether. Reb Yudel Zaks was the third.

  Yudel had introduced Yechiel to Spinoza and the modern world, but Yudel was quite literally a fish out of water. He wasn’t a hasid, which might have been understandable, but in addition he was from Lithuania, which was unforgivable. He was the only Litvak for miles around. He and his wife had come to Krimsk to inherit a small lumberyard his wife’s cousin had left to them. No one in Krimsk ever understood how a hasidic girl could have married a Litvak, and before anyone became sufficiently friendly with her to find out, she died. Yudel, or as he was known, “the Litvak,” stayed on. He made a respectable livelihood but suffered from boredom in the hasidic backwater. A talented intellectual with a gift for analysis, he had tutored Yechiel well. Yechiel knew him to be precise but weak conceptually—a man who could understand and explain systems but never create his own.