by Vic Shayne
When I was a teenager, I joined two Zionist groups. I came to understand that there were a lot of young Jews who strongly believed that there was no future for us where anti-Semitism was tolerated by the Church, the government, and the general population. Zionist leaders were actively manifesting an ancient dream and we were all getting caught up in the excitement. Even during brief periods when there were no wars, the Zionists would tell us that we still had never found peace and had always lived with an uncertain future. Further, we were never allowed full freedom or equality, were always cringing when our borders were redrawn, and were dreading that a more powerful country would send us an even more belligerent landlord. We were constantly bracing for the next pogrom.
One of the Zionist groups I joined was called Shomer Hatzair. Later I joined another Zionist organization known as Betar. I’ll never forget one of my first experiences at a Betar gathering. It was in Baranowicze and I was there with my father. There was excitement in the air. My father stood next to me with his arms crossed and his eyes glued to the speakers. There was a young man, Vladimir (Zev) Jabotinsky, standing on a makeshift wooden platform in front of the crowd who was giving an impassioned speech about how Jews needed to return to their own homeland. He said, “For thousands of years we have been mistreated, murdered, and given no rights as human beings; we must find our way to our own land or we will die as victims of hate.” Also giving talks around Poland during this time was a young man who would one day become not only my close friend but also the prime minister of Israel. His name was Menachem Begin.
The most striking memory I have of Jabotinsky’s speech still haunts me. He said to a crowd of Polish Jews, “You will not build Israel with money, but with your blood.” These words brought tears to my eyes. His impassioned words rang in my ears over and over as they brought to mind death and tragedy—a sacrifice to be made at the altar of the world. Jabotinsky’s talk of a place where Jews could be free from random murders, raping, and pillaging, and where we would have a chance to be Jews without fear, struck me to the core. Building a Jewish homeland would not be easy, but what was ever easy for the Jews? One way or another, Jewish blood will be shed, Jabotinsky preached. A lot of people thought he was a radical, an alarmist, but he turned out to be a prophet, of sorts.
The Zionist youth group Betar was born in Latvia in 1923 after the First World War, when I was almost seven years old. It took root as more and more hate, pushed to the front by political changes, grew for the European Jews. The Zionist groups were responding to the growing nationalism and ethnic pride of Germans and other European people. Nationalism and ethnic pride needs an enemy to succeed; the Jewish people would one day soon openly be declared that enemy.
Unlike other Zionist groups, Betar was concerned with life and death. Our group concerns seemed to have so much more gravity. We weren’t talking about recreation, camping, staring at the stars or hiking. Our concerns were with life and death. The work of every Zionist organization was tied to an ancient longing to return to the land of milk and honey. This yearning has been in our prayers for thousands of years. To this day, not a Shabbos goes by when we do not speak of our dream to return. Week after week, in shuls all across Europe, Jews would cry out the words, “Jerusalem, if I forget thee, may I lose my right arm.” It had been thousands of years, but in Maitchet and every other shtetl, we clung to this dream.
Practically speaking, Betar had us thinking about leaving the evils of Europe and settling in Palestine. The ideology of Betar included creating a formal Jewish state in the territory of Mandatory Palestine, providing a new home for exiles, embracing Zionism without a socialist component, founding a just society, engaging in military training for self-defense, and developing a pioneering spirit. These were no lofty ideas; people like Menachem Begin and Zev Jabotinsky were serious about them. They had plans, not dreams. I was inspired. In the middle of snowstorms, we dreamt about raking a garden hoe across the desert sand in a kibbutz somewhere near Jerusalem or maybe on the frontier.
Convinced of the need to leave Poland, I once had a long conversation with my father, trying to get him to move to Palestine and start a new life. As soon as I started talking, though, Papa made it clear that he would have no part in this. He told me that Maitchet was where his family was; he couldn’t think about leaving his mother, father, cousins, brothers, aunts, and uncles. For generations we had built a life here. Papa learned from his own father that family was more important than anything; without a family, life had no purpose. So that was that. Over the next few years, I found myself saying good-bye to most of my friends as they kissed their crying parents and little brothers and sisters and left for Palestine.
Many who traveled out of their shtetls and eventually made it to Palestine arrived virtually without any money and no place to live. Yet they stayed and began to work the land and find a new home in a kibbutz far from the troubles of Eastern Europe. Of course, these emigrants had no idea that the Holocaust was coming, but they were among the few who escaped with their lives. After the war, I was lucky enough to reconnect with many of my friends who had moved to Palestine and to reminisce about Maitchet, which remained, in their minds, unchanged.
There was a wide range of opinions about the Palestine issue in those days. People remained in Maitchet for all kinds of reasons. Some didn’t want to leave older relatives behind. Others, like the Jews out of Egypt in the olden days, were afraid of the unknown. There were also many Jews who felt that the trip to Palestine was just a dream and not really a possibility. Some even thought that there was no need for a Jewish homeland—our home was safe and sound in Eastern Europe. Life presents some bumps and bruises now and then, they’d argue, but you can’t run from your problems. And then there were some who stood around waiting for a sign that the time was right. “How will we know when to go to Palestine?” some of the older rabbis would pose. Then they’d answer their own question, “We’ll know because God will send Moshiach.”
I was in the middle, with the Zionist groups tugging on me on one side and my family and tradition pulling on the other. Countless times I thought of heading out on my own for Palestine, but I always thought of my father’s sentiments and could not bring myself to leave my entire family behind. My life, my soul, was in Maitchet.
Shabbat Shalom
I was torn. As a restless youth, part of me longed for Eretz Yisroel and the other part felt that home was here in Maitchet. This was my life; these were my people. Time with my family, endless hours spent with Zayde discussing Jewish law, my mother’s cooking, the smiles on the faces of my little sisters, and my father’s love, as well as my studies in the Yeshivas and shul, won out. All of these precious things made life worth living. And I kept asking myself: In Palestine, would I find scholars stuffed into shtiebls heatedly debating the subtlest shades of the law? What would Sukkot, Passover, Yom Kippur, or Shevuot be like in the desert? What about Shabbos?
In Maitchet, Shabbos was the greatest of all holidays—the most important and the most celebrated. Shabbos was a time to make a departure from the ordinary. You didn’t work, you didn’t clean, and you didn’t do any other chores. It was a break from the normal, daily routines of life.
How I miss the Shabbos of my youth. I thank God for giving me these memories of Shabbos candles in the windows, bright tablecloths, and the radiant faces of relatives and guests who laughed and cried at my Bubbie’s table. My childhood memories are treasures within treasures, better than gold, and I was richer than anyone could dream possible as my ears soaked up the sounds of my cousins playing around the table, the voices of my little sisters preparing the Shabbos bread and kugel, and the sweet music filling me to the soul in shul, rocking me back and forth before Torah, God, and a room full of scholars. My mouth still waters for the taste of cholent on my lips.
Cholent. What is cholent? We used to have a joke about cholent. People ask what cholent is. Cholent is what the father puts into the oven on Friday and the mother takes out on Saturday. Maybe the jok
e loses something from the original Yiddish. Anyway, cholent is a stew that we only ate on Shabbos day. Momma, Bubbie, and my aunts had cholent simmering on their stoves for hours and hours until the flavors of potatoes, carrots, garlic, mushrooms, onions, beef, and other ingredients just melded into one wonderful experience. I haven’t had cholent since my childhood.
My memory of Shabbos in Maitchet is not complete without Sorah Henya, a young woman who worked for Bielski the baker. Sorah would stand in Bielski’s little bakery and load up a koshik—a big basket—overflowing with kugel, challah, and bulkas (rolls). When Sorah’s basket was full, she left Bielski’s house that sat right near the market square, near Zayde’s house, and set out on foot into the neighborhood. She was a welcomed sight every Shabbos evening—this sweet young lady with a pleasant smile and happy eyes. She approached every house with warm expectation, selling the breads from her basket.
Every Shabbos in Maitchet began with our Jewish town crier, Moishe, hurriedly shuffling from one side of Maitchet to the other singing out, “Shabbos! It’s Shabbos! Time to light the Shabbos candles!” Moishe encouraged everyone to go home and be with family. “Go home and eat; go home and celebrate.” As the sun began to set, businesses were closed and locked, vendors banged and clanged while they piled their wares onto their pushcarts, and Gentiles and Jews parted ways. Many a Gentile would pat us on the back and utter the phrase, “Gut Shabbos.”
By the time Shabbos came, my mother, Esther, and my two little sisters, Peshia and Elka, had been working feverishly in the kitchen, cooking, cleaning, baking challah, making soup, baking kugel, taking down special serving dishes, setting the Shabbos candles on the table, and sweeping the floor and washing it spotless. All of this had to be done before sundown, according to Jewish law.
Then, at last, it was Shabbos and the pots and pans stopped clanging. No more cooking; no more cleaning. Any dishes that had piled up would wait until late the next day before they were taken care of. As I walked down the street, I could see the lighting of Shabbos candles through the windows of every house. Mothers dressed in pretty shawls draped over their heads brought their hands to their closed eyes in prayer as the candles were lit. Throughout Maitchet, the voice of each momma was heard softly singing the prayer, “Blessed are You, our God, who has trusted us to celebrate and know your Shabbos. Grant us peace, protect our children and our families, and allow us to fulfill your commandments.” And so the Shabbos candles burned brightly in Maitchet as they had for thousands of years in the homes of Jews throughout the world. The holiday had begun. This memory of Shabbos, our most sacred event, even now brings me joy and tears.
Clean, crisp tablecloths, carefully embroidered and handed down through the generations, caressed dining room tables, and special dishes used only for Shabbos were standing in front of a feast fit for a king.
For me, my sisters, and my mother and father, Shabbos was almost always spent at my father’s parents’ house. Bubbie and Zayde were the Shabbos hosts for the whole extended family. My grandmother’s heavy wooden table was very large, and her kitchen was so big that twenty or more people could sit down to eat together. My uncles (my father’s four brothers) and their wives would each bring food to the house and soon the walls were shaking from the commotion. All my cousins were there, including Chonyeh, the one closest to me. Chonyeh was more like a friend than a relative; when we went out to play, I kept my eye on him so he wouldn’t get picked on. His brother, Moishe, usually sat beside him at the table. Across from me was my cousin Yossel, who one day would become the head of the fire department. Sometimes after dinner, Yossel would entertain us with his clarinet—the same clarinet he would become known for playing at many weddings in Maitchet over the coming years.
No Shabbos would have been complete without strangers. There were always visitors passing through, people on vacation and maggids—religious scholars on a teaching tour. We were never without strangers at our table. Zayde taught us all about the value of sharing with others. “We’ll invite them to eat with us, share the Shabbos, and then they won’t be strangers anymore.” That’s how Zayde thought. “Anyway, did you ever think, Motel, that maybe to others we are the strangers? If you were tired and hungry, think of how much you would appreciate such generosity.”
Shabbos was a celebration beyond imagination: forks brought to hungry lips; red wine sipped from special Shabbos glasses; my aunts feeding their little children from their plates; the eyes of my family, now smiling, dancing, sparkling. We would talk about Palestine. We’d talk about my Aunt Frieda, my mother’s sister, in New York with her family. We’d laugh at silly jokes and riddles. We’d gossip about the next town play and who was making the costumes and the props. The sounds of the voices and commotion would rise and fall like a musical concert. And somewhere in between, inevitably and without fail, we would raise our glasses and toast, “L’Chaim, to life!” To life.
I have to ask myself now, what kind of God could give us such a wonderful occasion? This weekly gift. What kind of ingenious idea is this that sets apart one day of the week to honor life and family and friends? If I close my eyes, I hear their voices; I breathe in the sweetness of challah and red wine. We were safe and happy and free in our Shabbos, sitting and talking and laughing as a family, with my Zayde at the head of the table kvelling over his children and his grandchildren.
All of these memories are alive within me. I close my eyes and there’s my grandmother, my Bubbie, sitting at the other end of the table, across from Zayde. She watches me. I look up at her and smile because I happen to spot one of her cakes sitting on the counter. She knows how much I love her cakes. Just a few days before, I snuck up to the window of Bubbie’s kitchen where a cake was sitting by itself on the ledge. Quietly moving along the wall of the house like a spy in the night, I popped my head up to look inside the kitchen. Bubbie was nowhere in sight, so I reached out and grabbed a piece of the cake then ran off to eat it. It was a sort of game between Bubbie and me. She knew I was the thief, but she never said a word; and she never stopped leaving her cakes alone on the window sill.
Dinner at Bubbie’s lasted for hours. We made b’ruchas (blessings) over bread, wine, dinner, and one another. We ate until we couldn’t take another bite. Some of my cousins fell asleep on the floor by the fire. Our guests would excuse themselves then throw themselves on the bed as we stragglers listened to them snoring all the way into the kitchen. Then my mother and father would stand up, walk over to Bubbie and Zayde, give them a kiss, and take us home. It was a short trip home from my grandparents’ house at the edge of the market square to ours at the other end of the street. In his strong arms, my father carried Elka and Peshia, half asleep, past the darkened homes and in through our front door. Papa laid my sisters into their beds and Momma carefully tucked them in. Then my parents would stare at their sleeping jewels for a while before saying good night to me.
The next day, Shabbos morning, we would all dress in our special Shabbos clothes and walk to the kalte shul. We were a proud family, all walking together with Papa in the lead.
Once again, as we entered the kalte shul, the world outside no longer existed. In minutes we were swaying to and fro, singing, bowing, bending, standing. We sang to God; and we sang with God. I closed my eyes and listened and became lost in the heavenly music. All of my senses willfully absorbed the deep, melodic, hypnotic voices forming a symphony that shattered into a rumbling murmur before falling to absolute silence. It was instinctual and all at once the voices would rise again in musical prayer. This is a sound like no other. Ancient and moving, touching the heart and cleansing the soul and body. Sometimes I heard nobody else but Zayde. Then, like a switch being turned on, I would hear a rabbi from far across the room, then another from the back. Each voice was different. Each voice swelled in harmony. It was Shabbos and there was no room for inhibition. If you want God to hear you, you’ve got to give it all you’ve got.
I watched intently as an old man with his prayer shawl covering all but his fa
ce stood stooped over the Torah to sing the Haftorah. People were still filing into the synagogue. Their friends were greeting them with hugs and handshakes, while at the same time the old man’s voice rose up, then down, then drifted, then moaned and cried.
We who spoke Polish, Russian, and Yiddish outside the walls of the shul spoke our own language inside. This was the language of our fathers and their fathers, the language of our homeland, Eretz Yisroel. Led by the main rabbi, in Hebrew we thanked God for taking us out of Egypt and bringing us to Israel and we prayed that we might return one day. We were in exile in Europe. Our real home was a warm place where the wall of the Second Temple still stood in the desert to remind us where we came from and where we dreamed to return.
In shul I always found myself ecstatic, enveloped in a world a million miles away from the chilly air, muddy streets, and damp morning that lay beyond the walls. Shul transported me back into the history of my people. Our thoughts were with Moses as he carried the weight of a new nation under the blistering sun and across vast, parched, and sandy lands to lead our people out of Egypt. Each Shabbos we yearned to return to this other world of our dreams. The rabbi called it the land of milk and honey, and we sang to it, turning to the southeast. Outside it would begin to drizzle, but my mind had settled on the warm soil of Eretz Yisroel.