“Really?” said Kagan, fascinated at such an interesting piece of information.
“Yes. That’s why the forbidden relations are read in the afternoon service,” added Ozzie.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” said Kagan.
“Never mind,” said Ozzie, “gambling was your thing anyway.”
“It’s a wedding day!” exlaimed Kagan.
“Yes,” answered Ozzie. “Yes, it’s a true holiday since one is confident that one can earn a good decree.’’ The angel paused. “Is that enough?”
“Thank you. That’s fine,” said Kagan.
“I’d better be going, Moe. I’m betting on you.”
“Ozzie— “ Kagan said.
“Yes?”
“You want to come to shul with me?” Kagan offered. “It’s a homey place. A lot of talking, friendly people.”
“No, thank you. I’m sure it’s very nice but it’s not for me. Oh, one more thing you should know, Moe. Yom Kippur is like a mikveh. Do you know who purifies Israel? God, for it is written, ‘I throw purifying water onto you and you are purified.’ And it is also written, ‘The Lord is the Mikveh of Israel.’ Just as a mikveh purifies the impure, so God purifies Israel. So long, Moe,” the angel said, his voice fading.
“Good luck, Ozzie,” Kagan called after him.
AT the corner of Ninety-first Street, Kagan glanced at his watch. The pickle-green machine announced that neilah, the final service of Yom Kippur, was starting.
“My God!” Kagan exclaimed, “I’m late!” and he began running down Ninety-first Street. Kagan waved at the stoic old monkey, but his thoughts were on the shtibl. Kagan had to pray! How he had to pray!
10
THE rabbi was speaking as Kagan entered the doorway to the room. “And the Gates of Heaven remain open to receive us until the final second. According to our custom, we shall receive the Priestly Blessing during neilah. What is the relationship between the Priestly Blessing and Yom Kippur?” the rabbi asked rhetorically.
“I’m glad you asked!” called Kagan from the doorway. “I’ll be happy to tell you!”
Kagan plunged through the standees at the rear of the room. “Sh! Kagan, be quiet!” a voice whispered.
“Kagan, the rabbi’s speaking!” someone reprimanded, but Kagan had rushed to the rabbi’s side and started speaking, passionately, forcefully, and irrevocably.
“All priests are gamblers. It goes back to when Moses had Aaron throw down the stick in front of Pharaoh. What if it hadn’t turned into a snake? In Egypt, you were only as good as your last plague. Sure, you’re a great guy, a prince, but who have you destroyed for me lately? Moses knew the stakes when he flung the staff. They were playing to a pretty tough audience: the Lord had hardened Pharaoh’s heart. How long would they have lasted had that stick not begun to wiggle? One twitch of Pharaoh’s wig and the message would have been abundantly clear: try these two out as the base of my new pyramid.
“But Moses and Aaron were priests, cohens; how they loved action! All priests are gamblers. Moses didn’t hesitate. He put his money on the Snake in the prelims, Blood in the first, Frogs in the second, Lice in the third, Beasts in the fourth, Murrain in the fifth, Boils in the sixth, Hail in the seventh, Locusts in the eighth, Darkness in the ninth, and Slaying of the First-Born in the tenth. All winners. The Biblical superfecta! Not bad for a kid who started out in the Soap Box Derby on the Nile and wound up in the bulrushes.
“And the Red Sea! That wasn’t a gamble? God may not have been adlibbing, but Moses certainly had never seen those routines before. Of course Moses had faith. He had perfect faith — and yet — who had ever seen an ocean split into one-way aisles like a supermarket, heavy canned goods towering high, like vacuum-sealed waves near the humming fluorescent lights?
“A cohen loves action! Anyone can make a bet, win, and bet again. It’s the losing, the love of action, that separates gamblers from other men. Riding his impressive streak, Moses was up on the mountain forty days and forty nights. He received the Ten Commandments and came down to find all of Israel dancing around the golden calf. Moses had picked a winner as usual and nobody had backed him. Who would have believed that a golden calf could finish out of the money? Moses showed the Children of Israel the winning tickets but refused to cash them. Eat your hearts out! He smashed the tablets.
“Then what did he do, a man who had picked ten straight, doped out the Red Sea, and finally dropped one? Was he philosophic: you win a few, you lose a few? Did he return to his tent and take the dog for a walk? The poor thing hadn’t been out in forty days and forty nights. No! What did he do? Action! He went back up the mountain for another forty days and another forty nights and not for just a straight bet either. Oh, no, although he had no business playing the same number twice, Moses decided to increase the odds. He played a parlay. He was betting that God would give him another set of tablets and that the Jews would accept them. That’s a gamble: picking God and the Jews in the same event! One certainly will come through, but both at the same time? Who but a cohen would make such a bet?
“That bet won because it was an act of faith. After forty more days and forty more nights, Moses received a second set of tablets, just like the first ones. This time when he came down off the mountain, the Jews accepted God’s Torah with all their hearts. And that day was today, Yom Kippur.
“And today is a wedding day because the bet won. We all know what a gamble marriage is. Oy vay, do we know! And yet, the Jews got together with God through his holy Torah. A wedding day! Mazel Tov! We received another chance at Mount Sinai through His mercy and our faith. We can today, also. Let us bet on ourselves. The OTB won’t accept such a bet because it’s a holy bet, an act of faith. But we can accept such a bet be-we are created in God’s image.
“And yet — we are men. How noble is man! How frail is man! I know what a man is because I am one. I won’t drink coffee from my thermos in the teachers’ room like a shmuck who used to bring his lunch to City College in a paper sack. Why not? Because I’m a shmuck who used to bring his lunch to City College in a paper sack. That’s why! Of course I never did! You know me. I grabbed a corned beef on rye or a pastrami club with a bottle of tonic. How could I bring my lunch in a baglike a shmuck who brings his lunch in a bag? Because I am a shmuck who brings his lunch in a bag. You see, it’s the human condition. I won’t drink my coffee in public, but I’ll chase a horse down Broadway. That’s why we can make it. Why? Because we’re men. I’m a man. It’s in my blood and it’s in your blood, too. So much is in the blood it’s a miracle the sticky stuff makes it through the heart. God knows that. After all. He created us, didn’t He?
“That’s why on Yom Kippur the High Priest has the lottery with the goats. We, like the goats, are vulnerable, but unlike the goats, we can bet on ourselves through His mercy and our faith. We can choose Azazel or we can choose the Lord. And don’t think it means you have to become a saint. It doesn’t. It means you have to become a mensch. A terrible choice! A fearful choice! But what choice do we really have? We must choose Life — the Lord. Let us pray, for the day is growing short. Let us pray now and let us choose now that the holiest day of the year, Yom Kippur, is drawing to a close!” And as an afterthought Kagan added, “Let us pray now because I’m starving.”
Kagan’s speech was greeted with the silence that follows an amazing, unexpected event. As Kagan began to make his way to his seat in the small room, tentative remarks began to probe the abyss of uncertainty.
“Listen to that!” someone breathed in amazement. “Did you hear that?” a voice asked in wonder. Finally, someone said softly, “Yosher koach, congratulations, Kagan,” and that unleashed their true feelings. A tidal wave of “Congratulations!” assaulted Kagan from every direction. Benny, his kids, Schwartz, everyone congratulated Kagan. Eventually the rabbi recovered sufficiently to klop the reading table for order, but the only response he could get was an excited buzzing. At the moment, decorum was impossible. Anxiously looking at the clock
, he raised his voice over the receding wave of voices.
“Indeed, congratulations to our good friend, Maurice Kagan.” The rabbi paused. “There is nothing for me to add,” he said in simple honesty. “May our prayers be accepted.”
The rabbi nodded to the chazan to begin the final service of Yom Kippur. Everyone began to search quickly for the correct page — everyone except Kagan. He had the right page, and enveloped in his tallis, he was already praying. He prayed with dedication and fervor, uttering every word clearly with his lips and shaping every intention with his heart. When the chazan began the repetition, he remained standing under his tallis, following every word while pangs of hunger gnawed at his stomach. These he welcomed for they were a reminder of what was at stake — Moe Kagan.
KAGAN was surprised when Benny, his fellow co-hen, touched his arm. Kagan removed the tallis from his head with a sense of uncertainty, even trembling. Although he had prayed hard and well, he knew it wasn’t enough. He had more to give, more to ask, and more to decide. And time was running out. It was already time to bless the congregation!
He followed Benny and his sons into the small room which had been a kitchen before the Ninety-first Street brownstone became a shtibl. The cohens unlaced their shoes. Then the levites, Bienstock among them, poured water over the priests’ hands to purify them for their blessing. Kagan extended his hands over the sink and Bienstock poured the water. Although Kagan felt the cooling splash of the water, he stared at his hands in wonderment. They seemed alien and familiar at the same time. He watched the water slide harmlessly off the knuckled backs of the strange jointed, muscular creatures. And yet, he knew those weak and invaluable fingers. The burns, cuts, and splinters they had suffered; the doorknobs they had turned, the tokens they had guided into subway turnstiles. Detached, Kagan wondered what would happen to them, and with a shudder, he worried what would happen to him, Moe Kagan. What will it be? he wondered.
In a fearful daze of imminence, he followed Benny back into the main room where they stood off to one side waiting to go before the ark of the law to give their blessing. When the moment arrived, Benny and his sons stepped out of their shoes and proceeded in stocking feet to the ark. Kagan, however, transfixed, stood motionless, wondering what would be. He saw his fellow priests step forward, but he couldn’t follow.
“Nu, Kagan, go,” someone near him whispered.
“The Priestly Blessing,” a voice beseeched.
People were beginning to stare. Someone touched Kagan’s elbow. Kagan turned.
“Nu?” Bienstock urged softly.
Kagan turned toward the ark. With a look of consternation, Benny was motioning frantically for Kagan to join him. Kagan suddenly kicked off his shoes and rushed forward. Benny’s tortured expression eased, but before joining him, Kagan quickly spun around and raced back to where he and the others had been standing. Impervious to the incredulous stares and agitated “nu’s,” Kagan began kicking the priests’ rubber-soled shoes so far under the benches that no accuser of Israel — emperor or angel — could possibly find them. Having finished, Kagan ran to join Benny.
Just as Kagan arrived at the ark, the chazan called “Priests!” and without a moment’s hesitation, Kagan flung his tallis over his head and face, raised his arms — hands, palms out, thumb tips touching, fingers extended in pairs. Although the priestly birdlike formation of his hands was directly in front of his eyes and under his tallis (hidden from the congregation), Kagan didn’t see it for his eyes were closed as he intoned the blessing with fervor and belief, “Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, Who sanctified us with the Holiness of Aaron and Who commanded us to bless with love His nation of Israel.”
The chazan then began to lead them in their threefold blessing. Word by word they chanted the first part after him.
“May the Lord — Bless you — And protect you.”
As Kagan chanted, a strange thing began to happen. He concentrated lovingly, with all his heart, on the words of the blessing, but Kagan, eyes closed, could see — and feel — his hands reaching into his own head in search of his ballot: “for the Lord” or “for Azazel.” My God, thought Kagan, my fate is literally in my hands! Then he realized, at long last, there is a routine here, my routine. And this is it! With awe he watched his hands search his head for the ballot. He felt the spongy, sticky, gelatinous mass of his mind. Kagan held his nose; the stuff still smelled awful, no better than in high-school biology. Hershkowitz, you gonif, may the Lord bless you and may you protect the sick. And not just the sick. O Master of the Universe, have pity on remedial readers everywhere. Help their eyes to see the letters and their minds to see the syllables. (Very important the syllables!)
The chazan, Kagan, and the other priests began to chant the second part.
“May the Lord’s — Countenance — Shine — Upon you — And grant you grace!”
The fingers probed through the dark chambers of his mind. O Fran, may the Lord’s countenance shine upon you and upon all of Connecticut. May you be granted grace in my eyes so that I shall love you with the respect and dignity you deserve. Fran, it will be better, you’ll see. A love of intimacy and honesty. No more tears, Fran, no more tears. Kagan felt himself crying. Forgive me, forgive me!
The stiff-knuckled fingers pushed toward the side and uncovered the old Sixty-four Falcon. It’s been a good car, Lord — a better car than I have been a driver. May it find grace, a parking spot along the curbs of West End Avenue. Not too much of a hill either; a rachmones on the transmission, Lord.
And turning back, the thumb tips brushed the pickle-green watch.
Lord, grant your servant to see the green of life and not the green of envy. Who cares how many walked on the moon, Lord? Lift up Your countenance and let us walk on earth and find grace in each other’s eyes.
And Kagan knew they were about to begin the final portion of the blessing, the blessing of peace.
“May the Lord — Lift up — His countenance — Unto you....”
Lift up Your countenance, Lord, to Your children in this sharp-edged world of frenzy, this world of illusion and self-deception.
The birdlike formation of Kagan’s hands flew over the shadow of memory shaped into human form.
O Lord, lift up your countenance to Katzi, my fellow cohen, that he may better know the redemption that is in his agitated blood rather than the anger, for Your servant Katzi loves You as few men do. O Lord, lift up Your countenance to Pakooz that he may better know what is above the couch rather than what is beneath for your servant Pakooz tries in his own way to help your suffering children at a price they can afford. O Lord, lift up Your countenance to Big Abe that he may better know the human voice rather than that of the transistor for your servant Big Abe never forgets what he hears.
The blessing continued, “May He grant — You — “ and the chazan uttered the word “Peace,” but before the priests could finish they had to chant their ancient, wordless melody.
As Kagan chanted the final notes, he anxiously watched his hands plunge into the depths to choose his fate. He believed this day to be a day of joy, but he didn’t feel it. Rather, he felt something very different. He felt his whole self moving, subtly floating like the objects in his mind. His whole self seemed to be moving, but with no sense of disorientation. He felt comfortable floating, as if partially submerged in a mikveh. But part of him wasn’t inside, and this part watched his blind fingers probe the innermost parts of his mind for his decision. My God, Kagan thought, this is really going all the way down to the wire! What a finish!
Then he heard the faint echo of hoofbeats. To silence them, Kagan willed himself farther into the purifying waters. Yes, thought Kagan, it is as Ozzie said. The Lord is the Mikveh of Israel. Through His unity, His oneness, we can be redeemed.
O Lord, cried Kagan, grant Azazel that he should know Your mercy for your suffering servant Azazel has taught your son Torah. And, O Lord, grant your sinning servant, Moe Kagan, forgiveness, for — and Kagan’s f
ingers moved beyond the small, tremulous figure on ice — forgiveness, O Lord, for we leave everything to the last minute. Oy, Chaim Der Nechtiger, why do you leave everything to the last minute? O Master of the Universe, forgiveness, for we are all Chaims From Yesterday! Receive us!
Kagan’s blessing-fingers touched something. His hands began to grasp it as he descended into the mikveh of his mind, created in God’s image. The last voice he heard was the angel’s hoarse, impassioned plea — “Kagan, choose Life!!” — and Kagan did, intoning with all his soul, “Peace!”
Beggar Moon
THERE are too many threads. That’s obvious. Our suits have too many threads, isn’t one always hanging loose? Our days have too many threads. Our lives have too many threads. And stories, the stories most like our lives, certainly have too many threads. This story is about the moon and Bluma the Beggar and it has too many threads. How did I come to meet them, the moon and Bluma the Beggar? They are both Jews. So this is a story about Jews. But it is much more than just a story about Jews; it is a Jewish story. The moon and Bluma the Beggar are not just Jews; they are Jewish. And that’s where the threads come in. In Jewish stories, the threads are entangled in the middle. You know the beginning and you know the ending, but you don’t know the middle. You see the beginning of the threads, you see the end of the threads, but in the middle, a tangled snarl, an impenetrable mess. The goyim have too many threads, too. With the goyim, however, things are inside out. You don’t know the beginning, and you don’t know the end; you only know the middle.
A Jew knows where he came from and he knows where he will go, but, vay iz mir, can he get crazy in the middle! A goy has no idea where he came from or where he is going, and he couldn’t care less, but he knows where he is now. He’s relaxed. He’s calm. Why shouldn’t he be? It’s a goy’s world. And when a Jew makes it big, he’s not relaxed, calm. Look at Henry Kissinger. The man runs around like a meshugginer. He’d better. It’s a goy’s world. What does Kissinger own? Nothing. He is no different from the little Russian violinists from Odessa who stood next to the Czar. Even worse, when the goyim tire of Kissinger’s tune, he won’t even be able to play weddings and Bar Mitzvahs. Nothing is new; the threads reach into eternity. And with Kissinger we know his beginning. He’s in the oldest Jewish profession: an aytza gibber, a dray kop. Détente, big deal! Abraham tried to negotiate détente for Sodom and Gomorrah. And what was the result? Lot’s wife: The SALT talks. A master negotiator, a big deal! When the Jews crossed the Red Sea, God opened His hand in mercy and the Jews passed miraculously through the surrounding sea. Under that outstretched hand a whole nation noodged. “Nu, so what’s in the other hand?”
Kagan's Superfecta: And Other Stories Page 15