Tevye the Dairyman & Motl the Cantor's Son

by Sholem Aleichem

  Tevye is presented as Tevye’s account of his life as he relates it to his friend Sholem Aleichem, who records Tevye’s words. It is thus written in the first person, and its language is that of a simple, poor, and—except in religious traditions and biblical matters—uneducated man living in a Russian shtetl. Could I imagine Tevye using a sophisticated word, even though it might be the most accurate?

  My husband, Howie, a gifted writer, Yiddish speaker, and frustrated actor, loved reading aloud from Tevye as we worked together. The film of Fiddler on the Roof, however wonderful, gives no hint of the many tragedies that befall Tevye throughout the novel, and we frequently had to pause in our work to cry. I will always remember this collaboration with the most heartfelt gratitude and pleasure.

  MOTL THE CANTOR’S SON

  Motl, like Tevye, is written in the first person, but its narrator is a clever, mischievous nine-year-old boy, high-spirited and insatiably curious, eager to try anything for the fun of it. His vocabulary needed to reflect these qualities, something I had great fun with.

  Several years ago my friend the fine actress Suzanne Toren performed with me two of the episodes from Motl at a family program at YIVO, alternating Yiddish and English. The audience of children and their parents enjoyed it immensely. Sholem Aleichem’s love of children is apparent in Motl, so it’s no wonder the young audience responded so well.

  Translating Motl was a great pleasure but also deeply sad, for it was as Sholem Aleichem was writing it that he died. The book ends in midsentence, and there’s an explanatory epilogue by his son-in-law I. D. Berkovitch. Having translated Sholem Aleichem over many years and many books, I could tell where in the text he’d begun to grow weak, his powers dwindling as the story drew to a close. The dimming of his usual bright, sharp style alerted me to bad things to come. He was dying as he was writing the very words I was translating, and yet Motl the cantor’s son lives on. May the reader enjoy this lovable little hellion.

  ALIZA SHEVRIN

  Ann Arbor, 2008

  TEVYE THE DAIRYMAN

  KOTONTI—I AM UNWORTHY

  A letter from Tevye the dairyman to the author

  WRITTEN IN 1895.

  In honor of my dear, beloved friend Reb Sholem Aleichem, may God grant you health and prosperity together with your wife and children, and may you have great fulfillment whatever you do and wherever you go. Amen. Selah!

  Kotonti!—I am unworthy! This I tell you in the language our Father Jacob spoke to God in the portion Vayishlach, when he went to meet Esau. But if this is not entirely appropriate, I beg you, Pani Sholem Aleichem, not to be upset with me, as I am an ordinary man and you certainly know more than I do—who can question that? After all, living one’s whole life in a little village, one is ignorant. Who has time to look into a holy book or to learn a verse of the Bible or Rashi? Luckily when summer comes around, the Yehupetz rich folk take off to their dachas in Boiberik, and every now and then I can get together with an educated person to hear some wisdom. Believe me when I tell you how well I remember that day when you sat with me in the woods listening to my foolish tales. That meant more to me than anything in the world!

  I don’t know what you found so interesting that you would devote your time to an insignificant person like myself, to write me letters and, unbelievably, to put my name in a book, make a big fuss over me, as if I were who knows who. For that I can certainly say, Kotonti!—I am unworthy! True, I am a good friend of yours, may God grant me a hundredth portion of what I wish for you! You know very well that I served you in bygone years when you were still living in the big dacha—do you remember? I bought you a cow for fifty rubles that I bargained down from fifty-five. It was a steal. So she died on the third day? It wasn’t my fault. Why did the other cow I gave you also die? You know very well how that upset me. I was beside myself! Do I know why she died? Even with the best intentions things like that can happen!

  May God help me and you in the new year. It should be—how is it said?—Bless us as in days of old. May God help me in my livelihood, may I and my horse be well, and may my cows give enough milk that, with my cheese and butter, I will be able to serve you for a long time to come. May God grant you and all the Yehupetz rich folk success and prosperity. May your lives be filled with great joy. And for the trouble you’ve gone through for my sake, and for the honor you do me through your book, I can only say again: Kotonti!—I am unworthy!

  How do I deserve the honor of having a world of people suddenly learning that on the other side of Boiberik, not far from Anatevka, lives a Jew called Tevye the dairyman? But you must know what you are doing. I don’t need to teach you anything. How to write, you certainly know. As for the rest, I rely on your noble character to see to it that I might earn a little something from your book, because it is sorely needed now. I soon have to think about marrying off a daughter, God willing. And if God grants us life, we might have two to marry off at the same time.

  In the meanwhile, be well and have a happy life, as I wish you with all my heart, from me, your best friend,

  TEVYE

  Yes, one more thing! When the book is finished and you are ready to send me some money, would you please send it to Anatevka, in care of the town ritual slaughterer? I will be staying with him in the fall before Pokraveh, and another time around Novegod when I have to be in shul to say kaddish, which means at those times I am a city Jew. Otherwise, you can send me letters right to Boiberik in my name, Tevye.

  THE GREAT WINDFALL

  A wondrous tale of how Tevye the dairyman, a poor Jew burdened with many children, suddenly became rich through a most unusual circumstance, as told by Tevye himself and set down word for word.

  WRITTEN IN 1895.

  He raiseth up the poor out of the dust,

  And lifteth the needy out of the dunghill. (Psalms 113:7)

  If you are meant to receive a great windfall, do you hear, Pani Sholem Aleichem, it will fall right into your lap. As they say, it never rains but it pours. A stroke of good luck doesn’t take brains or ability. But should it be the other way around—God forbid, you can talk until you are blue in the face, and it will do as much good as last winter’s snow. The Talmud says: Without wisdom and a good idea—you might as well ride a dead horse. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. A man toils, a man suffers; he might as well save time and die right on the spot! And then all of a sudden, who knows why, who knows how—money pours in from all sides. As it is written: Enlargement and deliverance shall arise for the Jews. I don’t have to tell you where that comes from, but this is the interpretation: a Jew, so long as he has a breath of life in him, cannot give up hope. I can tell you from my own experience how the Almighty set me up in my own livelihood. After all, how else would I come to be selling cheese and butter when, as far back as my grandmother’s grandmother, no one in my family ever sold dairy? It’s really worth your while to hear the whole story from beginning to end. Let’s sit down here on the grass a bit. Let the horse nibble a little in the meantime, for as they say, “It’s also one of God’s creatures.”

  It was around Shevuos, or maybe, I don’t want you to think I’m lying, even a week or two before Shevuos and . . . wait a minute, perhaps a few weeks after Shevuos. . . . Hold on a bit, it was, let me think a minute. . . . It was exactly nine or ten years ago and maybe a little bit more. At that time I wasn’t at all the man you see today. Of course, I was the same Tevye but not really the same. How do they say: the same yente but sporting a different hat. In what way was I different? May it not happen to you, but I was a beggar in rags. Come to think of it, I’m still far from being rich. The difference between me and Brodsky the millionaire, may you and I both earn between summer and Succos. But compared to that time, today I am a wealthy man. I own a horse and wagon, kayn eyn horeh, two milk cows, and another one about to calve. Forgive me for boasting, but we have cheese and butter and fresh sour cream every day, and we make it all ourselves. Everyone works, no one sits idle. My wife, long life to her,
milks the cows, the children carry the milk pails and churn the butter, and I myself, as you can see, go out early every morning to the market, then drive from dacha to dacha in Boiberik. I drop in on this one, on that one, the biggest businessmen from Yehupetz, chat a little with each one like I’m also somebody and not, as they say, a lame tailor. And when Shabbes, the Sabbath, comes—then I am a king! I glance into a Yiddish book, read a portion of the Torah and a few commentaries, the Psalms, a chapter of Mishnah—a little of this, a little of that, and a bit of something else. You’re looking at me, Pani Sholem Aleichem, and probably thinking to yourself, Aha! This Tevye is really some Jew!

  So let’s see now, what did I start to tell you? Oh yes! With a little help from God, there I was penniless, poor as a beggar, with a wife and kids, starving to death three times a day, not counting suppers, may it not happen to any Jew. I slaved like a jackass lugging full wagonloads of logs from the woods to the railroad station. I am embarrassed to tell you all I got was half a ruble a day, and not every day at that. Just try to feed, kayn eyn horeh, a houseful of hungry mouths, may they stay healthy, and, please forgive the comparison, a freeloading boarder of a horse like a starving yeshiva boy, but one who doesn’t know from Rashi and insists on having his belly filled every day, no excuses accepted.

  So how did God arrange it? He is, how do you say, a great and all-powerful God who nourishes and supports all living creatures. He manages this little world wisely and well. He sees how I’m struggling for a crust of bread and says to me, “Do you think,

  Tevye, the end of days has come and the sky has fallen on you? Feh, you’re a big fool! Soon you’ll see how, if I so decree, your luck can change in a split second, and where there was darkness there will be light. It will be decided, exactly as it says in the Yom Kippur prayer U’netaneh tokef, God decides who will ride and who will go on foot. The main thing is—hope.” A Jew must hope, must keep on hoping. So what if he goes under in the meantime? What better reason is there for being a Jew? As it is said: Thou hast chosen us—there’s good reason for the whole world to envy us. Why am I telling you all this? So you’ll see how God dealt with me, performed great wonders and miracles. It won’t hurt you to hear about it.

  As it is said, And there came the day. It was a summer evening, and I was riding back home through the woods having just finished delivering logs. I was downcast, my heart heavy with worry. The little horse, poor thing, was on its last legs, barely stumbling along, no matter how hard I beat it or flayed its hide.

  “Crawl on your belly,” I shouted, “shlimazel! Suffer like I suffer! If you’re going to be Tevye’s horse, you also have to know what it’s like to starve on a long hot summer day.” In the silence all around us, every crack of the whip echoed through the woods. The sun was setting, the day fading. The shadows of the trees grew longer like our Jewish exile. It turned darker and gloomier. Many strange thoughts and old memories ran through my head, and all kinds of images of people long dead came to me. Then I thought of my own home, God pity me! Inside the little hut it was dark, dismal; the poor children, may they stay healthy, were naked and barefoot, awaiting their father, that shlimazel, hoping he’d bring home a fresh loaf of bread or at least a baked roll. And she, my old lady, was grumbling, just like a woman, “I had to bear him children, and seven at that! I might as well throw them into the river, may God not punish me for these words!”

  Do you like to hear such words? After all, a man is no more than a man. As they say, “We are all either of flesh or of fish.” You can’t fill the stomach with words. If you eat a piece of herring, you have a yen for tea. With the tea you need some sugar, and sugar, you’ll say, only Brodsky has. “A crust of bread the stomach can manage to do without,” says my wife, long life to her, “but without a glass of tea in the morning, I’m as good as dead. The baby,” she says, “drains me dry all night!”

  Still and all, a Jew is a Jew, and when it’s time for the evening prayers, pray you must. Imagine what kind of praying it was. I was standing alongside the wagon reciting the shmone esre, the Eighteen Benedictions, and right smack in the middle of them my horse goes crazy and takes off. There I am running after the wagon, hanging on to the reins for dear life and chanting, “God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob.” What a way to recite the Eighteen Benedictions! And wouldn’t you know, just then of all times, I really had the desire to pray!

  So there I was, tearing after the wagon and chanting at the top of my lungs as if I were, pardon the comparison, a cantor chanting in shul, “Thou sustaineth the living with loving kindness and keepest thy faith with them that lie in the dust and are brought low.” We have our own way of saying it: “Even those who lie in the earth and bake bagels.” Oy, I think to myself, do we lie in the dust! Oy, are we brought low! I’m not talking about those rich people from Yehupetz, you understand, who while away the whole summer in Boiberik in their dachas, eating and drinking and swimming and enjoying the good life. Oy, God in heaven, why do I deserve this? Am I not a Jew the same as any other Jew? For heaven’s sake, dear God, see our affliction. Look down, I said, and see how we are struggling. Stand by the unfortunate, the poor. Who else will look after them if not You? Heal us, and we shall be healed. Send us the cure—the affliction we already have. Bless us with a good year. May crops flourish—the corn, the wheat, and the barley. As I think of it, what good will all that flourishing do a shlimazel like me? Does my horse care whether oats are expensive or cheap?

  But feh, God doesn’t ask for advice, and a Jew in particular has to accept everything on faith and say, “That too is for the best. God probably wants it that way. And for the slanderers,” I sang on, “and for the slanderers and the high and mighty who say there is no God, just wait till they arrive over there. They will pay for their scoffing with interest because He hath a long memory, He keeps His word. You don’t trifle with Him, with Him you walk humbly, you pray to Him, cry out to Him, “‘Oh merciful Father! Compassionate Father! Hear our cries. Have pity on us. Have pity on my wife and children. They are, alas, hungry! Accept Your beloved people Israel, as in olden days of the Holy Temple, as Thou didst with the Priests and the Levites.’ ”

  Suddenly—halt! The horse stopped in its tracks. I polished off the Eighteen Benedictions, lifted my eyes, and saw coming straight toward me out of the woods two strange-looking figures, their faces covered, and dressed oddly. . . . Robbers! flew through my mind, but I quickly caught myself: Feh, Tevye, you’re an idiot! Really, how many years had I been driving through these woods by day and by night? Why would I suddenly start worrying about thieves? “Giddyap!” I said to the horse, giving him a few extra smart blows on his rump, making as if I didn’t see them.

  “Wait! Listen, I see you’re a Jew,” one of the two exclaimed in a woman’s voice, and waved to me with a corner of her shawl. “Stop for a minute! Don’t run off. We won’t harm you, God forbid!”

  Aha! An evil spirit! I figured, but then reconsidered. Stupid, ignorant ass! Why did ghosts and demons suddenly fall onto my head out of nowhere? And I pulled up the horse and took a careful look at the two figures. They were ordinary women, the older one wearing a silk kerchief on her head, the younger one wearing a wig. Both were flushed red as beets and perspiring heavily.

  “Good evening!” I tried to sound cheerful. “What can I do for you? If you want to buy something, you’re out of luck, unless you’re looking for bellyaches fit only for my enemies, heartaches enough for a full week, headaches, wracking pains, killing anguish, rehashed troubles—”

  “Hush, hush!” they replied. “Just listen to how he goes on! Say one word to some Jews, and you’re not sure of your life! We don’t want to buy anything. We just wanted to ask if you know the way to Boiberik.”

  “To Boiberik?” I almost burst out laughing. “That,” I said, “is like asking me if I know my name is Tevye.”

  “Is that your name, Tevye?” one said. “A good evening to you, Reb Tevye! We don’t see what there is to laugh about. We’re strangers fr
om Yehupetz staying at a dacha in Boiberik. We started out early this morning for a little stroll, and we’ve been going slowly around in circles in these woods all day, getting more and more lost. We can’t seem to get back on the right path. And then we heard this singing in the woods. At first we thought, What if it’s, God forbid, a highwayman? But then when we came closer and saw you were a Jew, thank God, we felt relieved. Now do you understand?”

  “Ha ha ha, a fine highwayman!” I laughed. “Have you heard the story about the Jewish highwayman who fell upon a wayfarer and demanded a pinch of snuff? If you’d like, I can tell you the whole story—”

  “The story,” they said, “you can leave for another time. Better just show us the road to Boiberik.”

  “To Boiberik?” I said. “Look, you’re already on the road to Boiberik! Even if you don’t want it, this road will take you straight to Boiberik.”

  “Why didn’t you say so?”

  “Why should I shout it?”

  “If that’s the case,” they said, “you must know how far we are from Boiberik.”

  “To Boiberik,” I said, “it isn’t too far, a few versts, that is, five or six. Maybe seven versts, or maybe even all of eight.”

  “Eight versts?!” both women cried out at the same time, wringing their hands and verging on tears. “Do you know what you’re saying? ‘Eight versts,’ he says, as if it were nothing!”

  “Nu, what can I do about it?” said I. “If it were up to me, I’d make it a little shorter. A person has to find things out for himself. It can happen on the road that you drag yourself up a hill through the mud and it’s almost Shabbes. The rain is beating in your face, your hands are numb, your heart is pounding, and then—crash! An axle breaks—”