by Bernard Beck
He could have stayed and become a teacher in the local yeshiva, but there was no prestige in that, and it was too much of a letdown after having been the heir apparent to the Chief Rabbi. There just was no place in that small community for another scholar, and so, his parents gave them enough money to travel across Germany to The Baltic Sea and then to America.
They made their way slowly across Germany, going from one family friend to another, and then they traveled in Cabin Class across the Atlantic. They were both very young and not very sophisticated, and they didn’t realize that my mother was pregnant when they boarded the steamer in Bremen. But she was terribly sick when they arrived in New York. My father bribed the customs inspectors to allow her to enter the country, but even American medical know-how couldn’t save her life.
Not one person in New York had been aware of, or even cared about, my father’s reputation as a scholar. The streets of the Lower East Side were filled with newly arrived, bearded Polish Jews who claimed to be brilliant scholars. And even though they all were self-proclaimed scholars, they still worked in the “trades.”
In spite of his shortcomings, and with no help, little skill, and even less ambition, my father, the often unemployed single parent, had managed to somehow raise me. It couldn’t have been easy.
And now he was dependent on Jack and me, and he had to live in our house and eat our food. He had no choice. And he was obviously very unhappy.
If only he had become the Chief Rabbi, if only he had stayed in Lomza. Even if he didn’t become the Chief Rabbi, he might have been the head of the yeshiva by now, and rather than living off the generosity of his daughter and her husband, he could have had prestige. A name.
But then, I would have been a Polish peasant girl rather than an important part of the Borough Park Jewish community.
Chapter 9
I watched my cigar turn to ash in the ashtray. I hadn’t moved since my confrontation with Ruthie, and I felt the weight of that confrontation in my entire body. My initial feeling of righteous indignation had quickly turned to guilt. I had certainly gone too far. I had overreacted again. I could have—should have—talked to her about the moral issues of writing trash like that, but I had foolishly focused on the act and not on the material. She was doing something artistic. She was an author. I should have been proud, but now I couldn’t go back on my word. In this world, a gentleman’s word is his bond. Shit! Waves of regret anchored me blindly to the security of my desk.
Rose finally brought me out of my remorseful reverie by reminding me that it was Friday evening, and that we would be having a late Shabbos dinner after I returned from the synagogue, and did I want a snack to tide me over until dinner?
Friday evening—Shabbos dinner. I had forgotten. All the family would be together, and I would be at the head of the table. I could say something then—something to undo the damage that I had done.
I was so depressed about the way I had behaved with Ruthie that even walking to the synagogue with my high hat and tails didn’t make me feel better. Throughout services, I was lost in thought trying to find a way to introduce the subject and to hopefully undo some of the harm that I had done. I desperately searched the Friday night prayer book hoping to find an inspiration, but none came. But then on my way home, I began thinking about judge Heimlich. What was the message that the judge had told me? I couldn’t remember at first, and then it came to me clearly, and I remembered what the judge had said. I had asked the judge how I could ever repay him for his kindness, and the judge had replied, “Make a difference.” By the time I got home I knew exactly what I would say, and, more importantly, how I would say it.
__________
“This past week I was reading the book of Jonah,” I began. “It’s a pretty funny book. You all know the story of Jonah, and how he was gobbled up by the whale and lived inside the whale for three days and then was belched out onto dry land. I’ve always thought of it as an allegory about God’s generosity. But this week I was rereading it, and it seemed pretty silly, and I was wondering why it is considered such an important book.
“Today I realized that the story isn’t about the whale at all, it’s about second chances. The book is really in three parts. In the first part God tells Jonah, who is some sort of prophet, to go to the evil city of Nineveh and warn them that God is going to destroy their city if they don’t change their evil ways. Jonah decides that this is just a waste of time, but he’s afraid of God. So he gets on a boat hoping to run away from Him.
“But God sends a big storm, and the boat is about to be destroyed, and Jonah tells the sailors on the boat to throw him overboard because the storm is all his fault. So they reluctantly throw him overboard, and he is gobbled up by a whale. Inside the whale, Jonah prays for God to help him, and God makes the whale vomit up Jonah on the shore.
“The second part of the story is how Jonah and God interact after Jonah is back on dry land. Here’s the point of this part of the story: God could have just punished Jonah and gotten another prophet to go to Nineveh, but He didn’t because He wanted to teach Jonah a lesson. That lesson was that God had faith in him and in his ability to make mature decisions. And so God gave Jonah a second chance.
“This time Jonah did go and preach in Nineveh, and the people of Nineveh repented! Just think about it: God could have destroyed their city or even compelled them to repent by punishing only a few of them, but God gave them a second chance, and they took it. The story might have ended there, but it still hasn’t driven home its moral lesson.
“Now here’s the third part: Jonah gets angry at God. ‘I knew you’d forgive them!’ he shouts at God, ‘that’s why I didn’t want to go there in the first place! It’s just a waste of time!’
“So God tells Jonah to calm down and go into the desert and take a rest. Jonah puts up a tent and settles down, and God causes a big shade tree to grow over where Jonah is resting, and Jonah is very happy. But then the tree wilts and dies, and the heat of the desert is unbearable and Jonah cries out to God.
“This time God says to Jonah, ‘You really liked that tree didn’t you?’ And Jonah nods yes. And God tells Jonah that this is the lesson, ‘You have to have faith in people that they will do the right thing. In the same way that that tree was important to you, the people of Nineveh are important to me. You must trust that, given the chance, people who have been pushed in the right direction will do the right thing.’
“The lesson for us is that we have to encourage people to make the right decision, but it is not always clear to us what that decision should be. So we can nudge them in what we think is the right direction, but we must not deny them the right to make their own decisions. The only thing we can encourage them to do is to make a difference in the world.
“Today I was like Jonah, and I assumed the worst. I was upset about the magazine and the stories that Ruthie was writing for that magazine, and I told her that she would not be permitted to write any stories. I was wrong. I should have tried to push Ruthie into a more acceptable path. I now know that I should not have gotten angry about her writing stories. I should have been proud of that. It isn’t the act of writing the stories, it’s what they were about that I should have been concerned with.”
I then looked directly at Ruthie. “I’m not a literary critic,” I said, “but I am your father, and I have a certain responsibility to try to direct you along the right path. So now I want to encourage you to continue to develop your talent as a writer and to continue to write stories. But I would like you to write a different kind of story—stories about Jewish subjects. Stories that will teach Jewish values. Stories that will show the right way. Stories that will make a difference in peoples’ lives. Ruthie, your grandfather has told you many stories about the Bible, and the prophets, and the scholars who wrote the Mishnah and the Talmud. I would like you to write stories about those Jewish heroes. I give you permission. No, I encourage you to write those stories.
”
I was not at all satisfied with the context that I had chosen or the way I had ended it. I was upset with myself that I had chosen to hide behind a story. I could have been more direct, found a more relevant context. Ben-Zion, I knew, always told Ruthie stories, and she listened because they were interesting and original. But this story about Jonah was neither interesting nor original. I looked at Ruthie, trying to gauge her reaction, but she had her head down and was absentmindedly turning her plate.
I should have told her about Judge Heimlich, but that would have been just talking about myself, and no one was interested in that. Rose, who was sitting next to me, took my hand. I tried to sip some wine, but my hands were shaking. Had I embarrassed myself? Should I say something more? I glanced sideways again at Ruthie, but she refused to look up. Everyone was quiet, and there wasn’t the usual, animated, Friday night conversation.
And then, as if from heaven, Ben-Zion began to sing a Shabbos song. The melody repeated, and the rhythm was reassuring and upbeat. Rose joined her father, and then Ruthie, and then finally I was able to join in. It was going to be OK.
Chapter 10
I knew that what my father had said at the Shabbos dinner came from God. It was the answer to my prayers, and I went into my room after dinner and closed the door and thanked Him.
Over the next few weeks I tried to write Jewish stories as my father had instructed, but outside of my immediate family, I had very little first-hand experience. I really didn’t know any Jewish stories, and to retell the stories that my grandfather had told me would be boring and repetitious. The stories I had written that the magazines had published were about sex and violence, and they were basically imitations of other stories in the magazines. But now I had no stories to imitate. Most of the famous Jewish writers had written about their own personal experiences, and I felt that if I made up stories they would be lies. I had to find something “authentic” to write about.
In those days, the Jewish Daily Forward, the Yiddish language newspaper, printed a column once a week called “Bintel Briefs.” These were mostly letters written by recent Jewish immigrants who were seeking advice about living in the United States. I studied them hoping to get some idea of what their lives had been. Some of them wrote about the “old country,” and I hoped to find a kernel of a story, but the only stories I found were people’s reminiscences of their lives in Europe which were too uniquely personal to be turned into a story. I had no personal “old country” experience to draw upon, so I really couldn’t relate to their stories, and I had no one to ask, except my grandfather, and he refused to speak about his life in The Pale. He said it was too painful for him to remember. He said that he missed his family terribly, and he just didn’t want to talk about it.
I tried. For months I wrote story after story, only to throw them away. They were too obvious, too artificial. I was sure that Zelda Mahler, the famous writer, would never write such boring stories. My “famous writer” fantasy was now nothing more than an improbable dream as I realized that I didn’t have anything inside me that people would want to read. And, as my grandfather had said, “What was the purpose of writing stories if no one reads them?”
But writing stories was my life, and I felt that without my stories I was just another teenage girl, and I didn’t want to be just another anything. I became absentminded, distracted, and depressed. I stopped studying with my grandfather; I no longer read books or magazines, and I no longer even argued with my mother. I just didn’t care. If I couldn’t write, I was just a nobody. My schoolwork suffered and my grades plummeted. My teachers said that I was daydreaming in class, and I was. I didn’t do any of the assignments. What was the point? The principal actually threatened to have me left back. And I didn’t care. Zelda Mahler was dead.
__________
I was concerned about Ruthie. I had only one daughter, and I had been so proud of her. She was one of the brightest in her class, and she was beautiful. People stopped me on the street to tell me how impressed they were with her. To tell the truth, I had an enormous amount of pride vested in her. Appearances were everything in those days, and Ruthie, with her bright eyes and quick wit, was at the top. But now, the possibility that my daughter might be left back in school would be an embarrassment that I absolutely could not tolerate. I demanded, in no uncertain terms, that Jack, who had caused the problem to start with, do something to wake Ruthie up and make her more interested in life.
“This is America,” Jack responded to my demand, “it’s not some little shtetle where everyone takes care of everyone else. Ruthie’s got to learn to be tough. In America, people are tough. Look at you and me. We didn’t let our weaknesses show, we fought for what we have. All the time. We fought. That’s what Americans do. That’s why this country is so great!”
“Jack!” I screamed. “We’re not talking about the country, we’re talking about Ruthie. She is our daughter, our only child. We have to find a way to help her.”
“You’re right, as usual,” Jack replied wistfully. “But I just don’t know what to do.”
“Maybe you should spend more time with her. Ask her about her writing, talk about some of the books you’re always reading. Maybe lend her some of the books so that she can read them too.”
__________
To be fair, my father did make an effort at showing interest in my writing. He encouraged me to write, and he discussed what I had written with me. But I knew that his interest wasn’t sincere, and also, more importantly, I knew that what I had written, despite his flattery, wasn’t good. I knew it, but I couldn’t understand why. Writing romantic stories had been so smooth and easy; they just flowed. But writing these stories only frustrated me because they were so strained and poorly written. My father’s efforts at showing interest, while well intentioned, only increased my anxiety and frustration.
I no longer knew where to turn. My father and my grandfather had been competing for my affection, or at least my attention, since I was a child, and I had kind of enjoyed playing one against the other. But now the competition was intensifying, and I could feel the strain. In the past, my grandfather had used his powers as a compelling teacher and storyteller to attract me, and my father had used his position as the head of the household to dominate conversation. But now I felt like I was David fighting two Goliaths because they were each using me as a weapon against the other.
And then, at a Friday night Shabbat dinner, my mother intervened. It wasn’t common for my mother to speak much at our Shabbat dinners. My father usually led all the prayers and my grandfather gave a brief lesson, and I said what I had done that week. But this Shabbat, before she had even served the chicken soup, my mother stood at the table and stormed at my grandfather.
“Papa!” she shouted. “Tell Ruthie a story that she can write! This has gone too far!”
My grandfather looked up from his plate, obviously shocked at her aggressive tone. She had never spoken to him like that before. “I don’t know one,” he mumbled.
“Papa,” she hissed, now only inches from his face, “I have taken care of you for twenty years, now it’s time for you to pay me back. Tell her a story!”
Ashen, and suddenly subservient, my grandfather replied meekly, mumbling into his graying beard. “Yes, there is a story. I have been thinking about it.” Then he paused, obviously upset. “There is a story that I can tell her. But—”
“No buts!” my mother snapped. “Don’t delay. Her life is at risk. Jack and I have done all we can. Now I am turning to you for help.”
That night, after we finished our Shabbat dinner, my grandfather asked me to take a walk with him. It was a moonlit night, and we walked slowly up Fifty-Fifth Street toward New Utrecht Avenue where the trains ran. The white stucco houses glowed in the moonlight, and the trees, with their spring leaves, rustled gently.
I liked walking with my grandfather. He didn’t talk a lot when we walked so I didn’t have
to think of things to say. He didn’t seem to mind that I was quiet, as he also stayed within himself. But we were within ourselves together. From the time I was a child, I always felt comfortable with him. This time, though, I had a feeling that something special was going to happen.
We walked toward the big, new Jewish hospital on the other side of Tenth Avenue. My grandfather liked it there because there was a little park in front of the hospital where he could sit. A train rattled overhead dropping sparks onto the roadway below. Savarese, the Italian Ices store where they sold the real fruit ices that I bought every day on my way home from school, was crowded as usual.
When we finally came to the park, my grandfather eased himself gently onto a bench and patted the bench next to him.
“Ruthie,” he began, “do you remember when I told you about my sister Miriam? How she stayed in Minsk after your Bubba and I left?”
I nodded.
“Well, I didn’t tell you the whole story. Now I will tell.”
He heaved a sigh and looked at me strangely, as if he was trying to decide how to begin or whether to begin at all. Finally, he turned to face me and took my hand.
“A year after she was married,” he began, “my sister Miriam had a baby, a boy. He was the most unusual baby: very beautiful, very smart, very strong. He walked and talked before he was one-year-old. He learned to read before his second birthday, and he could hold regular conversations with adults. He learned how to say the Shema when he was only a year old, and could recite whole sections of the Torah from memory by the time he was three. People came from all over to see him. Miriam was so proud.