Reb Hayim had taken up the affairs of Hanoch’s widow. At dawn he would carry her box to the market, and at noon he would cook a warm meal for the orphans; at the Morning Service and the Afternoon and Evening Services he would take them to the synagogue to say the mourners’ Kaddish, and he did not come to the Beit Midrash except on Fridays to sweep the floor and fill the basin with water and the lamp with kerosene. I still gave him his pay every week, but at first I used to give it on Thursday, and now I gave it on Friday. Reb Hayim still slept in the woodshed of the Beit Midrash, and when he entered the house he did so in silence and left in silence, without even a brief conversation with me. I had already grown accustomed to his not talking, and he had grown accustomed to my not asking. I heard that he was busy caring for Hanoch’s orphans, but to his own children, who were as neglected as orphans, he paid no attention.
From my wife and children I used to receive letters every week. Once, when I opened a letter, spring flowers, which my daughter had plucked in the forest, fell out of it. I felt as if the spring were before me and wondered at all the good things I was losing. Nevertheless, I confined myself to the Beit Midrash. When I looked out I said to myself: Even if the spring multiplied a hundredfold, with each spring more beautiful than the other, I would not budge from my studies. Again I tasted the savor of that sweet solitude which I had loved all my life and which was now doubly and trebly beloved, and I felt already that I could spend all my days and years between the walls of the Beit Midrash. But when I say “days and years” I do not mean all my days and all my years, for this man has a wife and children.
Chapter seven and forty. Among Brothers and Friends
On the first of the Three Days of Circumscription before the festival of Shavuot, two young men came to the Beit Midrash. A young man in the Beit Midrash is a novelty; all the more so two. I believe that since I returned no young man has entered the Beit Midrash. The young men came up and greeted me, and said they had come only for my sake. Why for my sake? Because in a certain village near our town there was a little group of six young men and two young women, who had abandoned the occupations of their fathers and were cultivating the soil to prepare themselves to work in the Land of Israel. They were earning a livelihood by the labor of their hands, by their work in the fields and the cowsheds with the peasants. And since they had heard that I came from the Land of Israel, they had come to ask me to stay with them for the festival.
When the young men came in, I was engrossed in study. I said to myself: Not only are they making me neglect the Torah, but they are giving me the trouble of going to them. I looked at them like a man who is sitting on top of the world, when someone comes to tell him to undertake some sordid task.
The young men lowered their eyes and said nothing. Finally one of them — Zvi was his name — took heart and said, “I thought that since you’ve come from the Land of Israel, sir, you would be glad to see young men and women working in the fields and the cowsheds for the sake of the Land.” “My friend,” said I, “why do you tell me tales about preparing yourselves for the Land of Israel? So did Yeruham prepare himself for the Land, and he went and stayed there for a few years. And what was the end of him? In the end he came back here, and now he decries the Land and its people.”
“If you are thinking of Yeruham Freeman, sir,” Zvi replied, “you have reason to be angry, but there was another Yeruham, called Yeruham Bach, who was killed in guarding the Land, and I believe you have nothing against him. And if we are fated to share his end, we shall willingly accept the Almighty’s decree.” I took Zvi’s hand in mine, and said, “When would you like me to come?” “Any time,” said both of them together, “whenever you come we shall welcome you.” Said I, “You invited me for the festival, didn’t you? Well, I shall come for the festival of Shavuot.”
On the eve of the festival, after midday, I hired a cart and set out for the village. Before I could find the comrades the whole village knew that a guest had come to the Jewish lads. Immediately some of the villagers ran on ahead to let them know, and some walked in front of the cart to show me the way.
In a farmer’s house, or rather hut, the six young men and two young women had made their home. The house was half in ruins and the furniture was in pieces. In all the villages the farmers have broken-down houses, but the youthful grace of those who lived here glorified the place and its furnishings.
In honor of the festival the young men had stopped work about two hours before nightfall and I did not see them at work in the fields, but I saw the girls in the cowshed milking the cows. For many days I had not seen a cow, nor a girl either, and suddenly it came about that I saw both at the same time.
The young men introduced me to their employer, a farmer of over fifty, with hair cut straight over his forehead and a face the color of clay. The farmer looked at me with a surly face and said to the lads, “This one is not like you.” “What makes you say that?” said I. He pointed to my clothes and said, “Do they have fine clothes like yours? A man who works hasn’t got clothes like these.” “Who told you I don’t work?” said I. “Perhaps you work and perhaps you don’t work,” said he, scratching his forehead. “Anyway, your work isn’t work.” “Everyone works in his own way,” I replied, “you in your way and I in mine.” The farmer put his two hands on his knees, looked at the ground in front of him, and said, “All right. But I say that not every way leads to some purpose.”
The young men were embarrassed to see their landlord shaming their guest, so they spoke up and explained that the work I did was of great importance and the world was in great need of it. “All right,” said the farmer, scratching his forehead again. “Every day people come and tell me what the world needs. But I tell you the world needs people to bring forth bread from the soil. Bread, sir, bread from the soil.”
The sun had almost set. The girls came back from the cowshed bringing the milk, went into their room and washed, and put on holiday clothes; then they set the table and lit the candles. The young men went out to the spring, washed and dressed themselves. We went into the room and welcomed the festival with prayer. A fine smell rose from the gardens and fields and vegetable plots, driving out the smell of the pigs who grunted from the nearby houses. After we had finished our prayer we recited the blessing over the wine, broke the bread, and ate what our comrades had prepared. Between one dish and the next they sang songs sweet as honey, and I told them something of the Land of Israel.
Shavuot nights are brief, and our comrades had not heard their fill of the Land before night came to an end. We said grace, rose from the table, and set out for the nearby town to pray with the congregation and hear the reading of the Torah.
We walked among the fields and gardens, vegetable patches and hedges, along crooked and winding paths. This world, which I had thought was still by night, was busy with a thousand labors. The heavens dropped down dew, the earth brought forth its grasses, and the grasses gave out fragrance. Between heaven and earth was heard the voice of the Angel of Night, saying things not every ear can hear. But the higher ear can hear, and the heavens answer that angel’s voice. And down below, between our feet, played little creeping things, which the Almighty has abased to the dust, but His merciful eye watches over them even in their abasement, so that they should not be crushed. While we were walking the dawn began to break, and the town appeared out of the pure mists, which divided, then separated, then came together again as one and covered the town, until in the end town and mist were absorbed in each other, and the rooftops seemed like fringed sheets. Few are the hours of favor when this man rejoices, but this was one of them. Finally, the whole town was submerged in a white mist and all that was in the town was submerged. At that moment the cocks crowed and the birds began to twitter, to tell us that everything was in order, and that He who in His goodness continually, every day, renews the work of creation had renewed His world on that day too. At once, a new light shone, and the forest, too, which had been hidden in darkness, emerged and revealed all its trees. And every tree and branch glistened with the dew of night.