The morning of the festival had left its mark on every house; even the streets looked as if this were a special day for Israel and they need not be in a tumult as on all other days. When we entered the synagogue the congregation was in the middle of the Additional Service, and a second quorum was beginning to collect for prayer. The synagogue was adorned with branches and greenery, and its fragrance was like the fragrance of the forest.
The Kohanim went up to the pulpit and blessed the congregation with the Shlaf-Kratzel melody, like men who are seized by sleep and want to arouse themselves. The other worshippers, too, still had the night in their eyes. They finished their prayer and we began ours.
The cantor chanted the “Great love” prayer with the special melody for Shavuot and dwelt upon the verse “And to fulfill in love all the words of instruction in Thy Law.” And when he came to the verse “Enlighten our eyes in Thy Law,” he seemed like one who wanders alone in the night and entreats the Almighty to be merciful and lighten his darkness.
More beautiful was the melody of the Akdamut hymn; even more beautiful was the reading of the Torah. This was a little town and the professional cantors did not reach it, so the ancient melodies were preserved and not mingled with foreign tunes. After the prayer we went out into the street. All the houses in the town were small and low, some of them actually down to the ground, and their roofs were made of straw. Some of the windows were ornamented with rosettes of green paper, in memory of the Revelation on Mount Sinai, as our forefathers used to do in honor of Shavuot.
At the doors of the houses the women stood and watched the young men, who plowed and sowed and reaped like Gentiles, but came to pray like Jews. One woman pointed at me, mentioning the Land of Israel. My comrades were delighted and said, “Now that they have seen a man from there they will no longer say that the whole business of the Land is sheer wishful thinking.” In the big cities, where emissaries frequently come from the Land, the arrival of a man from there makes no impression; in this small town, to which no man from the Land had come before, even a man like me made an impression.
Meanwhile, a number of the townsfolk came along and invited us to say the Kiddush with them, but the two girls were furious and would not let us go, because they had prepared a fine feast in honor of the festival and wanted us to start the meal hungry, so that our enjoyment might be doubled.
Most of the townsfolk went along with us on our way to hear something about the Land of Israel. To please the old men, I told them about the Wailing Wall of the Temple, and the Cave of the Patriarchs, and the Tomb of Rachel, and the Cave of Elijah, and the Tomb of Simon the Just, and the tombs of the Great Sanhedrin and the Lesser Sanhedrin, and the Lag B’Omer celebrations at Meron, and all the other holy places. What did I tell and what did I not tell? May the Almighty not punish me if I exaggerated somewhat and went a little too far; after all, it was not for my honor that I did so, but for the honor of the Land of Israel, whose glories it is meritorious to relate even when it is in ruins — to make it beloved of Israel, that they may take to heart what they have lost and turn again in repentance.
As I was still walking and talking, an old man said to me, “And were you in Tel Aviv as well, sir?” “That is a great question you ask me, my old friend,” said I. “I was in Tel Aviv before it was Tel Aviv, for this Tel Aviv was a desert of sand, a lair of foxes and jackals and night robbers. From my attic in the suburb of Neveh Zedek I used to look out on this wilderness of sand, and it did not occur to me that days would arrive when they would come and build a great city there for God and men. But suddenly Jews like you and me came and turned a desolate wilderness into a populated place, and the jackals’ lair into a fine city, with some hundred thousand Jews and more. Such a city, my friends and brothers, you have never seen even in a dream. You walk about in the streets and you do not know what to wonder at first and what last: at the tall houses or the men who built them; at the wagons full of merchandise or the baby carriages in which the daughters of Israel take out their little sons; at the great sea that girds the city with its might or the flourishing gardens; at the shops full of every good thing or the signboards with their inscriptions in Hebrew. You may think that only shops selling tzitzit and tefillin have signboards in Hebrew, but I tell you that there is not a single shop in Tel Aviv that does not have a Hebrew sign over it. This Tel Aviv is like a great courtyard of the Great Synagogue, for Tel Aviv is the courtyard of Israel and Jerusalem is the Great Synagogue, for all the prayers of Israel rise from there.”
Now that I had mentioned Jerusalem I was thoroughly aroused and began to tell its praises. What did I tell and what did I not tell? Can anyone tell all the glory of Jerusalem? The city that the Holy One, blessed be He, established as His dwelling — no son of woman can proclaim all its glory.
I looked at my companions, who were gazing at me with great affection; such friendly eyes as those that were fixed on this man you have never seen even in a dream. From this you can analogize to the future: how great will the love of Israel be when they are privileged to see salvation! If at the hearing it is so great, how much more will it be at the seeing!
I looked again at my companions — first, because it is a pleasure to look at the sons of Israel, and second, because I wished to feast my eyes on the radiance of good men’s faces.
One of them spoke up and said, “Wonder of wonders: they build a city, build a city! Kings and princes destroy cities and kingdoms, but Jews come and build a city!” “It is said in the Gemara,” I told them, “that a man should not take leave of his fellow without quoting some word of the sages, for thus he will remember him. Now that I am taking leave of you, I will tell you something. It is said in the Gemara: a man should always dwell in a city that has been newly settled, for since it has been newly settled its sins are few. The reason I mention this is that if anyone tells you that the men of Tel Aviv are, heaven forbid, weak in obedience to the commandments, you should tell him that its sins are few.”
After I had told them this, I gave each of them my hand and took my leave affectionately, and they came after me to see me on my way. I do not remember whether we walked and talked, or whether we walked in silence. Perhaps we were silent, perhaps we talked. When the heart is full the mouth speaks, but when the soul is full a man’s eyes look with affectionate sadness, and his mouth is silent.
Finally I took my leave of them and they took their leave of me. They went back to their town and we went back to the village. The earth that the Holy One, blessed be He, has given to the sons of man is full of boundaries. It is not enough that he has set a boundary between the Land of Israel and the Exile, but even this Exile is made of many exiles, and when Jews meet together, in the end they must leave each other.