When I took my leave of them, they asked me to write down their names in a notebook, so that if we should meet in the Land of Israel I should remember them. “Brothers,” I replied, “I have already engraved you on my heart; I have no need of a notebook.”
This Zvi, who traveled with me, was as handsome as his name, which means “beautiful” in Hebrew, and lovable — a handsome young man, of fine appearance, and alert and sharp. On the way he said to me, “I will not stay here, each day I spend in exile is a pity.” “Have you an immigration certificate?” I asked. He laughed and said, “I myself am my own immigration certificate.” For some reason I do not know myself, I did not ask him what he meant.
Chapter eight and forty. The Death of Freide
When I came back to Szibucz I heard that the Kaiserin had passed away. On the second day of Shavuot, Freide had come to the synagogue for the memorial prayer and lit her candles in memory of her relatives who had died or been killed. She sat among the women muttering the lamentations and supplications by heart, because she did not know how to read. No one who saw Freide in the synagogue knew that the Angel of Death had already sharpened his knife to take her soul, but she had known it since the eve of Shavuot, and was preparing herself for her eternal home.
How did she know? Mrs. Zommer told me what Freide’s neighbor told her: On the afternoon of Shavuot eve Freide was making a cheesecake and she looked for raisins to put in it, but did not find any. A soldier appeared to her and said, “If it is raisins you want, come and I will give you some.” Remembering the story of the soldier and her daughters, she was thunderstruck. The soldier took her with him to the graveyard, where he opened a pit, took out a sackful of dust, and put her into the sack, and she knew that she was going to die. From then on, she did not stir from her house. When the second day of Shavuot came, she went to the synagogue and lit seven candles: one of tallow for the soul of her husband, who died according to the way of all flesh, and six of wax in memory of her sons and daughters. Finally, she added one candle for her own soul, to deceive the Angel of Death into thinking she was already dead, and also to have a memorial for herself, since Elimelech her son was wandering about in the world and if she died no one would remember her. When the cantor took hold of the Scroll of the Law, which was wrapped in black, and said, “O God, full of mercy…” Freide lifted up her voice and cried, “My daughters, my pure and innocent daughters, my daughters, my lovely, pious daughters.” And so she continued crying and weeping until she fainted away and they brought her home. And with the departure of the festival, her soul departed, and they buried her the next day, on the morrow of the festival. When they took off her clothes to put on her eternal garments, they found her dressed in her gravesheets, for she had already prepared herself for her eternal home.
Thus ended the life of Freide. Seventy-one years were the days of the years of Freide’s life. Between her birth and her death she was married and bore five sons and two daughters. Her husband died before her and her four sons were killed in the war and the pogroms, and her two daughters died in an evil hour. No one was left but Elimelech. Only God knows where he is.
Elimelech did not come to close her eyes, and I did not follow her coffin either. I was sitting in the wagon on the road with Zvi from the pioneers’ group and we were chatting pleasantly with each other at the time when the earth opened up its mouth and swallowed Freide.
The deaths of relatives and friends lead us to meditation and thought on life and death. Whether we like it or not, we remember their lives and their deaths, and thus we consider ourselves: what are we and what our lives, and on what do we spend our days and years, and with what shall we confront Him who dwells on high? Our bundles are empty and heavy. What makes their burden so heavy to carry, when they are empty? Either it is an evil spirit that plays with them, or our bodies are weakened and find it hard to carry them. Eve brought one death into the world, but we bring death upon ourselves every day and every hour through vanities and pursuit of the wind.
I sat in the hotel, and ate my food, and thought about myself, and you, and Freide, and Elimelech. And the imagination that is implanted in the heart of man envisioned Elimelech before me — hardly a moment had passed before he came and stood there. When I saw Elimelech on the Day of Atonement in the synagogue, his eyes were like the shell of a tortoise lying in the sun, and he looked at me with hatred; now there was nothing of this in his eyes, but he looked at me with great obstinacy.
I lowered my eyes and gazed at my shoes. My shoes were clean and whole. Opposite them stood Elimelech and put his two fingers on his throat and said, “Well, what more have we to do?”
What more have we to do? That means that we have already done all that was in our power to do, and all we lack is more. What have we done and what have we not done? Many are the thoughts in a man’s heart, but all his thoughts do not bring him to the point of action. If so, let us entrust ourselves to Him who does and causes to be done, and let us not ask all the time what more is to be done. Let Him do with us what He would do, for He is the Knower and He is the Doer and He is the Deed. But what can we do, when He says, “Do”?
He says, “Do”—and we know not what we must do. Since the day when, at the foot of Mount Sinai, we said first “We shall do” before saying “We shall hear,” many things have confused our hearts, and we do not know what we shall do and what we shall hear.
When I got up from the table and went to the Beit Midrash, Elimelech followed me. Often I am accompanied by Daniel Bach, or Ignatz, or someone else from Szibucz, but (it would be no exaggeration to say) this is the first time a man comes from a place several days’ distance away and attaches himself to me.
I fumbled in my pocket and took out a cigarette, then fumbled in my pocket to look for a match, and lingered, to give myself time to think what I would say to Elimelech, what I would reply if he asked me whether I had performed the last kindness to his mother and walked behind her coffin, and whether I should rebuke him for not looking after his mother, for leaving her alone.
A man came up and said to me, If it is a match you want, here you are.” I looked at him and asked myself, “Where has Elimelech vanished to? I wanted to tell him something, or he wanted to tell me something.”
The man took out a match, rubbed it on his sole and lit it, but by the time I put it to my mouth it had gone out. He took out a second match and said, “Don’t be like those men who, if they are offered something, turn it over in their minds until it slips from their fingers.” “Is this a parable?” said I. “It is the truth,” said he. “Then He Himself, the Truth, is a parable,” said I. He put his hand on his right ear with his thumb on his Adam’s apple and chanted with a chant of glory, “And He was, and He is, and He shall be in glory.” “You are the old cantor,” I said. “David the beadle am I,” he said, “who summoned the people to prayer.” “But surely,” I said, “I saw your tombstone in the graveyard, and if you do not believe me I will give you a sign: the picture of a hand, with a little baton in its fingers, is engraved on the tombstone, and I even still remember the rhyme on it.” “I did not know they had put rhymes on my tombstone,” said David. “You did not know?” “I have not been in the graveyard.” “And where have you been?” “Where have I been? Rousing the sleepers to prayer; I had no time to go and lie in the grave.” “Please, Reb David, do not be harsh with me, surely you do not mean to say that you are alive?” He looked at me and said, “And you, are you alive?” “What is the sense of this question?” I said. “And what is the sense of the question you asked me?” “Because,” I replied, “I saw your gravestone: ‘Passed away the 5th day of Adar Rishon 5602,’ that is in February 1842, and I saw your name engraved on the tombstone. If you do not stop me I will read you the rhymes: