My mother also says, “God sends the cure with the ailment.”
I’ll tell you what she’s thinking of. Just let me stop to catch my breath.
GOD’S CURE
It’s like this.
My brother Elye has quit working for Hibru Neshnel Delikatesn. It wasn’t a job for him. He’s Peysi the cantor’s son, remember? He’s well bred and has a good voice. In fact, he’d make a fine cantor himself. What kind of job is bringing people haht dawgz?
Bringing haht dawgz is no disgrace. But there are all kinds of people in the world. Some are well bred themselves. You take a young man from a good home — he orders his haht dawgz, eats them quietly, pays the bill, and bei-bei.
But not everyone comes from a good home. Sometimes you get a rude moron who makes you sizzle. His haht dawgz aren’t hot enough. Or else you’ve forgotten the mustard. And he doesn’t say, “Excuse me, please, I’d like another awdeh.” He whistles or snaps his fingers and shouts, “Hey, vaydeh! Maw dawgz!”
Elye isn’t used to such language. He loses his temper and refuses to answer. The moron doesn’t like that and shouts louder, “Hey, professor! Come over here!”
“Since when am I a professor to you?” Elye asks.
That causes the moron to shout so loud that the bawss comes running and says to Elye: “Vahts deh meddeh vid yu?” Elye doesn’t answer him either. “I’m asking you a question,” says the bawss. “Ask me proper and you’ll get an answer,” Elye says. “What’s proper by you?” asks the bawss. “Proper is Jewish,” Elye says. “And talking English makes me a monster?” asks the bawss. “It might,” Elye says.
“In that case,” says the bawss, “I’m giving you the sek. In proper Jewish, you can stay in bed tomorrow.”
“I’d rather starve than sell haht dawgz.”
That’s what my brother Elye says. Pinye disagrees. America, he says, is a free country. You need to take things in stride.
Don’t argue with Pinye unless you want to hear about his millionaires. I mean Kahnegi, Rahknfelleh, and Vendehbilt. Elye asks:
“What makes you think you know all about them?”
“What makes me think I know all about the Tsar?” Pinye answers.
“All right, what makes you think you do?”
“If you read as many novels as I have,” Pinye says, “you’d know all about him too.”
Novels are the books that Pinye reads at Moyshe’s stend. Although they’re written in a plain, simple Jewish, they’re harder to understand than the Bible. Moyshe lends them out. He makes a living from it. One book can have a hundred readers. Most are women. Women are crazy about novels. On Saturday mornings Brokheh gobbles them up like hotcakes. My mother and Taybl listen to her read out loud. My mother falls asleep and Taybl sits there sighing. Sometimes she bursts into tears. She has a tender heart, Taybl does. If I were allowed to draw on the Sabbath, I’d sketch Brokheh reading while my mother sleeps and Taybl cries.
But here I am talking and I still haven’t told you about God’s cure!
First, though, let me tell you about the ailment. It’s no joke for a young man like Elye to be out of work. Elye isn’t Pinye. If Pinye needs money, he’ll take a shovel and shovel snow. Elye says he would shovel it too, but not in the strit. “I suppose you’re waiting for a home delivery,” Pinye says. Elye gets sore and answers:
“I can see you’re in a grand mood.”
“Of course I am. I’m in a grand mood every time I remember I’m in America and not in Pogromland.”
“Your great-grandmother must be thrilled,” Elye says. He’s so depressed he decides to go to synagogue.
And that’s where God sends his cure, right there in the Kasrilevke shul. Listen to this.
I’ve told you how, the same summer we were walking the streets of Vaytshepl, there was a whale of a pogrom in Kasrilevke, plus a fire in the bargain. The hooligans stole all they could, smashed what they couldn’t, and burned what they couldn’t smash. It wasn’t so bad if you were poor. What did you have to lose apart from a few pillows? In fact, you thanked God if you were still in one piece, because not everyone was. Little children were torn limb from limb or left to die of hunger. That’s if you were poor.
But the rich! One day you’re rolling in clover and the next you’re a beggar without a shirt on your back. Just thinking of it can send a chill down your spine, that’s what our Kasrilevke Jews say.
There’s only one thing I don’t get. How come no one gets a chill thinking of the poor people and their children being torn apart? My friend Mendl doesn’t get it either. That’s how our Kasrilevke Jews are, he says. Let a poor Jew die of hunger and it’s nothing. Let a rich Jew become a poor Jew and it’s the end of the world.
Well, one of our filthy rich Kasrilevke Jews went by the name of Moyshe-Noyekh. He not only owned his own house with its own yard and its own garden, he was so important that he went around all summer in his underwear. I don’t mean only in his underwear — he wore a dressing gown over it. But you won’t find a poor Jew dressed like that. You have to be a big deal not to care what anyone thinks of you.
Anyway, we all knew that Moyshe-Noyekh had inherited three shops from his mother, all smack in the middle of the market. He had his own cow too, a real milker. Not that three shops weren’t enough to get by on. They were more than enough. But Moyshe-Noyekh’s wife Nekhameh-Mirl (we called her Dekhabeh-Birl because her nose was always stuffed) milked so much milk from that milker that she could have paid all their bills just from that. Of course, to keep the Evil Eye away, she told everyone that her “bilk cow” didn’t give a drop of “bilk.” That didn’t fool Kasrilevke, though. Everyone knew it was a lie. The bilkless bilk cow was full of milk.
Would you believe a Jew like Moyshe-Noyekh running for dear life to America in his birthday suit? It could break a heart of stone. And what was he supposed to do when he got there? You couldn’t expect him to work in a shop. Nor his children. And so the Kasrilevke Synagogue Association took one look at him and made him the beadle of the Kasrilevke shul.
A beadle in America is not small potatoes. He lives better than a businessman in Kasrilevke. He can get rich from memorial days alone. They’re very big on them here. All year long no one has time to pray. “Teim iz mahnee,” as they say. But comes the anniversary of a death and off to synagogue everyone goes. And after prayers the family goes to a restaurant for a memorial banquet. You can bet the beadle gets thrown a few bones then, to say nothing of bar mitzvahs. When a bar mitzvah comes along he’s in the gravy.
Back in Kasrilevke, becoming bar mitzvah meant putting on tefillin and praying with the grown-ups. In America it’s a national holiday. They take the young man, put a prayer shawl on him, call him up to the Torah like a bridegroom so that he can chant in a voice like a rooster’s, and listen to him spout a speech he’s learned by heart — all in English. God forbid he should say a Jewish word! When he’s done he gets blessed by the rebbei, who’s as beardless as a Catholic priest. There are presents and the beadle gets his share.
In short, Moyshe-Noyekh has a swell dzhahb. His only problem is having to make the rounds of the synagogue members every month to collect the dooz they’ve pledged. What kind of dzhahb is it for an ex-rich Jew to go collecting from house to house? Dekhabeh-Birl actually wept as she said to my mother, “I’b tellid you, every tibe by husba’d bakes the rou’ds, it’s a pudishbed.”
That gave my mother an idea. Why didn’t Moyshe-Noyekh ask my brother Elye to be his collector? It would be a load off Moyshe-Noyekh’s mind and Elye would make a living.
Needless to say, Moyshe-Noyekh welcomed the idea. It was Elye who balked at first. It didn’t appeal to him. Not until Pinye stepped in. He gave Elye a tongue-lashing as only he can. Did he let him have it!