The Chai Times #50 // If not Higher
Sep 16, 2022 3:57 pm
If Not Higher
The following is an English rendition of Y. L. Peretz’s Oyb nisht nokh hekher! - If Not Higher. Peretz, one of the leading Yiddishts, was not a religious Jew, yet despite the general satirical nature of his writings, he retained a general warmth for the chasidic community. This story, a work of fiction based on the style of many chasidic tales, uses a “Litvik,” a chasidicially challenged Jew from Lithuania, as the protagonist. The story takes place on the eve of Selichos, the penitential prayers Ashkenazi Jews begin saying this Saturday night - after Shabbat. (Sephardic Jews began the beginning of Elul).
The thrust of the story focuses on a core chasidic teaching: The sublime power of our actions in this world.
Translated by Ruth Murphy this version does justice to the Yiddish flavor. There are Youtube readings of the original Yiddish story with captions that you can find, I didn't want to overload.
Wishing you an uplifting Slichot! Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Mendy & Mussy
~ Oyb Nisht Hecher
And the Nemirover rebbe, every morning during the time of Selichot, can not be found, he disappears! No one sees him anywhere: not in the synagogue, not in either of the study-houses, not in a minyan, and in the home - most certainly not. The house stands open. Whoever wanted to could come in or go out. No one would steal from the rebbe, but there is not a living creature in the house.
Where can the rebbe be?
Where should he be? In heaven, most certainly! Does a rebbe have only a few things to look after during Yomim Neroim? Jews, may God protect them, need a living, peace, health, good matches for their children; they want to be good and Torah-observant. Yet the sins are so big, and Satan with his thousand eyes watches from one end of the earth to the other and he sees, and he denounces . . . and – who should help them, if not the rebbe?
And such is how the people thought.
However, there once comes to town a Litvak, and he laughs at this! You know, of course, how the Litvaks are. They don’t think much of the holy texts on morals and ethics, but rather cram their heads full of rabbis’ rulings and commentaries. The Litvak shows you an explicit text from the Gemora while his eyes pin you: even Moishe Rabayni, the Litvak demonstrates, could not in his lifetime enter heaven, but had to stop ten handbreadths below it! Nu, go and argue with a Litvak!
Where then, does the rebbe go?
“Not my worry” he answers with a shrug of his shoulders, and at that moment (just like a Litvak can!), he decides to find out the truth for himself.
* * *
That very night, soon after the evening prayers, the Litvak steals into the rebbe’s room, lays himself down under the rebbe’s bed, and lays waiting.
He is determined to wait through the night and see where the rebbe goes and what the rebbe does during Selichot time.
Another man might doze off and miss his chance while oversleeping: a Litvak keeps himself busy: he practices saying an entire Talmud tractate by heart! I don’t remember whether it was “Chulin” or “Nedarim”!
Before dawn, he hears the men being called to Selichot prayers.
The rebbe has already been awake for some time. For over an hour, the Litvak has been listening to him moan. Whoever hears the Nemirover rebbe moan knows how much sorrow for the Children of Israel, how much agony lies in his every cry . . . A soul could just die, hearing those cries! But a Litvak, well, he has an iron heart; he hears them and stays lying under the bed! The rebbe remains lying there too: the rebbe, may he live long, on the bed; the Litvak under the bed.
As they lay there, the Litvak hears how the other beds in the house begin to creak . . . how the other household members get out of their beds, how they murmur the words of a Jewish prayer, the sound of ritual hand washing, the doors open and close . . . then everyone is gone from the house, and things return to dark and quiet. A small bit of light from the moon shines through the shutter.
The Litvak is seized by fear when finds himself alone with the rebbe, and he is filled with dread. His body is covered with goose bumps and the roots of his earlocks stab him in the temples like needles.
Such a trifle, to be alone with the rebbe during the time of Selichot, before daybreak, alone in the house . . . But of course a Litvak is headstrong, so he quivers like a fish in water but he still stays under the bed.
* * *
Finally, the rebbe, may he live long, gets up out of bed . . . First he fulfills his obligations as a Jew . . . then he goes to the clothescloset and takes out a bundle . . . it is peasant clothing: linen pants, enormous boots and a coarse cloth coat, along with a large fur hat and a long, wide leather belt studded with brass nails. The rebbe puts these on . . .
From the pocket of the coat, the end of a rope sticks out . . . a rope like one the local peasants use!
The rebbe leaves; the Litvak – following him!
On his way out of the house, the rebbe stops by the kitchen, bends down, and from under a bed he takes out an axe, tucks it in his belt, and leaves the house. The Litvak shivers, but he doesn’t give up.
* * *
A hush fills the dark streets, mixed with the tension that comes during the Days of Awe. Often a cry rips into the silence from a minyan somewhere in the dark, or a moan of an ill person from some window . . . . The rebbe keeps to the sides of the streets, staying in the shadow of the houses . . . from one house to another he floats, and the Litvak after him .
And the Litvak hears how his own heartbeat mixes with the sound of the rebbe’s heavy footsteps, but he keeps going and together with the rebbe they leave the town.
* * *
Behind the town lies a woods. The rebbe, may he live long, goes into the woods. He goes about thirty to forty steps and stops by a small tree. The Litvak is astounded as he sees the rebbe take the axe from his belt and begin chopping down the tree.
He sees how the rebbe chops and chops; he hears how the tree groans and cracks. And the tree falls, and the rebbe splits it into pieces – the pieces into thin sticks, and from these he makes a bundle of wood, ties it together with the rope from his pocket; he throws the bundle of wood over his shoulders, sticks the axe back in his belt, sets out from the woods and goes back into the town.
On a backstreet, he stops at a poor, half-collapsed shack and knocks on the window.
“Who is it?” asks a frightened voice from inside the house. The Litvak recognizes that it is the voice of a Jewish woman - a Jewish woman who is ill.
“Me!” answers the rebbe in the peasant tongue.
“Who is ‘me’?” asks the voice again, from inside the house.
And the rebbe answers again in the Ukrainian, “Vasil!” “Who is Vasil and what do you want, Vasil?”
“Wood,” says the disguised Vasil, “Wood to sell, very cheap . . . wood almost for free!” And without waiting for answer, he goes inside the house.
The Litvak also enters, stealing in behind the rebbe, and in the gray light of dawn sees a room of great poverty, dilapidated, with only the barest of household essentials . . . in bed lies the sick woman, wrapped in tatters, and she says in a bitter voice, “Buy? With what should I buy it? How can I, a poor widow, have any money?”
“I will give it to you on credit,” answers the disguised Vasi, “All for only six groshen!”
“And with what will I pay you back?” groans the sick woman.
“Foolish one,” scolds the rebbe, “You are a poor, sick Jew and I trust you with this little bit of wood; I trust that you will pay me back. And you have such a strong and powerful God, and you trust him not at all . . . Even for a silly six-groshen bundle of wood, you don’t trust him!”
“And who will lay the fire for me?” moaned the widow. “I, with not even enough strength to stand? My son cannot leave his work.”
“I will also lay the fire for you,” said the rebbe.
* * *
And, laying the wood in the stove, the rebbe with a groan recited the first verse of the Selichot prayer . . . And, as he lit the fire and the wood began to burn merrily — the rebbe, already a bit more cheerful — recited the second verse of the Selichot . . . He recited the third verse as the fire burned steadily and he had shut the oven door . . .
* * *
The Litvak, who saw it all, stayed and became a Nemirover Hasid. And from that time on, if a Hasid would sometime say that the Nemirover rises up every morning during Selichot time and ascends to heaven, the Litvak would not laugh, but only add quietly, “If not higher!”
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