“He who shames his fellow man in public, has no share in the next world”. This was extent to which the sages were concerned with the respect of human dignity. And what about the person who shames his own son in public? And what if that son is only nine years old? Why did my father treat me that way? Why did he always ruin my Shabbat? Why did he make a laughing stock of me in front of my friends? Why?

Hirsch Leibke, (Zvi Aryeh), my classmate in 'heder' and my rival in both Torah study and childish pranks, never missed an opportunity to snitch on me to the Rabbi and shame me in public. Indeed, on one occasion this rascal had the good fortune of being provided an opportunity to make fun of me, by none other than my father. That afternoon, in the synagogue yard which was being momentarily used by us as our own private play center, he stood up among his cronies and with great cleverness, he mimicked the voice of the sexton Rabbi Shabtai: “In honor of him donating the sum of Chai (18) agorot (kopeks) to the synagogue coffers”. Chai agorot, Chai, Chai, Chai!

And I, sitting near the fence at the side of the yard, was totally engrossed in a game of “chips” with my cousin David, oblivious to the outburst from this Balaam, the son of Peor. There I was, crouched over the pot-hole where our game was in full swing, in which buttons and pebbles were used on most days of the year, substituted on Tu B'Shevat (the 15^th of Shevat) with carob stones and walnuts during the week of Passover. I concentrated my gaze at my cousin's determined aim in the direction of the pot-hole but my ears had now picked up the snide remarks coming from Hirsch, who was now announcing for all to hear: “It won't take Zalmenkeh too long to win the whole lot off his cousin. I bet he'll make a generous gift of all his buttons to the Sofit just like his old man would”.

The other children, revelling in his sharp sense of humor, burst out laughing and cast looks of contempt in my direction. I kept on playing as if nothing had happened, while inside my stomach was turning from the and humiliation of it all, humiliation that my father had exposed me to in public, for the entire world to see!. “In honor of him donating Chai agorot” - Chai agorot, the mere pittance that was all the poorer community members could afford to give, whereas the distinguished Baale Batim would always show their benevolence on Shabbat when pledges were made, hence their contributions were always generous.

Hirsch Leibke's father, Ben Zion, who was disabled, had donated Chai times five, and he was not exactly one of the wealthiest members of the congregation. Benevolent Yankel Terpido, a delicate and good-hearted boy, remained inconspicuous that Shabbat, preferring not to brag about his father's generosity. And I had my spirit shattered and my heart broken at the sight of my father, an erudite and privileged individual, a respected member of the community, publicly making the smallest contribution possible, Chai agorot and not a penny more.

Many years ago, the members of the Minyan Hassidim prayer group awakened to the realization that a thorough review of the physical state of this place of worship was needed. They decided this time to spend a considerable sum on the proposed venture, a venture for which the synagogue's regular income would not suffice. Consequently, they had no choice but to deviate from their usual custom and embark on a campaign aimed at galvanizing the impoverished congregation into an extraordinary display of philanthropy.

I can no longer recall the primary reason behind the decision to undertake a complete renovation of this holy place. Was it perhaps due to the pretentiousness of the new warden, keen to make his mark while in office? Or perhaps what brought it about was that unfortunate incident when the elderly sexton, Rabbi Shabtai, having gotten up early in the morning to light the fireplace in readiness for morning prayers, fell asleep while stoking the furnace and a smouldering ember slipped out of the fireplace and almost set the entire wooden building alight? Either way, the whole place was in danger of being burnt to the ground and the billowy smoke had left the walls and ceiling charred beyond recognition.

There was, therefore, no alternative but to completely redecorate the building's interior and it was over this issue that there was disagreement as a result of the demand by several of the congregation's senior Baale Batim that the ceiling be embellished with paling boards coated in white lacquer. These boards would be arranged in a convex circle at the center of which a huge candelabra would hang, dispersing light to all corners of the building. The proposed design subsequently became known by the Latin term “Sofit”. All were in agreement that the Sofit would be appropriate for the 'Minyan' (prayer group) and the minyan was more than deserving of the proposed venture.

So what exactly was the argument about? Like the rest of their colleagues in the congregation, the Hassidic Jews of my town were poor and destitute and there was no place for splendor and pomposity in a place where poverty was prevalent. Not to mention the fact that such renovations would leave the synagogue interior resembling that of Christian churches or synagogues used by reform Jews. These were the reservations voiced by several members of the minyan - with my father heading the group - who objected to such frivolous expenditures on something that was unnecessary. But most of the congregation members had their minds set on the idea that the 'Sofit' would hang resplendent from the ceiling, providing them with a sense of gratification every time they raised their eyes towards the heavens above. So my father had no choice but to express his protest by way of a show of miserliness, through a miniscule donation of Chai agorot, thereby causing scorn and contempt to be heaped on his youngest son.

This humiliation was to fester in my troubled soul like an indelible scar for many days to come. I felt a slight pain at the sight of the 'Sofit', glowing and ostentatious in all its splendor. I felt like it was constantly tormenting me, saying: “Your miserly father contributed only Chai agorot for me, so I don't belong to you at all”.

My father endured great suffering. Mental distress is harder to bear than, heaven forbid, physical pain. My father's suffering originated in his soul, the sorrow at having raised sons who would not follow in his path, the path of faith, piety and the keeping of Mitzvot. (Commandments), the kind of suffering that leaves a person angry and embittered.

The Lord God acted charitably with the people of Israel when he fixed Shabbat and holidays during the course of the year and determined that they should be days of rest and pleasure, not sorrow or grief, heaven forbid. With regard to Shabbat and holidays, the commandments of pleasure and rest are mentioned in passing. Such is not the case with those special days whose primary Mitzvah requires us to be joyful and celebrate, days like Purim, Simchat Torah, the 18^th of Kislev, the day on which the Rabbi of Liadi was released from prison, and other special days such as the completion of the study of a book, namely a tractate of Gemara, generally taken to refer to a volume from the Babylonian Talmud.

The Babylonian Talmud has numerous features. Invariably, father would study the same volume of Gemara together with me after we returned home from synagogue after morning prayers, the one he taught his pupils in the Gemara class. He would enjoy exploring the deeper meaning of the section of Torah he was studying, aided by the intricate commentaries by the Rashi, the “Rashba”, to which he frequently referred. What made it all worthwhile was the fact there is nothing in this world that does not reach its end and a volume of Gemara is no exception.

A learned Torah disciple will on the completion of such a volume of Gemara, feel joyful and in order that the public may be privileged, he will make his own private celebration of Torah study achievement common knowledge. How is this brought about? Following afternoon prayers and, on occasion, morning prayers as well, the sexton, Rabbi Shabtai, would catch the attention of our minyan and standing on the rostrum in the middle of the synagogue, he would announce that a certain individual wished to invite the public to a celebration upon the completion of a volume of Gemara after evening prayers. Between the afternoon and evening service, the wives of the celebrating hosts could be seen hurrying about, setting tables in preparation for the festive event.

As soon as the evening service was over, all would take their seats at the table and the Gemara books would be opened on the very last page. The host or hosts would ensure that the actual completion of the volume of Gemara in question would take place immediately prior to the celebration itself and so, the last few lines - or page for those who were more studious - were kept for joint study, including the accompanying Rashi commentary. As Divine Providence would have it, these lines were never particularly taxing intellectually and did not require any in depth explanation. On the contrary, they usually contained some enchanting homilies to which the assembled company would enjoy listening. The finale would come when the host read the last few lines with the excitement usually displayed when being called up to the reading of the Torah and then the assembled congregation would recite the blessing out loud: “Chazak, chazak venitchazek! Be strong, be strong, and let us gather strength!”

The verses of the following 'Hadran' (encore) would joyously reverberate in the mouths of the assembled company: “We thank and bless thee O Lord that thou hast placed us among the students of Torah and not among the dwelling places of idle folk”. As soon as the recital of the Hadran was over, glasses of wine would be filled, everyone would toast a 'Lechayim', and then partake of the selection of sweets that had been baked in honor of the celebration.

My father would always sit at the head of the table by virtue of the fact that it was usually either him or some of his students who would be celebrating the completion of study. The tunes would start as an outpouring of a yearning soul pervaded by sweet sadness, and would end as songs of thanksgiving and joy. Father was held to be an authority on Lubavitch melodies. He had heard them in his father's house as a boy. Grandfather, himself a rabbi of a Hassidic community in his hometown, ran a home that was steeped in the traditions of Hassidic customs and melodies that originated in Lubavitch, the spiritual center. Father was never satisfied with traditional melodies and sought to improvise tunes by combining them with other tunes from both far and near. He had a good ear for music and could master the notes from a new melody with ease. Since he was never completely satisfied with other peoples' tunes, he sought to incorporate a few modifications of his own; he would raise or drop the key as he saw fit and the Hassidim would always be more than happy with his revised version of the melody. These tunes eventually become widely known and were always enjoyed by neighbors and visitors alike.

I enjoyed relatively few happy days during my childhood; most of them were full of disquiet and discontent. This does not mean that there were constant quarrels in our house, not at all! Mother admired father for his diligence in Torah study and his prestigious ancestry, while father would treat mother with great respect, in accordance with the commandments of the sages. He knew only too well that we all depended on her for the family's livelihood since it was she who brought in an adequate income through her work in the general store that she ran from dawn till dusk.

Father would spend his time assessing the capabilities of potential students, selecting only those talented enough to become Torah scholars in their own right. These were not always to be found among those families with means that could afford to pay proper tuition fees. Mother never compromised her husband's self-dignity, so that he would never feel inferior to her because of her role as the family breadwinner. She would always go through the motions of consulting him on business matters and he was the one who opened the packages of merchandise that mother had brought back from the nearby city of Panevezys, which was the commercial center of the province. He would open the packages in a show of importance and lay all the items out on the table in the shop which was known as 'Tombank' while she would be arranging all the goods on shelves, each item with its own particular place. I used to see myself as the additional partner in the business, wedging myself in between my parents, observing the unpacking of each item with great excitement and interest and being constantly told by both of them to stop interfering and to get out of the way.

This was how my astute mother was able to keep her husband somehow involved in the running of the family business, by arranging goods on the shelves, as if she could never manage it alone without his assistance. In addition, mother would hand over all the petty cash every Shabbat eve to father for safekeeping for as long as was required. He would take the bag from her and placing a bench in front of the large book cabinet, he would climb up and hide the money bag on the top shelf behind a row of books, which consisted of books in Hebrew and Yiddish, books on Hebrew grammar, a few medical books written in classical Hebrew and a few academic works dealing with Gentile ideology. It was behind this array of mundane publications that father would always stash the hard-earned income that mother handed him for safekeeping. His intentions in hiding the money on the top shelf were twofold: firstly, that no one coming into the house should, heaven forbid, be able to lay his hands on the family treasure trove. Furthermore he could not countenance the act of mixing that which was sacred with the secular. Volumes of Gemara, Mishnah, Midrash and other sacred books would not be placed adjacent to bank notes and silver, copper or even gold coins that had monetary value but no sanctity whatsoever. Better that it rest alongside books that were considered 'defiled and soiled'.

Father was indeed a real bookworm! He had inherited his father's library, in keeping with the tradition of handing down such a precious heirloom to the eldest son, and over time had added more books. The books were arranged on the shelves in order of importance. There were those that were classed as 'Dorei Mata' (the lower shelf) which contained the Talmud and works compiled by the Rambam and other renowned authorities on religious law as well as books on Hassidic philosophy, all of which were steeped in sanctity and whose study constituted the upholding of the Mitzvah to engage in Torah study. These books were beautifully made, bound with fine brown leather binding to insure they never got worn out with use. Every Passover eve, we would remove these precious literary works from their places in the cabinet and wipe their leather covers clean of dust with a cloth and shake them in the radiance of the spring sun that would be shining, the dust floating up in tiny radiant clouds as if the letters themselves had leapt off the pages for a brief twirl in the sun's rays. I loved this work and considered it an honor to be chosen to perform it.

Father would busy himself with the airing of those books classed as 'Dorei Maala' (the higher shelf). These were the small books piled up on the top shelves without any distinction or reference but I still had a keen interest in them and longed to run my cloth over them too. To this very day, I have no idea as to how father came to own such literary publications by the dozen, works on secular enlightenment that were nothing less than sacrilege such as, 'The Love of Zion', 'The Guilt of Samaria' by Abraham Mapu, 'The Donkey's Graveside' by Peretz Smolenskin, the provocative poetry of Yehuda Leib Gordon and other such works, all casting off the yoke of divine sanctity and Hassidic tradition. I have never quite fathomed out exactly what such books were doing in a God fearing, Mitzvah observing home like my father's. This remains a secret that father, may his memory be blessed, took wih him to his grave.

In later years when I had grown into adulthood and begun to reflect on the anomalies of this universe, I had a sneaking suspicion - may God forgive me for such ruminative thoughts - that father himself might have had something of a penchant for such books in his youth, including such titles as 'He Who Goes Astray' by Peretz Smolenskin, the 'Visions of Shada'l, Steinberg's 'Hebrew - Russian Dictionary' and even the works of Kalman Shulman that had been written in traditional Hebrew, works that father had publicly condemned on more than one occasion.

It seems that father, a quick thinking individual who usually thought one step ahead, deluded himself into believing that these improper literary works would never find their way into the hands of his inquisitive youngest son. In view of his lack of height, he deemed it appropriate to hide them on the top shelf of the book cabinet. Oh, father, were you so blind you could not see? I too reached that top shelf one day when nobody was at home. I quickly fetched the step-ladder and placing it next to the book shelf, I climbed up until I was alongside that shelf. Then I took out and handled each book, glanced through it and then made my way back down with two books still clutched firmly in my hand. I hid them in a safe place so I could read them whenever I got the chance.

The shame of it all! While studying Torah, with the volume of Gemara open in front of me on a page of the tractate of 'Ketubot' (marital contracts), I recited in the melody reserved for talmudic study a couple of lines of the text. It dealt with the marriage and marital contract of a maiden whose ceremony was set according to religious law, for Tuesday, a day on which good fortune is twofold and not on Wednesday like the marriage of a poor widow. There I sat singing and mumbling the sacred verses of the Gemara so as not to attract the attention of father who was sitting in a nearby room with his pupils. He would eavesdrop on me as best he could so as to hear the words of Torah coming from my lips, reassuring himself that I was not neglecting my studies.

An ass knows his buyer and likewise, a youngest son will know the actions of his suspicious father. I sang a couple of lines in the Gemara melody and then, following the custom of well-versed practitioners, I fell silent while supposedly scrutinizing the commentary by Rashi and other commentators. It was at this juncture that I took time out from my preoccupation with the marriage of the maiden discussed in the Gemara, and with one leap of my mind I found myself in the palace of noble Tziyon, the Tanachite, who was in fact Yedidya and from there I arrived at the rose bed of kind hearted, beautiful Tamar. I shared my love for Tamar with the valiant hero, Amnon.

The thief will always end up on the gallows! The first in a series of ringing slaps on my face brought me back down to the real world of the tractate 'Ketubot'. It was an unexpected visit by father who had interrupted his class to observe the extent of my diligent study. The silent break for in depth study of the commentaries had apparently lasted a bit too long for his liking. He had taken a break from his class and gently pushed the door of my room ajar. At that very moment I was extremely tense. In a few lines, Amnon would go down on his knees and wax lyrically in the expression of his divine love for Tamar, the most beautiful girl of them all. This was, of course, not the ideal time for father to be making his entrance.

After subjecting me to the full force of his hand with several slaps on my cheek, he turned his attention to the large ornate Gemara book, courtesy of the Reem brothers of Vilna and the Almana printing press that was open in front of me. With one stroke of his hand, he swept aside the repugnant book concealed within its pages and was about to hurl it to the floor in a fit of rage, but he composed himself again and stopped midway. This was after all, a literary work that had been written in traditional Hebrew in spite of the fact that it contained nothing but sheer insipid twaddle with no Torah related content whatsoever.

In years to come when reflecting on that sorry event, it seemed that it was hardly a coincidence that father felt no need to examine the content of the book hidden between the pages of the Gemara, as if he was already familiar with its content from a previous encounter of his own. He finally released my ears which were now burning from his prolonged pinching, a punishment which normally followed a slapped face and shoving the book in one of the pockets of his long coat, he gently propelled me out the door with me weeping at the indignation of the double punishment that had just been meted out to me: The physical and mental distress, the slaps and ear pinching, and the cutting short of the pleasure I had taken in joining Amnon and Tamar during the most touching moments of their romantic interlude.

I headed in the direction of the synagogue yard. Although it was not yet time for afternoon prayers, the yard was already filling with heder children who had arrived in time for the hour of worship. The burning sensation on my ears where they had been pinched had still not worn off and my flushed cheeks clearly bore the marks of the handiwork of my heavy-handed father. I was, however, able to recover from the trauma of the physical and mental distress to which I had been recently exposed. I was also able to clear my mind of the maiden who was to be married on Tuesday and all those accompanying commentaries and convoluted footnotes in the Gemara tractate 'Ketubot', aimed at sharpening the mind of the wise disciple, just as I was now able to put the visions created by Abraham Mapu right out of my mind. My instincts were to prove right later that evening when, on returning home after evening prayers, we sat at the dinner table without any reference made to the transgression I had committed earlier on in the day. A truly wise man is he who has acquired experience. You don't get slapped twice for the same indiscretion.

The passage of time cancels out punishment. That's the way it has been and that's the way it always will be. My instincts never proved me wrong. My mother and sister, who had been working together in the shop, came home tired and shattered. This event had taken place on Sunday, the day on which the Gentiles would attend their churches and on their return from their worship, they would descend on the Jewish shops in droves whereupon they would stock up with the essential goods they required. All the shop owners eagerly waited for this particular time of the week, although this was also an ideal opportunity for shoplifting. What was the only method of guarding against such thieves? Extreme vigilance, so it would appear. The shopkeepers would fix their sights on the customer and his entourage, watching every movement of their hands to ensure no merchandise would inadvertently disappear, while simultaneously waxing as persuasively as possible and weighing and packing the merchandise and counting the money received in payment for its sale. No wonder then, that the weary shop owners would make their way home after nightfall, thoroughly exhausted.

With her remaining breath, mother would blow hard on the smoldering embers on the stove, and then rekindle the fire with the aid of a few dry wooden chips and small tree branches that had been cut down to size. By the good grace of the creator of light, a flame would erupt under the iron tripod on which there rested a pot full of sweet potatoes, a barley or oatmeal broth flavored with a pinch of salt and coated with a layer of milk diluted with water. Blessed be He who giveth strength to the weary. Mother would sit down at the table after washing her hands and tear off a chunk of bread which would then be dipped in salt in order to recite the blessing 'Hamotzi' before starting the meal. Who would dare stoop to the spineless act of dampening her spirits by gossiping to her about the rebellious son who had belittled his Torah study with nonsense? Father did not deviate from his usual custom on the eve of this day of recklessness and, as usual, he did not involve mother in the morality of parenthood and the tribulations of raising a son. The dinner proceeded as usual with light conversation being made on everyday matters. Mother and father did not talk much at the table, she by reason of sheer fatigue and he by way of adhering to the advice of the sages: Do not involve yourself in conversation with a woman. We sipped our barley and potato soup; we ate bread and butter with grains of dried cheese sprinkled on top, courtesy of our lone cud-chewing heifer out in the yard. Father did not skip dessert, half an apple finely peeled. With the evening meal completed, the day's events were now over and we all retired.

The following morning, my father made no further mention of yesterday's incident, although there were clear signs that changes had been made in my study arrangements as a result of the indiscretion of the previous day. The ornate Gemara book, a gift from my grandparents to my father on his wedding, that had been taken down from the row of 'Shas' volumes in my honor was now back in its place on the shelf in the cupboard and in its place on the table lay the smaller soft covered Gemara book commonly used by all the boys, with its darkly colored pages. Likewise, the door that had separated the new room - specially built to allow me to busy myself with Torah study - from the room where the more mediocre pupils of father were seated had mysteriously disappeared. I was able to accept the replacing of the ornate Gemara book with a more mundane equivalent. The doorway was a different matter altogether.

I viewed this change as a bitter blow that I would find hard to deal with and toyed with the idea of complaining to my mother. Common sense ventually prevailed within me and made me realize that nothing good would come out of this sordid affair. So I resolved to swallow this bitter pill as best I could and pretend I didn't care, while searching for an idea as to how to evade father's constant supervision.

And so it came to pass that on Tishah B'av, the day that is set aside for mourning, fasting and lamentation, I found an opportunity to seclude myself together with a forbidden book written in Yiddish. I settled myself in a pile of hay in the cow shed loft and in an instant I found myself enthralled by the never ending escapades of the “Count Of Monte Cristo”, while my family was visiting at the cemetery as is the custom on Tishah B'av.

Upon being caught for my last misdemeanor, my father decided to throw in a small tirade on moral virtue for good measure before he left. “Perhaps you have by chance heard, the Hassidic melody about a man bemoaning the loss of his fortune, namely the loss of money instead of bemoaning his wasted youth? To waste precious time on stuff and nonsense on a day of fasting and mourning? One can perhaps understand a person reading a secular book written in traditional Hebrew during the small hours of the morning – if there is no Torah or God fearing material of any sort present, then at least one has the sanctity of the Hebrew language in its own right. But to waste time reading utter tripe written in common jargon in the middle of a day of mourning?” Words that were like daggers in my heart, for I disobeyed my father.

It was, however, not my fault that my sister, Dina, had chosen specifically to collect books in Yiddish, stories of romance and adventure of kings, tycoons, counts and countesses that were bound to capture the imagination of a nine year old boy. My sister would keep the books under her pillow with the consent of father, who took pity on her because she was a sickly child and had saved every penny of her hard earned money to buy them but he expressly forbade her to show them to me. She was not to blame for the fact that I, her kid brother, had developed my own detective instincts and had discovered the hideaway of these pages, pages that swept me away to a world of undying love and adventures of noblemen and aristocrats.

Later in life, many years after father had departed this world during the course of World War One, I understood that those gloom laden days of occupation, turmoil and confusion of existing world orders left me, a fifteen year old son, scarcely an opportunity to get to know him and talk to him on equal terms. When I finally began to examine and finally comprehend the enigmas and solve all the conundrums and mysteries of my father's home, I realized that father had within him a soul that made him tower over all his contemporaries.

The 'new room' – as it became known during all its years of existence until its destruction at the hands of the devil's emissaries – was no ordinary room. The entire wing had been built by Tzemach, the one-eyed builder. He was both architect and engineer and with the assistance of his son and son-in-law, he cast the foundation, put up walls made of wooden beams riveted to a steel bracket and hacked out openings where doors and windows would be fitted. It was he who placed a coat of asphalt over the finely chiseled tiles that formed the roof as well as wooden partitions dipped in asphalt in the large pit that had been dug by an experienced Gentile laborer. Thanks to the labors and ingenuity of Tzemach and his assistants, this pit would become a storage cellar imbued with a variety of aromas that changed with the passing of each season, stocked with an ample supply of fruits, vegetables, barrels of sour pickles as well as tens of bottles of mead. (This was a fermented beverage made from water distilled from honey which was Kosher for use during Passover and at Shabbat meals too; the ideal drink for washing down one's cholent).

This new wing was an integral part of the existing building. The dank and dusky cellar abundant with flavors and aromas was indeed a godsend. Such was the attraction it held for me and I would seize the opportunity on the occasional moments of solitude and shifting the cumbersome lid covering the cellar opening, slither down the ladder into my own private world. If your instincts are telling you that those ventures down into the cellar were not without reward on their part, you will have indeed been proven correct. I remember my sins only too well; I had a sweet tooth that was uncontrollable. I never missed an opportunity to satiate my passion for tastes. I was never fussy and would mix any concoction that appealed to me. A sip of Kiddush wine on a weekday, a bite out of an apple or pear coupled with a sampling of the cracklings of goose that mother had stood frying in the kitchen late at night. My sharp teeth gnawed their way through yeast dough set aside for Hanukkah pancakes with the same voracious appetite with which I would set upon the aromatic cucumbers that had been pickled in brine, red peppers and other spices while floating in the barrel set aside for that purpose.

But he who understands the subtleties of the heart and evaluates the debilitating craving of the soul for that which is divine yet out of reach in the sunbathed world up above, also knows how unreservedly my wandering soul was immersed in the wonders of that dusky cellar. I wove the fabric of my own private world with golden thread. I told myself stories with countless episodes in which I was always the hero facing down all challenges both real and surreal and even those that were beyond the imagination of a mischievous sharp tongued and impetuous boy. This is the absolute truth.

To claim that father and mother had, in effect, built a complete additional wing to the original dwelling which mother had provided as a dowry on her marriage is totally wrong. The new wing with its spacious and brightly lit kitchen situated on top of the aforementioned cellar was nothing more than an embellishment for the primary purpose of building an exclusive room for Torah study. Later on, however, a good sized bed was placed in the room and a cupboard for clothes made from bright oak wood stood by the bedside. Useful household accessories always prove their worth, but these served no other purpose than the hosting of a fellow Torah student who was to sit at the table that had been placed in the room along with the book cabinet and two plain chairs that had no arm supports.

The hectiv activity went on for a whole year; piles of wooden beams and pails of asphalt and whitewash were scattered all over, not to mention the late night discussions, the bills and measurements and the loud arguments with numerous suppliers and tradesmen. All of this was compounded by the noise and mayhem, the banging of hammers and the grating of hacksaws, the slapping of whitewash brushes and the clattering of window panes. Father found himself completely disoriented by the combined cacophony of human voices and grating noise of heavy duty tools but tried his utmost to carry on as usual amidst the total devastation inside our house.

What a relief when the project was finished!

Father was a man of vision who put his faith in divine providence. He dreamed passionately of succeeding in ensuring that his youngest and dearest son would not follow in the footsteps of his older brothers and sisters and abandon the Torah of his forefathers after leaving home. Could it be possible that he had not been stringent enough in the upbringing of his other children by not insisting they be educated in accordance with his beliefs, an act which might have stopped them from turning their backs on him when they became adults? He would not make that mistake again for sure. This time he would smother his restless renegade son with the best Torah tutor that could be found.

The teacher hat had been entrusted with the task of getting the boy to apply himself to his Gemara studies subsequently proved unsatisfactory. It was not just Moshe Gershon Bruchs, the teacher with the foul breath and soiled hands, who had no luck with the hotheaded seven year old.

At the time I spoke with my father and brothers in traditional Hebrew, and was an expert on the Bible. I was enthralled with the fables taken from the book 'Legends of Israel' (written by someone named Lerner), that were as sweet as honey and which I almost knew by heart. Perhaps the teacher realized that the 'creep'- as I became known in light of the nasty tricks I played on him and his wife - had already managed to compile his own commentary on the book of Genesis, written in tiny letters on bits of paper and blank pages torn out of books that I had illicitly appropriated for that purpose? This commentary, true as it was to the Hassidic form of homiletics, had been picked up by me from my father who always quoted from the Lubavitch doctrine and from 'streimel' wearing dignitaries who would visit our town from time to time and who, in deference to our family lineage, would always stay at our home.

I liked neither my Rabbi nor the Gemara tractate 'Gittin' that I was supposed to be studying. To this day, I have maintained a dislike for this particular tractate and the issues discussed therein. Father kept me and my teacher together in this double house of horrors for one period only and it was with a sigh of relief that we parted company from each other at the end of our study period.

My next teacher, Rabbi Moshe Mordecai, respected and honored as he was, had precious little success in getting me to apply myself to a page of Gemara with the accompanying commentaries, even though the volume of Gemara in question was the complex tractate of Baba Batra. I did, however, manage to curry favor with my teacher on one isolated occasion when following a heated discussion, I asked a surprisingly original question, thereby receiving words of praise from the rabbi of the town who had come to the class that day to test the pupils. Pinching my cheek, he went as far as to deliver a version of a famous adage of the sages specially revised in my honor by pronouncing: “He who is neither a minor as such, yet not an adult either but a minor who is well versed in Torah is truly an adult”.

For that brief period my teacher was overjoyed with me since honor achieved by pupils is also honor for their teachers but it didn't take long for the novelty to wear off. Ultimately it was my antics he would remember, namely my raucous laughter which would spread to my classmates, and my leading role in the 'break time battles' between David's followers (and who else would play David but I?) and Goliath's men who were the cronies of gutless Hirsch Leibke, my sworn enemy and rival for status among the rest of our crowd.

When it came to delivering a verdict on my progress in general to father, Rabbi Moshe Mordecai was blunt, forthright and unequivocal. “This boy has talent. He has a good grasp of subject matter and a sharp mind. He is, however, captivated by the evil spirit, may heaven preserve us, and I have no idea as where to he got it from. I have tried both reasoning and flogging him but to no avail. He is a clown by nature and ingenious at causing mischief. Do not be discouraged Rabbi Meir by his lacking in Torah. This boy has the merits of previous generations in his favor and as the sages said, “The Torah always keeps a vigil over those who can accommodate it within their souls”, but as far as piety is concerned I can offer no salvation whatsoever. The sages have said, “Everything except piety is entrusted to the hands of God in heaven”.

“What do you suggest Rabbi?” father pressed him, his heart sinking all the while. “He won't be much good in Yeshiva at his age since he is only ten. I doubt very much whether his mother could bring herself to part from him in any case”.

That evening I heard voices raised in angry debate coming from my parents' bedroom. Father accused mother of pampering her youngest offspring to the extent that he abandoned the path of righteousness, thereby allowing the evil spirit, may heaven preserve us, to gain ever increasing control over him. This time, however, mother was having none of it. She asked him whether he had been any more successful in the education of piety of their older children. They had been forced to leave home in order to escape his perpetual rebukes and had relocated to a city that was distant enough to ensure he exerted no further control over them.

“What good has your Puritanism brought us? You have stuck to your guns and they have stuck to theirs. The boy is inclined towards Zionism and the girls to socialism. The eldest was arrested on charges of treason and was lucky not to have faced trial and a subsequent jail sentence. If Moshe Mordecai doesn't want the boy, then fair enough. He can master a page of Gemara plus commentaries without his teacher's help. The pace of the boys' Gemara class is far too slow for him. You yourself admitted he is getting bored. So can you honestly expect him not to go astray? He is way ahead of the others. Go to Lubavitch and see the Rabbi there; perhaps he may be able to give us some advice”.

The discussion between them went on for another hour with the angry tone eventually giving way to rational dialogue. By this time, I could no longer hear their words from my side of the partition which separated my bedroom from that of my parents. The next morning I felt a marked improvement in the atmosphere when I accompanied father to the early minyan for morning prayers, yet something had changed.

When I was especially mischievous, father would very often instruct me to lower my trousers and bend over a bench whereupon he would proceed to whip me with a broomstick, an experience no less painful than a slapped face but far more humiliating. Consequently I became more and more insubordinate and ignored my father's order to lower my trousers and bend over the bench when ordered. I would often continue to resist even to the point of twitching and kicking.

On one occasion father felt he could save time by doing two jobs at once, namely mixing his eggnog and flogging me on the bench. One of the principle rules in life is that one should never bite off more than one can chew. Father clearly got carried away on this occasion; he stood the glass on the end of the bench and at the same time he grasped me firmly with the aim of stretching me over the bench for the usual flogging. He succeeded with great difficulty in pinning me to the bench, with his free hand poised to strike at the usual spot on my posterior but in the course of violently thrashing about, I kicked the glass on the end of the bench. It fell to the floor shattering on impact; its contents splattered everywhere. At that moment I sympathized with father at the apparent loss. The glass had broken and the eggnog was gone. I had barely finished buttoning up my trousers and washing my hands in the sink in case they had touched an immodest part of my anatomy when father was on the job again. Flogging is a task on its own and preparing eggnog is a task on its own and neither should encroach on the other's preserve.

On this particular morning, following the late consultation between my parents, I was served a glass of this potent concoction in a clear show of affection. Using a teaspoon, father skimmed the layer of foam off the liquid and fed me himself. Afterwards, he stirred the remaining liquid in the glass and placed it by my side, making light conversation with me all the while, a clear indication that he was in a relaxed state of mind, something that rarely happened in our house.

The advice offered by mother was clearly behind this change in temperament although by advice I do not refer to mother's recommendation that father travel to Lubavitch to seek help from the Rabbi that would reinvigorate his youngest son with the piety he currently lacked. (Father was a devout Hassid who continued the tradition set by his predecessors and ardently followed the teachings of Hassidic faith and the Lubavitcher Rabbi. However, he made one exception where Hassidic practices were concerned. The Lubavitch doctrine was a source of Torah and inspiration and as such it was not to be involved in personal matters. Hence father did not travel all the way to Lubavitch to ask for mercy on his youngest son).

Mother's good advice was in fact a casual reference to the possibility of individual study, known as 'Farzeich' in Yiddish, which was considered to be an advanced level of Torah study. Those eminent Yeshiva students who had totally immersed themselves in Gemara, Tosafoth, and other commentaries to the point of saturation, no longer required the help of a teacher to take them through a volume of Gemara page by page. All they needed was a lesson or two a week and once they got involved in a discourse on a complex issue, they could manage on their own. This process usually called for the reading of several verses of Gemara by the principal of the Yeshiva who would then get things going by making a singularly complex point. Then, rallying all his skill and expertise in the logical interpretation of Torah, he would attempt to answer his own question by drawing on sources used to solve a similar issue in a different context.

Ironically, before the principal had managed to expedite his train of thought to the full, one of the top pupils would pose another query on the same matter, which had the effect of refuting the principal. Often he would dismiss an answer that he himself had only just suggested, having drawn on a source in another volume of Gemara. This would be the signal for other students to pitch in enthusiastically with their own ideas and interpretations, each disputing the material introduced by his colleagues. The atmosphere would become heated and the razor sharp wits at play would introduce hair-splitting analyses that grew in precision as the debate progressed.

It was only towards the end of the lesson that the principal would finally be satisfied that there was a straightforward answer. A clear cut and lucid paragraph from the Mishnah would emerge as the solution to the puzzle they had just been debating. The answers to all the queries and points that had just been raised were crystal clear. Any shadow of doubt had finally been lifted. There were no outbursts or sighs of relief afterwards. The intense atmosphere simply died away. The principal would smile with satisfaction, as if he had just returned victorious from battle and the students would fix their teacher with a look of admiration and appreciation for the exhilarating Torah experience he had just led them through. After the principal had left the room, the students would continue their deliberating in small groups until finally, each person went his separate way.

All this took place once or twice a week. On the other days, when there was no teacher present, each yeshiva student would choose his own tractate and then study it either on his own or together with a couple of friends. Like a true disciple of Torah, he would split his day between group and individual study. Each student would have his own melody when intoning the verses of Torah while his eyes would be simultaneously scanning the plethora of commentaries, both those on the sides of each page and those hidden between the appendices at the back of the book. He would flit back and forth between the two parts of the book bursting into melody each time he cast his eyes over successive verses of the Gemara and Mishnah in front of him.

These were, of course, all students aged 17 and 18 who were soon to be led to the marital canopy following which they would continue their studies at the 'Kollelim', the colleges for married students that were attached to the yeshiva. But we are talking here about a ten year old kid. Could anyone possibly expect him to learn on his own? At his age, the only things on his mind were games and other activities that were devoid of any Torah or piety. He needed a teacher that would provide him with an intensive program of Torah on a daily basis.

There would be no place for rank and file teachers this time round as learned as they may be. Who could be more eminent a Torah scholar than Rabbi Yossef Alperovitch, the leader of the Hassidic community? He was an extremely busy man whose time was fully taken up with the task of adjudicating in matters concerning Kashrut, and civil disputes, as well as involvement in other communal chores such as the giving of lessons in Torah and Hassidic literature, a task that the Rabbi was duty bound to fulfill.

The service requested did not call for professional teaching, as this would have constituted a disregard for the Rabbi's position. All they were asking him to do was to bring one solitary boy back into the fold of Torah, namely the youngest son of Rabbi Meir, a learned scholar in his own right with a prestigious lineage in his favor. The Rabbi would sit with me for two hours each morning following morning prayers and together we would study a certain tractate of Gemara. I would then return home and continue on my own. My father would be on hand if I ran into any difficulties during my studies. All he had to do was open the door and salvation would be at hand. Between afternoon and evening prayers, he would take an hour of free time to sit with me and start on another tractate out of interest, just an extra page of Gemara plus Rashi commentary each day, nothing more.

Father told mother about his brilliant idea and sought her guidance. One day after morning prayers, father approached the Rabbi after services and made his proposition. “One does not refuse those destined for greatness”, he urged but in the end, it was the proposed fee of twenty-five rubles per 'period' (six months) that did the trick. The Rabbi was supporting his intellectually gifted sons who had gone away to study Torah at a well- known institution and he was always in need of extra income.

Father took me to see the Rabbi at his home. He gave me a brief test in Torah and stroked my cheek, a clear indication of how satisfied he was. The Rabbi's wife served father tea and a piece of the cake left over from the Shabbat festivities (known as 'Helekich' in Yiddish) and then offered me a piece as well. After I recited the blessing and the Rabbi and father had answered 'Amen' in unison, we took our leave, imbued with hope for the success of this venture.

Had father gone a bit too far in his expectations of me? Can a high spirited boy control his temperament? The answer to that question was unclear. We all thought the idea would work well. I liked my room and my distinguished teacher too. I would read through the pages of the Gemara that the Rabbi had instructed me to look through and then attempt to come up with an answer of my own to the questions he had given me.

Anyone who has had occasion to study Torah will never pass up an opportunity to discover an intricate answer to a complex question and then bring it to the attention of Torah scholars. I, too, would avail myself of this challenging activity, while browsing through the Gemara.

I would linger over a page dealing with legends which was usually crammed with text leaving very little room for the commentaries. Those who compiled the Mishnah and legends did imaginative pupils a great service when they allowed differing subjects to overlap. In the heat of a discussion of an issue disputed by the House of Shamai and the House of Hillel, they would halt the discussion midway and as if intending to revitalize the atmosphere, they would launch into a narrative relating the eccentricities of Rabbi Bar Chana or moving accounts of the passing away of righteous men. This trend was reflected even more prominently in those verses of the Talmud that dealt with relations with men and women and whose assignation was unclear, verses that were read with uninhibited delight by many. Scholars of all ages consider it a challenge to be able to sift through books, find such lines and then read them in seclusion thereby provoking the evil spirit which places vile thoughts in the minds of prying Torah students.

I enjoyed the time I spent alone in my room as well as the hours I spent together with my teacher, Rabbi Yossef Alperovitch. The Rabbi would stand, leaning forward on his pulpit ('Shtender' in Yiddish) while I sat opposite him at the long table used for the Gemara lesson for community members. Very often I would read out a few lines and was about to explain them when, like an act of the devil, Feigele, the Rabbi's youngest daughter would appear in the doorway announcing: “Father there are people outside who wish to receive a Torah ruling”. On another occasion a large woman came barging in holding the carcass of a goose in whose entrails a defect had been discovered, a situation that required the Rabbi's decision as to whether the fowl could still be considered kosher. Men and women would approach the honorable Rabbi for advice on almost anything.

The interruptions of our daily lessons grew increasingly longer. The Rabbi's repeated instructions to me to “continue reading the page and study commentary “X” until I return”, was not always implemented in full. Sometimes the Rabbi would come back and find me gone. I would get bored and step out into the yard on my way to the 'Asher Yatzar' corner (i.e. the bathroom) and would run into some heder kids who were negotiating a trade - strings of carob seeds in exchange for “chips”. Sometimes a disagreement would break out between the traders that was on the verge of turning violent when I arrived on the scene. Both sides were more than happy to have me act as arbitrator and in the heat of my passion to get to the bottom of the affair and see justice done, I would forget about my teacher and the Gemara tractate 'Ketubot' that I was supposed to be studying.

Father and the Rabbi soon realized that a change of scene was required, a step that was bound to have a positive effect on the level of my diligence. There was no alternative but to move the lessons to the Rabbi's apartment regardless of the frequency of the interruptions to which we would be subjected during the course of our lessons. In order to ensure I was not deprived of the Rabbi's tutelage, he and father agreed to cancel the regular two hour morning session, replacing it with a more flexible arrangement that allowed for the Rabbi to summon me to his house whenever it was convenient.

It didn't take long for me to realize that I had gotten lucky and this change was definitely in my favor. Sitting in the relaxed atmosphere of the home of the Rabbi, where I had been taken on our first encounter, was far more preferable than the dull, hollow and intimidating atmosphere of the synagogue hall. The Rabbi's study was spacious with row after row of books lining the walls in all shapes and sizes. Within a short while, I could sense that the Rabbi had taken a liking to me. On one occasion while we were having a break, I plucked up the courage to ask him if I could look through the book shelves and he generously permitted me to do so on condition that all books and pamphlets were returned to their proper place afterwards. As if I would do otherwise? I had been well trained by father every Passover eve when I helped him dust off the books and then return them to their correct places on the shelves. Father was excessively pedantic in this regard insisting that “just as each star has its rightful place in heaven in accordance with the will of the Divine Creator, so each book must have its correct place on the shelf in anticipation of the inquiring scholar when the time is right”.

Readers may deduce from this that there was never a dull moment as a result of the Rabbi being called away. During winter months, we would sit together at a small table near the fireplace and in the summer, we would place the table next to a large window overlooking an expanse of land on which barren trees had sprouted providing shade from the midday sun. The Rabbi would listen while I read the pages of Gemara aloud. It was only when he wasn't sure that he would actually look at the pages of the book open in front of him before answering the question I had posed. From time to time, he would draw my attention to a couple of lines of commentary that were singularly pertinent to the text we were learning. Sometimes I would come up with an idea myself. The Rabbi made no secret of his pleasure at my progress. Such praise had been conspicuously absent during all my years at heder with my previous tutors. Not even father had a good word to say for me, his goal being to ensure that I did not become self-centered thereby abandoning, God forbid, the principle of humility as practiced by Moses and Aaron in their day. The Rabbi on the other hand did not hesitate to praise me even though he must have no doubt been aware of the commandment of humility.

The years I frequented the Rabbi's home were happy times. Things went like clockwork. I would enter the Rabbi's house with a cheerful “good morning” knowing that Feigele, was pleased to see me and would silently greet me in return. I too was pleased to see her although we hardly spoke a word to each other. On one occasion, Feigele was asked to take a basket of fruit and food to a poor housewife who had just given birth, since the Rabbi's wife was indisposed and was unable to perform this Mitzvah herself. The Rabbi could see the basket was too heavy for her and without a second thought he asked if I would hold one handle. I needed no further bidding and lifted the basket together with Feigele.

Once we had stepped out into the street, a wave of mischief swept over us and we ran all the way up the street laughing all the while but still avoiding any direct conversation with each other. On the way back from delivering the basket we fell silent, I walked several steps ahead in keeping with the tradition of the men who would always walk ahead of the women upon leaving synagogue.

And so I became a permanent member of the Rabbi's household, initially out of lack of choice but eventually out of preference. Father appeared to have relaxed his constant vigil over me once I had been entrusted to the Rabbi's supervision. He had either placed his trust in the Rabbi's ability to positively influence me or given up on the idea of getting any satisfaction from me in the manner he would have liked. A few perfunctory conversations on Torah knowledge convinced him that I was not playing truant, God forbid, while at the Rabbi's house. The more he relaxed his grip on me, the more I made progress in my studies and consequently his outbursts and tantrums grew more infrequent. There was not much the Rabbi could do about the continuous irritating interruptions of our lessons by visitors while I was at his home. 'That which is frequent takes precedence to that which is infrequent' is the primary rule in all matters relating to Torah. Rabbinical duties were a permanent feature in the Rabbi's daily routine whereas my studies together with him were merely a passing phase.

To be perfectly honest, I was not terribly despondent over the constant interruptions, a clear reflection of the adage coined by yeshiva students: “Abi nisht lernen”, (avoid Torah whenever possible). I would listen attentively to the claims, arguments and supplications of all those who frequented the Rabbi's house. As time passed I became familiar with all the regular visitors. A woman with a question regarding Kashrut - such as a needle caught in the gizzard of a chicken - was of no interest to me.

If the Rabbi did not utter the magic word 'kosher' and instead began examining the fowl or looking through books by Rabbinical authorities on the subject, I would get up and walk out of the room leaving the Rabbi and the inquirer on their own. The free time created by such interruptions gave me an ideal opportunity to scan the selection of books on a particular shelf in the study. I would pick a work that aroused my curiosity, browse through it and then return it to its proper place on the shelf. Thus, I was able to put my spare time to good use, cashing in on an opportunity to broaden my interests.

Not so when the visitors were rival claimants who required a Torah ruling or synagogue wardens or other officials who came to discuss communal affairs. My curiosity was aroused the moment they walked through the door. I listened to the arguments of both sides or just the visitors' words and would silently form my own opinion even to the extent of making my own ruling too.

I was delighted on those occasions when it turned out that my train of thought had been similar to that of the Rabbi's. He in turn did not denigrate my intellect. Often when he was in a light hearted mood he would encourage me to voice my opinions and give my interpretation of the Torah issue being discussed. On one occasion, he surprised me by saying, “Had this claimant adopted your argument, the ruling might have been completely different”. Father smiled contentedly when he heard about this, cautioning that it was improper conduct for a Hassid to lecture the Rabbi on Halacha (religious law).

Those were glorious days but, like all good things, they eventually came to an end. War broke out, throwing the entire world into turmoil. The assassination of the heir to the throne (Archduke Franz Ferdinand) in Sarajevo and the resulting world war rained devastation down on the world, a state of affairs which affected me as much as everyone else. What's so special about that, I hear you ask and exactly how much does a ten year old understand about international conflicts? A claim which is totally groundless. I was an expert in political affairs. I gained my knowledge from a variety of sources, one of them being the daily newspaper, “The Friend”, which the postman Nachum Leib delivered every morning to the home of Getzil, a distinguished scholar well versed in Zionism, who had a subscription to the paper.

We always attended the same minyan each morning and Nachum Leib would place the bundle of mail on his seat, which was near father's alongside the eastern wall. I would speed up the pace of my prayers with the aim of finishing before Nachum Leib. By the time he finished folding his prayer shawl and removing his phylacteries, and had handed out letters to the congregation members who converged on him from all directions hoping to receive their mail on the spot instead of waiting for it to be delivered to their house, I had already managed to sneak a look at the front page of the newspaper, which I would carefully spread, making sure it did not get creased in the process.

I had a fixed ritual, which I religiously adhered to when making my daily perusal of the newspaper and order was strictly maintained. I would first absorb the telegrams on page one, being as they were, a synopsis that reflected events happening in the world at large. The importance of the news was graded according to the size of the letters in which it was printed. The most sensational items of all were printed in bold letters, the size of those used in the monthly prayer for the new moon with the rest of the news printed in letters that decreased in size until they were a miniature typeface. A seasoned reader like myself would be content just to scan the telegrams and the daily column by the editor, an individual who was well informed on current events.

As soon as Nachum Leib had stepped out of the synagogue, I would be surrounded by numerous inquisitive congregation members, all thirsty for information. “What do the papers say?” they would ask eagerly. These Jews, all of whom were father's age, saw nothing demeaning in relying on a kid of my age for their information on current political intrigues. I was flattered by the esteem in which I was now held and held nothing back from the discerning inquirers. I would divulge the contents of the 'Daf' (as the newspaper was known), throwing in some commentary and analysis of my own for good measure. Getzil's 'Daf' was written in the commonly used jargon, Yiddish.

Back at home I was able to gain access to another valuable source of information on politics written in Hebrew, a newspaper called 'Hatzfira' (The Clarion), which was shared by four partners in all. These were Ben Tzion Barak, who ran a gift shop, a former scholar with a pot-belly and a razor-sharp tongue; my Uncle Shmuel, who frequently traveled abroad on business and, to give credit where credit is due, returned a partial scholar but still had difficulty understanding traditional Hebrew vocabulary that did not appear in the prayers and Mishnah. The third partner was Rabbi Moshe Sanders, a reserved and somewhat reticent individual but a man of vision. It was he who passed on the crumpled and dog-eared issues to father, the last in line who was rewarded for his patience by getting to keep the papers which he read at his leisure.

Father also set aside some time for me to read the papers. Not only did I read its contents with abounding enthusiasm but I also obeyed father's request not to dispose of the papers after I had finished with them. I would smooth out the pages, fold them carefully and then stack them on the shelf that had been fitted specifically for that purpose in the new kitchen. The hurried look through the pages of the Yiddish 'Der Friend' was not the same as a relaxing read of 'Hatzfira' written in Hebrew; nevertheless, both sources provided me with a wealth of information on Jewry in other parts of the world and international events in general.

The truth be known, I was not the only political commentator in our community. My closest rival was a boy named Elke. He was the son of an affluent family and a character who was out of place in our small town. His parents lived in Germany and exactly how they earned their livelihood remains unknown. His father died young, leaving a young spoiled widow and her baby without any means of support. One of her uncles, a textile exporter based in our town took her under his patronage and gave her a job in his office.

She was called Sophia, not a typical Jewish name, and she supported herself by her work for her uncle. The stories circulated about her by the usual neighborhood gossips was, as always, blown out of all proportion. She was fundamentally different from the rest of the Jewish women in the community. Her uncle was an affluent and devout man and it was thanks to him alone that the 'aristocrat' (as she was called by all the gossiping women) was not tempted into leaving the fold and mingling with the select group of atheists and backsliders who lived in our town. This group included people like Dr. Zabadia, Motti Schlachter, the chemist; Potternick, the lawyer, and others. The uncle exerted a form of custodial influence over her, gradually bringing her closer to a traditional Jewish life-style.

Once Elke had reached bar mitzvah age, father took over his education. Father was more attentive to him, either because of his family ties or possibly because of his unique breeding as reflected in his German accented Yiddish, his trim and immaculate appearance and his good manners.

He became my friend and on many occasions would stay on after his heder classmates had gone home. We would talk and play together in my house. However, our opinions on world events and leaders were diametrically opposed to each other. In the stand-off that was now developing between Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm II and Russia under the rule of the Czar, I took the side of Germany, not so much out of love for Mordechai but rather hatred of Haman. I loathed the local 'Straznik' (patrolmen) and 'Uradnik' (police officers) who were the Czar's henchmen and rotten to the core. They continually harassed the local Jews and the bribes they demanded in return for revoking the various sanctions they themselves imposed were increased regularly.

Were we to itemize all the sanctions imposed by the evil empire on local Jews, the list would be endless. They were subject to a plethora of nauseating schemes, all devised by the 'Priestav' (local administrator) together with his sidekick, the 'Uradnik'. This was in addition to the array of taxes and local rates set by the national government which deliberately discriminated against the Jews as opposed to the rest of the poor population.

There was also a constant stream of abuse to which Jews were subjected, the worst of all being the blood libel, perpetuated and disseminated by the national government that inflamed the peasants, namely that Jews used Christian blood in the preparation of Matzot for Passover. This insidious diatribe was to cost the lives of many of our brethren in the pogroms that took place immediately prior to the holiday. In principle, the sanctions and restrictions placed by the administration on the Jews were targeted at adults.

The 'chiestata', which inflicted suffering on entire families including children, was one exception to the rule. What exactly did this decree entail? Chiestata is an entirely innocent word in Russian meaning hygiene. In this particular context, it was taken to refer to the apparent 'concern' of the Czar's government for the health of the dirty Jews who were instructed to burn all the garbage and refuse deposited on the streets in the backyards of their homes and shops.

Thursday was the high point of the week as it was market day. This was a day of hope for Jews who sought to earn as much as they could from the trade with local peasants who would arrive on their wagons from both near and far to trade with local Jewish merchants. The peasants would offer a diverse range of produce grown in their fields and gardens and would purchase household goods and tools that they needed.

Residents from local and outlying villages would begin arriving in town early in the morning on wagons hitched to horses of a rather unusual breed. These creatures were small in size and ate very little, yet had tremendous strength. The peasant would hitch one of his horses to a wagon that had a metal grill mounted on top of the paneling on both sides of the wagon to prevent merchandise from falling off on the way. These would be secured by wooden boards tied to the paneling and then padded out with sacks of ground straw.

Once this was completed, the peasant could load up his wagon with agricultural produce. This usually consisted of sacks of grain, fruits and vegetables, eggs and poultry, sheep wool, a few hogs that were ready for sale and other such items. Sometimes the peasant would also tether a milking cow or a kosher animal for slaughter to the wagon as well as a horse that he had no use for on his farm, which he would either sell for cash or trade for another horse in an equitable barter. After he had finished loading up his wagon with produce, the peasant would make a place for himself and his spouse who would come out of the house dressed in her finest outfit made from the best materials and sewn either by herself or a kind neighbor. The peasant couple would then hoist their children, if any, on to the wagon with the aim of showing them the sights when they reached town or, alternatively, using their help at the market place. Once he had arrived, the peasant would detach the shafts and unhitch the horse from its harness. He would then either lead it to a nearby water trough or tie an open bag of oats around its neck allowing it to champ away.

The peasant would usually park his wagon at a regular site in the market place whereupon he would be immediately surrounded by customers, all handling the merchandise and inquiring about prices. Both sides would then engage in a standardized bluffing ritual. The buyers would snort with derision upon hearing the initial price quoted by the peasant and then feign a sudden loss of interest in the 'bargain' on offer by moving on to the wagon of a rival trader. The peasant would scratch his forehead, indicating he was ready to negotiate. A familiar process of haggling would then ensue, the peasant lowering his price by a few pennies and the buyer improving on his original offer by a similar amount.

Finally a deal would be struck. The buyer would take a few silver and copper coins, or a note of currency and gold coin if a larger sum was involved, out of his purse, count them into the waiting hand of the peasant and then depart with his newly purchased goods. The peasant would recount the money and set some aside for the purchase of essential items that he needed such as tools, lubricating oil for his wagon, salt and sugar for cooking, a sickle and scythe, a flint for tool sharpening and other such items required for tilling the land and producing crops, as well as materials used for spinning, textile dyeing, darning thread and others.

Most of the peasants were poor and the handful of loose change they earned at the market was barely enough to live on. They were in no position to be able to afford a meal at one of the local cafes while in town. The peasant's wife would bring out a lunch box that she had brought from home, lay a strip of coarse cloth over the seat of the wagon and then serve the meal which usually consisted of some slices of smoked bacon, a loaf of black bread baked the same morning, onions and cucumbers, all of which were rounded off with apples, pears or other fruits in season.

Those who had money to spend would make their way to one of the many Jewish cafes dotted all over town. On market day, these would be packed with peasants and their families. They would huddle together on long benches and in display of magnanimity, the peasant would order a bottle of wine for himself and a bottle of beer for his partner. The proprietor was always more than familiar with his customer's indulgences.

The owner would then place a selection of appetizers on the table that usually consisted of chopped or pickled savories, chopped liver seasoned with a selection of herbs, and roasted goose drumsticks, which the peasant would eat together with chunks of bread, all washed down with swigs from his bottle of wine or mug of cold draught beer. In the meantime, a neighbor or an acquaintance from another village would walk through the doorway to the warm welcome of his already seated compatriot. Jonas would buy a beer for his friend Jurgis and they would drink to each other's health; Jurgis would then return the compliment and they would once again toast each other.

The proprietor would always be more than happy at his guest's show of generosity and as the drinking continued, new desserts were produced in the form of a selection of confectionery that melted in one's mouth. After the bill had been paid with the last few coins from the peasant's purse, he and his friend would shuffle out into the street, arm in arm with their wives in tow, singing and drunkenly lurching from one side of the street to the other.

Soon it would be night time and on market day this heralded the approach of the dreaded hour of 'chiestata', the clean up of the main street. The peasants' horses would be stamping their hoofs with irritation and impatience by now, anticipating the arrival of their masters who would once again hitch them to the wagons that they were to pull on the return journey to their stables. One by one, the wagons would pull out, leaving a vacuum in their wake. Within an hour, the market-place would be completely emptied of all wagons, horses, peasants and neighbors.

This vast stretch of land had been paved by a second rate workman with cobblestones that overlapped, the jagged and roughly hewn stones jutting out above the smooth and neat sections of paving. The one thing they had in common was that by the end of market day they were all soiled with horse droppings, animal urine, and the vomit of drunks, who had thrown up the meal they had recently consumed. This was reason enough for them to curse the Jew who had coerced them into stuffing themselves with all the garbage his satanic wife had baked, cooked, fried and steamed, for one purpose only: To rob decent Catholics of their hard earned money.

This torrent of verbal abuse, as bad as it was, was nothing compared to the horror that followed when the 'Straznik' patrolmen would materialize from out of the blue, filling the market place with their odious presence. Their barked orders were not long in coming: “You over there, sleeping on the job are you? It's chiestata time! Grab hold of that broom, rake and rubbish pail and get cracking”. The task of cleaning the street was to take one hour and not a minute more. The people responsible for cleaning up and gathering those mounds of refuse were not permitted to move them again and so they would stay where they were for up to two days until Vininka, the apostate, who had a concession allowing him to use manure as fertilizer on his lands, would turn up on his garbage cart. He was usually accompanied by his sons, all of whom were stockily built, with mournful eyes like those of their grandfather, Yankel the blacksmith, who died of heart failure the same week that Benzi, his stubborn and rebellious son turned his back on his faith and his God, changing his name in the process. In short, piles of animal fertilizer swarming with flies do not detract from the infinite value of hygiene and purity, according to the authorities.

When the hour was up, one of the patrolmen, Jurk Vertinski, a crafty and malicious individual who also functioned as the local 'registrar' and was thus well-versed in the art of filing reports against those rancid Jews who neglected their cleaning duties thereby endangering public health, would proceed with his all too familiar ritual. Out came the notebook and spitting a drop of saliva on to the tip of his thick pencil, he would produce row after row of bold Cyrillic letters. On a certain day at a certain time, the lot belonging to the Jew 'X' was inspected following the completion of the 'Chiestata' and had not passed the test. The owner of the lot had clearly been derelict in his duties and had failed to uphold the law requiring him to comply with the requirements of the 'Chiestata' in the interests of public safety and hygiene.

This protocol would be forwarded to the courts as a matter of course and they in turn would issue a summons for the offender in question to be brought to trial and punished. But things usually didn't reach that stage and the protocol would never see the light of day again after it had been written. Yankele Terper, a close associate of the 'Priestav', would find a way of placating the town's law-abiding officials. This usually entailed the remittance of a small gratuity in respect of such mediation. Two rubles would usually suffice, though sometimes the price rose to three. The 'Priestav' would take his cut with the rest being divided between the 'Uradnik' and his men. The mediator swore he never kept anything back for himself but his insistence failed to convince the usual band of skeptics.

One way or another, the whole 'Chiestata' business was sheer hell for everybody. In my home it was particularly hard on mother, worn out as she was after a full day's work and she needed all the help she could get from the men in the family in order to cope with this awesome chore. Father always came to her aid and I followed suit. Armed with the ultimate in cleaning and sterilizing tools - in this case a couple of brooms with tough bristles - we would set about cleaning up all the refuse and garbage that had gotten wedged in the crevices of the cobbled paving. Along with the brooms, there came the dustpan, rake, and shovel, all essential tools for the task of cleaning. The shovel, of course, complemented the work performed with the three previously mentioned implements, its role being crucial to the successful completion of the task at hand.

Father and I worked as a team. He would gather heaps of garbage with the broom and I would stand opposite him holding the shovel in readiness. However, the task of carrying the shovel filled with the recently collected filth over to the large mound of refuse could not be entrusted to children for fear of possible spillage en route, an event that would render all our efforts futile. We would converse with our neighbors who were also engaged in the same activity and together we would bitterly curse the hygiene loving tyrants whose sole aim was to persecute Jews to the point of total degradation in the hope of finding opportunities to file protocols against them whenever possible. The vindictive 'Chiestata' ritual was not one of the worse sanctions imposed on Jews but it was a weekly ordeal and each time father was subjected to public humiliation all over again. The sight of his prostrate figure, broom in hand with his gabardine tucked under his waistband caused me considerable anguish and I have never be able to forget this insult

The hatred I bore for the authorities grew in its intensity and I prayed with all my heart for the downfall of this evil empire. In my wildest dreams, I imagined myself to be the supreme commander of the combined forces of Palestine and under my leadership we would wipe those 'Strazniks' off the face of the earth, with any remaining taken captive and put on trial as written in the book of Isaiah.

So it was only to be expected that when I became an expert in politics and diplomacy, I sided with Russia's enemies in accordance with the well known axiom: 'My enemy's enemy is my friend'. Since the empire of the German Kaiser was one of Russia's enemies, I considered myself an ardent supporter of this country. It was as not as if I had ever seen a map of Germany with my own eyes. Elke was my only source of information and from him I understood that the people there spoke a form of bastardized Yiddish and the Jews were different from those in our town, in their speech, temperament and lifestyle.

In short, Kaiser Wilhelm had won the loyalty of Rabbi Meir's youngest son and I eagerly awaited the opportunity to prove this loyalty to my new found allies and show my Russian enemies a generous display of brute force. Surprisingly, the one person who had nothing but scathing remarks to make about Germany was none other than Elke who had moved to our town from the land of 'Teich' (Germany in Yiddish). “The Germans, all the Germans, are anti-Semites”, was his unequivocal verdict. I didn't know what the word anti-Semite meant but from the vehemence and contempt with which Elke uttered that word, I gathered it was not terribly complimentary towards the Jews. He chose not to elaborate on the subject but I sensed that his reluctance towards Germans was born out of his own experiences at home.

His mother Sophia's earlier life in Germany was shrouded in a veil of secrecy. Later on when we were older, Elke confided in me and revealed her traumatic experiences. Her German husband, a dentist and a drunk, beat her regularly and finally walked out, never to be seen again, leaving her and her young child to fend for themselves. However, at this particular time in our lives I was still unaware of Elke's own family history and so we found ourselves disagreeing profoundly over our attitude towards these two empires that had suddenly become the focus of international interest and concern. By the time World War One had broken out, I had already left home and no longer had access to my sources of political enlightenment, namely the newspapers written in Yiddish and traditional Hebrew.

That year one of my older sisters came home for a visit during summer, departing from the usual custom of only visiting during the holiday season. It transpired that my two older sisters had dedicated themselves to pedagogical training and had successfully qualified as primary school teachers practicing the 'Farbel' method, used by Yechiel Halperin, a Jewish educator from Warsaw (who was the father of the author Jonathan Ratush of blessed memory) and the scholar, Uzi Ornan.

A new trend had begun to sweep the country at that time, childrens' nurseries. The Zionists, in their role of propagators of our ancient language, were at the forefront of this new trend and actively promoted the establishment of nurseries that would use Hebrew as the language of communication. Yechiel Halperin was one of the key figures in the movement and he founded a seminary for training primary school teachers who would use this particular method in the course of their subsequent employment. It was not long before a rival educator from within the same community, Alterman, father of the poet Natan Alterman, entered the scene. Since Halperin was promoting the method of nursery school education that had been devised by 'Farbel', Alterman opted for an entirely different method of teaching devised by a Mrs. Montessori. Farbel and Montessori both devised methods of nursery school teaching that broke new ground in the field and Alterman and Halperin, in their roles of rival protagonists, were the ardent exponents of these methods within the Jewish community.

Halperin had the good fortune of having Rabbi Meir's daughters choose to complete their vocational training at his institution. This should not be taken to imply that father deliberately chose to exile his daughters. Not at all! The decision to move to a location as distant as Warsaw was of their own choosing and in defiance of father's wishes. He had plans to lead them to the marital canopy and from there to a life of communal service but they had opted to pursue their education to the point of graduating with full matriculation. But it didn't end there.

The two daughters subjected their father to even more shame when they failed to return home after receiving their 'attestat zrelosti' (matriculation certificate), choosing instead to stay away for another year or two, eking out a meager living by giving private lessons. They cut back on their food and other expenses. At the Halperin school, they met other progressive minded girls like themselves, among them the future actress, Hannah Rovina. Thus, Meir had the honor of having his daughters number among the very first Hebrew primary school teachers to work in Israel, an honor he would have gladly conceded.

Father was enraged by his daughters' rebellious conduct. Not only had they deserted their home in favor of exile to a place of Torah study but they also succeeded in corrupting their younger brother, a handsome boy of noble character with a sharp tongue and a passion for poetry. The eldest siblings had left their father's custody forever. They made do with the bare necessities and earned a meager living giving private lessons, but they did not flinch from physical labor either. Father never discovered that his educated and refined daughters also slaved away in a confectionery factory.

The factory in question was in fact nothing more than a long room with a small window that let in a limited amount of light. The atmosphere was stifling during both summer and winter. There were large urns filled with sweet contents which would stand on tripods under which a fire would be lit that would burn for hours causing the mixture inside to become a sizzling sweet mush that gave off a pungent aroma. The owner's wife, a buxom individual with a keen sense of taste, would stay in the room continuously since her particular role was twofold. She would regularly taste the bubbling mixture with a wooden spatula and add sugar or spices if required while keeping a watchful eye over the consumptive girls - whose eyes had become bloodshot from all the smoke - who worked on the production line. This was to insure they were not tempted to help themselves to some of the finished products thereby violating the commandment 'Thou shalt not steal'.

Usually the girls singled out for supervision were the ones that worked at long tables covered with shining foil, rolling lumps of congealed sweet mixture into biscuit shaped pieces with their rolling pins. These would then be transferred to an adjacent table where another team of girls would slice them into small portions using a double bladed cutting tool. These divine tasting sweets would be wrapped in foil covering only and this meant they were cheap. The wrapping on the better quality sweets would usually display the head of a pretty girl wearing a brimmed covering with a floral design on the sides. The benefit from the extra packaging was the fact that they increased the value of the merchandise, as opposed to home-made products.

The confectionery girls were all Jewish, a prerequisite that was essential to prevent Gentile hands coming into direct contact with the foodstuff in question, an act that would bring its Kashrut into doubt. They were from poor homes and their modest income helped their families make ends meet. The starting rate for the job was five kopecks a day, going up to ten kopecks as staff progressed in seniority and experience. Only a few girls reached the higher ranks and Rabbi Meir's two daughters were among them. In addition to their work on the production line, they earned an extra three rubles from the private lessons they gave.

As a result of their socialist leanings, my two sisters preferred hard labor in the factory in the company of their comrades to private lessons in the homes of wealthy executives. While rolling the sweet mixture with their rolling pins, they explained the theories of Marx, Engels and Lasalle - two of whom were Jews themselves - to the other girls, assuring them that socialism was egalitarian in nature and did not discriminate between people of different nationalities and faiths. The main task that lay before the proletariat from all countries was to rise up in unison and topple the evil and brainless Czar and his henchmen from power. The spirit of harmony and love would then prevail and the ignorant proletariat would finally understand that its real enemy was capitalism and not the Jews as the criminals in St Petersburg had continually claimed. On the day that occurred, the masses would awaken to the truth and as a result they would distance themselves from hatred of the Jews. This would be cause for celebration since the Jews were part of the proletariat themselves.

The weary workers were not able to understand all the eloquent vocabulary emanating from the intelligent Lithuanians but sensed it was all said with their best interests in mind. They liked the impassioned sisters and ensured that they came to no harm by making sure the factory owner did not hear of the fiery rhetoric they were uttering in condemnation of wealth and in favor of revolution by, and in the name, of the underprivileged of society. As soon as anyone suspicious would approach, a signal would be given and the seditious conversation would be cut short. It was found that the best way of giving the alert was by breaking into popular songs that warmed the heart. These were usually romantic melodies that sang of the love of a maid whose soul longs for reunion with her chosen mate who has been drafted into military service. He would respond in kind by singing of the woes and troubles inflicted on him by his anti-Semitic colleagues, and the power of his everlasting love for her in spite of all the hardships.

Suffering of this kind was not half as bad as that which my sisters had to endure in the course of the private lessons they gave. As a rule, my sisters' pupils were spoiled half-witted brats who were incapable of successfully mastering the art of proper handwriting using the Cyrillic alphabet, which is written from left to right and then read in the opposite direction. The lucky pupil would sit with his private teacher in the drawing room. The robust mistress of the house, key chain hanging from her apron, would make frequent appearances in the drawing room so as to ensure that the teacher was not wasting valuable time.

Every few minutes the mistress's offspring would find an excuse to interrupt the lesson, the most common reason being that he needed to use the bathroom. This would also provide the opportunity to pinch his younger brother, antagonize the housemaid with one of his infantile pranks, and then round off the brief adventure by scrounging something appetizing from his mother's kitchen as a bribe for agreeing to return to his teacher and the extremely dull 'Uchebnik' (textbook) from which he was supposed to be studying. The teacher would wait for her pupil's return and once he had done so the whole routine would begin all over again.

When payday arrived, the mistress would make a reckoning of all the time wasted during lessons as a result of the teacher's inability to control her pupil but ultimately she would back down and with a condescending air would make the sanctimonious gesture of paying the teacher in full. My proud and bashful sisters would endure the degrading ritual and on receiving the ruble note they would offer a muffled 'spasiba' (thank you) and take their leave, humiliated to the depths of their soul.

Still some teachers became deeply attached to their pupils. Anyone who was able to find a suitable position would consider herself fortunate but there weren't that many around. The majority of employers were nothing but a bunch of arrogant misers. As far as they were concerned those brought in to coach their children were nothing more than a servant over whom a constant vigil had to be maintained so as to be sure she was indeed working for her keep and not eating them out of house and home. Therefore, the mistress of the house would assume the task of verifying that resident tutor gave full value for money. The plight of those teenagers who gave regular private lessons was not as dire because no matter how bad the abuse they were subjected to during their course of their work, they could always walk away when it was over. Those engaged in “conditioning” work (a live-in arrangement) had no set hours to speak of and were condemned to a state of bondage day and night.

Many a pillow was drenched with the tears of “conditioning” victims, usually sensitive girls from poor families who were bullied and badgered by these foul-mouthed employers.

Sometimes the mistress in question would be jealous of her refined manners or beauty, qualities that she and her own children had not been endowed with. The odious creature would never miss an opportunity to insult the young teacher in her employ, even in the presence of her pupils. Under the circumstances it was hardly surprising, that those unruly children, having observed their teacher being ridiculed, felt free to make their teacher's life a misery.

My eldest sister, being the proud and passionate socialist that she was, positively loathed the prospect of working in a “conditioning” position and would have preferred any form of hard labor to this job which she viewed as demeaning to the core. However, upon graduating from the Halperin Institute, she was left with two options: Either to return home or submit to the cruel regime that would most likely be her lot if she worked in “conditioning”. Having developed an aversion for life at home under father's authoritarian guidance, she chose the latter.

Rabbi Meir's daughters survived on bread and water only, living in a decrepit little room on the fourth floor of an apartment block in a run down neighborhood where pollution and filth reigned supreme. The two sisters were fortunate enough to have each other for support. Once a week they would sit down and write a postcard home, half in traditional Hebrew to father and the other half in Yiddish to mother. The primary rule of life is that experience is the best teacher of all and Rabbi Meir's daughters soon realized that the postcards were simply not large enough to accommodate a full letter from both of them, and so a solution was called for.

They established a routine by which one sister would write a letter with all her news and the other would add a one line greeting at the end. In the next postcard, they would swap roles but whoever was writing always took care to make her characters as small as possible so as to pack in as much information as possible about their activities in the bustling metropolis. Rabbi Meir's daughters, being the gifted scholars that they were, made sure the content of their letters was tailored to the interests of the recipients back home. The section in Hebrew that was addressed to father was full of praise for the pedagogical approach, illustrating how infants are taught good behavior and how songs and games are employed to make learning as interesting and as entertaining as possible. Father would read through the part of the letter addressed to him a couple of times and then relate it to mother, praising the flair of the letter while nevertheless disagreeing with its contents.

It was not a question of whether the matters raised were trivial or not, but rather there were more important things to be considered. Although nothing was explicitly said, I realized that what was missing from my sisters' letters was not another theory on pedagogical methods, an important subject in its own right, but the good news that a decent match had been arranged for one or both of them by someone in the city, an event that would give their parents some satisfaction. Girls inferior to them in both education and family lineage were married and now had children. My sisters, on the other hand, educated and as unconventional as they were, had a dowry in property guaranteed as part of their inheritance from their grandfather, yet they chose to evade the entire issue. They were too busy putting the world right but when would they start putting their own house in order?

Once father had finishing airing his grievances he would pass the letter on to mother. Although well educated, she was not up to the level of reading traditional Hebrew written in minute characters and the section of the letter addressed to her was in Yiddish. In these lines, the daughters gave a frank account of their hardships. They wrote about life in the city in general, they told of their visits to the theater, and described the plays they had seen in great detail.

Occasionally more down to earth matters would be mentioned like food, clothing and shelter. There was no need to go into details since it only took a few well-chosen phrases to give mother a clear hint that her two daughters were living in dire poverty. From time to time she would make up a parcel containing several types of spread, sweet breads and two pairs of thermal underwear. It was only to be expected that she put aside such items to send to her daughters whom she was sure were feeling the bitter cold. It was no secret that the city had no shortage of greedy and miserly individuals and mother could not rule out the possibility that her girls were boarded with a vile landlady who skimped on wood for heating during winter, so some warm clothing would certainly be welcome.

Mother knew how much her daughters appreciated these parcels. So late at night, after father had fallen asleep over his book and finally retired to his room (it was better than this work be done without him around since they would only get embroiled in the same argument over again about whether they as parents were to blame for their daughters going astray), she would then fish out a well-padded cardboard carton which would be used to mail the package to the city. She would line the box with newspaper and packaging material and placed the underwear and other items of clothing at the bottom. Laying a strip of coarse paper on top of the clothes, she filled the rest of the carton with a few slices of dried cheese, a jar of cherry flavored jam, a jar of raspberry jam (which she hoped they would have no need for since this was mainly used for medicinal purposes) and a jar of fried goose fat which, after becoming solid, would assume an amber like color making it an extremely tempting sight. Last, but by no means least, would come the honey cake or 'lekech' as we called it, a traditional delicacy that was everyone's favorite. The following morning mother would take the parcel to the shop from where it would be collected by Nachum Leib, the postman who sent it off with the first delivery. The reason he went to all this bother was because he was something of a scholar himself and, as such, he silently applauded Rabbi Meir's daughters for the hard work they were investing in their future careers at so great a cost.

On receipt of the parcel, the weary young women would be overcome with joy and bless their mother for her thoughtfulness with mother receiving full credit for her handiwork. Father disassociated himself from mother's charitable activity, preferring not to get involved in any way. Mother kept him informed of what she was doing but he always feigned total disinterest as he was extremely bitter at his daughters' decision to go against his will.

Some conduct could hardly go without rebuke and the opportunity would present itself once or twice a year during Passover and the religous New Year when the prodigal offspring came home to their parents for a few days. When it came time to leave, after father and his daughters had argued, reasoned and remonstrated with one another until their voices were hoarse, father would closet himself in his room until he regained his composure. Finally he would re-emerge with two ten ruble notes in his hand and with a somber look he handed them over to the youngest of my two sisters since the elder sister, being the dyed in the wool socialist that she was, took no interest in money matters and totally relied on her younger sister's discretion.

Although she was always reluctant to take any money from father, she did not really have any choice but to accept his helping hand. There were no kisses or fond farewells on my sisters' departure. Father would mutter a farewell and then follow it with what sounded like a prayer but might also have been a random observation, “There are observant Jews in the city as well”. The hint having been dropped, father would hurry back to his duties clearing his throat noisily.

The fortunes of my other sister, Peska, took a different path. Perpetual illness had worn her down. When she arrived home on our neighbor Mendel's horse and cart together with two 'Karzinot' (wicker baskets) filled to bursting point, she was on the verge of total collapse. Apart from a few clothes and personal effects, her luggage consisted solely of literature, poetry and textbooks that she had purchased with her hard-earned cash at a second-hand bookshop at giveaway prices. This constituted the spiritual enrichment that would support her during her stay in the 'province', ensuring the studies and skills she had acquired at the institute of the revered Yechiel Halperin would stay fresh in her mind.

Mother only had to take one look at her daughter to realize she had become emaciated to a degree that could prove fatal if not checked. This usually placid woman, who always deferred to her husband's will, took a firm stand now that an emergency had developed. The following morning while my sister was still asleep upstairs recuperating from the strains of her tortuous journey, mother addressed her husband in a clear and unequivocal manner: “Peska looks as thin as a rail and God only knows how ill she really is. As soon as Shabbat is over, God willing, I shall go to Shovitzei and rent a dacha for her in the 'gypsies forest'. This was a forest with huge sprawling pine trees and small houses that were let to Jews who loved visiting the countryside during the summer months. It became known as the 'gypsies' forest' on account of the bands of traveling gypsies who set up camp there. They made a living by breeding horses and pilfering whatever they could get their hands on but they were careful not to accost visitors since this would result in them being chased off the premises.

Father was level headed enough to realize that in announcing her decision regarding the renting of a dacha for their daughter, mother was not asking for his approval but merely appraising him of a decision she was determined to see through. It may well have been that father himself was horrified at the appearance of his daughter and did not object in principle to the idea of a dacha although certain key issues had to be addressed such as who would stay with the girl? It was improper for a daughter of Israel to be left all on her own in the forest and most certainly not within proximity of anonymous holiday makers. This was not considered respectable in our part of the world.

After failing to succeed in persuading her neighbor to allow her eldest daughter to join my sister at the dacha, dear mother came up with a rather unusual idea: “We will send the boy with his sister. He also looks a bit off color due to his constant studying”. At first father was less than enthusiastic about the unsavory prospect of this protracted neglect of Torah study while the lad was in the charge of his educated sister. But the current emergency situation could not be brushed aside and he acknowledged the fact that on this occasion his will would not prevail. The issue of renting a dacha for his daughter was a matter of life and death and as far as the neglect of Torah was concerned, I was willing to solemnly promise I would take the Gemara volume with me and set aside a few hours each day for study. Father cautioned me that on my return, he would test me on the Gemara pages I had learned while on holiday. The dacha trip was on!

How many days of sheer unforgettable bliss does a person experience throughout his life? Very few to be precise and these are firmly entrenched in his memory like a heavenly gift to be remembered for eternity. Mother rented us a small peasant's cottage with a straw roof, situated in the depths of the forest on a bare patch within a cluster of pine trees. The cottage was new and it looked as if it had been specially built in our honor. When we arrived, the shell had only just been completed and the doors and windows fitted, yet in spite of this the building was incomplete and the workmen, apparently the peasant owner together with his family, had yet to add the finishing touches. The glossy timber gave off a sharp pleasant aroma that mingled with the fragrance of the surrounding pine trees. The the moist perfumed smell of the earth, with black currants and blue berries sprouting in every corner of the moist and dusky landscape were waiting in anticipation of their being picked.

I had never been in a dacha before and I had never enjoyed such total freedom in my life. I and could do whatever I pleased! Did I break my promise and abandon my Torah study now that I was not being supervised? Heaven forbid! Not only did I not neglect my Torah study but I even added on an extra hour. Every day as twilight approached, having already completed my quota of study time from nine in the morning until midday, I would sit down again with the Gemara volume and study a bit extra.

My sister did not deride my Torah study and even enjoyed listening to my melodious tones when I was learning. When she was feeling in a good mood, she would give me a surprise, which was usually a piece of the honey cake mother had sent us that week and would continue to send every week during our holiday. My sister displayed considerable proficiency in the Gemara, especially in those parts that dealt with Jewish folklore. Apparently she was an expert on the book jointly written by Bialik and Ravinitski that had recently been published and was considered an essential textbook for all Yechiel Halperin's graduates.

On the face of it, my life had changed little over the past year. I was still studying the Gemara tractate 'Ketubot' plus commentaries for a set period every day. So did the dacha really make any difference? What had all the arguments and deliberations been for? What was so special about a dacha anyway? There was no shortage of food at home. Our cow produced a bucket full of milk three times a day, and this provided an ample supply of butter, yogurt and cheese. Our garden, which extended from the bottom of the hill all the way to the Kupka River, provided all the vegetables we needed. Our house and cellar were well-stocked with onions, radishes, carrots and potatoes.

So perhaps it was the fresh air that made the place so special? The forest certainly had air and fragrances that were known to be beneficial to health, especially for those people with lung complaints. We may not have had pine trees growing in our back yard but the surrounding area was full of shrubbery and plants, many of which were deadly such as the prickly nettle bush which was to be avoided at all costs and the chrysanthemum produced a form of sunflower seed that tasted great. So with all this in town, what business did I have leaving home for the gypsies forest?

The actual novelty of this trip boiled down to the wonderful time I spent in my sister's company alone at the dacha. She used the holiday to practice the Farbel method in its Hebrew form, i.e. children's games combined with Hebrew songs that had delightful melodies. My sister was an expert at getting programs organized and utilizing time to the full. “To every thing there is a season and a time for every purpose”. These words from the Book of Ecclesiastes were the basis of a formula that I now apply to myself. A time for Torah and a time for prayer, and I never prayed so fervently as I did during that brief spell at the dacha.

Following the afternoon break, my sister assembled all the children of holidaymakers in the area and played several Hebrew games such as 'the shepherd's watch' Eventually after continuous practicing, even those girls who had not attended heder had mastered the words and melody of the song. I still remember the verses to this day:

Around the bonfire the shepherds gathered
Singing and dancing till morning, tra-la-la
From midnight the soldiers will sing
We'll keep watch till the dawn of morning
Beware o wolf of the forest, stay clear of our flock
Do not come near, do not attack
Cause with our sailor's clubs
And our sheepdog
We'll keep driving you back.

Due to my relationship with the songstress and my mastery of the language, I was chosen to play almost any part and this won me the admiration of all the other children as well as the overt affection of beautiful Masha whom I came to love passionately like Jacob's love for Rachel, David's love for Michal, the daughter of Saul, and Amnon's love for Tamar. This did not refer to the cold and callous Amnon who slighted his sister Tamar, the king's daughter, but the Amnon who appeared in the book entitled 'The Love of Zion', a hero whose valor was matched by his handsome looks and noble acts. In short I loved Masha!

We played several different games. One game that comes to mind was called 'the tramp'. One of us would play the tramp and dressing up in rags, he would wander back and forth carrying his stick and backpack, looking for a place to stay. All the places would be taken and the tramp would rap his stick on the ground entreating all those present to give him shelter. Suddenly a wave of unrest would sweep over the children and all at once they would begin circling the area in a game of musical chairs. The tramp would see his opportunity and lunge at one of the vacant seats before the commotion had died down. The last child still standing would become the next tramp to beg for shelter in a wailing voice. We would join him in his song:

a poor man comes a knocking
tick, tick, tack
kind people open your doors to me
tick, tick, tack
day and night I've been wondering
tick, tick, tack
give me board and lodging
tick, tick, tack
through the valleys and mountains I've been traveling
tick, tick, tack
just for tonight I'll be resting
tick, tick, tack
and then gone with the wind by morning
tick, tick, tack.

And then there was the 'Ten Sisters' song that I found enchanting:

Ten little sister birds singing in the forest
One little bird flew away
And there were nine little........

I learned many songs throughout the course of my life but none of them compared with the delightful repertoire of songs that my sister brought with her from the Halperin Institute.

We were an odd bunch in that group; three and four year olds together with nine and ten year olds, boys together with girls, Chumash children together with Gemara pupils, a proper little Noah's ark. My sister was the one who made it all work, with games and songs in Hebrew that entertained not just us but all the fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and casual visitors who gathered to watch our group at play and then found themselves joining in.

Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately for me, I was unable to keep up my usual custom of reading the newspapers while I was away in the forest. During the first few weeks of our stay in the gypsies' forest, we completely forget what a newspaper looked like. These were holidays and were not to be encroached on by the political machinations of the outside world. In all, I received two letters from father addressed to me personally, which made me feel quite flattered. He asked how I was getting on with my Torah study and gave me the latest news about the minyan, as well as a few words of fatherly encouragement. No mention was made of the gathering storm of conflict between the Austrian empire and the strong men in the Russian Czar's camp over the murder in Sarajevo of the Austrian heir to the throne. The Russian Czar had taken Serbia's side and prevented Germany from coming to the aid of her ally, the grand old Emperor Franz Joseph who sought revenge for the murder of his heir.

I was totally oblivious of the conflict that was now brewing since I was far away in the gypsies' forest where I was more concerned with the business at hand than with articles, telegrams or arguments with Elke and other friends. Hence, I was unable to comment on the events that were currently unfolding. The turmoil was raging without my knowledge. When finally, on the day war broke out, a telegram arrived ordering us to return home, I rubbed my eyes in disbelief and was heartbroken. It was like someone being ordered to leave paradise, being blamed for other peoples' misdemeanors and taking punishment instead of them.

We returned home to a state of total mayhem. War had been declared in our country. On the face of it, this was a war between two Gentile nations and was no concern of ours. Although we were Russian citizens, we did not take any interest in public affairs, adhering to the rule laid down by the ethics of the forefathers: 'Do not consort with authority'. We interpreted this warning as meaning that it was best for Jews not to get involved in public affairs in their countries of exile, regardless of the circumstances. This time, however, we felt we were being dragged into a horrendous war against our will. It wasn't long before draft notices were issued to all those Jews who had served in the Russian army.

The number of Jews serving in the Russian armed forces was small, a situation that was largely due to the official hatred of and crude discrimination against Jews, deprived of their human rights, and an array of malicious sanctions aimed at curbing their personal freedom. In addition, there were numerous legal provisions guaranteeing benefits for citizens, which all had an addendum consisting of two vicious words in Russian: 'Krome Evre'ev' meaning 'Jews not included'. And as if that wasn't enough, the Jews had to contend with a string of blood libels and the perpetual abuse of Jewish soldiers who had to endure starvation throughout their tour of duty in the absence of any kosher food and were never allowed to rise any higher than the rank of private. The Jews felt nothing but contempt and utter loathing for their Russian counterparts and it was hardly surprising that on reaching conscription age, Jewish citizens did whatever they could to avoid military service. They enacted every possible relevant clause in the law that might effect a discharge and if there was no alternative, they moved to other countries before they were old enough to be eligible for conscription.

In spite of all this, there were still a few Jewish boys in each community who enlisted in the armed forces and spent up to four or five years away from home, bullied and abused from start to finish. They had barely arrived home after being discharged when the entire nightmare would begin all over again. They received a notice recalling them to active duty on behalf of the 'motherland', Holy Russia and the divine savior Czar Nicholas II. The sound of heartrending crying and wailing could be heard in the houses of the families of these recruits. They and their families would frantically run around from one official to the next hoping to get some help in saving them from the dreadful fate. Very few succeeded and most bade a tearful farewell to their loved ones and reported to the local recruitment offices from where they were shipped off to an unknown fate.

An atmosphere of gloom mixed with trepidation overwhelmed the Jewish community in our town. Every day hundreds of young Gentile recruits from nearby villages would descend on the town where they were to report for enlistment at the local recruitment office. In keeping with the tradition set by their fathers i.e. drowning their sorrow and anxiety in drink, they would head for the local cafes which would all be packed to capacity. After having drunk themselves sick, they would go on a rampage through the streets of the town.

The four 'Strazniks' and their commander the 'Uradnik' who were responsible for law and order in the town and were well-aware of the state of terror in which the Jews lived, would disappear from sight leaving the Jews exposed to the thuggery of the marauding visitors. Jewish community officials would immediately raise the sum that was required to flush out the inconspicuous law enforcers. Once all the 'king's men' had received their share according to their rank, they would reappear on the streets, resplendent in their dress uniforms, royal hats and swords tucked in their belts. As soon as they reappeared, the 'revelers' would instantly disperse and the Jews would breathe a sigh of relief. Once the new recruits had moved on to their designated postings, life in town would generally return to normal and those people who had been affected by the recent disruption kept their experiences to themselves.

Shabtai, the sexton of the local minyan, who had always put the fear of God in us boisterous children and stopped us from playing games inside the synagogue or even out in the yard, wandered around looking crestfallen. His recitals of the daily 'Shmone Esre' prayer had turned into one long wail. “Hear our voice o Lord, our God, have mercy and pity on us and accept our prayers with compassion and mercy”. As he said those words, tears would stream down his face since his prayers were specifically for his son, Gershon, who had returned home from military service a year ago and was about to get married when he was conscripted once again and sent off to the front. There were other families who had also been forced to part from relatives that had been recalled to military service and were now piercing the skies with their emotional invocations.

My family had so far remained unaffected by the whole crisis. I returned to my Rabbi and my Torah study and also resumed my daily perusal of the newspapers and my political analysis with enthusiasm. To give credit where credit is due, the thick bearded community members did not consider it beneath their dignity to talk to youngsters like me about either Torah or secular matters. I recall with no small amount of satisfaction, one elderly community member who frequently approached me in the synagogue with a query regarding the Gemara tractate he was currently studying. He would come across a couple of lines that totally stumped him and without hesitating he would ask me for my help.

And if it was all right to consult with a child on Torah matters, then there was certainly nothing wrong in asking him about current political affairs. I soon became famous for my expertise on the latest developments and was approached for information by everybody: “What do today's papers say Zalmenkeh? What's news from the front”? they would ask fixing me with an intense gaze. At first glance, everything looked crystal clear. According to the telegrams in our paper, the invincible Russian army under the supreme command of his royal highness, the valiant Nikolai Nikolaevitch, was making short work of the current offensive having crossed the Prussian border, and was now approaching the outskirts of Koeningsburg, a large city in the Prussian state in the course of its unstoppable drive towards Berlin.

The telegrams themselves were extremely brief. The official commentary from the authorities did the rest, describing the victorious advance of our glorious armed forces in great detail. The artillery, cavalry and infantry with their shining bayonets were sweeping through the land of the German infidels. Large numbers of prisoners and a substantial amount of loot had been captured. In short the whole campaign was a runaway success. It wouldn't be long before the arrogant Kaiser Wilhelm would be on his knees begging us for a truce. Such wishful thinking! An optical illusion is always preferable to the truth.

As proof of the victories described in the telegrams, a carefully chosen selection of pictures designed to give the right impression began appearing in the papers. There one could see the heroes of the Russian armed forces on their trusty steeds chasing the pathetic Germans who were falling back in disarray in the face of the advancing armies. The telegram page was full of items like this and only the more discerning readers were astute enough to notice the ambivalent innuendoes contained in the reports, which were intended to ward off any unwanted interference from the censorship authority. Anyone who raised people's doubts by questioning the superiority of the Russian army was asking for trouble.

Elke, my political adversary with an anathema to Germany as a result of the manner in which his mother was treated by, was clearly delighted with the progress of the war and held great faith in the authenticity of the pictures of Russian heroes in hot pursuit of the retreating Germans. I tried to gently reason with him, suggesting that the news contained in the telegrams may have been somewhat overstated and the developments depicted in the pictures appeared to be one-sided. Drawings hardly constitute concrete evidence in their own right. To be perfectly frank, he was less than enamored with my commentary and assessment. In fact, I had great difficulty in convincing anybody to support my view that all the stories about spectacular victories and breaching enemy lines were nothing but utter nonsense.

As luck would have it, my salvation came from an unexpected source. My Rabbi and teacher, Rabbi Yossef Alperovitch, the leader of the Lubavitch community in our town, always avoided making any public comments on current affairs. “And the scholar shall fall silent at that time” was how he put it to me and the hint was crystal clear. However, when we were on our own, he would often take time off from our Torah lessons to impart his views on politics to me and I was pleased to discover we had in identical train of thought.

In his calm and collected voice, he explained to me that a corrupt regime like that of the Czar and his cronies was no guarantee of victory on the battlefield. It was highly doubtful whether there was a shred of truth in the telegrams describing all those supposed military triumphs. Even if the Russians had succeeded in crossing the German border, this did not mean the war was over. “The successful execution of war requires valor and wisdom, and the tactics employed can often be quite deceiving”, said the Rabbi. “It could well be that the German minister of war ordered his forces to retreat so as to draw the Czar's army into a trap they have waiting. The Lord God moves in mysterious ways and we should certainly not jump to any conclusions. Time will tell.” At the end of the conversation, the Rabbi warned me several times not to repeat anything he had said in public. I understood his intentions and honored his request. We kept such discussions to ourselves.

I was glad the Rabbi had now reached the end of the Gemara tractate 'Ketubot', which we had been laboring over for some months now. In accordance with the times, the celebration held at the Rabbi's home was low key. I read the final page together with several of the Rabbi's loyal followers and I gave a perfunctory explanation of the text we had just read. They recited the refrain and accompanying prayer after me and then, much to my surprise, mother came into the Rabbi's house carrying one of her honey cakes. Father then took a bottle of wine out of his coat pocket and the Rabbi's wife served tea and cherry jam, a clear sign of the nonchalant atmosphere that currently prevailed. The Rabbi broke out into song and we all joined in. Halfway through our singing the Rabbi opened the Gemara tractate 'Baba Batra' which had been chosen as my next project. He then gave a brief sermon in honor of the assembled guests, following which we departed, the spirit of Torah fresh in our minds.

The disaster that was to strike a few days later while I was hard at work on the first chapter of 'Baba Batra' was totally unexpected. Disasters strike without any prior warning, including those that take place on the battlefield. I was still bemoaning the alleged victories of Czar Nikolai Nikolaevitch's uncle, the commander in chief of the armed forces, reflecting on the words of the prophet Jeremiah, “Why is the way of the wicked successful”?

I had begun to keep my political opinions to myself and was minding my own business that day when Mendel, the coachman, came into the synagogue for afternoon prayers with the latest news. He had just come from the railway station and witnessed a convoy of passenger and freight trains making their way east. These were all packed to capacity with wounded soldiers being transported from the front to military hospitals and pandemonium had broken loose. The soldiers were in desperate need of first aid and water and the medical orderlies were rushing from one carriage to the next, screaming, cursing and jostling one another, all powerless to help the wounded soldiers who were bleeding profusely and groaning in pain.

A few compassionate nurses were begging staff at the railway station for a little 'Kipyatok' (hot water) with which to wash the soldiers' wounds and, as if cursed by bad luck, the large boiler had broken down. To sum up, it was all one awful mess!

Mendel's news was in stark contradiction to the reports in that morning's 'Der Friend' which kept up the official line of reporting of victories and triumphant conquests. Something had gone wrong at the Prussian front and as yet we had no idea as to what had happened. It was only on the following day that the papers began to adopt a more reserved tone, providing a brief cursory report of Nikolai Nikolaevitch's decision to halt his army's advance and regroup at the front. The telegrams were carefully worded so as not to frighten the public back home, which until now had been fed with bombastic accounts of victory and glory on the western front. But the stark truth was now beginning to filter through.

The German high command had cleverly drawn the Russian armed forces away from their supply depots. The inept and now isolated Russian army, having fallen for the ploy, had charged forward leaving its rear completely exposed, straight into the trap the Germans had prepared for them. In the surprise counterattack that followed, the armies of Czar Nikolai were totally decimated. The German guns and artillery mowed them down relentlessly. Tens of thousands died on the battlefield and tens of thousands more were taken prisoner. The injured were ferried back east in a virtual stampede, and hundreds of thousands of riflemen, cavalry troops and their officers fled in every direction possible. Starving and dehydrated, they descended like plagues of locusts on provincial towns and villages, looting, pillaging, murdering and raping wherever they went. By the time a few more days had elapsed the situation became crystal clear. The Nikolaevitch army had been routed and the Germans were now massing forces on the border in preparation for a full-scale invasion.

Do not rejoice at thine enemy's downfall! There was certainly no cause for jubilation at the hated Nikolaevitch's downfall as far as the Jews were concerned. It was not long before the official propaganda machine began 'explaining' the reasons for the recent debacle to the people. It was the fault of the Jews living in the provincial areas that the heroic army had been so badly defeated. These Jews, the enemies of both Russia and Christianity as a whole, had conspired with the German enemy and in an act of betrayal of their native land, they had revealed the secrets of the Russian army to the Germans using the Yiddish language as their means of communication. It was only with the assistance of the Jewish traitors that the demonic Germans had succeeded in luring the Russian army into the trap that had been prepared. This was how the Jews repaid the Russian nation for its kindness and good will!

The Jews knew the fate that lay in store for them. Mediators immediately set about stemming the tide of seething hatred that was now brewing. They approached government officials and begged them to exercise clemency towards their clients, in return for a generous fee. The officials agreed to ensure the Jewish communities were protected from the retribution of the public at large who believed that the treachery of the Jews was responsible for the current catastrophe. However, they could hardly expect to escape without some form of punishment. And so the defeated commander-in-chief Nikolai Nikolaevitch issued an order, giving Jews 24 hours to leave their property and homes and go into exile in the east. Hundreds of thousands of Jewish families, who lived in the provincial towns and worked hard to make ends meet, had to abandon their homes and property and flee for their lives.

No concept is more abhorrent and demeaning to a Jew than the one embodied by the Hebrew word, 'Galut', meaning exile. This is a word which strikes terror in the heart of every single Jewish person until his dying day, because it is synonymous with desolation and deprivation since time immemorial.

Like every Jewish person, I became familiar with that dreaded word right from an early age, a sentiment embodied by the words of the poet Bialik: “I have been bound by Shaul and my distress runs deep”. Father, whose doleful and piercing voice ensured his regular selection as cantor for the additional prayers (Mussaf), had a special tune when it came to the verse “and because of our sins we have been exiled from our land”, with the words “we have been exiled” evoked with a sigh of despair. The congregation could clearly sense the agony in the cantor's voice as he intoned the words “and because of our sins”, a fate that was all too familiar to our forefathers and would continue to afflict future generations until the coming of the Messiah.

I had fully internalized the gravity of the concept of exile as so vividly described in such stark realistic terms in the verses of 'Lamentations' and works of Jewish folklore which recounted the trials and tribulations of the Jewish people, from the first exile to Babylon right up to the second exile to Rome, both of which are commemorated on the Fast of the Ninth of Av. While rummaging through father's bookshelves, I also came across books and pamphlets which described barbaric atrocities that the Jewish people suffered throughout the ages in all the countries of the Diaspora.

I had also read about the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and the immense suffering that people endured throughout this period. I was, in short, a typical 'galut' child and fully identified with the privations that had been the miserable lot of every generation since time immemorial. Still, I never dreamed for a minute that I would witness a latter day expulsion of Jewish communities en masse in all its horror with my own eyes.

The Jews were blamed for the defeat of the invincible Russian army. It was not because of the contemptible regime of tyranny with all its obscene behavior and debauchery, nor was it the vacillation and procrastination of the administration headed by a sick and demented despot, nor was it due to the graft, bribery and nepotism that was rampant at every level of government from senior ministers right down to junior clerks in God forsaken locations throughout the endless expanse of the Russian empire. None of these were responsible for the disaster that had befallen the country. Neither was it because of the drunken swaggering senior army officers who had command of thousands of men in battle and most of whom were overbearing, salacious members of the aristocracy who didn't know the first thing about soldiering and relied on their subordinates to coordinate the functioning of the entire military apparatus, a move which hideously backfired at the crucial moment.

None of this, of course, had any influence whatsoever on the outcome of the entire campaign. Neither did the shortages of ammunition, or the tons of arms and equipment abandoned at some remote depot on their way to the front, or the thousands of starving disheveled and demoralized soldiers whose food and provisions had been siphoned off by suppliers, agents and distributors, or the military hospitals with their acute shortage of first aid and drugs, that were full of wounded servicemen whose injuries became increasingly complicated through lack of proper treatment. None of these failures were given even a casual mention in the official military reports filed from the field headquarters at the crumbling front, and they certainly were not responsible in any way for the Russian army's crushing defeat.

All the Russian people knew was that their heroic army would have achieved a comprehensive victory had it not been for those lousy “kikes” who had stabbed it in the back, causing a disaster of such epic proportions. These damned Jews who had relayed signals to the Germans by way of their Sabbath candles and Havdalah candelabra and supplied the Russian army with blank ammunition, defective weapons, moldy bread and putrid water had sucked the lifeblood from the Pravoslavs during peace time and had bled them white now that a war was on.

By the good grace of the king of kings from the holy capital of St. Petersburg and by kind consent of the supreme commander of the armed forces, the sentence of the perfidious Jews was reduced from total annihilation to mere exile. They had no more than two days and in some instances as little as a few hours to pack their bags and head eastwards with their families to an unknown fate.

Thousands of displaced persons fled their homes in every direction possible, to avoid the seething hell of xenophobia that was now rampant everywhere. The deportation orders caught hundreds of thousands of Jews in provincial towns and settlements in Lithuania totally unaware. Local police, assisted by military police, served warrants with breathtaking speed. The regime was in a hurry to stifle any backlash from the more enlightened sections of Russian society who, despite being under surveillance and harassment by the authorities, were not afraid to ask difficult questions in public. There were those in St. Petersburg who felt that by blaming Jews and subjecting them to collective punishment, the authorities hoped to provide the masses with an outlet for their frustration and anger. The deportation of the Jews and the resulting opportunities for a wholesale ransacking of their property would, it was hoped, defuse any feelings of resentment towards the incompetent authorities for the time being.

The police launched midnight raids on the homes of rabbis and community leaders throughout provincial towns and escorted them from their beds to the offices of local government officials. There, the deportation warrant was read out to them in a raucous voice and they were entrusted with the responsibility for ensuring the order was carried out in full. The wording of the warrant was missing essential details such as who was to go where and when.

The assembled community heads were shoved out the door and told to get on with the job. Nobody knew whether this order was for real or whether just another scam run by the usual assortment of lowly civil servants to be rescinded at the last minute, as always, in return for a generous payoff. It would take a few more hours before people realized that there was no way of escaping this particular decree and time was running out. It wouldn't be long before the dreaded Cossacks turned up to serve the warrants on the Jews in person with their whips and cattle prods.

By noon those people who were still hesitating, finally realized there was no hope and that the only way they could save themselves was by taking to the road while they still had the chance. No one knew the extent of the territory encompassed by the deportation order. Not even local officials were able to throw any light on the question of exactly which settlements had been designated as relocation sites and which would provide temporary shelter until the nature of the deportation order had been clarified. In the commotion that followed, none of the assembled company could hear themselves speak. A cacophony of shouting, remonstrating, charges and counter allegations ensued and when finally the noise and tearful emotions died down, nobody had come up with any more ideas than they had before.

Towards evening, a rumor was circulated that the authorities would be providing extra trains to transport refugees to their destination. In those settlements that were not situated near the railway lines, horse and cart drivers would be recruited to transport the herds of Jewish refugees in return for a fee to be paid by the Jews themselves. This news provided precious little consolation since all the train stations were located out of town and nobody knew when the trains in question were due to arrive. Even during peacetime, the service was notoriously unreliable and it was only by the grace of God that there were no collisions between trains approaching from opposite directions on the same track.

With total mayhem looming large on the horizon and the threat of the impending arrival of the Cossacks, panic and desperation set in. Those who had money and connections cornered the few horse and carts that were available. They would hurry back and forth from their houses carrying a random selection of clothes, crockery, cutlery and personal effects plus some merchandise from their shop, if there was one, and sling it all on the cart in a heap. Scholars would rescue as many holy books as they could find while the women loaded up with sacks of flour and potatoes and pots of chicken fat, cheese and other foods in preparation for the indefinite period in exile. After the cart had been loaded up to the hilt, anyone who was fortunate enough to find a decent length of rope lying around would secure the contents of the cart to stop things falling off during the journey. Once the terrified passengers themselves had climbed on board, the coachman would crack his whip on the horse and the task of ferrying the damned Yids and their baggage out of town would get under way. Several times throughout the journey, he would stop at a crossroads and wait while his nervous passengers chattered on in the devil's language and began arguing as to whether to make a left or a right turn.

Only a small number of people were lucky enough to find a horse and cart to get them out of harm's way before the Cossacks turned up and sent them on a trip of an entirely different nature. Others paid huge sums to porters to wheel all their belongings in trolleys down to the local train station. Nobody was under any illusion as to whether there would be any room at all on the scheduled trains but it was felt that the best thing to do was to get to the station and hope for Divine Providence.

Up to this point, people still had no idea as to where they could go. Those who had family headed in their direction although relatives were not expected to provide entire families with accommodations and assistance they could ill afford. “Blood is thicker than water” went the famous saying. The people of Israel had always been imbued with the gift of compassion. Would they now turn their backs on their own flesh and blood, the victims of war and tyranny? Most of the displaced people had been born, grew up, married and had children in the same town; hence, they did not have a single relative or contact anywhere else in the country. Where would they go?

A sorrow shared is a sorrow halved and nearly everybody was affected by the recent disaster. A person's true character shines through when he is down on his luck and it appears that the current crisis highlighted the character traits of kindness and compassion for which Jews have been renowned. No widow was left unattended and many people took it upon themselves to ensure that the sick and elderly were also evacuated.

One of the best gifts bestowed by God on the people of Israel was the propensity for charitable deeds. This was a trait of character that had saved our forefathers and was now on full display during the course of the present crisis which saw so many people displaced from their homes and now huddled in one great mass on the platform of the train station. Everybody maintained their dignity and piety throughout the ordeal. The refugees waited on the station platform for days. Fortunately, it was now spring and there was no rain. Mothers managed to find shaded areas where they were able to lay a blanket on the ground on which their babies could rest in relative comfort. Children amused themselves by racing up and down the platform, playing with and teasing one another until their parents, frantic with worry came after them and returned them to the family fold.

Every now and then, the horn of a locomotive could be heard in the distance indicating the imminent arrival of a train. This would be the signal for the crowd to surge forward like an anthill disturbed by an outside force. Hundreds of families would make a dash for the platform edge with people shoving each other aside in an effort to reach one of the carriages as the train drew up. Not all the trains were carrying wounded soldiers and supplies back from the front but then not all trains stopped at all the stations along the route.

Sometimes a train would come through carrying Jewish refugees from another location and masses of people would rush forward hoping to board one of the carriages in which there was still room. Occasions like these provided railway staff with an opportunity that was too good to pass up and in return for a certain payment, they would delay the departure of the train to enable more people to pile on. Those who managed to find room on a carriage for their entire family were extremely fortunate. Occasionally screams of despair could be heard from mothers whose children had been wrenched from their arms in the horrendous crush.

Nobody had any idea where the trains were going or how far the boundaries of the deportation zone extended. Those who were unlucky enough to be left behind on the platform took consolation in the station master's assurances that, according to the telegram he had received, more trains would be made available to collect the stranded refugees. It transpired later on, that this philanthropic gesture on the part of the transport minister cost Jewish executives with 'connections in the right places' a fortune in payoffs to all those who had a hand in the dispatch of additional trains westwards to collect the deportees. By the time a few weeks had passed, the refugees had found temporary shelter with communities situated outside of the deportation zone.

In the meantime, the mediators continued to negotiate with the authorities over the reduction (as usual, in return for the appropriate remuneration) of the size of the provincial area in which Jewish communities would face deportation. As a result, several towns were taken off the list, thereby granting the Jewish communities there a reprieve. It was just as well that a settlement was reached since the whole traumatic episode of the deportations had taken people's minds off the fact that a war was still raging and it could very well spread in their direction.

The armies of the German Kaiser were unlikely to stop at driving the Russian forces back over the Prussian border and could be expected to pursue the campaign further. For the time being, however, while the current crisis was in full swing, nobody had the time to dabble in any form of speculation . Father and mother had begun the transfer of bundles of cash in readiness for the worst possible scenario but ultimately, by virtue of its hereditary privilege, our town was unaffected by the current misery.

It wasn't long before the news reached tens of thousands of refugees that had camped out in the small settlements located in the vicinity of our town. An endless stream of homeless people arrived at our train station. Each train stopped for an hour's break during which time tens of families with children got off, too weary to travel any further. Our town, whose Jewish community numbered, only three hundred, families, was suddenly filled with thousands of Jews that had no shelter, food or moral support. Only time would tell whether our community would be up to the challenge of opening their doors and hearts to their less fortunate brethren.

The saying goes that new troubles put old ones in the pale. If that's the case, how can I have any recollection of the horrors I experienced in my childhood years? The overwhelming majority of Lithuanian Jewry who lived in the country for centuries, having been traumatized by the deportations ordered by the 'defeated general' were eventually wiped out completely some years later. The Nazi Holocaust with its barbaric savagery made the harassment and expulsions of previous years look insignificant by comparison. What point is there in describing such in graphic detail?

Time heals even the deepest scars both in the collective and individual experience. We have endured untold suffering since we were exiled from our homeland centuries ago and in our lamentations over the destruction of Jerusalem we incorporate the anguish and distress over the disasters that each new generation experienced in its own right. What point is there in dredging up the past over and over again only to feel anger and pain once more?

The sweet taste of salvation can never be totally obscured by the bitter taste of the poisoned chalice. Although having sunk in the history of the past, its memory remains undimmed and its taste infinite. During the scant hours of respite, at a time of turbulent changes in the lives of men and nations, when seasons and stars come and go in a flash, when a person's word is no longer his bond, when sacred values are traded on the stock market at going rates, when the morally bankrupt purchase their stock for next to nothing and then parade it on walls of fragmented culture, 'on a day of mass killing when towers collapse and darkness covers the face of the earth' - nothing can provide more gratification than to retreat back to one's childhood days for a breath of fresh air and rejuvenation of spirit.

It is at such moments that I reevaluate the truth and commit myself to viewing objectively the lifestyle and values of my father's day. There can be no better time in which to assess qualities of character than in extenuating circumstances, when a person's true colors shine through.

During that summer I celebrated my birthday. In keeping with the dictate of the sages which determined that 'blessings do not abound in that which has not been concealed', it was not customary in our part of the world to make a person's age a cause for celebration as if that person was deserving of some sort of prize for having survived that long. Even bar mitzvah celebrations were, by definition, merely an opportunity for close family to celebrate their son's mastery of Torah and philosophy for the pleasure and benefit of relatives and guests.

Still, my older sister who instigated the arrangement of a birthday celebration of a more conventional kind for her younger brother to whom she had become attached during their holiday at the dacha in the gypsies' forest. The celebration was scheduled to take place at night time after mother returned from another long day at the shop. Business was pretty slow at this time of year as most peasants were busy working their fields and had no time to come into town to do business with local shops. This was still no reason for mother to close the shop before nightfall, an arrangement which suited her daughter quite nicely.

On her own in the house, she set the table with the Sabbath cloth and set out sparkling cutlery. Placing a milk frying pan on the primus stove (which, being the only one around, was the talk of the town and the envy of all the neighbors who saw it) she cooked a quantity of tantalizing cheese blintzes, usually eaten on the Shavuot holiday. These are pastry rolls filled with cream cheese and cinnamon.

In honor of father, she bought a bottle of cold beer from our neighbor, Malka, who sold goods from home rather than a shop, thereby avoiding the need to apply for a license from the 'acksisnik' (the local customs and rentals clerk) to run a stall in the market. My sister knew that father liked nothing better than a sip of cold frothy beer and a piece of black bread sprinkled with salt.

My surprise present came in the form of a small Torah scroll. Although made from paper (instead of parchment made from the hide of a kosher animal), it looked just like a proper full-sized Torah scroll with the Five Books of Moses and wound around two wooden shafts with the customary decorative heads. A real pleasure to behold! The breastplate for the small Torah scroll consisted of a lattice of silk and steel threads which hung on a red cover which had the words 'A tree of life to all those who hold faith in it' embroidered on the front. And if that wasn't enough, the Torah came packed in a beautiful cardboard box designed like the ark in the synagogue.

My sister had spent a fortune on this gift - almost one silver ruble, wages for four private lessons. There was a joyous atmosphere in the house that night. I came home from evening prayers with father to find the house lit up with a large kerosene lantern and the table set. Even my weary mother had been swept along by her daughter's enthusiasm and greeted us with a loud 'Mazal Tov'. Father acted startled at first but soon understood the reason for the mid-week celebration. He had been clearly caught off guard by the whole idea but saw nothing wrong in this festivity. A few swigs from the beer bottle put him in an ebullient mood and he was clearly impressed with the quality of the miniature Torah scroll.

As an expert Torah reader, he was able to examine the quality of the printing and upon doing so, he concluded that it was top notch. He hinted to me that he expected me to make good use of my Torah scroll for practicing the reading of the weekly portion of Torah using the proper intonation, in preparation for the period following my bar mitzvah when I would be legally able to perform this service in synagogue for the benefit of the entire congregation.

The conversation around the dinner table was generally upbeat with father relating amusing anecdotes, all in honor of my birthday. Although a bloody war was raging, it was still remote enough for us to be oblivious to its menace. 'Out of sight out of mind' is what they say. We were still sitting around the table enjoying the light-hearted atmosphere with father joining in the gaiety in a surprisingly unrestrained manner when the door opened and Uncle Shmuel walked in.

Uncle Shmuel was a relative from my mother's side; she and his wife were sisters. We were neighbors by way of the extended property that had been divided into two separate dowries bequeathed by my grandfather to his two daughters on their marriages. Two houses had been built next to each other on one of his lots on the horse trader's street and each daughter was given a shop in the block he had put up in the market place.

Two sisters who also happened to be neighbors, blood and neighborly ties all rolled into one. Sounds simple? Not quite! Father resented the fact that his brother-in-law had added an extra floor to his house, causing it to tower over the roof of our home and a dispute had broken out between the two. They even took their case to the Rabbi to receive a Torah ruling, although they exercised restraint at all times as befitting two senior community members and avoided descending to the level of trading insults in public. Nevertheless, the two brothers-in-law hardly spoke to each other and at family celebrations they would exchange a few pleasantries and then avoid each other from that point onwards.

The two sisters met outside in the joint yard everyday while putting the cows out to graze and also ran into each other outside their adjacent shops. Fortunately, there was no economic rivalry between the families as my uncle did good business selling fabric and mother had her haberdashery shop. However, relations between the two sisters were also tense. Every conversation ended with a snide remark by one side towards the other and both sisters were astute enough to understand what was being insinuated. This cold state of relations would take a drastic turn on Yom Kippur eve when the two sisters would embrace each other and ask forgiveness for all the harsh words that had been said.

The two sides were also capable of burying the hatchet when a member of the family had, God forbid, been taken ill. We children did not consider ourselves party to the dispute over the roof. We had a partnership that was sealed with an ever increasing pile of sweet wrappers and together we secretly raised litters of kittens born to the cats living in the straw store room or in the shed where the firewood was kept. I knew father disapproved of my visits to my uncle, although the grounds for his objections had more to do with the possible neglect of Torah study than anything else. Any form of game constituted a neglect of Torah study regardless of where it took place.

You may gather from all this that Uncle Shmuel's unexpected visit that evening came as something of a surprise. Father stood up to greet him and they entered father's study where they were closeted in discussion for quite some time. Eventually father re-emerged with a worried look on his face. “Bad news from the front”, he said, “ a trail of Jewish refugees is heading in the direction of our town. The Rabbi of the Misnagdim (most of the Jews in our town did not belong to the Lubavitch community but to their Misnaged counterparts) has called a general meeting at the synagogue tonight. We are going over to the Rabbi for further consultations”, and with that he and Uncle Shmuel walked out.

I felt totally deflated and my sister almost burst into tears. We didn't know any details of what was going on but I had the feeling something terrible was about to happen. The ongoing war was no longer just a matter for disagreement between Elke, the 'Poyena'. ('Poyena' was a derogatory term for Russians and I called my opponent Elke by this name because of his ardent support for Russia throughout the conflict).

I sensed that this evening was not just my birthday - an occasion of nominal importance only - but would also bring the curtain down on my contented childhood whose main elements had been the study of Torah and moral instruction by a strict father. I would now have to face the realities of a tough life, the life of a Jew in exile in an empire of evil that knew its crimes but was looking for a scapegoat on whom to place the blame.

Father returned from the meeting after midnight. After I had awakened and tasted the eggnog which father had prepared as always, we had a long conversation, man-to-man. I sensed that he too was now grasping the fact that my life was about to undergo considerable change and so he felt he could take me into his confidence. He described the unique atmosphere at the general meeting in great detail.

In an unprecedented move, the Misnaged Rabbi had dispatched one of the community leaders with a message to Rabbi Alperovitch, the leader of the Hassidic community, the first such communication between them since they took up their posts. Following the standard form of greeting, the Rabbi went on to say, “The situation is becoming intolerable and indeed this is a time of affliction for Jacob. We are now in need of Divine Mercy. Tens of thousands of displaced persons are about to invade our town like a swarm of locusts”.

The Misnaged Rabbi of our town was a gifted writer. He had become renowned for his work written in fluent, traditional Hebrew script in which he railed against liberals, provocateurs and agitators, calling for a strengthening of religious roots. He was a hard-liner and a fanatic in all matters pertaining to the upholding of Mitzvot. It was the sense of communal duty that led to the acknowledgment that past differences had to be put aside and all sides were duty-bound to join forces in the effort to save our brethren in distress. The Misnaged Rabbi ended with an urgent appeal to his Hassidic colleague to attend the general meeting that night that was to take place, God willing, in the 'cold' synagogue.

This was a rather ostentatious building with no facilities for heating during winter months. It had been built by a landed aristocrat who was keen to have the Jews settle on his property, in the belief that they would enhance its value with their industriousness and diligence. As a token of his friendship and good intentions he spent a small fortune on the construction of a synagogue whose architectural design clearly resembled that of a church. Because of the size and draught inside the building during autumn and winter, the synagogue was only used for prayers on holidays and the High Holy days with the service conducted according to the Misnaged tradition.

The Misnaged Rabbi had chosen the 'cold' synagogue as a neutral venue for the scheduled meeting in order to avoid stirring up any controversy. He, himself, had never set foot in the synagogue since it was built since it was too cold inside and had no adequate facilities for studying Torah in comfort. Hence, the decision to convene the meeting at this particular venue was a way of highlighting the severity of the crisis that now faced the community as a whole.

The Misnaged Rabbi's suggestion appealed to Rabbi Alperovitch and, in light of the clear and present danger and the action that needed to be taken, he was more than happy to take up the challenge. He now felt that this was an ideal opportunity to extend the atmosphere of reconciliation to disputes that had broken out within his own community and this prompted him to come up with a great idea of his own. He summoned my Uncle Shmuel who was one of his closest aides and gave him an unusual task:

“Please go and see your brother-in-law, Rabbi Meir, and show him this letter from the other Rabbi and after you've talked it over, bring him here and we'll go to the meeting together. On your way back, contact Rabbi Getzil Hoffman and his brother, Hillel Zilber, and bring them too. They have been at loggerheads over the right to a bequest from their late father, Rabbi Zalman of blessed memory, namely the rights to the recital of the 'Maftir Yona' ( the Haftorah read in the afternoon prayers on Yom Kippur) and have not spoken to each other since the mourning for their father ended. Now is an ideal opportunity for them to make amends and agree some form of compromise, an act which will credit them with Divine Mercy”.

My Uncle Shmuel, being the adroit individual he was, grasped the significance of this errand. And so, after a long conspicuous absence, he strode into our house - much to our embarrassment - acting as if he owned the place and shook father warmly by the hand like he had just returned from a long journey, before retiring with him to the side room for their private discussion.

The meeting at the synagogue was the talk of the town for many days afterwards. The two Rabbis and wardens from the respective communities ascended the rostrum. On the Rabbis' bidding, the sexton of the big synagogue, 'Mendel der rupper' (Mendel the announcer) walked with halting steps up to the Ark, swept aside the curtain and opened the doors to reveal a row of Torah scrolls. As was the custom on fast days and High Holy days, this was the cue for the congregation to burst out in a flood of weeping following which the all too familiar verses of supplication were read out aloud: “The Lord God shall answer thee on the day of trouble, the God of Jacob shall shelter thy name, He shall send His help from Kodesh and from Zion He shall nourish thee”.

The highly charged atmosphere caused any remaining inhibitions among the congregation to dissipate completely and the synagogue was filled with desperate cries and wails, reminiscent of the emotion evoked when reciting the psalm 'To the chief musician, a psalm to the sons of Korah' which is read on New Year's day prior to the blowing of the Shofar. The agitated voices reverberated back and forth from the huge dome shaped ceiling. Eventually the commotion quieted down and the Hassidic Rabbi invited his Misnaged colleague to give the opening address. Naturally the Misnaged Rabbi reciprocated by inviting Rabbi Alperovitch to do the honors.

Seated in the assembled congregation were community leaders, traders in holy artifacts, married yeshiva students who were being supported by their fathers-in-law as well as skilled tradesmen (who, although not scholars themselves, were by no means ignorant or illiterate and generously supported all charitable causes).

Also showing up that evening were several members of the educated elite or 'Yom Kippurniks'; a derisive term taken to refer to that band of individuals who made their living by providing services to the rest of the community but were non-believers themselves, preferring to dress, talk and act like their Gentile neighbors. Some of them went as far as to violate the Sabbath in public like Dr. Zabadia and Dr. Michleson who, as opposed to physicians in other towns, did not engage in any rivalry and went out for picnics together on summer evenings in their carriages just like the aristocrats. They would stroll in the woods behind the church arm in arm with their colleague's wife as if in a gesture of defiance.

They only attended synagogue on Yom Kippur eve for the Kol Nidre prayer, occasionally putting in an extra attendance on New Year's day around mid-morning when the Shofar was being blown, in order to show their children how a traditional service looked and sounded. The doctors came to the meeting looking as scared as everybody else, although they tried to show as much restraint as possible.

Also attending were the lawyer Schlechter, Reznik, the pharmacist, and the head bookkeeper at the office of the linen exporter, Luzovski, who declared himself to be 'secular' and wore a type of student's beret, claiming that prior to moving to our town he studied economics at some prestigious institute in Kiev. Nobody had gone to the trouble of verifying his claims and when referring to him the “town clowns” quoted the famous adage of the sages: 'He who wishes to lie will keep his evidence out of sight'.

The Rabbis kept their addresses brief due to the lack of concrete information and their inability to control their emotions for long. There was no way of knowing how events would turn out and one could not rule out the possibility that we would suffer a similar fate to that of our brethren, becoming victims of an updated version of the now infamous blood libel. For the time being, however, our community was staying put whereas thousands of men, women and children were on their way to us and we were duty bound to welcome them with brotherly love and compassion in compliance with the Mitzvah: 'Thou shalt not stand against the blood of thy neighbor'.

In practical terms, the Rabbis had several suggestions that were put to the congregation for debate. To start off with, the women involved in charitable work, assisted by the heder pupils would go from door-to-door with sacks collecting as much food and drinks as possible. The gifts would then be loaded on to wagons and several women and boys would escort the wagons to the railway station and then wait on the platform to welcome the evacuees who were due to arrive on the trains.

The groups responsible for this task would work in shifts changing every few hours to allow mothers and housewives to get some rest. Another group would start work on the organizing of temporary shelter and accommodations for the weary refugees who were expected to arrive on trains, wagons and even on foot.

No sooner had the Rabbis finished speaking, when a chorus of voices began babbling in unison. People exchanged views, made suggestions, examined ideas, voiced disagreement and made calculations. The two Rabbis, meanwhile, were engaged in serious consultations, with other eminent scholars, both Hassidic and Misnaged, who were in attendance answering the Rabbis' questions, their faces sober and fearful.

It appeared that the Rabbis and scholars were deliberating over a very serious issue that would require an extremely problematic verdict. Finally the consultation ended and the sexton once again ascended the rostrum holding a unique implement known as the 'Faatsher' (gavel). This was a form of rattle with two lacquered wooden boards held in place by a strap and was used to call the congregation to order during services when the noise of people talking got out of hand. Clasping the leather grip on the handle the sexton would bring the implement down hard on the rostrum with the resulting clap echoing through the hall. The implement was used at various junctures throughout the service such as the reading of the Torah or the calling up of a bar mitzvah boy or bridegroom to read the Haftorah.

Now that silence had been restored, the two Rabbis ascended the rostrum once more, followed by several prominent community members. The Hassidic Rabbi was once again invited to speak first and this time he didn't refuse. With his voice quivering with emotion, his body trembling and his eyes closed as if reciting a Hassidic liturgy at the Shabbat afternoon meal he said:

“With the consent of the Divine Presence and the consent of the Rabbis and Torah sages, we hereby announce and declare that the current situation is one where the Shabbat may be broken in order to save a life, this being in accordance with rulings made by the leading authorities. Therefore, we permit, and even command, the women to perform any kind of work on Shabbat that may be required to assist our displaced brethren on their arrival in our town. All persons are permitted to light fires for the purpose of preparing food and caring for children and sick people”.

The Rabbi's voice was unsteady to begin with but became more authoritative as he continued speaking. This was not just another didactic rabbinical ruling but an order binding on Shabbat observance in our town. We were now being called on to publicly violate the commandment of Shabbat observance whenever necessary.

The Misnaged Rabbi, who was well-known for his fanatical adherence to mitzvot, adopted a similar line in his address.

“This is a time to do the Lord's will by violating His Torah. There is no greater mitzvah than the saving of a Jewish soul as it is written: 'He who saves a single soul is considered to have saved the entire universe'. Now that we are being tested by the Lord God, whose ways we can never aspire to comprehend, we must submit to His will and transgress on His commandments. Through the merits of this deed, God will show mercy and revoke all sovereign edicts. The oppressed shall return to their homes and the Redeemer shall come to Zion and let us say Amen”.

The Rabbi then signaled the orphans present to recite the mourners Kaddish whereupon they all broke out in a chorus: “Yitgadal Veyitkadash shme rabba”. The meeting ended and the crowd dispersed, numb from the proceedings that had just taken place.

The crucial test was not long in coming. The very next day Jewish families began arriving in town on horses and wagons. They recalled the details of the deportations and described the mayhem and heartbreaking scenes they themselves had witnessed. Soon, more wagons bringing families from other settlements were arriving in town.

The first thing the refugees wanted to know was what had been decided regarding our town and whether it had been included in the deportation zone or not. The truth was that nobody really knew the answer to that question. Community leaders were given a plethora of differing replies from various government officials. It all depended on whom they talked to. The one thing they all had in common was the speed with which they shoved the proffered ruble notes in their pockets in return for testifying to the loyalty of the town's Jewish community to his royal highness the Czar and confirming that no one was under suspicion of committing espionage, heaven forbid.

To be perfectly honest, none of these individuals knew a thing about the extent of the deportation and it was highly doubtful whether any of the staff officers on the ground had ever seen a map. The 'supreme general' and his cronies, the military high command, kept a considerable distance between themselves and the front. They were quite happy to issue orders from afar, which were then relayed by telegram, telephone and principally by cavalry dispatch riders who made long journeys from place-to-place on racehorses with orders from the general secured in a leather pouch hanging from their neck.

Sometimes the rider would get lost and find himself asking direction from local peasants who couldn't understand a word he was saying and gave him some approximate instructions in order to get him off their backs. Sometimes the rider would arrive at his destination to find that the entire camp had been disbanded and moved to a safer location. On other occasions he would reach his destination to find it had been captured by advance German forces following which he would either be taken prisoner or, if less fortunate, face a firing squad.

There was no source of authority whatsoever that could throw any light on the exact scope of the deportations and until such time as information to that effect was forthcoming, the rate of refugees arriving steadily increased. Trains packed to capacity continued to arrive at the station and hundreds of families that had squeezed into the crowded carriages together with their children and sick relatives stepped down on to the platform, too weary to travel any further.

During this time, I kept up my Torah study as usual. Every morning I turned up at the Rabbi's house carrying a large volume containing the Gemara tractate 'Baba Batra' under my arm. Both the Rabbi and I viewed our sessions as an ideal opportunity to escape from the bitter reality outside but these periods were always short-lived. We would manage to study for an hour at the most after which community officials on refugee business would barge in with questions, suggestions, requests and complaints.

The fact that I was still young did not stop the Rabbi from consulting me on crucial matters and he often called on my help to settle disputes. He also gave me the job of supervising food distribution down at the train station on Shabbat. I never knew whether he genuinely trusted me or whether he merely found it expedient to give all the chores that entailed breaking Shabbat to a minor who had not yet reached bar mitzvah age. Either way, I tried to be as meticulous as possible when carrying out the tasks I had been given.

He even allowed me to organize a group of friends my age who would be given jobs providing assistance and care as required. Father took his lead from the Rabbi and consulted him over his ideas and plans, all of which were aimed at providing relief to the displaced families that were heading our way. And so we were able to get father to agree to clear all possible space in our home and yard in readiness for the provision of shelter for refugee families should there be no more vacant rooms in the synagogues and other people's homes.

Two completely incongruous individuals took upon themselves the difficult task of finding more accommodations, the iron merchant, Rabbi Mendel Rabinovitch, one of the community leaders and an eminent scholar, and Motti Schlechter, the pharmacist, one of the local comedians with an aversion to religious affairs. Together they walked the streets, knocking on the doors of every single suitable home, asking the occupants to provide shelter. Such an unusual duo could hardly be turned away empty-handed and when they had finished they handed the list of potential hosts to Rabbi Alperovitch.

Under an agreement reached between the two rabbis, Rabbi Alperovitch took charge of all the arrangements for accommodations for the homeless while his colleague, the Misnaged Rabbi, went from house to house asking for donations that would be used to purchase food and clothing for the refugees. Rabbi Alperovitch was accompanied on his rounds by none other than Dr. Zabadia who, in deference to the Rabbi, left his carriage at home and undertook the Mitzvah of charity on foot. He and the Rabbi walked the streets together, engrossed in deep conversation to the disbelief of onlookers who had never seen anything like it before.

The square outside the train station and the main roads leading out to neighboring towns were a hive of activity. Estimates of the exact number of families arriving by train or wagon differed. Those who tended to exaggerate, put the total number of families in thousands with as many as ten members per family. The Rabbi estimated the total number of families to be around one thousand, three times the number permanently living in our town. It was positively mortifying to observe on that first turbulent Shabbat, religious Jews breaking the Sabbath in public by stoking up fires with more wood, on which hot meals were being prepared for babies and the sick and elderly.

Were it not for the gravity of the moment, I would have probably doubled up with laughter at the sight of my former Gemara tutor, Rabbi Moshe Mordecai, trailing behind a scruffy looking woman with a toddler on either side while he carried a baby girl in his arms that was screaming her head off despite his best efforts to calm her. Father, on the other hand, was a stickler for order and personal initiative. He took charge of all the refugee children of heder age whose parents had found shelter in the town. He placed me at the Rabbi's disposal for the first two days of turmoil and, as mentioned earlier, I organized a group of my friends who worked at temporary stands on the station platform, handing out food and hot water to the weary and thirsty refugees. The doctors had ordered that all water be boiled so as to prevent outbreaks of dysentery among them.

One of the families arriving on the trains stood out among the rest due to their exemplary conduct. Although refugees themselves, they did not panic or become agitated like the rest of the unfortunate masses, but instead they calmly took down a few elegant looking suitcases and found themselves a secluded spot under a large tree. There, the mother spread a blanket and placed a beautiful three year old girl down to rest.

The father, a trim individual with a pince-nez perched on his nose, busied himself giving instructions to the children who were doing their jobs and offering help wherever possible. He came towards me and alongside him I saw a handsome child, smartly dressed unlike the local kids. The father offered me his hand and gave his name - Yaakov Epstein - and asked mine.

Then he brought the boy forward, introducing him as 'Yossef', not Yossi or Yossel as children with that name were known in our town. The boy offered his hand in a cordial manner and asked if I needed any help. The father said they were only stopping over for a few hours until a more comfortable passenger train came by that would take them east to Vitebsk where his brother lived. During the last part of their journey, which they caught in the nick of time, their daughter had felt ill and so they decided to get off and wait for a passenger train before continuing their journey. The son had watched what I was doing and was interested in joining in. I was excited at hearing the father and son converse in Hebrew in the same manner that father used to talk with me when we were out walking on Shabbat. For a moment I forgot where I was and what I was supposed to be doing and blurted out with enthusiasm “atta medaber ivrit?” (do you speak Hebrew?).

Our joy knew no bounds! Yossef spoke Yiddish with a somewhat different accent, rolling his 'r' in a distinct fashion. We immediately became bosom pals and in all the excitement I almost forgot about my local friends who were awaiting my instructions. Yossef was clever and enterprising.

Barely an hour had passed when an old woman, who was standing near our stalls, fainted and collapsed with exhaustion. With all the activity going on, none of us had even noticed her lying prostrate on the ground. I had never seen a person faint before and froze with horror. Yossef, however, did not lose his composure. He instructed me to throw cold water over the woman while he ran off towards his family's camp site. In the meantime, onlookers had gathered round, exacerbating the entire commotion even further while I stood over the unconscious woman whom I had just doused with water, my hands shaking with fear. She started to move her hands and emitted a groan.

At that moment, Yossef's father made his way through the crowd and bending down he took hold of the woman's wrist. In the meantime, the surrounding crowd had swelled even further. We soon learned that Yossef's father was none other than Dr. Yaakov Epstein, a physician of repute whose patients held him in the highest regard. He was also famous for his ardent support for the Zionist idea, a rare occurrence among the upper classes. I wasn't to learn of this until later.

In a firm voice, Dr. Epstein requested that the crowd disperse and people immediately responded. The woman needed to be moved indoors and nursed in bed until she recovered, he explained. The patient's daughter and son-in-law arrived on the scene but, being helpless refugees themselves, they were of little help. The daughter began sobbing hysterically as if her mother was already dead, “Mamale, Mamale!”.

As luck would have it, father himself came to the rescue. By an act of Divine Providence, he happened to walk by and saw what was going on. The volunteers had given him a good account of my work so far. He was indeed the right person at the right time. He took control of events and welcomed the doctor. A local coachman volunteered to transport the patient and her family to his home where they could stay until more suitable accommodations were found and the woman had fully recovered. I told father about my new acquaintance's fluency in Hebrew.

Although not a Zionist himself, father was a keen user of Hebrew and educated his children to carry on the tradition. When he invited Dr. Epstein's family to stay on in our town for a few more days, I felt as if my prayers had been answered. “The two doctors we have can barely cope with the vast number of patients we now have among the refugees here”, said father to Dr. Epstein. “Perhaps the good doctor would be willing to join them and be an assistant rather an emigrant”, he added in a jocular manner. “There is no problem as far as accommodations are concerned as we can make a room available in our house. The boys can sleep in the empty shed and use the haystacks as bedding”. The guest talked briefly with his wife and accepted father's offer.

It would have all been perfect had it not been for the misfortune that had befallen all of us. I couldn't have wished for better company. The Epstein family turned out to be extremely friendly and cultured people. I found Mrs. Epstein's Yiddish rather amusing. Her mother tongue was Russian and she had been born in Kharkov. She married Dr. Epstein when they were both students at Dorfet University in Estonia and cut her studies short when their eldest son, Yaakov, was born. She continued to work as receptionist in her husband's clinic and picked up her Yiddish from his many patients.

My sister, who was fluent in Russian, found her company delightful. They got on well together and had long and frank discussions on current affairs including Zionism and socialism. My sister tried to interest our guest in socialist policies and in response our guest tried to convert my sister to Zionism.

The men, on the other hand, tentatively avoided discussing such issues. Father busied himself with teaching Torah and traditional Hebrew to his pupils while Dr Epstein became renowned as a specialist. His only condition was that a local doctor accompany him on his rounds to ensure that his local colleagues were not deprived of their livelihood while he was in town. His brother kept sending him telegrams from Vitebsk urging him to move on, to which he replied by saying he would only leave town once his services were no longer required. Nothing is stranger than having a calamity trigger an event with positive, even joyous consequences. Within two weeks things had calmed down. Not that the Jews had anything to celebrate about by any means! As the saying goes: 'Troubles don't look that bad once you've had a chance to sleep them off”!

Gradually most of the displaced families moved on, leaving behind a hundred and fifty of the poorest of the recent exodus, who were more than happy with their sorry lot as refugees in our town and were reluctant to continue wandering in unknown territory. At least, here they had a roof over their heads and their children were able to join the local heder thereby ensuring they kept up their studies. Even the local 'Ocielazi' (school), which specialized in teaching Jewish girls to read and write Russian, opened its doors to girls from refugee families who had already started their schooling before being deported. Tradesmen found work in their professions with local employers while the few people with capital entered the real estate business and prospered. The Rabbi was introduced to the family of Dr. Epstein and father gave his permission for Yossef to join me in the study of the tractate 'Baba Batra'.

Yossef was a year older than me but I was still ahead of him in knowledge of the Talmud. Luckily for him, his father had ensured that he had received the basic grounding in Torah and Jewish studies in his education up to this point. He attended the “gymnasia” (or high school) in his home town, whose population was overwhelmingly Jewish, yet was nevertheless limited by the gymnasia management to a pupil quota of no more than fifty per cent of the total school population. Jewish parents who wished to send their child to the gymnasia were required to find him a Russian Gentile classmate whose school fees would also be paid by them. And if that wasn't enough, the Gentile classmate, who in some cases turned out to be a complete dunce, would also have to be taught Torah by his Jewish counterpart, a venture which did not always prove successful.

My life changed beyond recognition after Yossef came to stay at our house. I was glad to be of help to him in his Gemara studies and he, in turn, although not a great student himself, was methodical and thorough when applying himself to his studies. He encouraged me to do the same, much to the satisfaction of father who observed a tangible improvement in my level of diligence when studying.

We had a lot of spare time for intimate conversations and we exploited it to the fullest. He revealed all his secrets to me, including his fervent love for a girl who was in his class back at the gymnasia but who was several years older than him. This was not a drawback as far as he was concerned. He had not yet had an opportunity to confess his love to her, but would do so in good time. For the time being, he was willing to settle for some form of illusion which was extremely vague in nature.

Her name was Nora, a non-Jewish name, but when they were older and the romance became mutual he would convince her to change her name to Shulamit. This was a name taken from the book 'Song of Songs' and all Zionist girls had adopted it as their own.

Eventually, Yossef's parents would move to Palestine, or Eretz Israel, where his father would purchase some land and divide his time between two occupations. Half the day would be devoted to cultivating and planting crops as well as harvesting and treading grapes in the wine pit - in accordance with biblical tradition - with the other half devoted to his medical practice.

Yossef hoped to follow in his father's footsteps and be a doctor as well. He had not yet decided what his beloved wife-to-be, Nora, would do following her immigration to Palestine. They had not had a chance as yet to discuss their future together so he still had no idea as to the profession she wished to pursue in their new home. Naturally she would be free to make her own choice but it was more than likely that she would want to assist him in the tending and shearing of their flocks of sheep, a true Zionist vocation if ever there was one.

I was unable to reciprocate by telling Yossef about my own secret love. The trouble was of course, that the object of my affection was merely a figment of my imagination called Tamar, whose adulation I shared with another story-book character called Amnon. I had never had any experience of being lovesick up to this point, save for the brief encounter with Masha who left me heartbroken during my stay at the dacha.

The stories I told Yossef were complete fabrications of my own design, and had more to do with bravery than romance. This should not be taken as inferring I was ignorant in such matters. A boy like me with three Gemara tractates under his belt, namely Kiddushin, Gittin and Ketubot, all of which deal with relations between the sexes, could be relied on to know a thing or two about virginity, proper conduct, nuptial agreements and suchlike. These were Gemara tractates whose contents I had learned until I knew them backwards. Of course this didn't really have the slightest thing to do with romance and courtship! The daughters of my neighbors that were my age were all irritating and slovenly individuals and I kept well away from them. It was during the difficult period of deportation that I had an experience that was quite a novelty for me.

A refugee family was staying with Uncle Shmuel next door to our house. The father was a Shochet (ritual slaughterer) by profession and had seven children, one of whom was a girl my age. Her name was Yochebed and she always looked for excuses to mingle with the boys. When we were putting our cows out to graze each morning, she would turn up and give us a hand. She was always eager to help us put out straw and feed for the animal's evening meal so that it would be able to chew its cud thereby reaffirming its own kashrut.

One evening while visiting our shop, mother asked me to put out some extra hay for the cow since she had forgotten to feed it earlier in the day. I came home and headed straight for the shed. No sooner had I entered and begun laying out the hay when Yochebed followed me in. I felt two soft arms encircling my neck and then a wet kiss was planted on my cheek. The horrified cry 'oy” that involuntarily escaped my throat scared the brazen girl away and like an alley cat she slipped out the entrance and was gone in a flash.

For some reason, I never ruminated over this incident during the following days. I didn't tell my loyal friend about it either. Yochebed kept out of sight for the next few days and then reappeared in the yard as if nothing unusual had happened. Several days after that, the entire family left town on their way east. Yochebed, or 'yellow Yochebed' as we called her because of her ginger colored hair and pony tails that flapped in the breeze as she ran, soon faded from my memory completely.

According to the Russian newspaper that Dr. Epstein received, some form of cease fire was holding on all fronts and in Switzerland initial contacts were being made in preparation for possible peace talks between the warring sides. I held a deep-seated yearning for revenge on the Russians and hoped for their downfall. Yossef also hated the Russians but, unlike me, he was happy to see a peace deal struck since the trauma of deportation had left him mentally scarred and weary of the war. He was not looking forward to the planned journey to stay with his uncle who for some reason, he was not fond of at all.

Our friendship gave both of us a great deal of satisfaction. With our parents' permission, we went swimming from one end to another of the crystal clear waters of the Lavina River. My sister would take us out for 'evening conversations' which were held in simple straightforward Hebrew. Father found the Zionist doctor extremely interesting although he did not attempt to hide his reservations regarding the Zionist movement which could, heaven forbid, go the same way as the movement of Shabtai Zvi.

Dr. Herzl may have sported a beard as long as those usually seen on the faces of distinguished clerics but he always appeared bareheaded in photographs; hence, it was doubtful whether he had been chosen as the oracle through whom news of the Divine Salvation would be delivered.

Our studies at the Rabbi's house were making good progress with Yossef taking an avid interest in the material we were studying. I remember those few glorious weeks as some of the best days of my childhood. Was this to be the period of calm that preceded the storm? We had just about forgotten that only a few kilometers away, two armies were camped out, armed to the teeth and were ready upon being given the order, to drown the evergreen fields in a sea of blood. The war was a frequent topic for discussion and argument among us, with sardonic jokes made about the contemptible Russian regime of the Czar.

The turbulent atmosphere during this period resembled the erratic tide of change in the opinions, queries, theories and commentaries contained in a chapter of the tractate 'Baba Batra'. At least father was now more relaxed, no longer expressing any concern over the relationship between me and my sister, whom he feared would lead me astray, God preserve us, in the same manner that she and my eldest sister had influenced my older brother. My sister's attitude towards our parents also took a turn for the better. She listened with interest to father's lessons on the Lubavitch Hassidic philosophy that he gave to a few close friends during meals on Shabbat.

My sister's opinion regarding mother's shop, which she had always viewed as taboo, changed considerably. Young Jewish militants had always viewed shopkeeping with utter contempt and saw it as a form of bourgeois life style, to be expunged on the day of socialist emancipation and revolution of the proletariat. The young Jewish socialists found themselves having to direct all their fire at the enemy from 'within', namely Jewish shopkeepers with their middle-class mentality, who were unable to identify with the oppressed and underprivileged and, as a result, would be incapable of pulling their weight when the class struggle began.

My sister looked at things in an entirely different light, once she witnessed mother slaving away in the shop from dawn until dusk, in addition to finding time to crouch on her knees in the garden weeding, hoeing planting and gathering onions, carrots, cucumbers, turnips, radishes, beans and a sack full of potatoes whenever they were in season. Mother did all this in addition to baking, kneading, cooking, milking, making cheese, and the rest!

And if a housewife just happened to give birth there was always time to drop in with a bowl of soup, as the shop wasn't going any place in the meantime. The bowl of soup was but a by-product of the chicken mother had put on the stove that morning and on her way to the shop, she would make a detour which, as luck would have it, took her right past the door of the home of the new mother. With the usual greeting: “Mazal tov, and all the best for the future”, she would make her way to the shop before the bewildered mother had managed to get a word in. So it was difficult even for a die-hard revolutionary like my sister to see her mother as a middle-class snob.

These were days of high expectations, interest and pleasure for me. I was in demand at home like I never had been before. One day while father was expounding on his own interpretation of the hymns recited on the High Holidays - a pastime we both enjoyed - Shabtai, the sexton, came to summon us to a consultation at the Rabbi's house.

I went along with father and Yossef came too. On our arrival, we were surprised to see twenty community members, all participants in the minyan, seated in the Rabbi's study. They were chatting in earnest with one another, filling the room with the smoke from their cigarettes. The Rabbi came in last and invited his guests to move to special benches with arm-rests that had been brought in specially for the meeting. Once they were all seated again he began his address.

It now transpired that the 'Koropkas' (the community fund financed by a self-imposed tax placed by the Jews on kosher meat, the proceeds of which were used for community expenses such as Rabbis' salaries and other regular costs), both that of the Hassidim and Misnagdim had been completely used up. They were never in any surplus to speak of at the best of times and the recent crisis had been a considerable drain on reserves, in spite of the impressive philanthropy and charitable pledges that had been forthcoming from the community as a whole.

Out of lack of choice, the wardens responsible for the 'Koropkas' had to resort to soliciting for funds and borrowed any money they could lay their hands on. At first they stuck to asking for charitable loans and took money off anyone who had a couple of rubles to spare. Then, when the crisis deepened, they found themselves borrowing off local money lenders. These were Jews who made a living by lending money and were granted a special dispensation by way of a Torah ruling that allowed them to charge interest on loans. These individuals had contributed vast sums to the central charity fund and, in waiving their rights to any interest they were due, they had left themselves completely broke. Traders, street vendors and others were all in need of assistance but there were no funds left.

The Rabbi forgot to mention that neither were there any funds left to pay his or his colleague's salary and as a result their wives had been buying Sabbath groceries on credit for two months now, a situation that was intolerable. The required sum would be another form of 'Maot Chitim' (the charity fund raising money for the purchase of Passover groceries for the poor, which operated according to the principle of being willing to be either a donor or recipient), only this time the figure required ran into the thousands rather than hundreds and nobody had the faintest idea as to where the money would come from. The Rabbi did his best to soften the blow he delivered by incorporating verses from the Torah and quotations from the sages and Lubavitch ideology in his speech. When he finally finished, he sat down, stroking his beard pensively.

As expected, an uproar broke out with the entire gathering shouting one another down in one long deafening racket. Rabbi Getzil Hoffman, a wholesale dealer and a keen scholar who also had a penchant for Zionism and secular education, was asked by the Rabbi to conduct the meeting. Getzil knew whom he was dealing with and so he let the members shout, heckle and castigate one another for an entire hour until they were all completely hoarse and more than willing to let him take charge. He had been waiting for this opportunity and with the Rabbi's permission he analyzed the ideas that had been discussed so far. It had all been a lot of rhetoric with very little substance. Rabbi Getzil went over the ideas one-by- one, discreetly commending the individual concerned for his ingenuity so as not to cause offense but at the same time exposing all the flaws in the suggestion he had broached.

It was, of course, possible to increase the 'Koropka' on beef and in addition place a new 'Koropka' on chicken. This would entail a charge of five kopeks for each foul killed by the slaughterers. 'A Gedank' (good thinking!). But this tax would only bring in a limited income since chicken was the staple food of the community's poorer members and they could barely afford to buy a sizable amount of meat even for the Sabbath. So that idea was not much help.

One could, of course, sell burial lots in the new cemetery, perish the thought ( words which one must always add when talking about such matters). But even at the best of times, land was going cheap and it was always possible to close a deal for the purchase of several lots at a bargain price, even more so during these days of total mayhem. Everyone had enough on their plates worrying about the trials and tribulations of everyday life; who could possibly have time to worry about investments in the after world?

The same verdict applied to the suggestion to auction off the franchise for the sale of yeast for baking. Several communities had already adopted this idea but people in our town were reluctant to use this method of raising community generated revenue due to the opposition of shopkeepers. They demanded that no measures be taken which might have an adverse effect on their income. It was not just the sale of yeast that was at stake but rather a whole range of accompanying products such as flour, spices, raisins and other items used in the preparation of Shabbat foods (such as gefilte fish and challah) that would be at risk if this proposal was implemented.

To sum up, all the ideas broached were good on paper but little more than that. Now it was Rabbi Getzil's turn to broach an idea he had prepared in advance, as he was accustomed to doing in such instances. He was the last person to speak and as a rule his ideas were usually accepted by the majority. He never held himself back and always spoke his mind when addressing the community. He recalled the phenomenal success of the last fund raising campaign for the 'Sofit' that our minyan had undertaken a few years earlier. Everyone remembered the special Sabbath on which our minyan held an 'Ufrufen' (special invitations to the reading of the weekly portion of Torah).

“We needed a total of five hundred rubles back then”, said Rabbi Getzil, reminding the assembled company that after deduction of costs they had been left with a surplus of a hundred and fifty rubles which had been used to buy a new curtain for the ark and a copper basin for the priests to wash their hands in prior to the communal blessing. And there was still money left over to have a Hassidic style celebration in which the entire congregation had been invited to a sumptuous afternoon meal with a guest speaker on Hassidic philosophy to top it all off. The wine had flowed like water and the honey cakes were in abundance. All in all, the 'Sofit' had been a runaway success. Why not try the same thing again?

The requirements were considerably larger this time but what of it? Everyone knew what was at stake, that this was a time of trouble for Jacob and the funds were needed to keep the community afloat. There was no doubting the willingness of all the members to economize on their own expenses and contribute as much as they possibly could to save the community from falling apart, heaven forbid.

The problem was that with a war on everybody had difficulty making ends meet and those who could, saved all their spare cash for contingency purposes. Under these circumstances one could not expect to witness any magnanimous acts of philanthropy from anonymous donors. The sages interpreted the verse 'And thou shalt love with all thy heart' as referring to both the good and evil spirits within man. Pride was not a trait of character synonymous with the Hassidic way of life but, when there was no choice, one was required to use it to advantage in mitigating circumstances.

The declaration of a pledge made upon being called up to the Torah is about as public as you can get. The congregation would always listen carefully to the pledges being made by the benefactors and then render their verdict accordingly. A generous contribution would be greeted with a long “pshhhh” which indicated the congregation was clearly impressed by the splendid display of benevolence.

A miser on the other hand, whose miniscule contribution clearly indicated his reluctance to part with his money under any circumstances, would be greeted with a long “paaaa” upon stepping down from the rostrum, indicating the congregation's contempt and disgust at observing the individual giving in to his evil inclination that had prevented him from performing an act of charity of the highest order. This was the only way to get any considerable sum of money out of the congregation as pledges made on the Sabbath were always realized the following day when the wardens came around to the houses of the individuals in question to collect their payments.

Rabbi Getzil suggested that a repeat of the 'Sofit' fund raising campaign be launched as early as the following Shabbat. All through the coming week, Rabbi Shabtai would make the announcement three times a day following prayers that the coming Shabbat would be a fund raising drive aimed at meeting the phenomenal costs incurred during the refugee crisis. Everyone would be required to make their pledges in hard cash that could be collected the next day, in order that the clearance of debts could commence immediately. Rabbi Getzil was confident that the generosity of the Lubavitch congregation of the minyan would more than match that of other congregations in our town.

It had now become apparent that the meeting that had just taken place was nothing more than a token gesture to placate the community members so that they would not feel they were being sidelined before the planned fund raiser was officially launched. The actual decision had been taken two days earlier at an emergency meeting attended by the two Rabbis and leaders of congregations from all the synagogues in town. Rabbi Getzil's proposal, backed as it was by the proven success of the 'Sofit' project, was unanimously adopted.

Unlike the previous 'Sofit', however, this fund raising campaign would not be limited to one synagogue only but would encompass the entire community. Each person would be called up to the reading of the Torah in his own synagogue and the members of synagogues and prayer houses throughout town would be vying with one another for the ultimate prestige, inherent in pledges made in public. This was what Rabbi Getzil was getting at when he said we should not feel inferior to other synagogues when we came to make our pledges since we were the pioneers who first thought of the idea and the 'Sofit' project was an example that would now be emulated by all the other synagogues in town.

The mention of the word 'Sofit' aroused renewed feelings of contempt and anger towards father over the shameful ordeal he had put me through by sticking to his principles that Shabbat. I had long since forgotten about that awful day and now, just when my relationship with father had taken a turn for the better, it had come back to haunt me all over again. I stole a look in father's direction when Getzil mentioned the 'Sofit' project and expected him to blush with embarrassment or contrition, or perhaps raise an objection but no such response was forthcoming.

He stood near his usual place at the minyan leaning against the prayer pulpit, browsing through a book that was open but was still following the entire proceedings without missing a word. Father did not get drawn into arguments unless it was absolutely necessary. He would listen without making any comment, which was what he did on this occasion even when he was cornered by some of the intellectuals involved in the debate who urged him to take a stand in their favor. In reply, he brushed them aside with a brief remark, reluctant to get embroiled in the acrimonious discussion.

Father maintained his silence on the way home. Mother, as usual, did not question him as to what had happened at the meeting since he would say his piece when he felt the time was appropriate. A wise woman was what she was! I almost forgot to mention that our former tenant ( who was now renting a spacious apartment for a few weeks), Dr. Epstein also attended the meeting. Unlike the other doctors, he came to the Minyan every Shabbat and was considered a pillar of the community, but not by virtue of his knowledge of Torah and Hassidic life style.

He too kept quiet on his way home. I didn't tell my friend Yossef about the degradation I had been put through a few years ago when we were talking later on but he could sense my agitation. As Shabbat approached, I became ever more disoriented, distancing myself from my friend who clearly did not understand what was wrong. And although I may have been mistaken, father and mother were acting as if they had a secret which they could not disclose at any cost.

That Shabbat eve, mother busied herself with the usual preparations for the weekend break. Aside from our friends the Epstein family, father had, as always, invited a traveling guest to join us for the Shabbat meal. Mother, who had grown up in a home that was always filled with guests (although my grandfather was particular about what kind of people he entertained and Misnagdim were quite definitely unwelcome in his house) used to say that the Shabbat table should always be decorated with extra guests. The guest joined father in the singing of Zemirot (Shabbat hymns) and then we followed suit. In deference to his doctor friend, father did not object to the men and women singing together in unison. As Dr. Epstein had a traditional Misnaged upbringing, his songs were different than those of father's.

Our Shabbat meal proceeded in the traditional atmosphere of song and exhilaration. Yet if anybody could have read my mind they would have uncovered what could only be described as a 'split personality'. I took part in the singing of Zemirot as usual yet inside I was dreading the ordeal that would be my lot the following morning when the calling up to the reading of the Torah in the synagogue commenced halfway through the morning service.

On this particular occasion, the reading of the weekly portion would be interrupted after every three verses so as to call up as many people as possible. Each time, the person that had been called would step on to the rostrum, recite the opening blessing: “Blessed art Thou, the Lord God who hast chosen us from all other peoples etc.”, and then the reader would fire away. Three verses later, the person would recite the closing blessing: “Blessed art thou the Lord God who hast bestowed on us the Torah of truth etc.”, whereupon the sexton would announce the name of the next person to be called up.

While the individual named was making his way to the rostrum, the reader would recite the following prayer: “May He who blessed our forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, may He bless 'X', the son of 'Y', in honor of his calling to the Torah and in honor of him donating the sum of 'Z' rubles to charity”. At this point, a deathly silence would ensue while the congregation waited with baited breath to hear how much the individual had pledged. Once a figure had been named and then repeated aloud by the reader, a fracas would spread through the synagogue pews like wildfire, with the congregation emitting sighs of “psshh” in admiration or grunts of “paaa” in contempt and disgust as appropriate.

Although it had been a long time since the appalling spectacle of father exposing himself to ridicule during the course of the 'Sofit' project, it still felt like it happened yesterday, with me looking for somewhere to bury myself through the shame of it all. I relived the scathing mockery that my classmate Hirsch Leibke had subjected me to in front of everyone.

God only knew what might happen tomorrow morning. I lay awake in bed for ages thinking that if father repeated his pathetic posturing by once again donating the token sum of Chai (18) kopeks, I would never be able to show myself in public again nor look my friends - including Yossef - in the face because of the shame and disgrace he had brought upon me.

Hopefully the omnipotent God almighty will forgive me for those wayward thoughts that pervaded my mind throughout prayers that morning. My mouth was reciting the words of the Shabbat morning service in a mechanical fashion while my heart pounded away inside, sending those two dreaded words thundering through my brain, “Chai agorot, Chai agorot, Chai, Chai, Chai, Chai!”

The moment of truth had finally arrived. The cantor ended his recital of the first half of the morning service, whereupon the person chosen to perform the mitzvah of opening the ark proceeded with his task. Once the Torah scroll had been removed from the Ark and placed it on the rostrum table, a yeshiva student was summoned to remove the scroll's silk cover embroidered with gold lettering which had been donated by the childless widow of the late Ben Tziyon, the one-eyed builder.

Yudel Cohen, was first to be called up, not by reason of his status and wealth but because of the upcoming 'Yaarzeit' (memorial anniversary) for his late father. The congregation greeted his donation with the usual round of vocal applause. His pledge, when he was finally called upon to announce it, was quite substantial for a person of his means - half a ruble, the equivalent of his weekly income if not more. Next up was Leib Kreizek, a Levi, who was also quite well off; his contribution was three rubles, a fair sum for such an occasion but not one that would tax his resources by any means. And so it went on, one after the other, each person pledging as much as he could, in the spirit of compassion and good will that Jews are known.

Apart from two or three exceptions, the sums pledged were more or less the same, since everybody knew what was expected of them. Rabbi Getzil Hoffman donated ten rubles. Yaakov Terper, the travel agent, raised the stakes to fifteen rubles. Opinions about him differed; there were those who thought he was genuinely wealthy and those who felt he was merely trying to show off. It was only after his death that it turned out that the latter were proven right. Since it would have been in extremely poor taste to heap scorn on a deceased person at his funeral, the person making the eulogy was discreet enough to deftly sidestep any controversy by praising the deceased for rallying to the cause by contributing a lot more than he could actually afford.

To be brief, the figure kept mounting up. By the time we were approaching the end of the proceedings with generous contributions having been pledged by all and sundry, it had reached the impressive total of one thousand silver rubles with still more to come. Then the moment came and my heart ground to a standstill as I heard the sexton announce: “Arise Rabbi Meir, son of Rabbi Yitzhak, number six!”.

I hid my face in the Chumash pretending to follow father's recital of the blessing and the subsequent reading of the Torah verses word-by-word. Any minute now Rabbi Zalman, son of Rabbi Yoel, the last person to be called up would begin making his way towards the rostrum. The reader, Meir Motis, began reciting the set text: “May He who blessed etc. etc., may He bless Rabbi Meir, son of Rabbi Yitzhak in honor of him donating”, and then bent his head sideways to allow father to whisper in his ear.

But instead of repeating the sum out loud, he again tilted his head towards father to make sure his ears had heard right. Surely Meir Motis the reader wasn't going deaf? But after father repeated the sum, he stood upright and in a jubilant voice, slowly and deliberately made the announcement, emphasizing each syllable as it left his mouth. “In honor of him donating to the charity fund, the sum of Chai rubles times two!!”.(36)

He mouthed the astonishing figure and then looked around him triumphantly as if he had been the one who donated all this money, or at least played a pivotal role in convincing father, a modest and unassuming individual, to make a pledge that exceeded even those made by the wealthiest people in town. Throughout my childhood so far, I had never been able to relate to father on a emotional level in private nor in public. We had always kept our sentiments pent up inside. But on that Shabbat morning I came to love father like I never loved anyone else in my entire life. I didn't have any time or patience for my friends or the motley collection of individuals who were now singing father's praises to the sky. I wasn't even interested in by my best friend Yossef anymore. I wanted father all to myself and was not willing to share him with anyone else in the whole wide world. Even when I was hiding myself away in the straw shed, those magic words kept running through my mind, “Chai rubles times two to the charitable fund!”.

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