CHAPTER THREE
TWILIGHT ZONE
1 . The Shul
Now about the Great Synagogue--the Shul. Unlike the two churches, whose counterpart could
be seen in any other small town in the area, the Shul was unique, differing radically from the modest houses of
prayer used by Jews in that part of the world. Were that building seen at a
distance in
Although the
Shul was held in great reverence, it was entirely unsuitable for our small
community, and no one could remember when, if ever, it was used for religious
services. However, two rites were from time to time performed in the open
square in front of it: weddings and funerals. Wedding ceremonies were deemed to
acquire added sanctity when performed in front of the Shul and usually took
place there, weather permitting. Funeral services were held there only on
infrequent occasions, for persons distinguished by piety, learning or other
good deeds. In such cases the bier was placed in front of the Shul (never
inside--it is forbidden by ritual law), and the eulogies were delivered from
the Shul steps. This was a signal honour and a mark of utmost respect on the
part of the community.
No one really knew how old the Shul was or under what circumstances it was
built. Many stories were current about its origin, the most plausible one
featuring as protagonist a beautiful Italian lady, the wife of a very rich and
powerful Polish nobleman. While visiting one of their estates in our vicinity,
she was attacked by a swarm of hornets and would have been stung to death had
she not been rescued by some Jews who happened to be passing by. In gratitude
the magnate had the Shul built as a gift to the town's Jews. This story gains
credence from the historical fact that the famous Polish king STEFAN BATORY was
married to an Italian, a member of the noble Sforza family of
It is noteworthy that BATORY and his predecessors favoured the presence
of Jews in
Whatever the
origin of the Shul, there is no doubt that it was very old, and it always
aroused the curiosity of visitors. During the First World War 1 saw German officers
taking pictures of it, and after the town became part
of
2. Ghosts
and Children
For me and my playmates the Shul was an
object of mystery and fascination. As a holy place unused and uninhabited by
humans, it was obviously haunted and populated by ghosts and demons,
especially at night. One of our favourite pastimes during the long summer
twilights was to huddle up in some out-of-the-way nook and repeat weird tales
overheard from grownups. One such "true" story was of the ordeal that
befell SHMUEL ELIE the cripple, so named because of his lameness. He was on his
way home on Friday afternoon from trading in the villages the whole week, but
his heart was heavy because business was bad and he had not earned enough even
to buy proper Sabbath food for his wife and children. Suddenly, on a lonely
stretch of road, he caught sight of a calf, standing and moaning pitifully:
"Mac' . . , Mao . . . " SHMUEL ELIE looked about but no people were
to be seen. He went over to the calf which did not try to run away--it just
stood there looking at him with its calf's eyes, hanging out its tongue and
continuing to Mao . , , Mac . . .
"The Lord of the world, blessed be His name, must have heard my prayers
and sent me this calf so that my family should not be in want during the
Sabbath," SHMUEL ELIE said to himself. He put the calf in the wagon behind
him and continued on his way, happy with his unexpected good fortune, and not
paying attention to the unusual shying of his horse. All of a sudden he heard
an eerie giggling behind him: "Hee,hee,hee . . . Hee, hee, hee." He
turned around, and there in his wagon instead of a calf was a scrawny old
woman, in tatters, her dishevelled grey hair twisting in the wind, her nose
like a beak, her eyes like two fiery coals, and her toothless mouth grinning at
him. In horror he whipped his horse into a gallop ,but the "hee, hee,
hee" became louder, she stretched out to him her bony hands with nails
like claws and squeaked: "Come be my husband, hee, hee, hee . . . . Take
me to be your wife, hee, hee, hee . . . , " At this SHMUEL ELIE remembered
the holy incantation and yelled out: "Shma Yisroel . . . ! " A loud
screech was heard, and the phantom disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Shmuel Elie
did not stop whipping his horse until he reached town and began yelling:
"Help, Jews, help!" He was taken off the wagon half dead from fright
and brought to the rabbi, who recited with him the prescribed blessing for
escape from grave danger. Only then did SHMUEL ELIE come back to himself and
was escorted home by a deputation of Jews who also provided him with food for
the proper celebration of the Sabbath.
Many
of these hair-raising stories had the Shul as the sphere of action. It was
"known" that at one time a Jew passing the back of the Shul at
Despite these horror tales we were brave enough to explore the Shul's interior
in the daytime. Once we found a narrow wooden stairway leading up from a corner
of the women's gallery. Three of us climbed up the rickety steps through layers
of dust and cobwebs and found ourselves in a vast attic, crisscrossed by thick
beams and rafters supporting the roof. In one corner there was a pile of torn prayer
books, their yellowed pages crumbling to the touch. At spaced intervals in the
floor were large circular holes through which heavy chains with lamps on their
ends hung from crossbars. The lamps were apparently hoisted up through these
holes for repair or refilling with kerosene. I become quite dizzy as I bent
over to look into the interior deep down below me, and nearly fell through the
hole. We beat a hasty retreat after that, and never ventured up there again.
That
ghosts were not to be trifled with I learned to my own sorrow. Across the
street from my grandmother PESHE's house there stood a hovel which had been
deserted for many years. Its roof was partly caved in, all windows were broken,
and the entrance door was hanging askew on one hinge. It was sitting about
twenty feet back from the pavement, and could be reached through a narrow
alleyway alongside a tall wooden fence, which separated it from the house of my
best friend, named YANKL like myself. The hovel, of course, often figured in
our stories, its reputation for being haunted heightened by the arcane
profession of its onetime owner, that of a menaker--one skilled
in the removal of certain veins from slaughtered animals to make their meat
kosher. It was always referred to as "NISSEN menaker's house."
Naturally, the place was often explored by us in the daytime, despite the filth
from stray dogs, cats and mice. One evening, as we were matching boasts about
our respective bravery, I took up a challenge to enter NISSEN menaker's house after
dark. My pals watched in a group at the entrance to the alleyway as I proceeded
gingerly along the darkened passage, my heart thumping violently and my eyes
trying to discern what lurks in the spaced shadows cast by the boards of the
fence against the moonlight. After what seemed like eternity I reached the
entrance and touched the hanging door for support before examining the
interior, when a horrible groan or croak pierced the dead stillness. All I
remember is the sight of the other boys scattering in all directions as I was
running with all my might toward grandma's house. I was told later that I burst
into the house in a cold sweat, a wild look in my eyes, mumbling incoherently
about shoydim (spirits). I was put to bed and stayed there for several
days, shivering and tossing in hallucinations. My parents and grandmothers had
the fright of their lives, and after learning from my pals what
happened, resorted to a time-honoured remedy--that of "pouring wax."
An old peasant woman, reputed to dabble in witchcraft, came to the house,
poured molten wax into a dish filled with hot water, and gazed intently at the
shapes being formed while mumbling some mysterious words. She finally
pronounced that I had been frightened by a pig, and there the matter rested
until I recovered my normal self.
Not all our stories were scary. Many of them,
of folklore or Talmudic origin, were edifying and moralistic. Most of these had
ancient Israel, particularly Jerusalem, as their locale, as in the following
tale:
There
were once two brothers who dwelt in the land of Cancan, tilling the soil and
tending their flocks. One was unmarried; the other one was blessed with many
children. One night at harvest time, as each was watching the reaped grain in
his own field, the first brother said to himself "It is not fair that I
should have as much grain as my brother. I need only enough for myself, but he
has so many mouths to feed."
With that he shouldered as many sheaves as he could carry and stealthily
deposited them next to those of his brother, then returned and went to sleep
peacefully. The other brother, having awakened in the middle of the night, also
bethought himself "How lucky am I to have a wife and many sons who will
take care of me i n my old age, but my poor brother--who will help him when he
is no longer able to work?"
He
then also took as many sheaves as he could carry and put them quietly next to
his brother's sheaves.
In the morning both were surprised to find their crops undiminished.
They repeated the act the following night, but again found nothing missing in
the morning. On the third night, as they were walking laden with the grain,
they met halfway, fell into each other's arms, and vowed that henceforth
whatever belongs to one also belongs to the other. The place where they met was
on Mount Moriah, and on that very spot later stood the Holy of Holies of
Solomon's Temple.
Children
often took the leading parts in our stories. A Greek sage, having heard of the precocity
of the children of Jerusalem, went there to find out for himself. Within sight
of the city walls he came to a fork in the road and asked some children who
were playing nearby which was the shorter route. One of the boys replied:
"The one on the right is shorter but longer; the left one is longer but
shorter." Puzzled, the sage took the right fork only to come to a deep
ravine which could be crossed by goats, donkeys and young boys, but was
impassable for him, so that he had to retrace his steps and take the left fork.
Upon arrival inside the city the sage gave a small coin to a boy
and asked him to buy enough food to last for a month. The boy returned and
presented him with a bagful of salt. He asked another boy to buy him a dozen
apples, making sure that they are all tasty. The boy brought the apples, with
one bite taken out of each one. "I made sure that every one of them is
really tasty," was the explanation.
A famous trial was taking place in the city of Prague, so the story went. Two
merchants had adjacent stores, with only a thin wall between them. One was a
draper, the other a dealer in oil. Late one day, at closing time, one of the
merchants watched through a crack in the wall as his neighbour counted the
day's receipts, put the gold and silver coins in a leather bag and hid it
behind some merchandise. The watcher then ran into the street with a hue and
cry that he had been robbed, accusing his neighbour of the theft since he was
the only person in the vicinity at the time. To the police officers and
assembled crowd he described the leather bag and the amount of the gold and
silver pieces therein, and
demanded that the neighbour’s premises be searched. This was done despite the
other's protestations; the bag was found and impounded as evidence. At the
trial each man claimed that the money was his, witnesses appeared to testify to
the honesty of both men, other witnesses made derogatory statements against
each of them, and the affair become the talk of the town with the partisans of
each side engaging in heated arguments. The trial judge was in a quandary,
anxious to do justice but unable to decide for want of corroborative evidence.
One
day as the judge was walking through the town park deep in thought about the
dilemma, he came across a group of Jewish boys playing out the case. He hid
behind some shrubbery and watched as each "merchant" stated his case
as the rightful owner of the money and as "witnesses" appeared to
testify pro and con, until the "judge" gave an order: "Bring a
bowl filled with hot water" When the order was complied with he directed
that the gold and silver coins be dumped into the water, stating: "If the
money belongs to the oil dealer blotches of fat will appear on the water's
surface, showing that he handled the coins with his greasy fingers. If the
water remains clean, the money belongs to the draper." The judge,
overwhelmed, came out of his hiding and told the boy "judge" to take
him to his parents, whom he asked to come to court with their son the following
morning. As the session opened he ordered a bowl of clean hot water to be
brought, then re-enacted the procedure observed in the park the day before.
Sure enough, the water becomes thick with blotches of oil, and he announced his
verdict in favour of the oil merchant. As the audience applauded and praised
the judge's sagacity, he called the boy and his parents to join him at the
bench, and after explaining what happened exclaimed: "It is this boy who
deserves your applause and praise, for he is imbued with the wisdom of Solomon.
The emotional effect upon
young children of the type of stories told during our twilight sessions should
not be underestimated. I was seven or eight years old at the time, and after my
studies with ZHUK, as will be told later, these stories were relegated to a
childish past. But they were not forgotten, and lurked somewhere in the
subconscious. Eight years later, at the age of sixteen, I considered myself
quite a sophisticated young man, with a rather limited formal education, true,
but fairly well acquainted with the
Russian,
Yiddish and western literature, and imbued with the ideas expressed therein.
With the ardour of youth I was already bold enough to proclaim to my father, a
practicing but tolerant Jew, that I was an agnostic and would not observe the
dogmatic religious prescriptions, since to do so without belief would be
hypocritical. We were at that time under German occupation of the First World
War and a strict night curfew was in effect. I was then infatuated by my first
love, and could not forgo the pleasure of remaining at the young lady's home
for hours past curfew. One late evening, as I was stealing homeward through
back alleys, I suddenly became aware that I was approaching the rear wall of
the Shul. The image of the long red tongue darting out through the wall came to
me in a flash, and I instinctively shrank back in terror. There was a strong
impulse to retrace my steps and go home through another alley. I also became
aware that the protecting exhortation "Shma Yisroel I" was in my
mind, with an urge to be pronounced. At the same time the ludicrousness of the
situation dawned upon me-that I should be so strongly affected by an absurd
old tale. But reasoning did not help, and the fear persisted. Despite the
impulse to go in the opposite direction I forced myself not to give in to the
irrational feeling, realizing that I would later have to live with the stigma
of having succumbed to superstition. Calling upon all the willpower at my
command I very deliberately and unhurriedly walked ahead, keeping my gaze
directly upon the wall, I cannot say whether in provocation or for protection
in case something did happen. But despite all my resolution the sense of fear
remained until I was some distance past the danger spot conjured up by the
hidden memory of the apparently long-forgotten tale.