Jewish fiction; Jews -- Fiction; Short stories, Yiddish -- Translations into English
And Avrohom recalls the beautiful legends in the Tales of Jerusalem, he
recalls the land of Israel.
There he knows it is always summer, always warm and fine. And every
autumn the vision draws him.
But there is no possibility of his being able to go there--he must sell
the apples which he has brought from the orchard, and feed the wife and
the children he has "outside the land." And all through the autumn and
part of the winter, Avrohom drags himself about with a basket of apples
on his arm and a yearning in his heart. He waits for the dear summer,
when he will be able to go back and hide himself in the orchard, in the
hut, and be alone, where the town mud and the town Jews with dulled
senses shall be out of sight, and the week-day noise, out of hearing.
HIRSH DAVID NAUMBERG
Born, 1876, in Msczczonow, Government of Warsaw, Russian Poland, of
Hasidic parentage; traditional Jewish education in the house of his
grandfather; went to Warsaw in 1898; at present (1912) in America; first
literary work appeared in 1900; writer of stories, etc., in Hebrew and
Yiddish; co-editor of Ha-Zofeh, Der Freind, Ha-Boker; contributor to
Ha-Zeman, Heint, Ha-Dor, Ha-Shiloah, etc.; collected works, 5 vols.,
Warsaw, 1908-1911.
THE RAV AND THE RAV'S SON
The Sabbath midday meal is over, and the Saken Rav passes his hands
across his serene and pious countenance, pulls out both earlocks,
straightens his skull-cap, and prepares to expound a passage of the
Torah as God shall enlighten him. There sit with him at table, to one
side of him, a passing guest, a Libavitch Chossid, like the Rav himself,
a man with yellow beard and earlocks, and a grubby shirt collar
appearing above the grubby yellow kerchief that envelopes his throat; to
the other side of him, his son Sholem, an eighteen-year-old youth, with
a long pale face, deep, rather dreamy eyes, a velvet hat, but no
earlocks, a secret Maskil, who writes Hebrew verses, and contemplates
growing into a great Jewish author. The Rebbetzin has been suffering two
or three months with rheumatism, and lies in another room.
The Rav is naturally humble-minded, and it is no trifle to him to
expound the Torah. To take a passage of the Bible and say, The meaning
is this and that, is a thing he hasn't the cheek to do. It makes him
feel as uncomfortable as if he were telling lies. Up to twenty-five
years of age he was a Misnaggid, but under the influence of the Saken
Rebbetzin, he became a Chossid, bit by bit. Now he is over fifty, he
drives to the Rebbe, and comes home every time with increased faith in
the latter's supernatural powers, and, moreover, with a strong desire to
expound a little of the Torah himself; only, whenever a good idea comes
into his head, it oppresses him, because he has not sufficient
self-confidence to express it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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