Zaddik, page 47
The Magician saw a surging pool of water open at his feet. Its waters were a deep cerulean, and a thousand diamonds flashed in its ripples. So lovely. So inviting. Was there any reason to tarry here? None.
He threw himself into the dark waters, reaching for the gems. The diamonds fled from his touch. The water was cold. Cold and dark. Blind, he plunged toward the bottom of the pool. He began to shiver. It is too damn cold, he thought. I shall shiver myself to pieces.
And then, he did.
Sarah Kalman jumped out of her chair and ran toward a dresser piled high with flowers, incongruous in the otherwise empty classroom.
Taylor turned to the Cutter, who stood, his silenced gun in his hand, staring at the fallen Czartoryski. “You see?” said the Cutter, speaking to the air, his voice rising. “You see what a wonderful badkhen he makes. Sarah,” said the Cutter, “you see? He reminds us that life is short. It can end, just like that. And yet we must laugh. Must we not laugh?
“You know,” said the Cutter, turning to Taylor, “we called this one the Magician. But his magic has run out. And you called me a Nazi. There, there is a Nazi. I thought I could always tell a Nazi. I was wrong. You can never tell. I had to be told by that Israeli whore, told how I had been made a fool. Then I had to wait until he could play the badkhen at my wedding. It had to be a surprise to him. I think he was surprised.
“Now you,” said the Cutter, “you will be the witness.”
“I’ll be your witness,” Taylor said. “But where’s the rest? Let’s get nine more men to make a minyan. How can you get married without a proper minyan?”
“You don’t see the rest of my witnesses?” the Cutter said. “There are thousands. Look around, all the dead, may God bless them. Now”—he lifted his gun level with Taylor’s eyes—“you shall join them.”
“But my dowry,” said Sarah Kalman, walking toward the Cutter. “I can’t get married without my dowry. What kind of beggar woman brings nothing to the khasseneh?”
“Your dowry will be the greatest any woman ever had,” said the Cutter, and as he turned to look at Sarah, Taylor lunged for him, knocking his gun hand aside with his right hand, wrapping his left arm around the Cutter’s neck. Throwing himself backward, Taylor crashed to the floor, pulling the Cutter on top of him.
The Cutter’s fingers immediately found Taylor’s broken wrist and clamped down on it. A Roman candle of agony exploded behind his eyes, and at the tip of each fiery comet was a shimmering diamond.
Taylor pulled back and felt the Cutter’s Adam’s apple trying to wriggle away from the pressure. Just catch it, Taylor screamed at himself, all the while watching a thousand diamonds drifting through space, falling to earth. Catch it and crush it like a nut.
Taylor jerked backward as he felt the Cutter bring the butt of his pistol down on his wrist. He felt the bones sliding and crackling under the skin, and his eyes flew open to see Sarah Kalman, bending over, pulling at the Cutter’s gun.
Again the butt of the pistol thudded into Taylor’s wrist, and another rocket of pain exploded. He shut his eyes again, and again he saw the diamonds hurtling toward the earth, striking the ground, burying and extinguishing themselves in the rich soil where the Seer of Lublin could find one of them in his garden, a hundred and seventy-nine years before, entwined in the roots of a strange plant.
There is no before or after in the Torah, he heard Hirsh Leib say.
And Dov Taylor knew where the Seer’s stone was hidden.
Taylor felt the Cutter’s thumb dig into his wrist, and he screamed. But this time, instead of a rocket, instead of fireworks, a red flower bloomed behind his eyes to reveal Rebecca, his grandmother, smiling. And then her smile vanished and she began to cry, tear her hair, and scratch her cheeks. Blood ran down her cheeks.
“No!” screamed Taylor, shaking his head and squeezing harder. The Cutter’s body jerked. Taylor heard the Cutter’s palms slapping the floor, he heard a gurgling sound. Then the Cutter shuddered and grew still.
Triumph flamed in Taylor’s chest and he roared aloud as he pulled back harder, bowing his back, almost lifting them both off the floor, trying to pull his arm right down through the Cutter’s neck, trying to squeeze away all the anger and fear.
“Stop.”
Taylor heard a voice, not the Cutter’s.
“Stop.”
Not Rebecca’s. Not Hirsh Leib’s.
“Stop.”
It was his own.
He opened his eyes and saw Sarah Kalman.
He stopped.
He rolled the Cutter—still breathing but unconscious—off of him and stood up, breathless. He heard people shouting, pounding on the door. He looked at Sarah Kalman and opened his arms. She ran into them, her touch feathery, trembling. Like a bird. Like a wounded bird, he thought, stroking the top of her head. It broke his heart. It healed his heart.
When the door was flung open, that’s how they were found, and they clung to each other as they were led back through the halls, back through the riotous gymnasium, where a flushed Adam Seligson was being held aloft atop a stool while men threw paper napkins at him.
Rebbe Joel Teitel appeared before Taylor. “So?” he asked. “The stone? Where is it?”
Taylor looked down at the rebbe. “I threw it away,” he lied.
The rebbe stepped back, his hand flew up to his beard, and he began twisting it. He turned his head and saw his daughter sitting on a high stool, laughing, tears running down her face, while her friends danced a maypole dance around her, white ribbons swirling. He looked down at the floor, frowned, and then he looked up into Taylor’s eyes and smiled.
“A zaddik,” the rebbe said. “We have a zaddik,” he said again, clapping his hands.
“God be praised, a zaddik!”
Epilogue Brooklyn
Thursday, November 7
AS HE KNEW HE WOULD, Dov Taylor had found the Seer’s stone hidden in the bottom of the glass brick flower pot sitting on the windowsill in Moshe Kalman’s old bedroom, entwined in the plant’s roots. It was actually a very good hiding place, he thought. Through the glass, against the dirt, the diamond was utterly invisible. Maria had done a good job.
Now, as he leaned against the railing, the traffic on the Belt Parkway roaring above and behind him, the World Trade Towers looming over the harbor, a mountain of lights, he threw the Seer’s stone out into the darkness, down into the dark waters.
He wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard it splash.
He put his hands in his coat. Time to get myself to a meeting, he thought.
If anyone would believe that he could toss away a fortune, it would, he knew, be a roomful of drunks.
AFTERWORD
I promise not to keep you much longer, but I thought you might like to know that the zaddikim mentioned in Book Two of Zaddik are all historical figures, as are Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, Countess Catherine Radziwell, and Napoleon’s mistress, Marie Waleska. Hirsh Leib is a composite figure based on several Hasidic masters.
Martin Buber, in his wonderful novel For the Sake of Heaven, imagined a “cosmic conspiracy” in which the zaddikim of that era joined forces to pray Napoleon Bonaparte on to victory. Napoleon, who in 1799 had called upon the Jews to rally under the French flag to liberate the Holy Land, was considered a friend to Europe’s Jews.
As for the Seer of Lublin, it is recorded that he fell from the window of his study on erev Simkhas Torah the autumn before Napoleon’s final defeat and final exile. The Seer suffered grievous injuries from which he never recovered.
It is also written that the window from which he allegedly fell was too small for any man to squeeze through, so the true circumstances of his death remain a mystery to this day—leaving us free to speculate.
GLOSSARY
Aleinu (Hebrew). The closing prayer of each daily service.
Aleph-bes (Hebrew). The alphabet.
Alte kockers (Yiddish). Old shits.
Alte moyd (Yiddish). Old maid.
Aron kodesh (Hebrew). The Holy Ark containing the Torah.
Baal teshuvah (Hebrew). Literally, “one who has returned.” Convert to Orthodox practice.
Balebatim (Hebrew). Literally, “houseowners.” In Yiddish can be used positively, describing substantial people, or negatively, describing pompous big shots.
Badkhen (Hebrew). The man who makes merry at weddings.
Bekekher (Yiddish). The long, silken coat worn by Hasids on Sabbath and festival days.
Bes Din (Hebrew). A Jewish civil and religious court.
Bes-oylem (Hebrew). Cemetery.
Biber (Yiddish). Beaver, as in biber hat.
Bimah (Hebrew). The stand upon which the Torah rests when it is read in the synagogue.
Bord (Yiddish). Beard.
Briliant (Yiddish). A diamond.
Brukha (Hebrew). A blessing.
Bukher (Hebrew). A young man. Familiarly, a guy.
Bupkis (Yiddish). Literally, “beans.” Something worthless.
Daven (Yiddish). To pray.
Dybbuk (Hebrew). An evil spirit, often one that possesses a living person.
Emes (Hebrew). Truth.
Erev (Hebrew). Eve. The day preceding a holiday.
Farbrengen (Yiddish). A Hasidic gathering.
Frum (Yiddish). Pious. As with a frummer Yid.
Gabbai (Hebrew). Literally, “treasurer.” The manager of a synagogue or a rebbe’s household.
Get (Hebrew). A notice of divorce.
Glatt (Yiddish). Literally, “smooth.” Used to define the strictest kosher foods.
Golem (Hebrew). A man-made figure in the form of a human being, endowed with life; an automaton created by Rabbi Judah Lowe to fight evil in Prague in the seventeenth century.
Gonef (Hebrew). A thief.
Gornit (Yiddish). Nothing.
Goy (Hebrew). A non-Jew.
Halakhah (Hebrew). Jewish religious law.
Hashem (Hebrew). One of the names for God.
Hasid (Hebrew). Literally, “pious.” Describes a follower of a rebbe who leads a community of Jews practicing an ecstatic and, in modern times, fundamentalist brand of Judaism. Founded in the first half of the eighteenth century by the Baal Shem Tov.
Havdolah (Hebrew). The service ending the Sabbath.
Hazzan (Hebrew). A cantor.
Heymish (Yiddish). Homey.
Hondlen (Yiddish). To trade, to bargain.
Hoyf (Yiddish). A courtyard.
Kabbalah (Hebrew). Both the accumulation and the study of Jewish mystical thought. A highly abstruse and metaphysical system of thoughts and beliefs.
Kaddish (Hebrew). The prayer of sanctification.
Kaleh (Hebrew). The bride.
Kahal (Hebrew). The Jewish ruling body in the towns of Eastern Europe.
Kavanah (Hebrew). One’s inner, holy intent.
Kapote (Hebrew). The black coat worn every day by Hasids.
Kashrus (Hebrew). The dietary laws followed by pious Jews.
Ketubah (Hebrew). A marriage contract.
Khasseneh (Hebrew). Wedding.
Khossen (Hebrew). The bridegroom.
Khevreh (Hebrew). A society or guild.
Kinder (Yiddish). Children.
Kishkes (Yiddish). Intestines.
Khupa (Hebrew). The canopy under which the bride and groom are married.
Kohanim (Hebrew). The descendants of the ancient Hebrew priest class.
Kop (Yiddish). Head.
Kosher (Hebrew). That which is fit and proper to eat or do.
Lamedvovniks (Hebrew). In Hasidic folklore, the thirty-six unknown righteous men for whose sake God preserves the world.
Lantsman (Yiddish). One’s countryman.
Maggid (Hebrew). A preacher.
Mama-loshen (Hebrew). Literally, “mother tongue.” Yiddish.
Mazl (Hebrew). Luck.
Melamed (Hebrew). A teacher of children.
Meshuggener (Hebrew). A crazy person.
Mezuzah (Hebrew). A scroll with two biblical passages rolled up inside a casing, affixed to the door frames of Jewish homes.
Mikvah (Hebrew). The ritual bath, prescribed to purify women after menstruation. Used also by pious men.
Minyan (Hebrew). The ten males necessary for prayers to be heard. A quorum.
Mitzvah (Hebrew). Literally, a commandment. A good deed.
Momzer (Hebrew). A bastard.
Nofke (Yiddish). A whore.
Nar (Yiddish). A fool.
Nareshkayt (Yiddish). Foolishness.
Nigun (Hebrew). A wordless Hasidic tune, often composed by a rebbe.
Nudzh (Yiddish). To pester, to nag.
Payes (Yiddish). The sidelocks worn by Hasidic boys.
Pidyan (Hebrew). A gift of money made to a rebbe in return for his blessing.
Porets (Hebrew). A lord or nobleman.
Prost (Yiddish). Working class; vulgar.
Rabbi, reb, rebbe, rov (Hebrew). “Rabbi” literally means teacher. A rabbi can be hired to lead any religious congregation. Reb is an honorific term, much like “mister.” A rebbe is the spiritual leader of a Hasidic community. He has often inherited his mantle of leadership from a male relative. A rov can be any authority on religious matters.
Rebbetzin (Hebrew). A rabbi’s wife.
Sefiros (Hebrew). In kabbalistic thought, these are the ten hidden attributes of God.
Shabbos (Hebrew). The Sabbath.
Shammes (Hebrew). Literally, “servant.” The caretaker of a synagogue.
Sheitl (Yiddish). The wig worn by married Hasidic women as a sign of modesty.
Shekhita (Hebrew). The ritual slaughtering necessary to make meats kosher.
Shema (Hebrew). Literally, “hear.” The call to worship; the prayer that expresses the central Jewish beliefs.
Sheyne (Yiddish). Beautiful.
Sheyne meydele (Yiddish). Beautiful, or simply nice, girl.
Sheyner Yid (Yiddish). Literally, “beautiful Jew.” An observant, educated, important member of the community.
Shidukh (Hebrew). A match for a marriage.
Shiker (Hebrew). A drunkard.
Shikh un zoken (Yiddish). Literally, “shoes and socks.” The nineteenth-century-style slippers and stockings worn by extremely pious Hasids.
Shiksa (Hebrew). A non-Jewish woman. Derogatory.
Shmooze (Yiddish). To chat.
Shnor (Yiddish). To borrow or beg habitually and brazenly.
Shoykhet (Hebrew). A ritual slaughterer.
Shtarker (Yiddish). A strong man; a thug, a gangster.
Shtetl (Yiddish). A small Jewish village.
Shtibl (Yiddish). Literally, “little house.” A small, neighborhood synagogue.
Shtot (Yiddish). A town, larger than a shtetl.
Shtreiml (Yiddish). The round fur hat worn by pious or well-to-do Hasids.
Shul (Yiddish). A synagogue or school.
Shvartzer (Yiddish). Literally, “a black one.” An African-American.
Sidur (Hebrew). A prayer book.
Sofer (Hebrew). A scribe.
Sukkah (Hebrew). The makeshift hut in which Jews are commanded to dwell during the Feast of Tabernacles.
Tallis (Hebrew). The prayer shawl worn by men at most prayer services.
Talmud (Hebrew). The massive compendium of all the commentaries upon the Torah.
Takeh (Yiddish). Really.
Tateh (Yiddish). Father.
Tayvl (Yiddish). The devil.
Tefillin (Hebrew). Two leather straps—one for the left arm, the other for the head—each with a small box attached containing biblical passages. Worn by Orthodox Jewish males for the morning prayers.
Tokhter (Yiddish). Daughter.
Torah (Hebrew). Literally, “teaching.” The scrolls containing the five books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
Treyf (Hebrew). That which is unkosher.
Tsdokeh (Hebrew). Charity.
Tsimmes (Hebrew). A stew.
Tzitzis (Hebrew). The fringes at the corners of the prayer shawl.
Tsuris (Hebrew). Troubles.
Yahrzeit (Yiddish). The anniversary of a death. Noted by the lighting of a special candle.
Yeshiva (Yiddish). An advanced religious school.
Yid (Yiddish). A Jew.
Yiddish (Yiddish). Literally, “Jewish.” The language of Eastern European Jewry. Its vocabulary is about 70 percent German-derived, 20 percent Hebrew, and 10 percent Slavic and, recently, English. It is written using the Hebrew alphabet.
Yikhus (Hebrew). Literally, “pedigree.” What one receives from one’s forebears.
Yontif (Yiddish). A holiday.
Zaddik (Hebrew). A righteous man, a saint.
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David Rosenbaum, Zaddik
