Shtetl Days

"I didn’t meant that. Using tefillin? Putting on the tallis? No, it wouldn’t work." Eliezer smiled once more, but then quickly sobered. "I meant that we need to live, to think, to feel the way we do while we’re in Wawolnice when we’re out in the big world, too. We need to be witnesses to what the Reich is doing. Somebody has to, and who better than us?" That smile flashed across his face again, if only for a moment. "Do you know what martyr means in ancient Greek? It means witness, that’s what."

Veit had sometimes wondered if the rabbi was the SS plant in the village. He’d decided it didn’t matter. If Eliezer was, he could destroy them all any time he chose. But now Veit found himself able to ask a question that would have been bad manners inside Wawolnice: "What did you do before you came to the village that taught you ancient Greek?" As far as he knew, Eliezer--Ferdinand Marian--hadn’t been an actor. Veit had never seen him on stage or in a TV show or film.

"Me?" The older man quirked an eyebrow. "I thought everyone had heard about me. No? . . . I guess not. I was a German Christian minister."

"Oh," Veit said. It didn’t quite come out Oy!, but it might as well have. He managed something a little better on his next try: "Well, no wonder you learned Greek, then."

"No wonder at all. And Hebrew, and Aramaic. I was well trained for the part, all right. I just didn’t know ahead of time that I would like it better than what had been my real life."

"I don’t think any of us figured on that," Veit said slowly.

"I don’t, either," Reb Eliezer replied. "But if that doesn’t tell you things aren’t the way they ought to be out here, what would?" His two-armed wave encompassed out here: the world beyond Wawolnice, the world-bestriding Reich.

"What do we do?" Veit shook his head; that was the wrong question. Again, another try: "What can we do?"

Eliezer set a hand on his shoulder. "The best we can, Jakub. Always, the best we can." He ambled off to talk to somebody else.

Someone had brought along a soccer ball. In spite of full bellies, a pickup game started. It would have caused heart failure in World Cup circles. The pitch was bumpy and unmown. Only sweaters thrown down on the ground marked the corners and the goal mouths. Touchlines and bylines were as much a matter of argument as anything in the Talmud.

Nobody cared. People ran and yelled and knocked one another ass over teakettle. Some of the fouls would have got professionals sent off. The players just laughed about them. Plenty of liquid restoratives were at hand by the edge of the pitch. When the match ended, both sides loudly proclaimed victory.

By then, the sun was sliding down the sky toward the horizon. Clouds had started building up. With regret, everyone decided it was time to go home. Leftovers and dirty china and silverware went into ice chests and baskets. Nobody seemed to worry about supper at all.

Veit caught up with Reb Eliezer. "Thanks for not calling Kristina’s venison treyf," he said quietly.

Eliezer spread his hands. "It wasn’t that kind of gathering, or I didn’t think it was. I didn’t say anything about the grouse, either. Like I told you before, you do what you can do. Anyone who felt differently didn’t have to eat it. No finger-pointing. No fits. Just--no game."

"Makes sense." Veit hesitated, then blurted the question that had been on his mind most of the day: "What do you suppose the old-time Jews, the real Jews, would have made of us?"

"I often wonder about that," Eliezer said, which surprised Veit not at all. The older man went on, "You remember what Rabbi Hillel told the goy who stood on one foot and asked him to define Jewish doctrine before the other foot came down?"

"Oh, sure," Veit answered; that was a bit of Talmudic pilpul everybody--well, everybody in Wawolnice who cared about the Talmud--knew. "He said that you shouldn’t do to other people whatever was offensive to you. As far as he was concerned, the rest was just commentary."

"The Talmud says that goy ended up converting, too," Eliezer added. Veit nodded; he also remembered that. Eliezer said, "Well, if the Reich had followed Hillel’s teaching, there would still be real Jews, and they wouldn’t have needed to invent us. Since they did . . . We’re doing as well as we can on the main thing--we’re human beings, after all--and maybe not too bad on the commentary. Or do you think I’m wrong?"

"No. That’s about how I had it pegged, too." Veit turned away, then stopped short. "I’ll see you tomorrow in Wawolnice."

"Tomorrow in Wawolnice," Eliezer said. "Next year in Jerusalem."

"Alevai omayn," Veit answered, and was astonished by how much he meant it.

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