From The Wedding by Joseph Levine Chapter 11

From the Wedding
by Joseph Levine

Chapter 11


Summer passes and my father has still not returned. A man from Berditchev who saw my father drown sends a letter to the Rabbi of Zlotopolia. My mother and her eight children wait.


We all assumed that certainly by Shavuos (the Feast of Weeks in June), Father would come home, but he didn't. We did not know where to write, to turn, what to do. So we waited. Yom Tov (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) came and went and still he was not home. We waited and we cried. Succos came and went but still he had not returned. By now the family was hysterical. My mother would sit in the corner and cry. The young children would sit in another corner and cry like little lost lambs.

So passed the Summer, the Fall and with Winter came the cold weather. My mother started to do business in the marketplace, how else could we live? She was forced into business. In fact, G-d helped, and she did not do badly. The older siblings went to work for a tailor. This helped since there were fewer mouths to feed.

I went to work in a notions shop. We did what we could to make things easier for my mother. I would be away all day working in the store. When I came home at night, I would sit down to eat the dinner my mother prepared for me. I would ask my mother what was doing. I really could not eat much. Who could eat? The tears were pouring from my eyes onto the spoon and into the plate.

We didn't know what to think any more. Day and night we could not help but think about it, but we did not know what to conclude. We didn't know where to go, what to do, who to turn to, what to ask?

Winter passed. The snow turned into puddles. We still did not know where we stood in the world. We still did not know what had happened to my father.

However, there is a saying that nothing remains hidden. There are no secrets in this world. When G-d created the world, Heaven and Earth swore that nothing will ever get lost. That is what happened in our case. The following is how the truth found its way to my family.

When my father was traveling home on the steamboat, another man sat next to him. He also was coming back from Lithuania with papers for himself and his children. The two men sat and talked. The man told my father that he lives in Berditchev with his wife and children. My father told him that he lives in Zlotopolia with his wife and children, one son and seven daughters. He told him that in Zlotopolia, he owns his own home and his son sits and learns in the Beis Hamedrosh (yeshivah for advanced boys). I guess he was proud. With that the conversation ended and my father went to get the pail for that fateful drink of water.

The man, having returned home to Berditchev and the usual hustle and bustle (and G-d knows what else they encountered on the way) forgot about the story. The story was literally wiped from his memory. He forgot what he had witnessed on his return home.

However the time for truth had to arrive and the family had to be made aware of the details of our tragedy. When this man went to the synagogue on Rosh Hashanah, he was praying as all Jews do. When he came to the famous prayer, "Unessaneh Tokef" where it describes a person's fate for the year ...who will die by water, who by fire ...,

[[ed. note: Unessane tokef (Let us proclaim ...) ...
On Rosh HaShanah all created beings are inscribed and on the fast day of Yom Kippur they are sealed: How many shall pass away and how many shall be born; who shall live and who shall die; who shall live out his allotted time and who shall depart before his time; who shall perish by water and who by fire; who by the sword and who by a wild beast; who by hunger and who by thirst; who by earthquake and who by pestilence; who by strangulation and who by lapidation; who shall be at rest and who shall wander; who shall be tranquil and who shall be harassed; who shall enjoy well-being and who shall suffer tribulation; who shall be poor and who shall be rich; who shall be humbled and who shall be exalted. But Repentance, Prayer and Charity avert the severity of the decree.
]]

suddenly he vividly remembered the man who was sitting next to him and fell into the water.

He remembered how the steamboat, after searching in vain, continued on its journey. He realized that no one knew the man's whereabouts. He realized that he was the only one who spoke to the man and knew about his family and where he came from.

He thought about the wife and the eight children sitting at home, wondering about where their provider had disappeared and why he had never returned home. He envisioned the entire scene. He realized that he was the only one who could have enlightened them but he had never told anyone.

Once he realized this, he could no longer eat or sleep. He ran to the Rabbi and told him the whole story. The Rabbi immediately sent a letter to the Rabbi of Zlotopolia. When the letter arrived, the Rabbi of Zlotopolia sent his assistant to summon me (the young boy who learns and whose father disappeared).

I arrived at the Rabbi's house. He asked me many questions and I answered them all. He was verifying the information that he received to be sure that the letter was referring to my father. Then he gave me the letter and said to me, "Go home. Read this letter to your mother."

When I came home to my mother, I told her about the letter that came to the Rabbi and read it to her. What happened in my house after the letter was read, my pen refuses to write. My pen is too weak and my hand is shaking too much. The tears are pouring from my eyes like a waterfall without end.

My mother fainted. After we revived her, my sister fainted. Basically we spent most of the evening reviving one another. The next day everyone stayed in bed because we were all sick.

This tragedy made a very large tear in my heart. I felt all alone; as though I was in a far away land, away from all people. I still remember the first few times I said Kaddish. Everyone who heard cried along with me.

But time does heal and there is some sort of art in forgetting. What very often is seen as a curse from G-d (i.e., forgetting) turns out to be a blessing at a time of tragedy such as in our case. It is like slow drops of soothing balm on our wounds. Yes, after all, forgetting is a wonderful gift -- a G-dly gift to mankind.

Eventually we all calmed down to some extent. Life went on. This is how G-d created the world. As it says, one does not live from nachus (pleasure) and one does not die from tsurres (troubles). Our loving G-d, our Father, is the father of all orphans and the caretaker of all widows. We learned and we managed to get by.

My older sister and her husband moved into the big house and my mother moved into the small den. We decided that after Passover, my mother would travel the same route that my father had traveled until Gradno. She would inquire what type of boat my father had taken. Maybe she would recover some of his belongings. She wanted to be 1000% sure that this was, in fact, my father. Also she was hoping to find out where my father was buried.

So, right after Passover, my mother traveled to Kiev and from there she traveled to Pinsk. She found the man from the boat who took her to his house. After she gave him the proper proof, he returned my father's belongings (that had been left on the boat) and added a couple of rubles also. From there she traveled to Gradno and visited with my father's friends for a few weeks. While she was there, she obtained a three month pass for me.