Prologue
Like all our brethren of the Second Aliya, the bearers of our Salvation, Isaac Kumer left his country and his homeland and his city and ascended to the Land of Israel to build it from its destruction and to be rebuilt by it. From the day our comrade Isaac knew his mind, not a day went by that he didn't think about it. A blessed dwelling place was his image of the whole Land of Israel and its inhabitants blessed by God. Its villages hidden in the shade of vineyards and olive groves, the fields enveloped in grains and the orchard trees crowned with fruit, the valleys yielding flowers and the forest trees swaying; the whole firmament is sky blue and all the houses are filled with rejoicing. By day they plow and sow and plant and reap and gather and pick, threshing wheat and pressing wine, and at eventide they sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, his wife and his sons and daughters sitting with him, happy at their work and rejoicing in their sitting, and they reminisce about the days of yore Outside the Land, like people who in happy times recall days of woe, and enjoy the good twice over. A man of imagination was Isaac, what his heart desired, his imagination would conjure up for him.
The days of his youth departed in his yearning for the Land of Israel. Some of Isaac's friends had already taken wives and opened shops for themselves, and they're distinguished in the eyes of folks and are invited to all public events. When they enter the bank, the clerk sits them down on a chair; when they come to a government office, the dignitaries return their greetings. And others of Isaac's friends are at the university studying all manner of wisdom that sustains those who possess it and magnifies their honor. While Isaac shortens his life and spends his days and his years selling Shekels to vote for the Zionist organization and selling stamps of the Jewish National Fund. His father wished to extricate him from his folly and set him up in a shop so he would be occupied in trade and become a man, but as soon as he entered the shop, the whole shop turned into a branch of Zionism. Anyone who didn't know what to do with himself went there. There were those who came to talk and those who came to listen, and those who just came and stood leaning on their walking stick and chomping on their beard, and the customers were dwindling and dropping away to other shops.
Even though there is a Society of Zion in the city, the talkers were fond of that store, because at the Society, you have to pay monthly dues, while here you entered and didn't pay. At the Society, everyone who comes in is dubbed a Zionist, and not everybody wants to be known as a Zionist, while here you were entitled to split hairs about Zionism to your heart's content and nobody called you a Zionist. And why are they afraid to be counted among the Zionists? Because the Sages of the Generation did not yet grant their seal of approval to Zionism and were hostile to the Zionists who make Societies for the Land of Israel thus annulling the Salvation that has to come by a miracle. All those who fear their words or are in awe of them are afraid to be called Zionists, but obstreperous individuals permit themselves to split hairs about it. They gather in Simon Kumer's store and find people like themselves and fire each other up with words that are food for the soul.
Thus passed the days of Isaac's youth, days that should form the foundation of a man's future. He didn't notice that he was spending them idly, or he did notice and wasn't worried, because his dwelling Outside the Land wasn't worth anything in his eyes, for all of Isaac's desire was to be in the Land of Israel. He remained alone in the shop, sitting and counting the Zionist Shekels he sold and making calculations, such as, if every single Jew gives a penny every day to the Jewish National Fund, how many acres can you buy with that small change and how many families could be settled on them. If a customer comes in to ask for some merchandise, Isaac glances at him like someone who is sitting on a treasure trove and people come and bother him.
[2]
When Simon, Isaac's father, saw Isaac's activities, he was bitter and depressed and worried. He would stand in the door of his shop and wring his hands in grief, or would sit on the chair and lean his head back and blow out his lungs inside him. If you haven't seen Simon Kumer, the father of Isaac Kumer, sitting in front of his son you never saw a father's grief. Before his son Isaac was grown up, his wife was his helpmate, and when she passed away leaving behind her a house full of orphans, Simon expected his son would help him. And what does the son do? Is it not bad enough that he doesn't help him, but he also drives the customers away to other shops? Simon neither quarrels with his son nor consoles him, for he has learned that neither quarreling nor conciliatory words will do any good. A curse has descended on the world, sons do not heed their fathers and fathers do not rule their sons. And Simon has despaired of getting any joy and satisfaction from his son and has started worrying lest his other sons learn from Isaac's deeds. He pondered the matter and agreed to send Isaac where he wanted to go. True, there is no prospect for the Land of Israel, but at any rate there may be some profit in that, for when he sees there is really nothing there, he'll come back to his hometown and settle down like everybody else, and the other sons will be saved and won't get dragged into this nonsense.
Simon didn't spare his son's dignity and would joke, For what reason do I agree to his journey? So he'll see with his own eyes that the whole business of the Land of Israel is a fiction the Zionists made up, and he'll remove it from his heart. Isaac heard and wasn't vexed. For the sons of Israel, if they aren't the sons of rich men or geniuses, grow up meekly, hear their disgrace and keep silent. And Isaac said to himself, Let Father say what he wants, in the end he will see that my way is the right one. Thus Isaac received his father's consent to the journey. From the day he was born not a thing had been done to his desire until that thing came and was done to his desire.
[3]
So great was the power of Isaac's trust in the Lord that even the town wags who make a joke of everything didn't laugh at him. His father began to think that perhaps God sent him to be a sustenance and a refuge for us. When Simon considered the journey, he started worrying and groaning and sighing, May I drop dead if I know where I'm going to get the money for the trip. Even if I sell all my wares it won't be enough. And even if it is enough, nobody comes in to buy, for Isaac has already made the customers forget the way to my shop. And even if my customers do come back they don't pay cash. All Simon Kumer's days were worries about money. Three generations had drawn their livelihood from the treasures their ancestor Reb Yudel Hasid had discovered, and the fourth generation finished off that wealth and didn't leave Simon Kumer, father of Isaac, son of the son of the daughter of Reb Yudel's daughter, even the remnants of remnants of those treasures. And now that he is pressed for money, no miracle occurred to him, and he didn't find a treasure as his ancestor did. Reb Yudel who had perfect trust in God was paid by the Holy-One-Blessed-Be-He to match his trust, while Simon his descendant placed his trust in trade, and trade sometimes brings honors to those who practice it and sometimes brings horrors on those who practice it.
Now a new worry was added to his worries, finding money for the journey. In those days there was some idle money among the well-to-do men of the city, for the royal authority had issued a decree against pawning, and they were afraid to lend to a Gentile who might report it to the government, yet they did take the liberty of lending to Jews at a fixed rate of interest. But where will a poor Jew get money to pay? And there's another problem here too, for Isaac won't find any work in the Land of Israel, and by the time his departure is paid for, he'll need to borrow to pay for his return.
Meanwhile, the time came for Isaac to be drafted into the army, and there was not a chance that he would be excused, for he was a healthy fellow and without the wherewithal to bribe the army commanders, and serving in the army meant profaning the Sabbath and eating forbidden foods. In spite of himself, Simon went back to pondering the journey.
Thus he went to the pawn shop and borrowed money for travel expenses and for clothes and footwear, for Isaac's clothing had laid him bare and his footwear wore him down because it was patched. He bought him clothes and ordered him shoes and a hat. Clothes of wool, shoes of sturdy leather, a hat of black felt, for they weren't yet experts on the climate of the Land of Israel and didn't know what clothes that Land demanded. True, they heard that the Land of Israel was a hot land, but they thought hot means beautiful, an in the poem of our bard, the marvels of a land where spring blooms eternal. For he is going to a place where they didn't know him and his clothes will show that he is from a fine home. Then Simon has six shirts sewn for him and ironed meticulously, because the ones he had showed more rips than patches, for ever since the day his mother died, no hand had mended them. If Simon had been blessed with wealth, he would have provided wedding garments for his son, but now he wasn't blessed, he provided him with supplies for the road. And he took a pillow and a featherbed from his wife's bed and gave them to Isaac. Then he took a valise and a sack, a valise to put the clothes and shirts in, and a sack to put the pillow and featherbed in.
[4]
Isaac parted from his father and his brothers and his sisters and all his other relatives and set out on the road. To the disgrace of his hometown, we must say that he parted from it without pain. A city that didn't send a Delegate to the Zionist Congres
Chapter One On the Soil of the Land of Israel
Isaac stood there on the soil of the Land of Israel he had yearned to see all the days of his life. Beneath his feet are the rocks of the Land of Israel and above his head blazes the sun of the Land of Israel and the houses of Jaffa rise up from the sea like regiments of wind, like clouds of splendor, and the sea recoils and comes back to the city, and does not swallow the city nor does the city drink up the sea. An hour or two ago, Isaac had been on the sea and now he is on dry land. An hour or two ago, he was drinking the air of other lands, and now he is drinking the air of the Land of Israel. No sooner had he collected his thoughts than the porters were standing around him and demanding money from him. He took out his purse and gave them. They demanded more. He gave them. They demanded more. Finally, they wanted baksheesh.
When he got rid of the Arabs, a Jew came and took Isaac's belongings. He led him through markets and passages, alleys and yards. Trees with abundant branches rose up, and strange cattle were chewing their cud. And people wrapped in turbans mock in their own tongues. The sun is blazing above and the sand is burning below. Isaac's flesh is an enveloping flame and his sinews an ardent fire. His throat is hoarse and his tongue is like parched soil, and his lips are dry and his whole body is a jug of sweat. Suddenly a light breeze blew bringing life in its wake. But as suddenly as it came, so it disappeared. And once again he seems to be inside a case of fire and a pool of boiling water. He looked in front of him and was stunned. His escort had brought him to a yard and taken him into a dark house full of sacks and bundles and belongings and packages and baskets and crates and boxes, and told him they were setting the table and would soon call him to dinner. Isaac rummaged around for those letters our leaders in Lemberg had written for him to show the landlord that he wasn't mistaken about him.
The landlord wasn't mistaken about Isaac, but Isaac was mistaken about the landlord. This house was an inn and the landlord was an innkeeper and all his efforts with Isaac were simply to be paid for room and board. If Isaac had gone with others who had attached themselves to him on the boat, he wouldn't have had to wind up in this hostel where the food was thin and the bedbugs were fat, the bugs sucked his blood by night as their owner sucked his blood by day. Or maybe those who attached themselves to him first were also innkeepers whose affection was all for the sake of money. Isaac justified the judgment meted out to him and accepted everything lovingly. Isaac said, Tomorrow I'll go out to the field and I won't need this fortune I brought from Exile, and it didn't matter if they took a lot from him or a little.
Isaac spent that day and all that night in the hostel. He drank a lot and slept a little and waited for dawn to go to a village. When day broke and he wanted to go, the landlord said to him, Eat first and then go. When he had eaten and got up to go, he said to him, Where are you going? He told him, To Petakh Tikva, the Opening of Our Hope. The landlord said, The wagon's already gone. He wanted to go to Rishon Le-Tsion, the First of Zion, and he told him, Today the car doesn't go there. He wanted to go to some other place, and he told him, Arabs attacked that place and destroyed it. And so with every place Isaac wanted to go to, the owner of the hostel found something to delay him. At that time, the hostel was empty, had no guests, and when a guest wound up in the hostel, the innkeeper held on to him until his money ran out. Isaac fathomed the innkeeper's mind, and he got up and went to find himself a cart.
[2]
Isaac went out to look for a cart. As soon as he took one step, both his feet sank in the sand. This is the sand of Jaffa that digs underneath you to swallow you up. As soon as you stand on it, it runs out and turns into holes on top of holes.
The sun was strong in its dominion and beat down on Isaac's head. His eyes were filled with salt water and the fire lapped it and boiled it. His clothes are heavy and his shoes are blazing like coals. The ironed shirt he donned in honor of the Land sits on his heart like a soaked Matzo, and the hat rains salty dews down on his face.
Shapeless houses are strewn over the sand, which rises above their thresholds and rubs into the walls. The windows are closed and the shutters gleam in the sun. No sign of life is evident in those houses, but puddles of slops standing full and smelling foul indicate that human beings dwell there.
Isaac walks around in the wasteland of Jaffa. No man on earth, no bird in the sky. Only the sun stands between sky and earth like a dreadful being that won't bear any other being in its presence. If he isn't burned in fire, he will dissolve in sweat. Isaac no longer feels his clothes and shoes, for he and they have become one single mass. In the end, even the sense of himself was stripped from him, as if he were removed from himself.
God took pity on him and he didn't lose his head. Isaac knew the road he came from and knew that he could go back to the hostel. He made his heart obstinate and didn't return. He said to himself, Today I'll get to the settlement and I'll go into the forest and dwell in the shade of a tree and no sun in the world will overcome me. An imaginative man was Isaac and he imagined that the people of the settlements had planted forests to dwell in their shade.
Soon after, Isaac left the desert of sand and reached a dwelling place. Camels and donkeys and mules loaded with wares were standing around as if they bore no burden. Nearby sat a few Arabs with long, multicolored tubes in their mouths, and their eyes were raised to the sky. Nearby stood a few Jews and debated with the Arabs.
Isaac encountered one fellow. He said to him, "Pray, my lord, where might I find here a vehicle going to one of the settlements of the Jews?" The fellow held out his hand and greeted him. He welcomed him, saying, A new man, a new man. Isaac nodded in reply and said, I arrived yesterday, and now I want to go to Petakh Tikva or Rishon Le-Tsion. Does my lord know where I might find a vehicle?
The fellow replied, "Does my loydship see dose green trees standin in a line? If it may please my loydship, he'll toyn toyd dose green trees; and dere my loydship would please to find de carriages my loydship is seekin, both dose dat journey to Peysakh Tikvoy and dose dat journey to Rehoyvis and to Rishoyn-le-Tsioyn, and dose dat journey to de udder dwellins of our brudders, children of Isroyel, who dwell on de holy soil in de Holy Land." All that to make fun of him for talking in his Ashkenazi Hebrew of the Exile. Isaac got into conversation with him, and in the end they went into a coffeehouse to drink lemonade.
When they entered they found a group of young men, sitting both silent and slovenly. They raised their weary eyes to Isaac and looked at him. One of the group stretched out his hand and greeted him and said, A new man comes, hissing as if he were hushing his thoughts and calling Hush hush. Isaac returned his greeting and said, Yesterday I was fortunate enough to ascend to the Land of Israel. And as he spoke, he waved his hat like a fan and blew a breeze on his face, he wiped his sweat and said, It's hot here, hot here. Someone exclaimed in amazement, The springtime isn't over yet and he's already hot. And another one looked at Isaac's clothes and said, The sun gets hot from patriots like you.
Isaac ordered lemonade for himself and his companion and the companions of his companion. He drank and didn't quench his thirst, and drank again and didn't quench his thirst. As soon as the beverage entered his body it came out on his face. He held his glass and wiped his sweat, wiped his sweat and drank some more. At first that drink is sour and sweet and finally it scratches your guts and leaves an insipid taste in your mouth. His companions ordered black coffee to get rid of the taste.
One of them asked Isaac, What's new in the world? Isaac, who thought there was no world except for the Land of Israel, replied, I'm a new man in the Land and haven't yet heard anything. On the contrary, perhaps I shall hear from you what's new in the Land. One of them answered, News you want to hear. Well then, hear. This place what is it, a coffeehouse, right. And this man talking to you what is he, a laborer in the Land, right. And this day what is it, a day like any other day, right. If so what is the laborer doing in the coffeehouse on a weekday? Except that he pursued all the Effendis in the settlements of the Land of Israel and didn't find any work. And why didn't he find any work, because their work is done by Arabs. And why doesn't he turn to construction work? After all a Hebrew school is being built here in Jaffa with money from a Jewish donor supported by the committee of the Lovers of Zion in Odessa, and they surely need workers. But the building supervisors turn us down and say that they have already given the construction work to contractors, and the contractors turn us down, because it's easier for them to work with foreign laborers, since the foreigners cost them less. And since they won't say that they're turning us down because, by their accounting, we cost them more than what they need to make a profit, they slander us, saying that we don't know the work. It's not enough that they take away our livelihood, but they also dishonor our name. Why are you looking at me? Don't you understand a human language?
Isaac understood yet didn't understand. He understood that they were building a Hebrew school, and didn't understand the actions of the contractors. He understood that that man walked through all the settlements, but didn't understand that he couldn't find anything. And why didn't Isaac understand, after all he did know Hebrew, but that man spoke with a Sephardi accent, and mingled Russian and Arabic curses with words that had been invented in the Land. How much Isaac loved the conversation of that man, held in Hebrew and in the Land of Israel.
Another man added, The officials of our national institutions, some of them get the salary of a governor, and complain about us laborers that we want a salary of two or three Bishliks a day. And they, who are no wiser than we are, think they have some superior wisdom and they made themselves patrons of the Yishuv, and they placed themselves in offices and write memoranda, while we pull the skin off our bones and take a leading part in all troubles.
Someone pointed at Isaac and said, Why are you scaring him? Said the one who spoke first, Shall I compose an idyll of the Land of Israel for him? And the other one said, That I leave to the poets and the tourists, and I ask you all, are you the only ones suffering? Aren't there people here who came before us, and if we tell all the troubles that befell them, time would run out. They came to a wilderness, a place of harsh malaria, and gangs of highwaymen, and harsh laws and evil governors. If they built themselves houses, the king's officials came and destroyed them. If they sowed, their neighbors came and threw their beasts on the grain. If they drove them out, they went to cry to the government that the Jews attacked them. And if some of the harvest remained, they didn't know if they should sow it next year or use it to bribe the clerks not to twist their laws against them. And what they rescued from humans was taken from them by Heaven. But they didn't despair and they endured all the troubles and they maintained the Yishuv through their suffering and turned the deserts of the Land of Israel into homes and vineyards and fields. And as he mentioned their suffering, he told of their heroism, and as he told, his companions told more and even more. Thus they sat and told tales about afflictions and tales about heroism, about those in the plain and about those in the mountains, about those in the sands and about those in the swamp. About those who eat the harvest of their fields and about those who are eaten by the Land. It is small, our Land, and how great are its troubles. And since they were telling about the settlements, they told about their founders. And as they were telling, they were amazed at themselves that they hadn't noticed the heroism of those founders before now.
How Isaac loved that hour when he sat in the Land of Israel in the presence of laborers of the Land of Israel who were telling of the building of the Land of Israel. The Land of Israel was acquired with suffering, and he who loves the Land of Israel and lovingly accepts her suffering, is privileged to see her being built.
As they sit, hunger begins to oppress them. One of the group stood up and said, It's lunchtime. Anyone who had a Bishlik or half a Bishlik began pondering whether to eat at noon or in the evening, and anyone who didn't have a cent in his hand was exempt from superfluous contemplations. It was hard for Isaac to leave the group so he invited them all to dine with him. He really did want to go to the settlement, but it was worth it for him to while away a day with them. They sat and ate together. They ate to satisfy their hunger, and he who wasn't used to the food of the Land of Israel ate little, and even that did not accord with his habits. After they ate and drank, he paid their expenses. How heavy is the currency of the Land of Israel and how many kinds there are there, Francs and Megiddos and Bishliks and Matliks. If all the coins were put in one side of the scales and all the food in the other side, the coins would tip the scales.
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