The Rebbe’s Grandson

1

The terrace of the large coffee house in Berlin was almost empty, save for the occasional occupied table. The season had already turned autumnal. The weather was unpredictable, and the air carried a certain unexpected chill. At one such table, in the midst of many empty little chairs and other tables, deserted and neglected, sat a man, probably in his forties: Doctor of Philosophy Berelson, by name. He never liked to sit in the midst of an unfamiliar crowd. He always felt lost in a fully packed cafe. Also, today’s weather excited him, ignited his imagination, and tore him from the ennui and heaviness that had most recently oppressed him.

While he wiped his hand across his dense forehead, then slowly rubbed his eyes, his mind carried scraps of memories, torn and floating like the thin clouds above, which rapidly flew over the gloomy sky: memories of the blowing of the shofar, of Yom Kippur prayers, of the white satin rabbinic vestments, and of oppressed hearts that cry to heaven with grief.

He sat with his wife, who was hidden from sight behind his more obvious presence. He was a formidable looking man: a full-blooded, dark-haired Jewish type—with a black, neatly respectable beard and a long, well-chiseled nose. He had inherited his stately appearance from his grandfather and great-grandfathers. His dark eyes crinkled strangely with a kind of sadness, like that of a coddled first-born child. She, on the other hand, was a diminutive person, her face quite delicate looking. After much contemplation, one could read only one predisposition from her face: a strong, female stubbornness was deeply creased around her small mouth with its tight, thin, pale lips.

Thoughts pulsed feverishly in the head of the bearded man. In such moments, everything around him acquired a heightened weight and meaning. The faces of the people told him so much; even their clothing and their movements had something to say. The little bird skipping on the street and pecking something from the pavement became heavy with meaning. Across the way, the golden cross over the large church seemed to sway in prayer, as though it were a living limb in an animated world. A sense of unease wafted from the shadows of the houses that appeared along the street and disappeared with the fleeing clouds above.

Everything became more animated; everything breathed eternal air. And he, the living human being with his watchful eye and mind, felt himself closer, more harmonized with the world—almost a step away from reaching the world’s ultimate secret, its hidden meaning.

“Why is it not our fate to be like the clouds that come and go, which blend with dust from the earth and transform themselves into diverse shapes, then disappear again and become nothingness again, only to be reborn?”

He spoke his thoughts quietly, as if to himself, but he knew that the small feminine creature next to him took careful note of his words. He felt her concentrated gaze upon him, even though he did not glance at her. He knew his words would not disappear into emptiness. They were grasped, pressed together by the sustained will that he, himself, was lacking.

This was because, in his solitary state, his wife was his only admirer. He had her to thank that he could occasionally raise himself above his own sense of worthlessness. For who is he, Dr. Berelson, to all the other people—other than a beard? Is he more than the clothing that covers his body?

As he spoke his words and thought his thoughts, he held one of his hands—the one wearing the wedding ring—on the table. It was a respectable, solid hand, a bit hairy. And the sparkling, sharp eyes of his diminutive wife concentrated on that hand; she couldn’t tear her eyes away. Her desire to touch his hand was stronger than all her other deliberations. She was in love with her husband, in love as if she were a young maiden. With each passing day, her love grew, in line with her rapid aging. When she caressed his hairy hand with her own soft one, she could not help but blush.

Under her own, his hand gave a twitch. With an insecure, lost look, he glanced at her with a certain estrangement. It passed in a second. She sighed and, embarrassed, pulled her hand away. Since she had no mirror in front of her, she could only observe a portion of her outward appearance: the line of her withered breasts. But this was enough for her. Through her own cold calculation, she imagined that the erotic moment had been destroyed. She looked at him again with both rapture and sorrow: he was, after all, a virile man in his best years!

As luck would have it, just then young female figures moved in from all sides: slim, elastic bodies, each holding a promise. They came with their men or they walked by, coquettishly on their own. Not one of them dared to look directly at the bearded gentleman. The diminutive wife lost heart and pulled her lips more tightly together. And, with an even greater stubbornness, her eyes gazed and twinkled like green, polished steel.

2

There had been another reason for Dr. Berelson’s withdrawal. Just today he had received a letter from Reb Isaḥar Ber, a landowner in eastern Galicia, who had been his secret friend and patron since he had left the home of his grandfather, the Rebbe. (Dr. Berelson’s father had died young and he had been brought up in his grandfather’s house.) The letter had shaken him—not so much with its content, as with its tangible signs of aging and the foreshadowing of death, so sharply evident in the handwriting. The once shapely, upright little letters with their elegant, refined ornamentation were now hurled about by a shaking hand, and in some places a letter or a whole word was missing. When forceful, authoritative people like Reb Isaḥar Ber are debilitated to such a level of deterioration, they will not last long and their days are numbered. This is what the handwriting and the tone of the letter implied.

The letter was written in old Hebrew, but it was noteworthy that the traditional expression, be’ezras hashem (with God’s help), was missing. Reb Ber wrote about his circumstances after the horrible incidents of recent times. Some of his children had been killed in the war; others were scattered throughout the world. Only one daughter lived with him now, and she was half-crazy. All his wealth had also been destroyed. He could hardly maintain himself on his estate.

“I feel I am losing my strength and I wait for you, the light of my eyes, that you should come to illuminate the darkness. When will your book appear? My soul begins to fade, while waiting for it.”

“A life is extinguished and passes away without a scrap of consolation,” Dr. Berelson thought as he repeated the last words of the letter. Something had become ominous, and he felt guilty about the broken state of his old friend. And why was it that in this letter—perhaps the man’s last one—the name of “God” seemed to be deliberately missing? This was especially odd, considering that Reb Isaḥar Ber had never before allowed disturbing thoughts to interrupt his life. He believed in the Rebbe, but also he also had faith in his heretic grandson, Elimelekh, who would undoubtedly enlighten the world. It had made good sense to him that the professors in Bern were impressed by Elimelekh Berelson and worshiped him.

“One can always trust Elimelekh,” Reb Ber thought. Throughout all of Berelson’s years of studies, Reb Ber had supported him with money. For he believed that Elimelekh was preparing an important book that would revolutionize the field of philosophy. From his letter, it was clear that he feared leaving this world without experiencing that great event when Elimelekh’s name would become famous throughout the whole world. And when all nations, Jews and gentiles alike, would observe a great illumination of thought.

In recent years, Dr. Berelson had been waiting for a revelation. The war, which had passed by like a dismal dream and had squandered away his best years, wasn’t a time for concentrated creativity. But now the war was over. Now the work could no longer be put off, so he prepared himself and waited for a spark of motivation to fire him up; he must get to work on completing his opus, “Man and the Cosmos,” which was to be his life’s work.

Lost in his own thoughts, Dr. Berelson was reminded of Reb Ber, a tall, healthy Jew with a bit of a paunch. That is how he had looked twenty years ago, when he, Berelson, had been a guest at Reb Ber’s estate.

They went for a walk together, uphill in the Carpathian landscape on the way to a waterfall that cascaded like foam over a precipice. Joy and love flowed from Reb Ber, who constantly consoled Berelson and, gesturing with his strong broad hand, gave him to understand that it didn’t matter; all must be good and all will be good. And God is a righteous father who does not let anyone sink.

“As long as you are serious about your work,” said Reb Ber, shouting over the noise of the falling water. “Elimelekh does not need to tell me who he is: I already know him. There are few others like Elimelekh, and the merits of your ancestors stand behind you!”

At the time, Berelson became silent and stared into the abyss. Only when he lifted his gaze did his eyes meet those of Reb Isaḥar Ber, who observed him with much love and delight.

“Elimelekh actually wants to depart from here? Your grandfather, may he live a long life, will be heartbroken.”

“It can’t be avoided. It must be this way,” he answered succinctly.

Reb Isaḥar Ber continued to stand over him in his yellow boots, and with great pleasure looked at the grandson of the Rebbe and his eyes seemed to say it all. “We are simple people,” he uttered with humility, a helpless smile playing on his face. Meanwhile, he began to rock his huge frame, back and forth, as though he were studying Talmud. “What can we comprehend? I want Elimelekh to say something. . . .”

Reb Isaḥar Ber longed for some wisdom, a piece of Torah, from Elimelekh. He couldn’t stand the dryness of Elimelekh’s pronouncement that “It must be this way.”

Suddenly, the instinct of his forebears were awakened in the grandson, an instinct that had taught his Hasidic forebears how to deal with thirsty human souls.

He said with the ceremoniousness of reading from the Torah, as though he himself were a Hasidic rabbi interpreting scripture for his followers: “The water flows into the abyss, whether it wants to or not. And from the rivulets emerge rivers, and the rivers flow into the sea. And the sea never overflows.”

“And the sea never gets full,” Reb Isaḥar Ber hummed along in Hebrew and nodded his head in grave seriousness.

Afterward, Reb Isaḥar Ber took him to his home and they drank some strong spirits together. Hasidim came to the door to get a glimpse of Elimelekh, the grandson of the Rebbe. But Reb Ber did not let them in. There was a secret understanding between them—Reb Ber and Elimelekh—and the Hasidim didn’t belong there. Reb Isaḥar Ber was very moved that he alone, and no one else, was with Elimelekh.

And now this very friend was moving toward the shadows, dying. The world was now becoming full of holes and worms. Unless a great illumination were to refill it. . . .

Two ladies arrived at the café and took a table beside them. Both glanced at him. One unabashedly smiled at him. Once again, he felt a certain temptation—which consistently befell him of late—running through his blood.

And his diminutive wife continued to make her demands: “We’re going home. . . . It’s getting late. . . .”