| Len's uncle
Hebrew school
I recall that once in Cheder, later on a new boy came to Cheder. In addition to the three of us, there was another one. There were a couple of other boys, of course. That boy’s name I’ll never forget. His name was Israel and we called him Israelke.
He was a very brave boy. I remember before Tisha b’Av, the ninth day of the Jewish month of Av, which is a sad day in the Jewish calendar, because on that day, the first temple was destroyed, and the second temple was destroyed. And the Jews were driven out of Spain on that day. Various other misfortunes happened to have ccurred on the same day of the month.
Prior to that, before that day, about three, four days before, we used to study the Midrash. That is a book, or several books written on the bible, exegesis, discussing and telling at length and in detail various events and occurrences that had taken place in the history. They recorded a lot of details that had taken place during the destruction of the temple, the attack by the enemy, and then the siege of the city, and how the enemy brought keen [phonetic] and the people that he had killed, and the children that were destroyed and killed, very, very sad stories.
Of course, it is very sad — the rebbe was sitting and reading it and crying, and we saw the rebbe cry, so we also cried. Then there is another remark that one of the sages made, and that is that God himself was crying. How do we know? Because one of the prophets says — “In hidden places, my soul was crying because of the arrogance of the enemy.” He gives it as a fact. He said, “My soul,” that means it was God that was crying. God saw all the destruction and ruination, and children rolling on the streets all over, dead. Some of them were found in the grass, and their mother — both of them dead, mother and child.
My rabbi was so sad because God himself was crying, and my friend Israel Capores yelled out, very angrily, he said, “To the devil with him. What do you mean he was crying? What was he? He’s a god? Couldn’t he do something? Why did he sit like an old woman in the corner and cry?”
You know, I was amazed at the bravery of that boy, because I felt exactly the way he did. But I wouldn’t dare to say it, but he said it. I feel that he was right to this very day, that if he were capable of doing something, and loving us so much, he certainly would have done something.
This is one of the things that I remember from the days of my Cheder that impressed me very, very much, because it gave me a thought — it made me think about being able and not being able, about the power of a power that is being worshiped and adored by the whole world.
This is just one little episode.
This is just one little episode.
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