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By Root 2114 0

watching an acrobat perform on two enormous stilts, his head touching the roofs. Another time I saw a tightrope walker. I still remember the crowds cry of fright when he fell. “That’s human life,” someone remarked, “a tightrope.” A Jewish theater troupe from Vilna, I think, came to put on several performances. I don’t remember which plays. Once my mother took me to the movies to see a Yiddish film about Jewish settlements in Palestine, or was it Birobidzhan? Boys and girls were shown working in the fields, laughing and singing. Another time a Hungarian film, Girl of the Night, was shown. I remember the face and the name of the star, the beautiful Karády Katalyn, from a poster. But I never saw the film. After all, a good Jewish boy, religious to boot, did not waste his time—and lose his soul—watching women doing God-knows-what.

From the pedagogical point of view, of course, my parents were making a mistake. Though I hadn’t seen the film, the actress occupied my thoughts. Considerable efforts were required to drive her out, especially at night, just before I went to sleep. And she was not alone. Despite (or because of) the prohibitions, there were times when my glance roamed where it shouldn’t have, in the direction of a young female neighbor or a beautiful stranger passing through the neighborhood. This troubled me, and I punished myself. Satan was leading me astray, casting a spell over me. He wanted to make me his slave, his prey; he was trying to capture my soul and poison it. How could I defend myself? I remember a judges daughter, a lovely, haughty blonde with long silky hair who would walk past our house at a measured pace. I didn’t know why, but she made my heart pound. To purify my spirit I resorted to prayer, a common and sometimes effective device. At least it took time. There were psalms in the morning, psalms in the afternoon, and psalms in the evening. At the time of my bar mitzvah I went to the ritual baths every morning before services. Thirteen immersions, corresponding to the numerical value of Ehad, God is one, or twenty-six immersions because the Tetragrammaton adds up to twenty-six. I prayed with fervor, convinced that with a bit of kavanah, of concentration, I would vanquish the temptations of evil, along with evil itself. Just a bit more inner discipline and my prayers would rise to seventh heaven, leaving the judge’s daughter and all the others behind.

I sometimes envied one or another friend not because he was better dressed or more often praised by our teachers, but because he prayed with greater devotion.

Would that I could open my soul to prayer and aspire to purity today as I did in those days.

I see my father, I dream I see him. Sometimes I see only him. He seems worried, somber. Is he looking for a little Jewish boy like any other, in a little Jewish town like so many others, a Jewish adolescent in search of redemption? He is looking for me: Eliezer, son of Shlomo. I see him at the store. Across the street from us lives the Rebbe of Borsha, Reb Pinhas Hager. On our right the Slotvener Rebbe holds court for his elated faithful. On our left is the home of Reb Shloimele Heller, a rabbinical judge known for his levelheadedness.

It seems funny, I know. This little town has so many rabbis, each drawing his own followers. You might think Sighet was one enormous synagogue, that God’s service was all we cared about, that material considerations were of no concern. But you’d be wrong. We had our share of thieves and informers. There was “Yankel the horse thief” and “Berl the fink.”

Of course, we all awaited the Messiah. It would all work out in the end. A little patience. If the inhabitants of my town were optimists, it was because they had little choice. What would become of a Jew who resigned himself to pessimism? Can you imagine a pessimistic Messiah?

The Messiah. My poor mother never ceased to demand and await His coming. He was never far from her mind. At night, as she rocked me to sleep, she would sing of her deep conviction that nothing bad would happen to her child, since the Messiah would