All Rivers Run to the Sea_ Memoirs - Elie Wiesel [24]
Visiting him was a festival for the heart and mind. I would lose sleep preparing myself physically and mentally, and in his presence I felt purified, uplifted, and secure. At his house no one looked at me askance, and no one judged me. I was free and at ease. Everything belonged to me, and I was given everything. The sun’s rays playing in the branches of the fruit trees, the river that carried my secrets to the next village, the blue, gray, and purple carpet of sky stretching to the horizon—nature seemed to exist only for my grandfather to tell me of its eternal beauty.
He was a marvelous singer, with a warm, melodious voice that could conjure worlds near and far. He knew the songs of the Wizhnitz court, those sung on the eve of Shabbat and those murmured at dusk the next day, at the hour of its departure. He knew the romantic, mystical songs the Rebbe of Kalev sang in Hungarian, and the nostalgic tunes of Romanian shepherds, slow and thundering doinas that were calls to glorious dreams and the love of broken hearts. When he stopped to catch his breath, I would beg him for more, and with an ever more gleeful smile he would recall a new song attributed to this or that tzaddik. Once he stopped in the middle of a niggun. Eyes closed, he seemed asleep. Afraid of waking him, I didn’t budge. But he wasn’t sleeping. “I’m dreaming,” he said. “I’ve never sung so much. Thanks to you, I think I can rise to Haikhal Haneggina, the celestial sanctuary where words become song.”
He told stories too. Stories of miracle-makers, of unhappy princes and just men in disguise. It is to him I owe everything I have written on Hasidic literature. The enchanting tales of Rebbe Nahman of Bratslav, the parables of the Rebbe of Kotzk, the sayings of the Rebbe of Rizhin, and the witticisms of the Rebbe of Ropshitz: he knew them all, and he taught me to savor them. Suddenly I would find myself on the boat that carried Rebbe Nahman to the Holy Land. I followed the Rizhiner into exile, waited at the Kotzker’s door to glimpse him in his terrible isolation. I saw them all, and saw myself before them. I felt exhilarated, inspired, and enriched from moment to moment, from tale to tale. “I’ll never forget these stories,” I told him, and he answered, “That’s why I’m telling them to you. So they won’t be forgotten.”
For the High Holidays he would come into town to attend the service of Rebbe Pinhas, the Rebbe of Borsha. He would always stay with us. Since my father prayed at the Great Synagogue, I would accompany my grandfather to the Hasidic Beit Midrash across the street. As a privileged guest, he would stand near the Rebbe, and so would I. During those special prayers that are recited with fear and trembling, he would draw me under his talit to protect and comfort me. I would feel his heavy hand on my head and follow the words that soared to the highest spheres, interceding on my behalf and on the people of Israel’s.
We used to have an open house on Rosh Hashana. After the reading of the Torah and before the particularly solemn service of Musaf, the Borsher Rebbe’s faithful were invited to have a glass of tea in our yard. The children acted as waiters. For my grandfather it was a moment of pride: he would watch us and bless us with his eyes. Then we would stay with him for the second half of the service.
Later, dressed in his caftan and his wide-brimmed fur hat, the yellowed Makhzor under his arm, a prince among princes, he would sing all the way back to our house. “Happy New Year!” he would call out joyfully. And he exuded so much confidence, so much grace and love, that I knew the year would be good. Yes, even 1943. And yet. That was his last Rosh Hashana.
In April 1944 my parents invited him and his wife to live