Exodus - Leon Uris [116]
A candle was burning on Simon’s bench. He stood behind it in his long nightshirt with his hands clasped behind him.
“Hello, Papa,” they said quickly, and tried to duck into their alcove.
“Boys!” Simon commanded. They walked slowly before his bench.
Their mother walked into the room and squinted. “Simon,” she said, “are the boys home?”
“They are home.”
“Tell them they shouldn’t be on the streets so late.”
“Yes, Mama,” Simon said. “Go to sleep and I shall speak to them.”
Simon looked from Yakov to Jossi and back to Yakov.
“I must tell Mrs. Horowitz tomorrow that her husband can surely rest in peace because my sons joined in a minyan for him tonight.”
It was impossible for Jossi to lie to his father. “We weren’t at minyan for Reb Horowitz,” he mumbled.
Simon Rabinsky feigned surprise and held his hands aloft. “Oh ... so! I should have known. You boys were courting. Just today Abraham, the matchmaker, was in the shop. He said to me, ‘Simon Rabinsky,’ he said, ‘you have a fine boy in Jossi. Jossi will bring you a handsome dowry from the family of some very fortunate girl.’ Can you imagine ... he wants to make a shiddoch for you already, Jossi.”
“We were not courting,” Jossi gulped.
“Not courting? No minyan? Perhaps you went back to the synagogue to study?”
“No, Father,” Jossi said almost inaudibly.
Yakov could stand it no longer. “We went to a Lovers of Zion meeting!”
Jossi looked up at his father sheepishly, bit his lip, and nodded red-faced. Yakov seemed glad it was in the open. He stood defiant. Simon sighed and stared at both his sons for a full five minutes.
“I am hurt,” he announced at last.
“That is why we did not tell you, Father. We did not want to hurt you,” Jossi said.
“I am not hurt because you went to a Lovers of Zion meeting. I am hurt because the sons of Simon Rabinsky think so little of their father they no longer confide in him.”
Now Yakov squirmed too. “But if we’d told you,” he said, “you might have forbidden us to go.”
“Tell me, Yakov ... when have I ever forbidden you to pursue knowledge? Have I ever forbidden a book? God help me ... even the time you took the notion into your head that you wanted to read the New Testament? Did I forbid that?”
“No, sir,” Yakov said.
“I think a talk is long overdue,” Simon said.
The candlelight seemed to blend with the red of Jossi’s hair. He stood half a head taller than his father and now as he spoke he did not falter. Although Jossi was slow in making up his mind, once it was up he rarely changed it. “Yakov and I did not want to hurt you because we know how you feel about the Lovers of Zion and the new ideas. But I am glad I went tonight.”
“I am glad you went too,” Simon said.
“Rabbi Lipzin wants me to sign up for ghetto defense,” Jossi said.
“Rabbi Lipzin departs from so many traditions I am beginning to wonder if he is a Jew,” Simon said.
“That is just the point, Father,” Jossi said. “You are afraid of the new ideas.” It was the first time Jossi had ever spoken thus to his father and he was immediately ashamed.
Simon walked around the counter and put his hands on his sons’ shoulders and led them into their alcove and bade them sit down on their beds. “Don’t you think I know what is going through your minds? New ideas, indeed. There was exactly the same talk about auto-emancipation and ghetto defense when I was a boy. You are only coming to a crisis that every Jew comes to ... to make your peace with the world ... to know your place. When I was a boy I even thought once of converting ... don’t you think I know how it feels?”
Jossi was astonished. His father had thought of conversion!
“Why is it wrong for us to want to defend ourselves? Why is it made a sin by our own people to want to better our conditions?” Yakov demanded.
“You are a Jew,” his father answered, “and being a Jew entails certain obligations.