The Tzadik of Freehold
*Thank you to Yossi Gluck for providing the translation of the below article*
The Tzadik was killed by a train right before the article went to print.
The
Forest Man
“A
Thinker, a Holy Jew, and an Ever Wanderer”
Written
by Reuven Breinman
Published
on January 14, 1924
In the last five years, I have had the opportunity to hear
stories from various friends about an exceptional Jew (whom some call 'a crazy
Jew'). This exceptional Jew wanders around the state of New Jersey. Depending
on the time of day or night, he can be found in the woods, the forest, or the
shuls. Anyone I know who has met this vagabond related weird and amusing
stories about him..
Originally, I believed the stories about this strange tramp
to be exaggerated. I was sometimes inclined to believe that each one who
related the stories was referring to a different person, as these stories were
riddled with inconsistencies and were told by people of various natures and
levels of education. I took interest in
the more minor, yet notable, tales, even though the people recounting the
stories did not feel as though the tales had any value. However, in my eyes,
these seemingly insignificant stories whispered of tales from faraway Eastern
lands and ancient books.
The Forest Man can appear suddenly in a small village, a
town, or some other place. He stays there for only a single day or night,
parking himself in a synagogue or shul, and then disappears suddenly.
I had to assume that this vagrant was either a pathetic and
emotionally ill person, who could not find rest in a mental home, or an
exceptionally idealistic person with a kind of Buddha nature. He seemed like
someone who had taken upon himself a self-imposed exile.
Some of those who've met him have mistreated him, without
bothering to delve into who he really is. The fact that these encounters
usually took place during the summer, when people were busy with their
vacations, probably also contributed to their lack of focus on him. They would
describe him as a wild man, with long hair, who ran away from others and
survived on miracles.
Those recounting the stories were not sophisticated enough
to recognize the greatness in the individual they'd met. No one took their
encounter with him seriously, despite the possibility of him being an
incredibly holy person, with a rare and exceptional personality.
These last few weeks, I have spent my time in Lakewood. One
evening, the proprietor of the hotel Clarendon[1] where I was
staying, Mr. Levine, a Torah scholar and a worldly person, told me about a
noteworthy Jew who appears in his shul every year, completely out of the blue.
He stays there for a day or two, and then disappears as suddenly as he comes.
Sometimes, he remains in the surrounding woods for a day. He sells tzitzis, which he attaches to taleisim or other four-cornered
garments, as well as luchos. He only
charges a few cents for these items.
When people give him a dime for his wares, he gives back a
nickel or six cents in change. As much as people have tried to prevail upon him
to accept a dollar, nobody has been able to convince him to raise his prices.
Mr. Levine has known this man for quite some years and can
attest that he never accepts handouts from anybody. He won't even accept
invitations from those who invite him to their homes for a warm meal. For the
day or two that he stays in the Lakewood Shul, he sits and learns around the
clock, and just pauses to catnap on a hard bench.
Mr. Levine stressed that this wanderer is a great and
erudite lamdan. Once a year, he sends his earnings from the tzitzis and the luchos to the ultra-religious Jews in the Land of Israel. In
return, they send him beautiful esrogim
for Sukkos. The wanderer then hands out these esrogim to elderly frum Jews in Lakewood and in the surrounding
villages. However, he is careful that his esrog
recipients be mehadrin b’mitvos
and adhere to the strict rules and customs connected to the mitzvah of lulav and esrog.
As much as people have tried to get him to accept payment
for his mehudar esrogim, he will not take a single cent or gift. He hands out the esrogim and then disappears. That has
been his custom for many years.
“What do you think about this eccentric vagabond?” I asked
Mr. Levine, who knows a thing or two about that world.
“I think,” Mr. Levine confidently replied, “that he has
taken upon himself a self-imposed galus.
He is a lofty man, but unfortunately, a bit insane. He must have had a
catastrophic life and may have lost his wife and children in the war. You
cannot engage in conversation with him, and all he does is learn and pray; he
doesn't speak a single word. In general, he avoids people."
From the stories I heard from Mr. Levine, I came to the
realization that the wanderer we were discussing was the same forest man I’d
been hearing stories about for the past five years. Those stories that had
seemed straight out of ancient times, or of stories one would read about in
ancient books about the Buddha, were about this man He was the protagonist in
the tales that had sometimes sounded like shivchei
baal shem tov, or stories one would read about from the Greek philosopher
Diogenes.
I was surprised that it hadn't occurred to any of my friends
who'd related tales of this wanderer, that they'd encountered a mystical, holy,
and slightly demented person. Essentially, a Jew from a different world, a
different sphere. My friends had all simply concluded that they'd met a crazy
person, an “oif a meshugeneh fregt men
nisht kein kashyos” [one doesn’t ask questions about a crazy person].
Their logic went as follows: This Jew spends a couple of days
at a time in the woods, has never earned a cent, lives off minimal bread and
water and fasts several days a week. He walks around dirty, dressed in torn and
worn out clothes, yet will never take clothing from someone else. He's a Jew
who keeps praying and learning and never talks to anyone or engages in idle
talk. He’s always on the move and never accepts a bed to sleep on… well,
doesn't this make him crazy and completely out of his mind?
The world does not care much about those who have been
branded as crazy and who seem uninterested in this world. If the nutcase does
not pose a threat to anyone, paining only himself, without causing harm to
anyone else, then people, including the Jewish community, leave him alone. When
Gentile or Jewish children chase after him, taunt him, or throw stones and mud
at him, nobody cares.
Is there a lack of crazies in the world? Some see it more,
some see it less, but who really cares about them? Every Jew has his own
business, worries, trivialities, and idiosyncrasies.
The picture that Mr. Levine painted of
this unknown nomad, a kind of embodiment of the eternal Jew, conceived by
legend and fantasy, captured my attention. I decided to probe all those people
who'd told me that they'd encountered this insane forest man, to learn as much
as I could about him. I decided that I would invest all my effort in learning
about his past, by observing him and studying him up close as much as possible.
Despite all the stories I'd heard from my acquaintances, I could not believe
that this eccentric personality was just an ordinary, emotionally ill person.
At the hotel I was staying at, I found several guests who
knew this wanderer. He'd either caught their attention with his unusual look
while wandering about, or they'd met him in the local shul. Regardless, they
all testified that despite this tramp being in a perpetually unhygienic state,
he would not accept any handouts of clothing, no matter how much people
offered.
If anyone would approach him, he would suddenly disappear.
He never travelled by train or wagon. His feet were swollen, yet he still never
accepted the offer of a ride in a car or wagon. No one knew his name, his past,
or his life’s fate. Nobody knew what he was searching for or why he tortured
himself by secluding himself from the world and people around him.
The only conclusion they could draw was that this man was
crazy and out of his mind, even though he was a lamdan and very scrupulous in mitzvos.
Nobody could understand why I was taking such a strong interest in this
unknown, crazy individual, and why I was questioning everybody about him.
“How could such a pauper, never mind a crazy pauper, interest you so much?!”
From the conversations I had with the various guests in the
hotel, as well as with Lakewood residents who knew this wanderer, I discovered
that this has been going on for twelve years, with nary a change in a single
detail of his personality and behavior, whether it was the wandering, the
avoidance of people, etc.
Thursday, the third of January, I found out that this
philosophical wanderer was staying in the Lakewood shul. I immediately went to
meet him. Mr. Lewis Weiss, Mr. Yaakov H. Becker, Mr. Max Bank, Mr. Murray A.
Levin, from New York, Mr. A. Schiller from Canada, and Kalman Luria from
Connecticut, all joined me. It was close to two o’clock pm, when we met the
extraordinary wanderer in the beis
midrash, wrapped in his tallis
and tefillin, learning Torah out
loud.
For more about my investigations and conversations with this
eccentric forest man, who turned out to be one of the most unique thinkers with
a very holy life, see the second article.
The Forest Man
A thinker, a holy
Jew, the eternal wanderer
Translation of an article written by Reuben Brainin in the daily
Yiddish language newspaper “Der Tag” on January 15, 1924
Chapter Two
At two o’clock in the afternoon, we
arrived at the Lakewood shul - an old-fashioned Orthodox shul. The unknown,
legendary wanderer sat at one of the long tables right near the entrance,
wrapped in his tallis and tefillin. He was learning aloud with his face buried
in an old Gemara. When he noticed that
people had entered the shul, he moved over to a corner near the window. His
melancholy voice echoed throughout the shul, like a voice in a haunted house.
He chanted the words in the traditional Gemara sing-song which was customary in
all batei midrash - in the mouth of this forest Jew, the singsong took on a
unique, personal note. This voice had the ring of a soul trying to escape from
this world. A soul searching for its shoresh,
its tikkun. In this voice, one could discern the pain of an entire nation,
struggling for survival throughout the generations.
I stood by
and listened. I didn’t want to interrupt his studies, so I waited until he
would stop so that I could approach him. In the meantime, I noticed an elderly
Jew with the distinct face of a Talmid Chacham at the other end of the shul.
This quiet and modest Jew turned out to be a sofer from Brownsville named Moshe Scheineman, who had been hired
to be magiah (correct/edit) the Torah
scrolls. The sofer recognized me, as we had previously met many years before at
the inaugural ceremony of the new shul in Montreal. After the customary shalom aleichem, I took him aside and
asked him about this unknown Jew who was sitting and learning. The sofer had no idea why I was asking, and
he was unaware that I had previously heard of this wanderer. He told my
companions and me, “The wanderer stayed in the surrounding forest for the first
three days of the week. At this point, he has been in the shul for a few days
already. He has been learning the entire day and continues until 3:00-4:00 am.
These days he fasts. After his fast, he bakes two potatoes – his total
nourishment for the day. Although he has so little food, he has offered to
share his two baked potatoes with me. The elderly Jews of the shul have invited
the wanderer to come eat with them after his fast, but he always refuses to
join them for a meal. He learns constantly, avoids everybody, and never accepts
alms or any gifts - not even a penny.”
I asked the
sofer - who sits the entire day in shul engaged in holy work, correcting
tefillin, mezuzos, and Sifrei Torah - if he noticed any signs of craziness or
wildness in the wanderer. His response was, “This Jew who is sitting there and
learning is gentle, good-hearted and frum. He doesn’t engage in idle talk and
abstains from earthly matters like a nazir. He abstains from all earthly
desires and even from basic necessities. Although he isn’t sociable and is
removed from nonsense, he is not G-d forbid crazy. The wanderer sleeps only a
few hours per night on a hard bench and yet he never complains. He must have
some tragic story which befell his family in Russia concealed deep in his
heart.”
*****
When the
mysterious scholar lifted his hand from the gemara momentarily and I had an
opportunity to look at him, his face made a very deep impression on me. I shall
never forget that face - a delicate, dainty, pale face - although dirty and
seldom washed. He had a long grey beard almost until his gartel, a beard like
the one Michelangelo carved out in Moses’ statue. He seemed to be in his
forties. At first glance I believed that he was blind - his eyes appeared as
two black holes in his face. Then a soft fiery glow flickered in his eyes, and
I could see his two coal black eyes. It seems that sometimes he is blind to the
world and he sees nothing, and then suddenly his eyes flicker and the light
shines through - only to be blinded yet again.
His chest was bare, as he was not wearing a shirt. I later
heard from various sources that it had been twelve years since the wanderer
wore a shirt. He was dressed in dirty and torn shmattes. His feet were swollen, and he had a rope tied around his
waist in place of a belt. The collective impression was of a person who had
spent years in the forest, somewhere deep in an unclean, dusty cave. Yet,
despite it all, upon meeting him, I sensed that beneath all the dust and dirt,
under the rags and the shmattes, a noble, unique and special creature was
hiding. A royal man. A prince. An otherworldly Jew of yore, who was
internalizing the Galus, the tragedy of the entire nation. I saw before me a
person engaged in a great struggle within himself with nature and with
humanity, a person who strives to conquer the body and its needs and transform
himself into spirit alone. It seemed clear to me that he was a holy person who
was intentionally hiding his eternal wounds, as well as his beauty, by covering
them with dust and rags.
*****
At one
point the wanderer finished learning gemara and was about to begin studying
“chok l’yisrael”. At that point I said to him, “Shalom aleichem! Allow me to
ask you something.”
I stood
right next to him, while my companions stood off to the side, further away from
him.
The
wanderer’s reply to my low-key shalom aleichem was, “Get away! Leave me in
peace! Go to your hotels and enjoy your nonsense! What do you want from me?”
His voice
was cross and angry.
Right after
my question, he retreated further into his tallis, with only his tefillin shel
rosh showing. He leaned his head on the table for a moment. No movement.
Suddenly, he jumped up, turned around to the wall and started chanting loudly
pesukim from Tanach and passages from gemara from the “chok l’yisrael” in a
very loud voice, as if he was trying to out-scream someone else. I discerned a
lot of bitterness in his voice. It was the cry of a wounded and pained neshama.
Suddenly the voice became sweet, soft, merciful and kind. And then again angry,
as if angry at the entire world, as if he wanted to chase away evil spirits and
poisonous thoughts. And then again it became quiet, worn out from the inner
struggle.
I again
turned to him carefully, speaking in a brotherly fashion, “Reb Yid, come with
me to my hotel to eat something. I have something important to discuss with
you.” The Yid lifted his blind dead eyes, those two black holes in his face and
screamed, “I have nothing to discuss with anybody… you are the Satan, the
Yetzer Hora…”
“An
ehrlicha Yid doesn’t speak this way,” I responded.
“I am not
an ehrlicha Yid, leave me alone… why are you looking at me with such respect,
as if I am something… Jews don’t idolize other people…”
Again, he
continued chanting out loud “chok l’yisrael.” One of my companions started
rummaging in his pocket for a coin, which he wanted to give to the scholar. He
noticed and started burning with anger and began to scream, “Go give money to
Rebbes or to Rabbanim. They like dollars and cents… they need it… I am not
Rebbe, nor a Rav – leave me alone… go to your hotels and keep busy with your
nonsense!”
And then he
continued learning, now with a remorseful voice…
Even as I
was leaving the Beis Midrash, I still heard his sorrowful voice, which slowly
became calmer, more heartfelt, excited and spirited…
This voice
and this fantastic image accompanied me until my hotel. I could not calm down;
what kind of Jew is this? Is he crazy? A wild person? A baal teshuva? An
unfortunate person? Did some great sorrow befall him? Is he running away from
people because he was once hurt very badly by them? Or is he a person who is
not running from others but is rather searching for something loftier? Is he
searching for G-d? Is he looking to heal his internal emotional pain? Or is
this just plain a Jew, a batlan, an idiot, a confused mind? Is he a lofty kind
of person or a lowly kind of person?
All these
questions and possibilities ran through my mind. “No,” I thought to myself. “He
does not fit into any of these categories which I have enumerated.”
The unknown
captured my fantasies and I decided to continue researching and attempting to
get to know this mysterious Jew better.
My mission,
my constant search for exceptional people who are few and far between, for holy
people, for those who carry great worlds inside themselves, and my search for
great wonders in the world… did not allow me to rest.
Before
nightfall, I again went to the shul, in the company of my aforementioned
acquaintances and I was lucky to earn the confidence of the Forest Man and
engage him in a long, interesting conversation.
To be
continued in the next chapter….
The Forest Man
A thinker, a holy
Jew, and eternal wanderer
Translation of an article written by Reuven Breinman in the daily
Yiddish language newspaper “Der Tag” on January 16, 1924
Chapter Three
On Thursday, the eighteenth of January, I went to Minchah in
the Lakewood shul, together with the men whom I mentioned in the first article.
There I found some thirty local Jews. The Forest Man stood in a corner close to
the door, quietly and unobtrusively looking inside a sefer. He ignored the
entire crowd as if he were in a forest, and was fully immersed in himself.
The sofer, Moshe Scheineman from Brownsville, told me what
had transpired after my first visit to shul, when I had tried getting to know
the mysterious Forest Man. I had not succeeded because the Forest Man had given
a sharp, angry retort and refused to communicate. After I left shul, the sofer
told the wanderer my name and who I was. The Forest Man recognized my name and
was remorseful that he had reacted so harshly to me.
I chatted with several Jews in the shul, discussing what
they knew about the eccentric wanderer. They were all aware that the man spends
most of his time in the forests of New Jersey. He even remains there during the
fall and winter months, when the cold and frost are barely manageable. From time
to time, he comes for a day or two into the batei midrash of the Jewish
settlements, including Lakewood. Sometimes he sells a package of tzitzis that
he himself attaches to a tallis or other four-cornered garment; or he sells
copies of a Jewish calendar. He takes only a few cents for his wares and for
his work. When he is given more than he charges, he absolutely will not take
it.
Several of the locals told me that they tried giving him
dollars, meals, clothes and more, but under no circumstances would he ever
accept them. It simply angers him. He comes to the batei midrash unannounced,
almost unnoticed, and sits and learns day and night until he discreetly
disappears from the shul. The shammas also substantiated these reports.
Often, the wanderer is found in a tallis in the forest,
where he sits and learns. In the parcel that he carries, there are no clothes,
no shirts (he never wears a shirt) – he only carries with himself the sefarim
that he learns in the forest. This has been his behavior for many long years.
No one knows his name, and he dodges all conversation, refusing to respond to
the questions that people ask him. He does not want to speak with anyone and
doesn’t share anything.
The people are already used to this and no one takes
interest in him. “What’s there to discuss about the ‘meshugener?’” they say. I
was the first one to take interest in this extraordinary tramp and scholar, or
so the shul Jews professed. I asked them, “Why do you consider this wondrous
Jew a lunatic?”
The inevitable reply was, “Does a sane person spend so much
time in the forest, never wear a shirt, afflict himself, and subsist on only a
few potatoes after a fast or a mere piece of bread with water? Does a lucid
person refuse to accept money when he is handed some? Does any sane person
reject assistance when he is found half frozen and starved?”
After Minchah, I approached the Forest Man, who had silently
parked himself in a corner, far from the rest of the crowd.
The Forest Man began speaking with me right away. My first words
to him were in Yiddish, but he immediately replied in Lashon Kodesh. Naturally,
I also switched to speaking only Hebrew.
Before anything else, the Forest Man asked my forgiveness
for having angrily driven me away. He hadn’t known who I was, and he had
believed that I was one of those Jews who simply want to divert him from Torah
learning or engage in idle talk with him; Jews who don’t understand him and are
rather far from his thoughts, not leaving him alone to comport himself
according to his ideals. When the sofer, an upstanding Jew who is an honest,
quiet, good person, had told him my name, the wanderer was distressed that he
had handled me this way. Many years ago, he had read several of my articles in
Hebrew – the Forest Man proceeded to quote some of my words and expressions –
and he sensed that Reuven Breinman must be able to understand the neshamah of
even a Jew such as himself. And that’s why he was so happy that Hashem had
fulfilled his wish and granted him the opportunity to talk things through with
me personally.
Before I recap the content of my conversation with this
exceptional Jew and the impression that he made on me, I want to emphasize that
the Forest Man spoke with me in the remarkable Hebrew of a true talmid chacham
and original thinker. His rich Hebrew was interspersed with the philosophical
terminology of the Rambam, Rabbi Yehuda Halevi, Ibn Gavirol and Moshe
Mendelssohn. The Forest Man used focused, sharp and concise Hebrew expressions
that quickly convinced me that he had learned a lot and immersed himself in the
classical philosophical works of both Jewish scholars and those of the outside
world.
His voice was tender, soft and sincere; that of a person who
knows no impurity, who is elevated above all trivialities and idiosyncrasies of
a typical life. It resounded of one who freed himself of all physical desires
of jealousy, hatred and revenge, and echoed of a life lived purely in accord
with G-d and with nature. It was the voice of a person who suppresses his
corporeal needs to strengthen and free his neshamah. And in truth, his Hebrew
language was a neshamah language, a neshamah breath – thoroughly spiritual.
Irrespective of the way he appeared – dressed in dirty rags,
his chest exposed, and face coated in dust and dirt – his face seemed to light
up. It revealed the sensitivity, the nobility of his mysterious existence and
his pure, magnificent goodness.
I must admit that the first few minutes standing face to
face with the Forest Man were aesthetically uncomfortable. But the longer we
spoke, the more I felt that this is a Jew who is full of holiness and purity, a
Jew who lives in the untainted spheres of his personal world.
***
The beginning of my conversation with the Forest Man took
place in shul between Minchah and Maariv, at dusk. The crowd stood off to the
side, watching wordlessly. They all wondered at the ever-mute Forest Man who
was standing so composedly and engaging me in a long conversation. They had
never seen him interact with anyone, let alone question and respond actively.
From afar, the crowd wanted to catch the sounds of our Hebrew conversation.
The deep silence, the weak light of dusk in the
old-fashioned Orthodox shul in modern Lakewood, and the hearty
neshamah-resounding Hebrew language that the peculiar Forest Man spoke with me
– it all created a mystical aura.
The Forest Man was undeniably wrapped in rags, but his mind
was clothed in majestic royalty, in magical thoughts.
Toward the beginning of our conversation, I didn’t pose any
questions to the recluse. I was very careful not to brush upon anything that
might insult him. I let him talk first, undisturbed.
And, to my surprise, this perpetual mute unleashed a
wellspring of thoughts and words that had been hidden from others for countless
years. Suddenly, this enigmatic wellspring flowed open before me.
For many years, this withdrawn ever-wanderer had roamed the
forests and batei midrash silently, keeping to himself. He slept on the hard
ground or on a hard bench, feeling foreign to everyone around him. They didn’t
understand him or grasp what he was all about. They also didn’t seek out or
want to notice the great neshamah that was wandering about, so close, yet so
far from them. The wanderer was never concerned with what others, whoever they
may be, thought of him. Removed from the people, removed from all desires and
from the pettiness of Olam Hazeh, all he strived for in the quiet forests was
to live spiritually, to find G-dliness.
And suddenly, the Forest Man found in me a person who was looking
for him, who wanted to understand him. It made him talk.
I will share more about the interesting thoughts,
observations and interpretations of the mysterious wanderer in the next
article.
The Forest-Man
A thinker, a holy yid, the eternal wanderer
By: Reuven Breinin
DER TAG
January 17, 1924
Fourth and last article.
In my conversation with the “forest jew” he initially tried
to avoid answering my questions about himself. He expressed thought about body
and soul (גוף ונשמה). The sinful body disturbs the freedom and orientation (?)
of the soul. The body is a temporary form, a “clothing” which changes. The
“existing”, the spirit, will not stop. The soul, when she is not captured and
held back by the body, strives for connection with g-d, with the universal
souls. Foolish and blind are the people who give away their entire attention to
the body, and its low suffering, desires and coarse needs, and thereby abandon
their responsibility, and forget their soul and her ambition to cleanliness, to
holiness. It (the soul) is not a materialistic, body or physical form. It is
only spirit, energy and g-dliness. The natural sciences only write about
nature, it measures and weighs, counts and quantifies, but it explains nothing.
The spirit (on the other hand) doesn’t count, measure or weigh. The
materialistic-technical weltanschauung is childish and is trickery and fooling.
Sinful people attached them selves to materialistic and Taoist theories, in
order to deny their g-dly souls and thereby to give in to their base desires,
the cause of their suffering(?). But giving in to the cause of their
suffering(?), increases their daily mundane needs, which destroys and ruins the
body and soul alike. Its unfathomable that people are so preoccupied with olam
hazeh and don’t perform the obligations to g-d.
I conveyed here in short, and pragmatically, the flow of the
thoughts that the Jewish nazir told me. He drew and supported these thoughts
from verses in Tanakh and maamarei chazal.
I told him that causing pain to the body, and by keeping it
unclean, is not the Jewish way, and doesn’t jive with torah and Emunah, which
teach us to guard life, health and cleanliness. (I told him) his behavior is
consistent with the Indian teachings, and is more Buddhist than Jewish. The
Indian philosophy is passive whereas the Jewish weltanschauung is active(?) and
in accordance with the prime principle of ובחרת בחיים.
The nazir listened to me calmly and answered me softly, “I
am not coming to teach anyone how they should conduct themselves, since who am
I to do so! I am too small a person to be a guide for others. I am not a
“mussar zager” for the world. I only desire that people shouldn’t disturb me
from living according to my Yiddishkeit, my neshama. What good is the
cleanliness of the body, when the neshama is dirty?! When looking at the
external cleanliness of the body, and its contrived needs, it makes it (the
soul?) weak, giving in and being subordinate to desires and sin. And the
corporal sins defile the body and make it dirty and disgusting. No soap or
washing or perfume can make it clean. Living together with other people makes
life full of jealousy, hatred, gossip and lies. The air becomes unclean, and
full of spirit (destroying?) targets, and sicknesses of the soul.
I told the forest-yid, that several of my friends in
Lakewood, and of the guests that were there with me – expressed their (good)
desire to supply him with all his needs, he should be able to sit peacefully in
beis medrash and learn as much he’d like, he shouldn’t need to wander in the
forests and in other cities. It isn’t befitting for Jews, that such a talmid
chacham should be wandering about unclean, without a shirt, and roaming the
forests. My friends want to take care of his needs respectfully.
To this he responded woundedly and answered angrily: “there
are so many big yidden, geonim and kedoshim who are hungry and suffering and no
one worries about them, let them take care of those big yidden with their
needs. I am but a simple yid, a small person, who is able to earn my bread. I
can work, I make tzitzis, I sell a few luchos, and I have, thank g-d, all my
needs take care of. In the forest the air is clear, and every grass says praise
to g-d – and my life as it stands is good for me. When is gets colder in the
forest, or if I am disturbed by people, I come into beis medrash and look into
a sefer. Why should your people be concerned about me, let them worry about
their poor thirsty souls.”
--"but how can you survive such a life, you are making
your self sick and are killing your body. I see that you are very weak. Where
is the ‘ובחרת בחיים’?” I asked the nazir
His answer was, “’ברוך הנותן ליעף כח’
– meaning praised is g-d which gives the tired strength. Thank g-d, I an
healthy. I wonder, to the contrary, how to the people in the hotels survive,
who eat so much, who are looking for all kinds of ways to over satisfy the body
– which is sadly a difficult job. I pity these people who starve and weaken
their neshama.”
The forest-yid said all this with such simplicity, naivete and
such a soulfully clean biblical expression, that there was no doubt as to its
correctness and true Yiddish humanity.
Further in my conversation I noticed in the forest-yid ,
that his Hebrew and the thoughts he expressed, convinced me the he is occupied
with philosophical works of various eras, and is well read in the modern Hebrew
literature, and I desired to know how he, as a modern person, was transformed
into a forest-man, and a strictly religious beis-medrash yid who keeps all 613
mitzvos.
The unfamiliar wanderer tried to avoid any clarification
about himself. To my question what is his name, he answered “שמי פלאי”, meaning my name is a secret, it’s not important what his name
is. Truthfully, no-one who knew the wanderer for years ever knew his name. He
never told anyone his name, since he never talked to anyone, and no one ever
interested themselves to know his name and background.
In the course of my conversation I earned his trust, and he
revealed that his name is Avraham Klugman, and that he is from Pietrikov,
Minsker Gubenia, from the same city as the Yiddish writer Chaim Guttman. He
commented that in my youth, I was something in my city, now Gutman, my landsman
is a big writer, and he doesn’t either want to be known with his real name,
rather he is know as “the alive one”(דער לעבעדיגער).
So now, with what chutzpa should I call myself by my real name? who am I and
what am I, that people should be interested in my name?”
Details about his past, I could not get clarification from
him. Somehow he gave me an inference through a hint that he had a familial
tragedy, but then he became silent on the subject. The nazir added, that early
on he read much of the philosophical literature and also the Hebrew modern
literature, but its been twelve years since he threw it all away, rejected it,
and returned to the Tanakh, Talmud, Mishna, and to “other holy sefarim”.
I want to convey a snippet of his conversation verbatim,
merely translated from the Hebrew to Yiddish ”I tried to conform myself to my generation
and to todays weltanschauung and live like all intelligent (משכילים), cultured people live. But it didn’t work. I can’t breath in
the culture sphere of today, the lies choke me, the searching and chasing after
money, after empty pleasures, are for me unfathomable. It made me sick to see
it and I had to run away from todays people and from the city-culture, the
emuna in g-d, the torah, the precious tefillos, the gemara, healed me. And g-d
helped me to become free from the worlds
foolishness. I don’t want to know what the world thinks, what people say --- I
prefer to listen to what my neshama , g-ds light – tells me. I could have
answered you on your words, but I didn’t come to America to debate, to convince
others. היום קצר והמלאכה מרובה the day is short
and the work is much. G-d knows how much longer I am to live, possibly one more
day, one hour, and therefore I want to – far from the sinful atmosphere – do my
duty to g-d, my soul.”
I continued to try to talk the nazir out of his way of life
in the forest, in the dirt, and to convince his to dress in clear clothes, and
in whole (untorn) clothing. On this he responded – “כי לא
מחשבותי מחשבותיכם ולא דרכי דרכיכם” meaning my thoughts are not your thoughts
and my ways are not your ways. “I don’t mean to say, chalila, that my thoughts
stand higher, that my ways are the only correct way -- but I can’t think how others think – and for
me it is impossible to go in your ways. I stand in a lower מדריגה “ the wanderer exclaimed mildly, humbly and soulfully – “ than
you. You can all live in New York, breath its air, and still remain clean,
happy and calm in the big unrest --- I can’t and don’t want to be able to. I
couldn’t stay in New York even for one day, where the air is clouded with the
foolish עולם הזה, where everyone is
chasing something, and gets chased and harried by others – and no one knows
what he is chasing and why others are harried. I am an egoist, a good
businessman, I can’t sell חיי עולם -, eternal life, for
such a cheap price like חיי שעה, for a fatter better
lunch, for a little foolish honor and other foolishness. I am a simple yid and
can’t pull out the ניצוצות of kedusha from the
epicenter of tumah – you can do that – lucky you. I am an egoist and I enjoy
davening with kavana, when I learn a shekel gemara, I see g-d hand in
everything. Possibly you serve g-d on a nicer and higher manner than I -- but I cant do this. You are chasing after
life, after a better life –n but you find the death, and the more you seek the
life, the more certain and grosser is the death. I seek the death -the death of
my body – not that I chalila want to die before my time, as long as g-d gives
me life, and when he grants me life, I must use this life to prepare my soul
for the eternal life. I want to keep her, the soul, clean, as I received her
clean. And the more I seek the death of the corporal body, of the wild and
foolish (curiosities?) in me, the more life I find for my neshama. I don’t want
to convince myself that I will live forever, it is a chutzpa to demand such a
thing, since what greatness did I accomplish in life for others, for a more
clean life, and what could a small person like me accomplish for me to have a
right to live forever - everyone goes on
his way…
The crowd left the shul after maariv – I stayed for a while
with the wanderer --- a big soul, a pure soul revealed itself to me that
evening. It’s not the place here to convey definitively the thought processes
of the nazir. Before leaving him I tried to carefully ask him to come with me
to my hotel with me to join me for a glass of tea. He thought for a moment, it
seemed to me that this time he would accept my invitation, it seemed like he
was having a weak moment. But he overcame it and he answered me: It was very
precious to me the last hour we spent talking – I desired this fore a while.
Since my younger years I had an affinity to your writings, yet I can’t go with
you, it will take me too far off of my path..
It was painful for me to leave this lovely person himself in
shul and a warmly shook his hand.
Three o’clock past midnight, I walked over from my hotel to
the bais medrash, and from outside I heard the sad gemara-tune from the eternal
wanderer…..
That night I could not sleep………..
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