4

Shabes Night

The ticktock of the clock, the pulse of time taps, taps, like the beat of my heart, steadily, monotonously. Suddenly it skips, dies out, and then pounds again.

I try to think about faraway things, to cast my thoughts on the entire world, and they come right back to focus on me, on me alone. Like an empty thing, like an unattended ship, my little world sails on the great sea of life.

It doesn’t matter how much I want to engage with the woes of the whole world, with the suffering of all of humankind. It’s hopeless. My ego doesn’t want to, can’t be indifferent to itself. My pessimism, instead of leading me to thoughts of suicide, makes me not even care whether I live.

I feel lonesome, painfully, horribly lonesome on nights like these, more than any other night of the week. I know exactly what causes it. Tonight is the end of shabes.

I’ve felt the loneliness of shabes night since childhood. It has grown into a chronic sadness, a kind of religious melancholy.

In my thoughts I return to my childhood; I close my eyes and see myself on a Friday evening among my own family in that old, faraway world. How beautifully we would welcome shabes! My strict father would become gentle as shabes approached. My quiet mother would grow calm and soulful. Everyone in our house looked refreshed, especially my bobe, my grandmother. She would dress in her finest clothes and would say something kind to everyone with a childlike smile and pious lips. And my grandfather, my perpetually worried zeyde, whose mind always dwelt on the long goles, would sing “Sholem aleykhem” to the angels of peace with such a heartfelt and soulful melody!

We never did weekday work on shabes. The adults spent the day resting and the young people spent it having fun; young men would get together with my brothers, young women with my sisters, to read, sing, play at forfeits and take walks.

Shabes—that was the loveliest, best, greatest, most beloved day of the week!

Therefore when shabes day turned to evening, a strange burden, a heavy feeling, weighed down my heart. When it came time to make havdole, to separate the holy from the workaday, the light from the darkness, my soul would cry out: it did not want to separate with the other soul, the extra soul that only came for shabes!

In that same place, where on Friday night so many happy lights burned, on shabes night the havdole candle sorrowfully sputtered until it was suddenly extinguished by red wine poured over the cleared table.

My mother’s bright face displayed a quiet sadness. She helped my father prepare for his journey into the forest, where he was the only Jew among many non-Jewish peasants. She followed him and called after him to watch where he was going. Then she watched the wagon until she could no longer see it.

A feeling of workaday loneliness filled every corner of our darkened home. We could hear my bobe singing “Got fun Avrom.” She purposefully delayed and elongated her hamavdil in order to keep the sinners in gan eydn a little while longer, so they wouldn’t have to return so soon to gehenem.

My good bobe, she was always so good to everyone, even to the wicked ones in yener velt!

She had a very high opinion of the afterlife, the true life. This world, she would say, was only created to test people and see how many good deeds they can perform. And woe to anyone who arrives there with empty hands, having accomplished nothing! A man who makes nothing of his life is not worth his death. He doesn’t deserve to be taken in by the ground. The earth itself should spit him out.

Almost every shabes night she would launch into a speech about death. Zeyde would say to her, “Again? Already? We’ve just blessed the new week . . .” He didn’t imagine he’d find much of an improvement in the afterlife. You have to go there, he’d say, because you must. No one can escape death. But it’s better to be a living dog than a dead lion. If she, my bobe, wanted to spend her life getting ready to die, that was fine, she could do what she liked. But he would excuse himself from that pleasure; while you’re living you should see what you can do to better your life, not worry about your death. Whether you want to or not, in the end everyone has no choice but to die. As soon as you’re born, you’re already destined to die. You’re destined to return to where you came from. So you dance as much as you can at this foolish wedding, you live your life to its end. Old people must make room for the new, that’s how it goes.

That’s usually how they talked on shabes night as the holy day came to a close, but never on Friday night as the holiday began, or on shabes itself. They were careful not to disturb the sacred holy day with sad words. On shabes they would thank God for the pleasure and pride they took in their children and their grandchildren and yearned to live to see their great-grandchildren and hoped to experience great-great-grandchildren. Shabes brought them rest and peace, it brought more desires and hope to their old-young souls.

My zeyde is no more, my bobe is no more. My parents are somewhere far away, old and weak, and my sisters and brothers are scattered far and wide. The Friday evening joy no longer exists, all that remains is the loneliness and sadness of shabes night.