Our sage who wrote that one should not talk at meals (may he forgive me
for saying so!) did not know Jewish life. When shall a Jew find time to
talk, if not during a meal? Especially at Passover, when there is so
much to say before the meal and after it. Rikel the maid handed the
water, we washed our hands, repeated the Benediction, mother helped us
to fish, and my father turned up his sleeves, and started a long Hebrew
talk with the guest. He began with the first question one Jew asks
another:
"What is your name?"
To which the guest replied all in a's and all in one breath:
"Ayak Bakar Gashal Damas Hanoch Vassam Za'an Chafaf Tatzatz."
My father remained with his fork in the air, staring in amazement at the
possessor of so long a name. I coughed and looked under the table, and
my mother said, "Favele, you should be careful eating fish, or you might
be choked with a bone," while she gazed at our guest with awe. She
appeared overcome by his name, although unable to understand it. My
father, who understood, thought it necessary to explain it to her.
"You see, Ayak Bakar, that is our Alef-Bes inverted. It is apparently
their custom to name people after the alphabet."
"Alef-Bes! Alef-Bes!" repeated the guest with the sweet smile on his red
cheeks, and his beautiful black eyes rested on us all, including Rikel
the maid, in the most friendly fashion.
Having learnt his name, my father was anxious to know whence, from what
land, he came. I understood this from the names of countries and towns
which I caught, and from what my father translated for my mother,
giving her a Yiddish version of nearly every phrase. And my mother was
quite overcome by every single thing she heard, and Rikel the maid was
overcome likewise. And no wonder! It is not every day that a person
comes from perhaps two thousand miles away, from a land only to be
reached across seven seas and a desert, the desert journey alone
requiring forty days and nights. And when you get near to the land, you
have to climb a mountain of which the top reaches into the clouds, and
this is covered with ice, and dreadful winds blow there, so that there
is peril of death! But once the mountain is safely climbed, and the land
is reached, one beholds a terrestrial Eden. Spices, cloves, herbs, and
every kind of fruit--apples, pears, and oranges, grapes, dates, and
olives, nuts and quantities of figs. And the houses there are all built
of deal, and roofed with silver, the furniture is gold (here the guest
cast a look at our silver cups, spoons, forks, and knives), and
brilliants, pearls, and diamonds bestrew the roads, and no one cares to
take the trouble of picking them up, they are of no value there. (He was
looking at my mother's diamond ear-rings, and at the pearls round her
white neck.)
"You hear that?" my father asked her, with a happy face.
"I hear," she answered, and added: "Why don't they bring some over here?
They could make money by it. Ask him that, Yoneh!"
My father did so, and translated the answer for my mother's benefit:
"You see, when you arrive there, you may take what you like, but when
you leave the country, you must leave everything in it behind, too, and
if they shake out of you no matter what, you are done for."
"What do you mean?" questioned my mother, terrified.
"I mean, they either hang you on a tree, or they stone you with stones."