From the Heart of Israel: Jewish Tales and Types

by Bernard Drachman

In Nordheim vor der Rhön,

Ve-Nomar Omain.

Translated, this composition, a mixtum compositum of Chaldaic and Jewish-German, runs thus:

My salvation arise from heaven,

For Perla and Reb Shemayah,

In Nordheim before the Rhön,

And let us say, Amen.

But these rebellious murmurings did not dim even in the slightest degree the brilliant radiance of Reb Shemayah’s reputation for learning, piety, and benevolence. Ably seconded by his beloved Perla, who was on her part also a model of olden Jewish wifely virtues, God-fearing, modest, hard working, and tenderhearted, and who suffered from lack of recognition solely through being eclipsed by the incomparable and exceptional merit of her husband, he maintained an ideal home in which the traditional principles of patriarchal authority and filial devotion, of strictness tempered by gentleness and love, and of constant inculcation of lofty ethical precepts were undeviatingly maintained. And when this gentle and truly pious pair were laid away to rest—as they were within a few brief days of each other—in the little Eternal House in Willmars on the other side of the hill, tears flowed from the eyes of the many hundreds who had followed them to their last resting-place; and all felt that the words of the rabbis in the Talmud were but too true: “When the truly righteous are departed from a place, gone is its glory, gone its radiance, gone its splendor.”

Yes, Reb Shemayah was the crowning glory of Nordheim’s history, his life-time the golden age in the pages of its annals. And therefore we shall glance but briefly at some of the other whimsical or touching figures that lived and moved and had their being within its ancient walls. There was old Eliezer, who was always praying, because he thought it a sinful misuse of human speech to apply it to any other use than to the worship of the Maker. He always restricted his worldly remarks to the briefest possible compass, and was never known to grow angry at any one except on one occasion. Then it was the writer’s sainted mother, at the time a little girl of a lively and humorous disposition, who had the misfortune to arouse his ire, and even to receive a slap from his holy hand. That happened in this wise. Eliezer had no sons, but two daughters who bore the appellations respectively of Simchah and Glueck, the signification whereof in the English idiom is “joy” and “good fortune.” These two daughters, contrary to the usual lot of the Jewish maidens of Nordheim, remained unmarried for a long time, so that at last they entered into that state most hateful even to-day in our age of “bachelor girls,” but doubly hateful then, old maidenhood. Finally Simchah succeeded in becoming betrothed to a very worthy man. Eliezer was overjoyed; but Glueck, although outwardly joyous, was, naturally enough, more than a little jealous and displeased. At this juncture mother, peace to her soul, chanced to meet old Eliezer when returning from the synagogue, where the happy event had been announced and the young couple duly blessed and, yielding to a momentary mischievous impulse, accosted him thus: “Mazzol tov, Eliezer! I suppose your Glueck must have a great Simchah that your Simchah has such a Glueck.” The joke was good; but Eliezer did not appreciate humor, and a slap was the reward of this humorous effort. Eliezer not only spoke little at any time, but on Sabbath he eschewed the vulgar vernacular altogether and would only speak Hebrew, which language he alone considered suitable, as the holy tongue for the holy day. But as he was anything but a Hebrew scholar, the results of his efforts at restoring to colloquial use the idiom of ancient Canaan I will leave to the imagination of the reader.

Then there was Asher, the Chazan, who was not really the Chazan or official precentor of the synagogue, but a hard-working merchant in a small way, who supported himself and his family by untiring and unceasing labor and industry, but who was called Chazan because of his remarkable knowledge of the traditional melodies of the German-Jewish ritual. These melodies he could chant with much skill and a pleasant voice; and his rendition of the services was so well liked by the members of the congregation that they did not hesitate to say that Asher “was a better Chazan than the Chazan.” Asher was a pleasant and friendly individual altogether; but if one wished to gain his particular and undying gratitude, there was no better way of doing so than by communicating to him some new niggun or Hebrew melody. It was my good fortune to communicate to him some of the more modern synagogue chants which I had heard in America, and which he, in his isolated village life, had never had occasion to hear; and I do not doubt but he remembers me gratefully to this day. Asher and his two brothers were Cohanim—that is to say, of Aaronitic or priestly descent. As such it was their prerogative, and that of their sons, to pronounce the threefold benediction over the congregation on holidays; and it was touching, indeed, to listen to their solemn and melodious rendition of the ancient chant, and to notice the dignity and earnestness with which they prepared to perform their traditional function. To gaze at them while chanting the benediction was not permitted.