THE RABBI'S SECRET

a story for Jewish New Year

The start of the Jewish New Year is called Rosh Hashanah. This is also the beginning of a ten-day period known as the High Holy Days.  At the end of them comes Yom Kippur, a day when Jewish people ask God and their friends to forgive them for any wrongs they have done.

It was the night before Yom Kippur and the people in the town of Nemirov were hurrying to the synagogue. But where was the Rabbi? How could they start the special prayers without him?

‘Every year, at this hour, he seems to disappear into thin air,’ complained an old man.  ‘Every year without fail he does this.’
   
‘They say he goes to heaven,’ said his friend, the greengrocer, ‘to thank God personally for a good Rosh Hashanah festival and to ask that the new year will be a good one. He’s a very holy man.’

One of the local boys scoffed at the old women’s talk.  How could someone go to heaven before God asked them to join Him? No, it was obvious that the Rabbi was disappearing somewhere else. Perhaps he was going to bed early when he should be praying. The boy decided to find out.

He crept unnoticed out of the synagogue and into the rabbi’s house next door.  The rabbi always kept the front door open in case anyone needed to borrow something. The boy looked in the bedroom.  No, the Rabbi was not there.  He crawled under the bed and hid.

A bit later the Rabbi hurried in. He went straight to the wardrobe and changed into  some well-worn clothes: a pair of patched trousers, a thick sweater full of holes, and woodcutter’s boots. Now he looked more like a peasant than a Rabbi. He took an axe from the kitchen and bustled out of the door again.

The boy crept out from under the bed and followed him, keeping in the shadows so he wouldn’t be seen. The Rabbi picked his way along the streets, pulling his cap down to hide his face every time he passed someone on their way to the synagogue. He obviously didn’t want to be recognised.

The boy followed him into the nearby woods. Huffing and grunting, the Rabbi chopped down an old dead tree and split it into firewood. He tied the sticks into a bundle and carried them back to town.

‘Good evening.’ The rabbi knocked on the door of an old hut.

‘Who is it?’ called a woman’s voice inside.

‘It is your friend Vassilli, the woodcutter,’ answered the Rabbi.  ‘I’m selling firewood.’

‘Please go away,’ shouted the old woman. ‘I have no money for firewood.’

‘I can lend you the money,’ said the Rabbi cheerfully.

The woman coughed.  She was obviously very sick. ‘I might not be able to pay you back for a long time,’ she croaked.

‘I can wait,’ was the Rabbi’s reply.  He pushed the door open and dragged the firewood into the tumbledown hut.

‘But who’s going to light the fire?’ the boy heard the old woman ask.  ‘It’s the night of Yom Kippur.  We are not supposed to light fires.’

‘You’re too old to be sitting in a freezing hut,’ said the Rabbi. ‘I’ll light the fire.’

The boy, creeping up to the window, saw him open the metal door to the stove.

‘It’s dark already,’ said the woman.  ‘They’ll be singing the special Yom Kippur prayers at the temple.’

‘Let’s sing them together,’ said the Rabbi. As he put in the firewood in the stove, he sang the first part of the prayer. Then, as he lit the fire, he sang the second part. When the flames were roaring and the hut was filled with warmth and light, he sang the third and last part.  The old woman sang with him.

‘Thank you, Vassilli,’ she whispered when they’d finished.  ‘You sang so well, anyone would have thought you were a Rabbi yourself.’   

‘Thank you,’ grinned the Rabbi. He made sure the stove door was shut properly and, tucking the old woman’s shawl around her shoulders, left the hut.

‘Oh dear, now I’m really late,’ he muttered loudly to himself. ‘I must go and change.’
   
The boy watched him hurry home, then slipped back into the synagogue.

‘Where on Earth is that rabbi?’ an old man was wondering.  ‘It’s nearly dawn. ‘Old Joseph has had to lead the special prayers. Where on Earth is the rabbi?’

‘I told you he’s not anywhere on Earth,’ insisted his friend. ‘He’s in heaven, talking to the angels.’