Opening Paragraph:
What is the Old New Land? Where is the Old New Land? We have no idea what it is or where to look or where we'll find it, but the material who, the how and the whither, the warp and weft, the length width depth and time, the dwelling foundations splendor and even eternity, are mere surface on the face of the deep. The Old New Land is the space between space, where exists possibility, plane, history, law, condition, and infinity; glory, law, lovingkindness, the sources of wisdom, and the crown of creation itself. If it exists at all, and of that existence there shall always be doubt, then it abides in that apogee of maximal cosmic tension to which we all arrive in the instant before the great celestial snap, a place of the world of no end that by wrestling to realize, we seem to bring tiny emanations down to our own, if only for a specific and small indeed finite time, if only in a specific and small indeed definite place. It is that land that within all actions seem motivated by greatness, and much in that brief instant even by goodness, for from that unboundedness of spheres above, we carry those best selves which comprise our share of the divine creation. Once we see it, we work, and we work, and we work, and we wait, and we wait, and we wait, but we're always thrown out of the Old New Land.
Prologue: Reb Yaakov, Bransk, 1894
Suggested Reading (completely optional):
Collected Stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer
Collected Stories and Tevye the Milkman by Sholem Aleichem
Tales of Rabbi Nachman
(should there be secondary characters through multiple narrative arcs?)
(should there be secondary characters through multiple narrative arcs?)
We begin in Bransk, 'every-shtetl' Northeast Poland of six-thousand inhabitants who are mostly farmers, half-Jewish, half-Christian, a place of Jewish hicks where nobody of particular distinction ever hailed from, except for the author's grandfather, Morris Tucker, formerly Meishel Tecoczki, and formerly before that Moshe Kharlap.
The name Kharlap is an acronym for 'Khiya, Rosh-l'Galut L'Polin', in Hebrew letters Khet-Reysh-Lamed-Pey, and translates to Khiya, head of the exiles in Poland; which means that the patrilineal line of the author's family is either descended from the first chief Rabbi of Poland, or some medieval Polish-Jewish merchant-grifter who realized he could mark up his prices if he lied about the eminence of his family lineage (his 'Yichus' as we say in Yiddish).
Kharlap shall be the name of the fictionalized family to which we subject the ordeal of this book. It is a family that incarnates in somewhat mythical circumstances, akin to a story by Isaac Bashevis Singer (for those of you not familiar with Singer, think of a Jewish Gabriel Garcia Marquez if he accepted editors' suggestions).
The year is 1894, it's just before Christmas, and Rebbe Yaakov Kharlap is a small town Rabbi, not even the synagogue rabbi for his town but merely a Kheder instructor - Kheder being the elementary school through which shtetl children are first taught their Hebrew letters, how to pray, how to read, how to memorize pages at a time of the Torah and Talmudic tractate. He is an alte mensch (old man )of the alte shul (old school), very free with the ruler upon the knuckles, and extremely proud, to the point of denial, about the brood of his twelve adolescent children: Reuven, Shimon, Levi, Yehuda, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Yissachar, Z'vulun, Dinah (a daughter), and Yoseph.
You may recognize these names as the exact names of Jacob(Yaakov)'s children in the Old Testament or Tanakh. The reason for these names was because when the already middle aged Reb Yaakov was told that after he and his not particularly young wife's difficult years of conceiving, an angel appeared to Reb Yaakov in a dream, and in response to Reb Yaakov's insistent demand for a blessing, announced to Reb Yaakov that his wife would bear him twelve sons, which Reb Yaakov must in turn name after the twelve tribes of Israel.
The children come in six sets of twins of absurdly quick succession over five years between 1876-1880. All of whom, like the miracle Reb Yaakov knew would happen that everyone else doubted, survive into adulthood, albeit with many illnesses along the way that were meant to test the unbreakable faith of Reb Yaakov. All eleven of his sons are now Bar Mitzvahed, and the septuagenerian Reb Yaakov eagerly awaits the birth any day now which his unnamed sexagenarian wife will give to what he absolutely knows will be his twelfth son, who shall be named Benyamin.
Of course, Reb Yaakov has a twin brother himself, Ezra. Unlike Reb Yaakov who cannot make more money on his own than a small town teacher's salary can afford, Ezra is a wealthy man in Bialystok who the nearest Polish city. He has by and large abandoned Judaism, and Reb Yaakov is well aware that Ezra's much more 'enlightened' (re: assimilated) wife Ada has nothing but contempt for Reb Yaakov and through her perhaps correct pressure, Ezra is forced to consistently cut the sums he sends Reb Yaakov to feed his children, who now are old enough to work on their own.
Chapter 1:
As I said, we begin in the Kheder class of Reb Yaakov, who is very free with the ruler and constantly berating his luftmenschen (idler) charges for their lack of attention and refusal to sit still. He sits there and goes through the lesson, we'll decide which bible story it is later, but it should be a metaphor for the whole story, and therefore must be chosen well into the final drafts. But at witnessing, yet again, his students' obviously willful inability to retain the information he relates, he hits one student with the ruler shouting NIBZEH L'AZAZEL KHALERIYA! (basically untranslatable...), and shouts insult after insult at their stupid questions: their naarishkeit (simplemindedness/stupidity) and their skhok v'kalos rosh (light-mindedness). "Is Dreyfus going through all this just so you mamzerim (bastards) can dishonor his sacrifice!"
Incidentally to the story, the narration will be entirely in English, but the characters speak in a kind of Yid-lish patois which gives the character of the language while still being intelligible to the average American reader.
Reb Yaakov then goes through a 'nervous breakdown of exposition' in which he tells his story as related above, and then tells all his tsuris, along with being passed over as the new Bransker Rabbi.
"Every other nation needs land, they need governments, they need armies. But we only need de Toyreh. Every other religion has land and kings and weapons, but we only have de Toyreh, and we don't kill. Every other religion should be happy because they have everything they want, and they're only miserable. But we're miserable, and de Toyreh makes us happy. But you? What do you know from Toyreh?! Every day I ask you to quote me a daf and you naarisher pischers ('bedwetters') learn NOTHING!
Compares them to his model Yiddisher Kops (Jewish heads) whom he raised correctly to be menschen (good people) and tzaddikim (righteous).
"Every other nation needs land, they need governments, they need armies. But we only need de Toyreh. Every other religion has land and kings and weapons, but we only have de Toyreh, and we don't kill. Every other religion should be happy because they have everything they want, and they're only miserable. But we're miserable, and de Toyreh makes us happy. But you? What do you know from Toyreh?! Every day I ask you to quote me a daf and you naarisher pischers ('bedwetters') learn NOTHING!
Compares them to his model Yiddisher Kops (Jewish heads) whom he raised correctly to be menschen (good people) and tzaddikim (righteous).
Chapter 2:
We immediately cut to four of the brothers smoking cigarettes in the Jewish cemetery: Shimon, Asher, Naftali, and Z'vulun, the last of which is pissing (pishing) on the headstone of the old Bransker Rebbe. They're standing around a copy of a Yiddish newspaper, reading about the injustices done to some guy named Dreyfus in France, and making fun of how much the alter kockers ('old shitters') seem to care about this guy who, as far as anybody knows for sure, might not even be Jewish. They make fun of Dreyfus's very 19th century military uniform with its ridiculous plumage. One of them swears he heard that the French uniform is red white and blue, another disbelieves him "How did the zelners (soldiers) not know where to shoot from a hectare (hundred acres) away?" (which was the French army's biggest problem all through the 19th century until the first few months of World War I.). They say that with a fancy mustache like that he can't be Jewish "What the schtup is that mustache? No Yid, NOT even a Feinschmeker (meaning roughly gourmand) would walk into a barber and say MAKE MY MUSTACHE LOOK LIKE THE HAIR OVER MY PUTZ!" They make fun of their father's sermonizing about Dreyfus, they make fun of the new Rebbitzin (Rabbi's wife) who cries at the name of Dreyfus, and they make fun of the synagogue Hazzan (cantor) who's now including a prayer for Dreyfus. Ends with "Why the fuck do a bunch of alte trombeniks (old blowhards) give a fuck about some French faygaleh?"
Chapter 3:
A pack of Polish shaget (male 'shiksa', derogatory terms for gentiles) hoodlums advance on them, seemingly from nowhere. The Polish kids speak in a Polish/English patois similar to the Yiddish kids'. They're much larger than the Jewish kids. The Poles make fun of the Jewish boys' ability to read, make fun of their dress, even make fun of the way they have fun. They snatch away the newspaper and tell the Jewish kids that these letters are probably where they learn the spells that killed one of their sisters. The Poles then say 'Tak, we heard about your family, a rodzina where all the kids live? That's fucking czarny (black) magic! You're probably here so nobody can hear your plans to poison our blyading (fucking) wells." Finally, Shimon, whom it's established early in scene 2 is a hothead, can't take it anymore: "Well maybe if your kind cleaned their shtupping wells once in a while your kid sister wouldn't get sick and die!"
Everything goes silent, "What are you saying? That you fucking mordecas (murderers) of Christ have the solution to not getting chory (sick) this whole time and you've been keeping it from us?"
Shimon's brothers try to talk him down but it's too late:
"Go back to your shtupping Boyars and Preists, they knew it this whole time and they kept it from you to keep you stupid!"
"Are you calling our Holy Fathers liars!"
"They're fucking thieves, rapists and murderers."
By this time, two of the brothers have fled and the only one left is Asher, Shimon starts getting roughed up by the Pollacks, and he calls out for help from Asher but Asher hesitates and then runs away like his brothers.
Shimon has to defend himself alone. he gets beaten to a pulp by the Russians who taunt him "Your brothers have left you!", eventually they leave him for dead.
Chapter 4:
We're right outside a barn where Reuven and Levi are working for a Shokhet (Kosher butcher). They are shovelling hay for the butcher's prize lamb which he is keeping for the Bransker Rebbe to eat on the eighth day of Hanukkah.
Levi is telling Reuven about his dreams again, about how like Tateh (Dad), he thinks he is being visited by angels, and Reuven, a very practical sort, tells him he's fertummelt (onomatopoetic term meaning confused/mixed up). "But you don't understand how vivid they are. They have to be real! They're as real as you right here."
Reuven is half making fun of him "Are they emesdikker (really) real or are they 'falshen' real.
Levi takes it more seriously: 'Well it's not real the way you and I are, it's like you can see them completely, but you can also see through them."
Reuven: "So your mind is falling for your own schvindle (swindle)?"
"Feh! (untranslatable) It's not a schvindle!"
"What do you know from schvindles..."
"I know what these malakhim (angels) tell me."
"And what do they tell?"
"You obviously wouldn't believe them."
"No I wouldn't, but I want to hear them anyway."
"That this will be the Great Age of our people. That we will all be destroyed, and then we will all be saved."
"You mean like Moshiach (the Messiah) coming?"
"I don't know... they haven't said. I just know that we're about to live through the most important time in thousands of years."
(beat)
"Feh!"
"That's what they said!"
"Levi I'm getting worried, has anyone ever told you you have a Lokhen Kop? (hole in the head)"
"You asked so I'm telling you!"
"Just don't you dare tell Tateh this! You used to be such a mensch! But you're getting really tschudne (weird)! If he knew this it would break his heart.
They're interrupted by the butcher's wife who's coming out of the house: "Stop shtupping kibbitzing and get back to arbeit (work)!"
(both of them) "We're working!"
"You're schreking so much I can hear it from the bodroom, if you worked more you'd get angry less, it'll set you free!"
Chapter 5:
Reuven goes inside, Levi goes about his work plucking the chickens for the butcher to kill, and suddenly the chickens start talking to Reuven. Their clucks sound like passages of Torah, "shalkheni ki alah hashakhar" ("Let me go for the dawn is breaking!" what the angel says to Jacob when they wrestle). One chicken says it, then another, then a third, and finally a giant chorus of chickens speaking Hebrew.
The prize lamb speaks directly to Levi. "I am a descendent of the sheep slaughtered by Avel (Abel) and Avraham (Abraham). The yichus (lineage) of my bloodline was used on the slave doors of Mitzraim (Egypt). My ancestors were present at the death of Shmuel (Samuel) and were given to the Melech of Eretz Yisroel by Meesha the Moabite. And I must die immediately. There is so little time to explain, but a fault in how we say the khakham harazim brakha (it's a long story....) means that as many as 600,000 Jews will soon die if you do not kill me right now, terrible things are happening, and if you do not act, a calamity will befall the the entire people of Israel!"
"But!"
"Hurry! It may already be too late!"
Levi panics and immediately slits the lamb's throat and is covered in blood.
Chapter 6:
Reuven goes inside the shokhet's house for a long narrative in which the many expensive wears of the schokhet are described, a foreshadowing of Reuven's future. While this is far from the first time, he finally works up the nerve to steal yet another candlestick. He is however discovered by the schokhet's wife: old, fat, sickly, who makes the price for her silence abundantly clear. She says "Oh, no, you didn't take it. Don't you remember I gave it to you as a geshank." And as she says it, she begins to unbutton Reuven's belt buckle.
Chapter 7:
Gad works for a Jewish farming supplier as a debt collector, brings along Issachar on a collection trip to help train him, Issachar sees the shocking poverty of peasants at home for the first time and starvation in which these peasants live, one of the daughters is very ill and may die, the children are crying and the parents beg Gad to not force them to pay because they need the money for medicine. Gad is ready to force them to pay and Issachar calls him over and demands Gad not accept payment as a matter of conscience, Gad says 'you don't know what these people are capable of when they have the money they need. The parents servilely thank Gad with all their might and bless him and promise to remember him to Christ.
Chapter 8:
Gad and Issachar go back to the farming supplier and Gad has to tell him that he doesn't have the money. The farming supplier explodes at Issachar and fires him immediately. Issachar objects and tells him of the squalor in which they found the peasant family. The farming supplier shows Gad and Issachar a picture of his very young son, and then tells them how during a pogrom this starving peasant killed his son in cold blood. "I hope I can bleed him of enough gelt that all his kinder die!" "How can you, a Yid, act with such cruelty?" "Du hast nicht ken rekht to judge me! One day, it could be your kinder, and then let's see if you have it in you to act any more chesed!"
Chapter 9:
Dina is pregnant, and the boy who impregnated her was expected by all to be her bashert (predestined one), but he was killed in mysterious circumstances while traveling to visit a nearby Rabbi. If anyone discovers her pregnancy, the town will forever view her as ruined woman, incapable of any marriage and unable to be received in respectable company. She went to a mekhasheyfe, a Jewish 'witch', who gave her a concoction to give her an abortion. She had terrible stomach pain, but the abortion did not work.
The witch tells her that if the child does not die from it, then it is meant to be born and is very strong indeed. The witch issues an oracular pronouncement, her lot in life is one of hardship and servitude, but if it is a daughter which she is to have, the daughter will have the experiences of liberation unknown to women all through the world.
Chapter 10:
Z'vulun is a town pimp. He goes to see his korveh to collect this week's sum. When she complains about the amount he leaves her, he immediately gets very angry and threatens her, she immediately breaks down in tears, he immediately mollifies her, apologizes for his anger, and promises that soon they will get out of this place and go to a better place like Warsaw or Odessa.
Chapter 11:
Judah meets with the girl next door whom he expects to soon be his bashert. They swear love to each other and he expects another promise from her to marry, but she drops a terrible surprise: her family is moving to Israel. She begs him to come with her. "But I have no money." "The future calls us there! Our life is no longer here." "I will do everything to get there!" "Come and find me. I will wait for you!"
Chapter 12:
Yosef, an intellectual prodigy, secretly goes for a weekly tutelage at the local gymnasium with a goyisher German instructor. Yosef is slightly more distracted than usual, and to whom he conveys his frustrations with town life, the instructor orders him to leave Bransk as soon as possible and seek his fortunes in the wider world 'just as Abraham did, just as dein namesvetterin Joseph did. The twentieth jahrhundert is anbruch, it will be the century of opportunity, of progress, of unlimited possibility. All that holds us back is our belief in unreason, and falsche götter. You've read what Nietzsche has to say! God is the greatest blasphemy!" "I don't know if I believe that." "One day, Yosef, you will. But until then, go forth from this backward place, a junge of your gifts languishing hier will nur know misery."
Chapter 13:
Dan, another intellectual prodigy, meets with the new Bransker Rebbe, an agreeable, freylich charismatic installed as Rebbe instead of the more ornery Reb Yaakov. The Rebbe is instructing him in advanced Gemara. At one point, Dan asks about the possibility of becoming a Rabbi himself, the Rebbe gives great encouragement and begins to sing Dan's praises as such a fine young mensch, at some point, something untoward happens and Dan exclaims 'Vos tutsach daw!?' Dan confronts him because whatever happened, this is not the first time the Rebbe has attempted anything. The Rebbe breaks down crying about his 'weakness' which Hashem tests him with and that he does not understand, he begs Dan to forgive him. Dan assures the Rebbe that it is all forgiven. It ends though with the Rebbe complaining about a terrible veytik in his shoulder. The Rebbe asks Dan to rub his shoulder as he continues to instruct Dan in gemara, Dan complies and the lesson continues.
Chapter 14:
Begins with Asher reliving the scene where he watches as his brother is beaten and crying out for his help. Asher himself is still crying, unsure whether his brother is dead or not. He has to go into hiding as two of the goyisher hoodlums are reliving the glory of watching that 'Zhid' die, calling out for his brother while his brothers run away. One of the boys leaves, while the other stays to roll a cigarette. Asher picks up a large rock and bludgeons the goyisher boy until he's nearly headless. He has to run away.
Chapter 15:
Naftali drunkenly practices with his fellow klezmorim who exchange Jewish jokes and talk 'nostalgic shit' about the towns many characters and the characters of the towns they've hailed from and travelled to. Eventually one of the other young musicians tells Naftali he's planning on leaving soon to become a klezmer musician in Vienna and Naftali should join him.
Chapters 16-18:
Benyamin's bris, the long denoument.... to be fleshed out later.
Chapter 7:
Gad works for a Jewish farming supplier as a debt collector, brings along Issachar on a collection trip to help train him, Issachar sees the shocking poverty of peasants at home for the first time and starvation in which these peasants live, one of the daughters is very ill and may die, the children are crying and the parents beg Gad to not force them to pay because they need the money for medicine. Gad is ready to force them to pay and Issachar calls him over and demands Gad not accept payment as a matter of conscience, Gad says 'you don't know what these people are capable of when they have the money they need. The parents servilely thank Gad with all their might and bless him and promise to remember him to Christ.
Chapter 8:
Gad and Issachar go back to the farming supplier and Gad has to tell him that he doesn't have the money. The farming supplier explodes at Issachar and fires him immediately. Issachar objects and tells him of the squalor in which they found the peasant family. The farming supplier shows Gad and Issachar a picture of his very young son, and then tells them how during a pogrom this starving peasant killed his son in cold blood. "I hope I can bleed him of enough gelt that all his kinder die!" "How can you, a Yid, act with such cruelty?" "Du hast nicht ken rekht to judge me! One day, it could be your kinder, and then let's see if you have it in you to act any more chesed!"
Chapter 9:
Dina is pregnant, and the boy who impregnated her was expected by all to be her bashert (predestined one), but he was killed in mysterious circumstances while traveling to visit a nearby Rabbi. If anyone discovers her pregnancy, the town will forever view her as ruined woman, incapable of any marriage and unable to be received in respectable company. She went to a mekhasheyfe, a Jewish 'witch', who gave her a concoction to give her an abortion. She had terrible stomach pain, but the abortion did not work.
The witch tells her that if the child does not die from it, then it is meant to be born and is very strong indeed. The witch issues an oracular pronouncement, her lot in life is one of hardship and servitude, but if it is a daughter which she is to have, the daughter will have the experiences of liberation unknown to women all through the world.
Chapter 10:
Z'vulun is a town pimp. He goes to see his korveh to collect this week's sum. When she complains about the amount he leaves her, he immediately gets very angry and threatens her, she immediately breaks down in tears, he immediately mollifies her, apologizes for his anger, and promises that soon they will get out of this place and go to a better place like Warsaw or Odessa.
Chapter 11:
Judah meets with the girl next door whom he expects to soon be his bashert. They swear love to each other and he expects another promise from her to marry, but she drops a terrible surprise: her family is moving to Israel. She begs him to come with her. "But I have no money." "The future calls us there! Our life is no longer here." "I will do everything to get there!" "Come and find me. I will wait for you!"
Chapter 12:
Yosef, an intellectual prodigy, secretly goes for a weekly tutelage at the local gymnasium with a goyisher German instructor. Yosef is slightly more distracted than usual, and to whom he conveys his frustrations with town life, the instructor orders him to leave Bransk as soon as possible and seek his fortunes in the wider world 'just as Abraham did, just as dein namesvetterin Joseph did. The twentieth jahrhundert is anbruch, it will be the century of opportunity, of progress, of unlimited possibility. All that holds us back is our belief in unreason, and falsche götter. You've read what Nietzsche has to say! God is the greatest blasphemy!" "I don't know if I believe that." "One day, Yosef, you will. But until then, go forth from this backward place, a junge of your gifts languishing hier will nur know misery."
Chapter 13:
Dan, another intellectual prodigy, meets with the new Bransker Rebbe, an agreeable, freylich charismatic installed as Rebbe instead of the more ornery Reb Yaakov. The Rebbe is instructing him in advanced Gemara. At one point, Dan asks about the possibility of becoming a Rabbi himself, the Rebbe gives great encouragement and begins to sing Dan's praises as such a fine young mensch, at some point, something untoward happens and Dan exclaims 'Vos tutsach daw!?' Dan confronts him because whatever happened, this is not the first time the Rebbe has attempted anything. The Rebbe breaks down crying about his 'weakness' which Hashem tests him with and that he does not understand, he begs Dan to forgive him. Dan assures the Rebbe that it is all forgiven. It ends though with the Rebbe complaining about a terrible veytik in his shoulder. The Rebbe asks Dan to rub his shoulder as he continues to instruct Dan in gemara, Dan complies and the lesson continues.
Chapter 14:
Begins with Asher reliving the scene where he watches as his brother is beaten and crying out for his help. Asher himself is still crying, unsure whether his brother is dead or not. He has to go into hiding as two of the goyisher hoodlums are reliving the glory of watching that 'Zhid' die, calling out for his brother while his brothers run away. One of the boys leaves, while the other stays to roll a cigarette. Asher picks up a large rock and bludgeons the goyisher boy until he's nearly headless. He has to run away.
Naftali drunkenly practices with his fellow klezmorim who exchange Jewish jokes and talk 'nostalgic shit' about the towns many characters and the characters of the towns they've hailed from and travelled to. Eventually one of the other young musicians tells Naftali he's planning on leaving soon to become a klezmer musician in Vienna and Naftali should join him.
Chapters 16-18:
Benyamin's bris, the long denoument.... to be fleshed out later.
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