Friday, April 29, 2022

ONL - Bransk 1899 - Scene 9 - 40%

 Shimon: You want a job that brings in money even when nobody else is making any? That might one day make you a rich macher while your brothers are still smoking papyros in the cemetery?

(knocks at the door of Reb Goldberg. Reb Goldberg opens it before Shimon even finishes knocking.) 

Goldberg: Nu? We're doin' a L'Chaim!

Shimon: Alright... L'chaim...

Goldberg: Here, dawh, take these glessen schnopps. 

Shimon: What's the simcheh?

Goldberg: Hashem's justice. 

Shimon: Hashem's justice? 

Goldberg: God is just, and God is merciful. Amen. (swallows schnopps) Trink! Trink!

(Shimon and Yehuda drink) 

Yehuda: Shouldn't we make a brocheh?

Goldberg: We'll do it over the next gless. Here, I got Vodka too. We're gonna get good und shikkered. 

Shimon: Is this a happy getrunken or a sad?

Goldberg: It's the happiest day of my life in nineteen years!

Shimon: Well mazel tov then, what's the occasion?

Goldberg: Your future!

Shimon: Our future?

Goldberg: Well, your future, but if your brother here becomes as good an assistant as you, it'll be his future too cuz gleyb mir this is too much business for one guy. 

(long pause)

Shimon: Reb Goldberg, I don't know what to...

Goldberg: Nu, Yehuda, you gonna wish Shimi a Mazel Tov yet?

Yehuda: Em... Mazel tov. 

Goldberg: See those documents on the desk? Later when I'm good and shikkered and don't care that I'm doing this for a sixteen year old pisher, Shimmi and I are gonna sign this document making a partner out of the best assistant I ever had, and I've had a bunch, making him my heir who gets this business and this house. 

Shimon: Reb Goldberg!

Goldberg; Nu? Who else am I gonna give this to? Thirty-five yar these beyner have been walking every day, back and forth, ahin und zuruck: Bransk, Wysokie, Bielsk, Chiechanowiec, Zambrow, Choroczsz, Bialystok... Last time I traveled farther than Bialystok I was a year or two older than you. And kinder I don't got much time left. I'm gonna be here two more years to show you everything I know. (pours three shotglasses) Then I'm gonna retire and spend the rest of my time walking ahin and zuruck through Yerushalayim. Here, take a trinken Vodka. Boyruch atoh hashem elokeinu melech haoylom, boreh peri hagawfen. (them: Awmeyn) Boyruch atoh hashem elokeinu melech haoylom, shehecheyawnu v'kiyimawnu v'higiyawnu lawzman hawzeh! (them: Awmeyn!) Come on Yehuda! All the mashkeh down the hatch! Can I call you Yudaleh? You've done something important for me now, I feel like I can give you a nickname. 

Yehuda: If you're eventually giving me what you're giving Shimon you can call me any name you want. 

(Goldberg laughs) 

Goldberg: Well, let's see if you're as smart as Shimon.  (already pouring more shots) 

Yehuda: Well if Shimon is that smart then you should call me the Tsar! 

Goldberg: Well, Tsar Yudaleh, let's make a l'chaim. For your future and Shimi's! 

All of them: L'Chaim! 

(they all drink) 

Goldberg: (already pouring another for everybody) All these years I've had to take these trinks alone but this is like I've got zuns again. 

Shimon: Well I don't know why I'm surprised, but all this time Reb Goldberg you've never talked about zuns or even that you once were married. Are they in Amerikeh?

Goldberg: Oh,... better.

Shimon: Palestine?

Goldberg: They're all with Hashem now. It'll be twenty years at Pesach. 

Shimon: Reb Goldberg, I...

Goldberg: 1881 pogroms, like everybody else. And don't you tell me how sorry you are. We all lost people that year, I lost a few more, but this is like I've got zuns again. 

Shimon: Well thank you so much Reb Goldberg, I hope we can live up your naches. 

Goldberg: You will. My generation had to get it from the goyim so that your generation wouldn't have to. Your time is gonna be different for Jews. No one's gonna make us eat drek anymore. Not the Bransker, not the Poles, not even the Russians. To your generation! 

All: L'Chaim! 

Shimon: Reb Goldberg do you do you really think our generation will be different?

Goldberg: Ikh veyst! I know it! Hashem can't let us suffer like that without giving us something better. It took a little while, but after Khmielnitsky and Shabbetai Zevi, Jews thought they were gonna get killed forever, but then everything calmed down for a while. Jews began to learn the Kaballeh and learn that all this, all this suffering, all these tears, they're have a point. And more importantly, you have a point! 

Yehuda: What's our point?

Goldberg: Your point is to make money!

Yehuda: I should have seen that coming...

Goldberg: The purpose of b'khurim like us who never paid attention in kheyder is that we make the money so that the ones who do pay attention can keep leyning. That Bransker shul doesn't remodel itself. Who do you think Rabbi Schkop always went to to keep it going?

Yehuda: Well... considering that the letters over the aron hakodesh say it's the Ephraim Goldberg Memorial Ark...

Goldberg: My name is Schlomo, Ephraim was my son. 

Yehuda: Oy... I'm so sorry.

Goldberg: I told you not to apologize! 

Yehuda: I'm sor... oy...

Goldberg: Miriam and I had two twin sons: Ephraim and Menashe. They were both small like their father, but they looked nothing alike and they had exactly opposite personalities. Menashe was smart, but he didn't give a drek about kheyder or lernen and would always kamf back. Your father would beat the shit out of him and I'd just laugh cuz he did my job for me... But your father always told me that Ephraim was the most brilliant talmid he ever had. He always did what he was told, he always helped his Mameh, he always prayed, he always read. I loved Menashe, but everybody loved Ephraim. When they were alive I always figured I'd move to Palestine by ten years ago and Menashe would be doin all this. Meanwhile, Ephraim would be the Bransker rebbe and between the two of them Bransk would have a couple thousand more Jews. But that's not how Hashem works. Here, let's toast, to Menashe and Ephraim, the two best boys in the world!

Yehuda then Shimon: Sh'koyach (they drink). 


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