The cycle of my "days" grew larger, week after week, month after month.
All the time there was not a single hour in which I did not livein fervent and bracing hope that my outstanding success in learning would ultimately turn into the magic key for my return home. But I did not know, nor did I dare ask, how long I should have to stay away from home, from Mother. Even a prisoner, I kept thinking, is told the duration of his sentence. I felt that I, too, was serving some kind of sentence, undefined and weighted down with unremitting duty. There was only one way to set myself free: by a supreme achievement in learning and piety.
My "days" stilled my physical hunger, my constant learning slaked my thirst for knowledge. But what I really hungered and thirsted after, with every cell and nerve in my body, with every fiber in my mind and heart, was the simple warmth and affection of home blessed with the presence and closeness of Mother.
The seasons of the year rolled by—fall, winter, spring, summer and fall again—without any vacation break. Learning was continuous, in cold or hot weather, in any type of weather, week in and week out.
I grew faint with the endless longing that sapped my energies for living. And when my heart could not stand anymore the agony of longing, I finally decided to do something about it.
Now, what would be the first thing that a scholarly nine-and-a-half-year-old boy would think of? Naturally, to get sick. Simple as that. But how?
This was no problem for me whatsoever, as I knew at once how to go about it, namely, to skip the prayers for health.
I went over carefully the various prayers containing a paragraph, a sentence, or even a single short phrase pleading with the Almighty for health. Although I knew by then all the daily prayers by heart, I reverted to reading them from the prayer-book, to be certain that I would not say the health-requesting portions out of habit. My teachers were amazed at my following the prayerbook so closely as if I were a newcomer to praying, but they interpreted it as an act of greater devotion on my part.
I remember vividly the moment when, for the first time, I left out from the solemn prayer of the Eighteen Benedictions the passage "Heal us, O Lord, and we shall be healed." I felt a sharp pain, as I certainly did not take it lightly to disregard an age-old, canonized prayer. But I also thought that this very pain might well be the beginning of the longed-for illness.
After the first time it was somehow easier, and I continued my health-omitting prayers for several weeks.
But nothing happened! I could not understand why. I was convinced, like every God-fearing Jew, that all prayers, as well as all deeds, good or otherwise, were minutely registered in the heavenly ledgers. All these entries were totaled up during the ten penitential days between Rosh Ha'sho'ne, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The great computational work in heaven was completed in that period and the account of every Jew—man, woman and child—drawn up. The grand total in each account was weighed, and everyone's lot in life and fate for the next twelve months was decided, as is said in one of the invocations—"who shall be raised up and who cast down; who shall live, and who shall die." And even the manner of one's death, if, God forbid, this was the final outcome of the accounting, was settled upon: whether by pestilence or asphyxiation, whether by disease or drowning.
How was it then possible, I kept thinking, that my purposeful skipping of the pleas for health was overlooked and my mutilated prayers—may the good Lord forgive me!—were entered as if they were intact?
It occurred to me that a little angel, maybe a child like myself, had been apprenticed to an older, reliable prayer-checker; that the little angel found his work boring, since he would rather fly around the heavens and while away his time listening to harps and lyres; and that in the monotony of his job he entered his check-marks in the credit columns indiscriminately, without paying close attention to the wholeness of the incoming prayers... I felt pity for him, certain that he would be caught and punished. And my pity mingled with guilt: Wouldn't I be the one who caused his eventual downfall? . . .
With the approach of late fall and winter I felt sadder and lonelier, as if it were possible to be lonelier than I was already. This period of the year at home was always a time of preparations for the coming winter months. The whole family would gather one evening in the dining room, and mother, assisted by one of my older sisters, undertook a thorough going-over of all the winter garments, to see whether they were still good enough for one more winter season.
An essential part of the general preparation was the checking of the state of our boots, seven pairs of cheap boots made of compressed felting—standard winter footwear in Lithuania in those days for both men and women.
These boots usually came with a basic accessory—a pair of galoshes. Each of the galoshes had two brass letters, the initials of the owner's first and last name, pressed, like tacks, into the heels from the inside. They speeded up the recognition of one's galoshes in a heap of footwear.
Such winter preparations at home were an assurance of warmth and care.
And the more I longed for those evenings at home, the colder I felt, as
if overtaken by an inward shiver.
Seeing that my plan for skipping the health passages in my prayers did not work, I came upon a more drastic device: I was going to make up a very special prayer of my own.
Resolute in my idea, I culled anew all the passages from the prayers which I omitted, and transposed them from a supplication for health into the very opposite. In addition I composed in Hebrew, a language which I knew sufficiently well by then, several closing paragraphs, with quotations, metaphors and utterances from the holy books, all proper to such a subject, stating forthrightly my inability to endure the desolation of my heart and imploring my death.
I also decided not to say my special prayer during the times set for prayers in general, but to make it an exceptional and private occasion and say it in an hour of my own choosing. Thus, I was certain, its arrival in the Heavenly Courts would promptly be singled out, and followed by speedy action.
And one late October evening, after many deliberations, I was ready.
As it was my custom, I took a long and lonely evening walk on my way to the home that was not home. The moon, like a large plate, hung vertically, lingered serenely in the big and deep sky. More than a year before, when I was brought here for the first time, she was the only one in whom I confided, whom I told of my desperate longing, and of the endless hurts in my heart. She knew me well by now, her old-young friend, the little exile from home, a beggar and a wanderer.
The skies were studded with stars. There was not even a single dot of cloud in the whole large firmament.
It was late, and the shtetl was asleep. The streets and alleys were awash with moonlight. A great quiet hung in the air, a moment of universal silence. And I decided that this was the supremely propitious moment for my special prayer.
Facing straight up to Heaven I prefaced my prayer with a personal introduction. Since my name in Yiddish, Zellig, is a derivation from the Dutch and German Selig, meaning "blessed,"and since I was convinced that only Hebrew was the recognized language in the Heavenly realm, I linked to my name Zellig the Hebrew Borukh. which also means "blessed." I also added that I was the son of Dovid and Libe, to make doubly sure that there would be no mistake.
I called on the moon, my good old friend, and on the stars to be my witnesses.
And in a clear voice, slowly and intensely, I directed toward the Divine Glory my self-composed prayer for sickness and death.
"Lord of the world," I began, and in dittological phrases echoing a Bible rhythm I pleaded before the Throne of Grace and prayed not for ease but for disease, not for health but for sickness, and unwaveringly besought, implored and supplicated the All-Merciful Father to inscribe me not in the book of life but in the book of death.
The stars shone bright and glistened, like a chain of celestial relay stations for my desperate entreaty. I was convinced that my prayer ascended straight to the Master of all Souls. And to seal within my heart the certitude of my prayer's outcome, I said aloud: "Behold, the Guardian of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps."
It was very late now. Dogs started to howl, one calling the other, one answering the other—two, three, five. . . Their howling, coming from all directions. started to crowd me.. . I trembled and felt frightened.
I rushed to my room. My landlady and her daughter were already asleep—on the floor in the "dining-room." Quietly I entered my room, undressed quickly in the dark, said the night prayer, and climbed into my criblike bed.
My heart and mind were very excited. My first thought was of Mother and my sisters, and what my death would mean to them. I could not bear this thought too long, and started to speculate how it would hit my "foster mother" Esther. I reflected with anticipatory longing how I would miss the beloved Mr. Gurevich, of my Mondays, and his three daughters; the baker's three daughters, of my Thursdays; and, of course, exuberant, buxom Ba'she of my Fridays who washed my hair and prepared such heavenly meals.
It was long after midnight when I finally fell asleep with the vague notion that the instant I died my father in Heaven would await me and extend his hands toward me in a beckoning embrace.
I got up early and rushed to the yeshi've where I usually said my morning prayers But on my way there I had a sudden impulse. I entered, instead, a small adjacent study house where the men from the town worshipped, and joined their min'yen. I motioned to the beadle to hand me a candle, lit it with one of the already burning candles, and placed it in a tin holder. Everyone in the study house assumed that it was a yor'tsayt in my family, and that I lit the candle for the soul of the departed.
But I knew differently. Throughout the prayer I watched the flame of my candle, the flame that was now burning for my own soul—so strong was my belief that my special prayer the previous night would come true! And as if to seal this conviction irrevocably, I joined the mourners among the congregants during the stated periods in the service, and in a ringing voice said Ka'dish, the Sanctification prayer which a son recites for the soul of a deceased parent. But this time it was for my own soul.
The longing of years for my father was wondrously lifted and the distance between us suddenly vanished. In saying this mourning prayer I felt united, in a sweet and painful way, with my father—one simultaneous Ka'dish for both of us . . .