Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories (56 page)

100
Bo’u mayim ad nefesh
—“Save me, my God, for
the waters are come in unto my soul.”
Psalms, 69:1.

101
Ohavti es adoyni es ishti
—“I love my master, my wife.” Exodus, 21:5.

102
Eyn Esther magedes—“And Esther spoke not
of her nativity or her people.” Esther, 2:20.

103
Eyn koyl ve’eyn kosef—
Tevye is thinking of the verse in Kings I, 18:29, “And it came to pass, when midday was past, they [the priests of the Baal] prophesied until the time of the evening sacrifice; yet
there was neither voice … nor any heed [e’eyn koyl … ve’eyn koshev]”—
but, whether intentionally or not, he has confused the word
koshev
, “heed,” with
kosef
, “money,” so that he ends up by saying. “There was neither voice nor money.”

104
Kerakheym ov al bonim—“Like as a father pitieth his children
, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him.” Psalms, 103:13.

105
High Holy Days—The solemn holidays of Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which occur ten days apart in early autumn.

106
Sukkos—The seven-day holiday of Sukkoth or the Feast of Tabernacles, occurring five days after Yom Kippur, during which observant
Jews eat and sometimes sleep in a sukkah, a thatch-covered hut or booth erected especially for the festivity.

107
Atoh … veshorkho … vekhamorkho
—“But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: on it thou shalt not do any work,
neither thou
, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant,
nor thine ox, nor thine ass
, nor any of thy cattle, nor the stranger that is within thy gates.” Deuteronomy, 5:14. Taking advantage of the fact that the verse fails to mention one’s wife, Tevye parses
veshorkho
, “thy ox,” to mean “thy wife”—and since the verse makes no mention of horses either, he interprets
vekhamorkho
, “and thy ass,” to refer to his nag.

108
Al keyn ya’azoyv ish es oviv ve’es imoy—“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother
and shall cleave unto his wife.” Genesis, 2:24.

109
Lomoh rogshu—“Why
do the heathen
rage?”
Psalms, 2:1.

110
The Book of Life—The divine register in which, according to both rabbinic tradition and popular Jewish belief, God annually inscribes the fate of every individual. The predestined year is said to run from one Yom Kippur to the next, the ten-day period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur being set aside for entering the next year’s fates, which can still be changed for the better by penitence and good works. At the end of Yom Kippur God’s decision is stamped and sealed—yet the Book of Life is left open for last-minute changes until Hoshana Rabbah, the last day of Sukkoth, thus creating a grace period of several additional days in which one can still ward off a cruel destiny. It is only on Hoshana Rabbah that the Book is shut irrevocably for the year; hence the custom referred to by Tevye of staying up all night in prayer and study on Hoshana Rabbah eve.

111
Hoydu lashem ki toyv
—“Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good.” Psalms, 136:1.

112
Tsa’ar gidul bonim
—“The sorrows of child raising.” A rabbinic expression.

113
Ad kan hakofoh alef
—“That’s the end of the first
hakofoh.”
A
hakofoh
is a circling of the synagogue with the Torah scrolls on the holiday of Simkhat Torah, the Rejoicing of the Law. Seven such rounds, accompanied by singing and dancing, take place. At the end of each the sexton announces, “That’s the end of the ——
hakofoh,”
and the Torah scrolls change hands for the next round.

114
Eyl rakhum vekhanun
—“And the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord
God, merciful and gracious
, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth.” Exodus, 34:6.

115
Hamekhaseh am mey’Avrohom
—“And the Lord said,
Shall I hide from Abraham
that thing which I do?” Genesis, 18:17.

116
Rotsoh hakodoysh borukh hu lezakoys
—“Rabbi Hananiah ben Akashya said,
The Holy One Blessed Be He wished to bestow merit
upon Israel and so He gave them many laws and commandments.” From
The Ethics of the Fathers
.

117
Midrash—See
this page
.

118
Gorky—Maxim Gorky (1868–1936), Russian writer and revolutionary supporter. Gorky, who burst spectacularly on the Russian literary scene in the 1890s with his stories about the Russian lower classes, was especially popular with young Jewish readers because of his outspoken opposition to anti-Semitism and his sympathy for the Jewish victims of Czarist persecution.

119
Yegia kapekho ki toykhal
—“For thou shalt eat the labor of thine hands.” Psalms, 128:2.

120
Meyayin boso ule’on atoh hoyleykh
—“Akavia ben Mehalelel said, Keep in mind three things and you will not fall into sin: know
whence you come, and whither you go
, and to Whom you will owe an accounting.” From
The Ethics of the Fathers
.

121
Ish kematnas yodoy
—“Every man as he is able.” Deuteronomy, 16:17.

122
Hanoyseyn lasekhvi binoh
—“Blessed art Thou, O Lord God, King of the Universe,
Who giveth the rooster knowledge
to tell the dawn from the night.” From the opening blessings of the daily morning prayer.

123
Shivoh dvorim bagoylem—“The fool has seven traits
and so does the wise man: the wise man does not speak to his superior in knowledge without being spoken to, and does not interrupt his companion, and does not answer rashly, and replies to the point, and puts first things first and last things last, and says ‘I do not know’ when he does not know, and always admits to the truth; and the fool does just the opposite.” From
The Ethics of the Fathers
.

124
Holakh Moyshe-Mordekhai
—“Off went Moyshe-Mordekhai”; a parodistic pseudo-verse.

125
Ma pishi uma khatosi
—“And Jacob answered and said to Laban,
what is my trespass? What is my sin?”
Genesis, 31:36.

126
Mah onu umeh khayeynu
—“What are we and what is our life?” From the morning prayer.

127
Kerakheym ov al bonim
.

128
Al tiftakh peh lasoton
—“Do not open your mouth to the Devil.” A rabbinic proverb meaning, Do not speak of what you do not wish to happen, lest the evil eye bring it to pass.

129
“And against the Children of Israel not a dog stuck out its tongue.” Exodus, 11:17.

130
The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.

131
Loy omus ki ekhyeh—“I shall not die, but live
, and declare the works of the Lord.” Psalms, 118:17.

132
Be’al korkhekho atoh khai
.

133
Odom kiveheymoh nidmeh—“Man
 … that understandeth not
is like the beasts that perish.”
Psalms, 49:20.

134
Oylom keminhogoy noyheyg
—“The world goes on its accustomed course.” A rabbinic saying.

135
Al tistakeyl bakankan
—“Rabbi [Yehuda Hanasi] said,
Look not at the storage jar
but at what it stores.” From
The Ethics of the Fathers
.

136
Kerakheym ov al bonim
.

137
The
ashrey
—The opening section of the afternoon prayer, which begins with the verse,
Ashrey yoyshvey veysekho, oyd yehalelukho seloh
, “Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house; they will still be praising Thee, Selah.” Psalms, 84:5.

138
The
shimenesre

139
Ish lefo’aloy ve’odom le’avoydosoy
—“Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labor.” Psalms, 104:23.

140
Ad kan oymrim beshabbes hagodol
—“Thus far one says on the Great Sabbath.” On the Sabbath before Passover, “the Great Sabbath,” as it is called, it is customary to recite the opening section of the Haggadah. At the end of this section, therefore, many Haggadahs bear the notation “Thus far one says on the Great Sabbath,” in order to indicate where to stop.

141
Vayishkokheyhu
—“And the chief butler did not remember Joseph.
And he forgot him.”
Genesis, 40:23.

142
Pogroms in Kishinev—See
this page
.

143
The new Constantution
—Tevye is referring to the Constitution of 1905 (see
this page
), but mispronounces the Russian word. And Sholem Aleichem has made a mistake of his own here, too: since “Hodl” was published in 1904, “Chava” in 1905, and “Shprintze” in 1907, it is inaccurate for Tevye to say in “Shprintze” that the two of them have not met since the time before the 1903 Kishinev pogroms.

144
Harey ani keven shivim shonoh
—“Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah said,
’Lo, I am nearly seventy years old
, and never did I know that one is obliged to mention the exodus at night until I heard it from ben Zoma.” From the Passover Haggadah.

145
Be’al korkhekho atoh khai
.

146
Rotsoh hakodoysh borukh hu lezakoys
.

147
Borukh merakheym al ha’orets
—“Blessed is He Who hath mercy upon the earth.” From the prayer book.

148
Vayisu vayakhanu, vayakhanu vayisu
—“And they journeyed and they camped, and they camped and they journeyed.” This is not an actual verse but rather Tevye’s version of the Biblical account of the wanderings of the Children of Israel in the desert, with its of trepeated formula of “And the Children of Israel journeyed from—and camped in——.”

149
Vayehi hayoym
.

150
Shavuos. It was traditional among East European Jews to eat dairy foods on Shavuos, unlike other holidays, when meat (if affordable) was the preferred main course.

151
Lo blintzu avoyseynu bemitsrayim
—Tevye has creatively taken the Biblical verse (Numbers, 10:5), “We remember the fish, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic which we did eat in Egypt,” made a Hebrew verb out of the Yiddish word
blintz
, and said quite Biblically to Ahronchik, “My wife will serve you such blintzes fit for princes as
our forefathers never blintzed in Egypt.”

152
Kesef vezohov ma’asey yedey odom
—“The idols of the heathen are
silver and gold, the work of men’s hands.”
—Psalms, 115:4.

153
Hashomayim shomayim ladoynai
.

154
A Jew doesn’t ride on Shavuos—Among the activities that are prohibited to observant Jews on Sabbaths and most major holidays is traveling in any form except by foot.

155
Hashleykh al hashem—“Cast upon the Lord
thy burden.” Psalms, 55:22.

156
Vayehi erev vayehi voyker
.

157
“The wise man has eyes in his head.” Ecclesiastes, 2:14.

158
Holakh Moyshe-Mordekhai
.

159
Raboys makhshovoys belev ish
—“Many are the thoughts in a man’s heart but the counsel of the Lord shall prevail.” Proverbs, 19:21.

160
Keshoyshanoh beyn hakhoykhim—“As a lily among thorns
, so is my love among the daughters.” Song of Songs, 2:2.

161
Sheli shelkho
and
shelkho sheli
—“What’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine.” Tevye is alluding to the saying in
The Ethics of the Fathers
that goes, “There are four kinds of men. [He who says,] ‘What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours’ is the average man … [He who says,] ‘What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is yours’ is the artless man. [He who says,] ‘What’s mine is yours and what’s yours is yours’ is the righteous man. [He who says,] What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is mine’ is the wicked man.”

162
There’s a time for everything, as King Solomon once said—“To every thing there is a season and a time to every purpose.” Ecclesiastes, 3:1.

163
My tongue clove to my mouth, as the Bible says—“If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my tongue cleave to my mouth.” Psalms, 137:5.

164
Koyl zman shehaneshomoh bekirbi—“As long as the soul is in me
, I shall thank Thee, O God and God of my fathers.” From the daily morning prayer.

165
Two mountains never meet …—A rabbinic proverb.

166
Al tistakeyl bakankan
.

167
Im kevonim im ka’avodim
—“Judge us
whether as
[Thy]
sons or as
[Thy]
servants:
if as sons, pity us as a father pities his sons; and if as servants, our eyes are cast to Thy mercy.” From the Rosh Hashanah service. Tevye first wrenches the phrase out of its religious context and then, in his next sentence, restores it there.

168
Ki zeh koyl ha’odom
—“Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: fear God and keep His commandments,
for that
is
the whole of man.”
Ecclesiastes, 12:13.

169
Mah onu umeh khayeynu
.

170
I hired a Jew to say the mourner’s prayer—During the year following a death in his immediate family, a male Jew is required to recite the kaddish, the mourner’s prayer, several times daily in the synagogue. (The kaddish is one of the few prayers that cannot be said in solitude.) Since there is no synagogue in Tevye’s village and a daily trip to Boiberik or Yehupetz is impractical, he has no choice but to pay someone else to say the prayer for him—a common practice in such circumstances.

171
Charm is a liar and Beauty a cheat—“Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.” Proverbs, 31:30.