Published in Bnei Brak, 5760, 429 pages
Tishrei, 5761.
I have all of chol hamoed ahead of me to read this
book. Spanking new, pristine, straight from the printers,
the bookstore, it is all mine to explore, savor, reject,
parry with, relax with, experience.
I approach it warily, even sniff it, as a dog might approach
a stranger and make overtures in friendship. Yes, a book may
very well become a friend, a teacher, a source of
inspiration, or a sparring partner. I find these
premonitions strange, but the vibes are there. This is a
book I will have a hard time passing judgment upon. It's a
heavyweight.
There is no publisher that I can see to give me a further
clue about its content and leanings. "I shall sing of the
kindnesses of Hashem... I shall proclaim His trust in my
mouth," reads the flyleaf. "Anashim Achim," writes
the author, "is an attempt/experiment in lending my voice to
song, to proclaim His trust by means of a compendium of
stories which open a window to the Jewish-human world. A
multicolored mosaic based on true events and people, some of
them actually living in our midst."
And the following page, an approbation from the principal of
the Seminar Torani Chassidi in Bnei Brak.
Orit Harel has appeared in the literary pages of the Hebrew
Yated and her credentials are tip top. Her writing is
superb: sensitive, thought provoking, genuinely tear-
provoking, and certainly not jerking and sentimental. It is
a work of art.
But perhaps -- my conclusion, now, having completed this
exciting work -- one who is truly artistic may get carried
away with their talent, as some of the stories, the very
first one, leave me with a tingling sensation of
something... something...
Like the hero in the first story, a soldier in shell-shock.
Itamar's battle- fatigued mind runs around in circles for
fifteen pages, dredging up reminiscences from the past,
until the hook sinks its tooth into a declamation he
remembers from his early childhood. Something about
neshama. Hey, Ima, can you remember that one?
Struggling along with her son's aching searching for some
meaning in life-after-war, she takes off her apron and
slowly recites the precious words that her mother used to
recite with her as a child, and she, with him...
"Elokai, neshama shenatata bi..."
He absorbs the words, this time with new meaning, and these
finally penetrate to speak to him. The answer to his big
question of meaning in life may lie in religion, and he asks
his mother to contact the army chaplain. He is provided with
religious articles and discovers this short but very
meaningful prayer -- "Ima, listen, you won't believe this!
Savta's declamation: I saw it! It's in the siddur. In
the very first pages...
"Right in the beginning!"
And so ends the first story. Beautiful, masterful, but
leaving me with a creepy feeling of having trespassed into
the mind of a soldier.
I don't know. That's modern writing and I'm still old
fashioned.
But, on with this very traditional story with old time
flavor. A Chanuka story.
SUFGANIYOT
They used to say that Bobbe Gutke's jelly doughnuts were
something special.
`They' certainly weren't referring to the quality of the
dough, or of the filling, either.
*
Bobbe Gutke used to begin making her sufganiyot from Rosh
Chodesh Kislev. That is, the yeast dough. After it was
thorougly mixed and doughy like such a dough should be, she
would shove it into the freezer until the twenty-fifth of
Kislev.
Bobbe had dough representatives in every freezer in the
building next door since the freezer in her ancient
refrigerator was far too small to contain the huge bulging
and yeastily aromatic quantities she produced.
And then:
Just as it is written, "With the coming of Adar, one
increases joy," so could one say, by inverse inference, that
when a mass of people converged upon the courtyard of the
Old Age Home in our city -- you knew that Chanuka was upon
us!
And to carry the analogy further, just as the Jews rested on
the twenty-fifth of Kislev, chonu kof-hey, so did
long lines of cars come to rest, to park all alongside the
avenue of the Home, even double parking of necessity.
Then you could see the enactment of yet another dictum of
Chazal come to life, borrowed, this time, from Seder night:
"All who are hungry, come ye and take." And they came,
throughout the eight days of Chanuka, come to take from
Bobbe Gutke.
What did they take?
What she was handing out? Not much, whatever she could
spare, a tiny bite's worth.
A bite of a sufganiya.
Besides this, Bobbe Gutke would distribute, with
extraordinary magnaminity, smiles and blessings, sprinkled
generously with her "Bli ayin hora, bli ayin hora!"
to make sure the blessings took. She would heartily assure
the takers that more than they were taking, she, herself,
was receiving in turn.
But she never took anything in return, not even a penny.
*
And if you ask: were all these visitors really so crazy
about her doughnuts? G-d forbid! The matter went far
deeper.
*
Bobbe Gutke's husband, R' Pesach o'h, who had passed
away seven years before at an age where they had already
stopped counting since they had celebrated his seventy-ninth
birthday for five or six times -- had once been a rebbe of
young children.
His reputation preceded him, and at one point, the
illustrious Admor of his city summoned him to teach his own
son chumash and mishnayos.
Years passed. The erstwhile child grew up and inherited his
father's mantle of leadership, and established his court on
the very avenue of the Old Age Home.
One morning...
The Admor left his home, and, accompanied by his
shammosh and surrounded by a coterie of
chassidim, he encountered R' Pesach, who was likewise
on his way to his morning immersion in the neighborhood
mikve. The Admor immediately recognized his former
teacher and deferred to him.
"Rebbe!" he said, and turned to his following, "This rebbe
taught me Torah!" R' Pesach blushed and blanched, and almost
fell off his feet.
This took place in the month of Kislev. And then, on the
first night of Chanuka, there was a light knock on the house
of R' Pesach and Bobbe Gutke.
R' Pesach closed his gemora and went to answer.
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" was all that he could utter, overwhelmed with
excitement like a little cheder boy. The Admor, in
person, stood on his threshold with a pure smile lighting up
his holy face.
"Sholom aleichem, R' Pesach! May I come in?"
"Oh, Oh..." was all that the elderly R' Pesach could utter,
but his wife, who stood behind him, was somewhat more
practical. She tugged at his vest for him to step aside and
let the tzaddik enter.
The Rebbe took out a small faded wooden object. "Remember
this, R' Pesach?" he asked, a hearty smile spreading over
his pure face.
R' Pesach studied it, took it in his hand and turned it
around and around. No, he could not remember this antique
object.
"I received this from you sixty years ago, on Chanuka, when
I was your student. Now do you remember?"
"Oh..." R' Pesach murmured, too overcome to even attempt to
reminisce.
"I want Rebbe Pesach to know," he said, addressing him in
the third person, "that I played with this dreidel, my
children played with it, and even my grandchildren play with
it to this very day, every Chanuka."
The Admor had called him "Rebbe Pesach"! He stood there and
smiled. How he smiled! He smiled so hard that he completely
forgot to invite his honored guest to sit down! But Bobbe
was on the mark and gestured to her husband.
And finally, R' Pesach found his words. "Would Kvod
Kedusho do me the honor of sitting down in my humble
home?" he invited him with a lavish hand and heart.
"Thank you, I won't disturb. I see that kvodo closed
his gemora..."
"Oh, cholilo, Your honored presence does not intrude.
Chas v'sholom!" the old man was alarmed.
And then, again, his wife motioned to him. R' Pesach hurried
to lay a heaped plate of fresh sufganiyot, his wife's
handiwork, before the illustrious guest. "Please, would
kvodo do us the honor of reciting a blessing
here?"
The Admor did not refuse his "rebbe who had taught him
Torah," made a blessing and tasted a small sufganiya. And
then he spoke aloud, addressing his words for Bobbe Gutke's
ears.
"Yasher koiach! This is delicious! May the hands be
blessed, and may there be health until one hundred and
twenty!" And then he rose and left.
*
After that, and ever since then, the news spread like the
sweet smell of sizzling sufganiyot.
Those in the know tell that what the Admor really intended
was "That these should be for health, until one hundred and
twenty." In other words, that whoever tasted from Bobbe
Gutke's doughnuts would be blessed with good health and long
life!
Some even added to this wonder stories and actual proofs
relating to the recovery of sick people who had tasted from
these sufganiyot.
R' Pesach passed away and his wife moved over to the
neighborhood Old Age Home. But she continues to make her
sufganiyot, year after year.
The worthy neighborhood women make a precise list of turns,
that is, which one of them will be privileged to set aside
the required challa from Bobbe's dough, for this
blessing alone is traditionally a source of bounty.
Some even tell that there is an additional vying for the
privilege of filling the doughnuts with jelly or shaking the
confectioner's sugar on top. Bobbe assigns tasks to one and
all, but primarily to those women in need of special Divine
favor.
But there is one task which she always reserves for
herself.
On the eve of the twenty-fifth of Kislev, she dons her
Shabbos finery, puts on an old sheitel covered with
her white Shabbos kerchief, girds her shrunken waist with a
white lace apron, and marches down the avenue bearing a
heaping tray of sufganiyot - straight to the home of the
Admor.
The Rebbetzin removes the sufganiyot and heaps the tray, in
turn, with potato latkes, and conveys the Admor's blessings,
together with her own, and blessings for all of his
followers and all of Jewry -- and to Bobbe Gutke -- for much
good health.
And a HAPPY CHANUKA!
