In My Father’s Court by Bashevis Singer Isaac

Author:Bashevis Singer, Isaac
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Goodreads Press
Published: 2021-11-20T00:00:00+00:00

THE MIRACLE

Even though we had moved to Warsaw, Father kept up his connection with the Radzymin Rabbi, visiting him occasionally and praying at the Radzymin study house in No. 12 Krochmalna Street.

A fellow worshipper there was Reb Joseph Mattes, or Reb Joseph Goosedealer, as he was called, since his wife was a goose dealer in Yanash’s court. Only among Polish Jews could someone like Reb Joseph be found. Torah, Hasidism, charity, and good deeds occupied him constantly; he was always praying, studying, reciting the Zohar, or helping impoverished men. Heavy-set, with a blond beard and a ruddy face, he had eyes that emanated piety, good nature, and the delight of those who take pride in serving God.

The goose dealers in Yanash’s court did not have the best of reputations, since the foul oaths and curses they uttered while making a sale were indispensable to their business. My mother, therefore, was afraid of having anything to do with them. They were capable of tearing the wig off a housewife who dared to haggle. Even before a customer approached to ask the price, a dealer might begin this kind of soliloquy:

“You think this is a goose? God in heaven, it’s a calf! Look how the fat pours off—our enemies should only melt from envy. If this goose doesn’t feed you for a week, may I get a fire in my belly, a heart attack; I shouldn’t live to marry off my youngest daughter—dear God, she should stand beneath a black canopy! You think I’m making money from you? For every groschen profit you give me, I should get a plague. If I’m not losing money, let them put shards on my eyes. Someone offered me a ruble more, we should both live so long, but it’s Thursday and I don’t want to be stuck with the bird over the Sabbath. I don’t keep meat on ice—may our enemies lie on the ground with boils and blisters on their heads, and poison in their blood …”

Some of the goose dealers were masters of the language, creating words and similes and adjusting their curses to fit the time of year. For the Great Hosanna they would wish the black seal, for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur a death verdict. Reb Joseph Mattes’s wife was one of the goose dealers whose mouth, even in Yanash’s court, couldn’t be matched.

A loud-mouthed shrew, she earned a fine living, and her husband, who never entered the store, gave half of it to charity. Of her children, the daughter assisted her mother in the goose business, and the daughter’s husband, a delicate young man, spent his time being Jewish, and often visited Radzymin for months. In that family the men all studied the Talmud and the women provided for them. But there was one tragedy: the daughter’s children were all stillborn, despite annual promises from the Radzymin Rabbi that she would deliver a living male child. It was the opinion of doctors that she needed an operation, for her own life was endangered more with each stillbirth.

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