usual breakfast is porridge, but I put a bit of sausage over the fire for you this morning.”
The man picked up his spoon. As soon as a bowl was placed in front of him, he began scooping large quantities into his mouth. His bowl was half empty before Josef and his mother began eating. Porridge and sausage disappeared together while Josef looked on wistfully. He wished he could have had just the smallest bit of sausage in his bowl.
Joakim wiped his mouth with his sleeve and eyed Josef’s mother. He rose from the table, picked up his satchel, and went out, saying he would be back for dinner. Josef waited a few minutes and then said, “Mutti, I don’t like him.”
“Well, I don’t like him either, but we need the money.”
“I wish he wouldn’t live here.”
“We really need the money.”
•
The following Sunday Josef had agreed to meet Mosche on Market Street, near the entrance to Jews’ Alley. Customarily on Sunday afternoons, his mother went across town to visit her elderly aunt, and Josef was allowed to play with his friends during that time. He was glad to get away from his house now that Joakim lived there. The man spent his leisure hours snoring in the back room or loitering in the courtyard, and Josef found his company disagreeable.
Today was the day Mosche had chosen for the ceremony to initiate him as a new student. Josef did not know quite what to expect, although his friend had told him he would wear special clothes and eat special food. Josef arrived early at the place they were to meet. He stood at the corner observing Jews coming and going along the alley. He had never entered the street or paid much attention to the people who lived there, but now he could see they looked no different from the people he knew. Many of the women wore scarves and some of the men had beards, but these adornments were not uncommon in the city.
When Mosche walked up a few minutes later, he was holding a small child by the hand. “Sorry I’m late. This is my sister Miriam. I forgot how slow she walks.”
Miriam looked up at Josef with wide, blue eyes. He was immediately struck by her intelligent, piercing gaze that seemed as if it might see into a person’s soul.
“Is she going to have a ceremony, too?”
“No, girls don’t do that,” said her brother. “But we need a female person to help with your ceremony. The first thing we do is go to the synagogue.”
The children walked less than a block down Jews’ Alley before turning into a courtyard on the right side of the street. A three-story rectangular building stood before them. Josef noticed round arches over the doors and windows, similar to most of the churches he had seen. But the synagogue had no tall spires like a church—its appearance was simple and sturdy. The building and the courtyard were both made of stone, but quite different from each other. The rough-hewn stones of the courtyard, grey and of fairly uniform size, had been laid side-by-side on the bare ground, making an uneven surface. The synagogue stone was smoother and warmer-looking, consisting of pinkish-brown blocks of varying sizes, held together by white mortar. Large, powerful corner blocks and finely cut stones around the windows and doors made the building look interesting and beautiful.
The children entered through heavy wooden doors with panel decorations. Once inside, Josef saw more pink stone in the floor, along the lower part of the walls, and in columns rising from the center of the room. The upper walls and ceiling were whitewashed, and that, together with large windows of clear glass, gave the synagogue a bright, airy feeling, not like the dark, gloomy interiors of churches.
Mosche went first to a small cabinet at the back of the room. He took out a four-cornered, wool cloth with stripes across it and fringes on two sides. “This is a tallit,” he said. “You wear it for this part of the ceremony.”
Mosche wrapped it around Josef’s head and draped the ends over his shoulders. He took Josef by the hand and led him to the other end of the room. Against the wall was a table with a silver lamp and a large, decorated box resting on it. “Here at the east wall, we keep the Torah scrolls in a wooden box called the aron. That lamp is kept burning whenever the scrolls are in the aron so we know they’re there. Now we’re supposed to read verses from the law, but since I’m not allowed to touch the scrolls, I’ll say some verses I know by heart.”
Assuming a solemn demeanor, he began to sway and chant.
“And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying, Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy; for I the Eternal your God am holy. Ye shall revere, every man, his mother and his father, and my Sabbaths shall ye keep: I am the Lord your God. Ye shall not turn unto the idols, and molten gods ye shall not make unto yourselves: I am the Lord your God. And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather up the gleanings of thy harvest. And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, and the single grapes that drop in thy vineyard shalt thou not gather up; for the poor and the stranger shalt thou leave them: I am the Lord your God. Ye shall not steal; neither shall ye deny another’s property in your hands, nor lie to one another. And ye shall not swear by my name falsely, and thou shalt not thus profane the name of thy God: I am the Lord. Thou shalt not withhold anything from thy neighbor, nor rob him: there shall not abide with thee the wages of him that is hired, through the night until morning. Thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling-block before the blind; but thou shalt be afraid of thy God: I am the Lord.”
Mosche stopped reciting. “Okay, that’s enough. Do you have any questions?”
“What are ‘gleanings’?”
“Just bits and pieces of crops farmers leave in the fields for poor people to pick up.”
Josef remembered the times he and his mother had gone into the fields when their food supply ran low. He asked no more questions.
Mosche lifted the tallit off Josef’s head, folded it carefully, and placed it back in the cabinet. “Next comes the fun part,” he said. “We go to the teacher’s house to taste the sweetness of the law.”
The children followed Jews’ Alley until they came to an old gate in the city wall. They went through the gate and walked a few hundred paces along the outside of the wall until they reached a small hut set against the stonework.
“This is your teacher’s house,” said Mosche proudly. “I don’t really live here, but I keep my things here.”
“Did you build it?”
“Not exactly. It was a shelter for shepherds, I think. But it was falling down, and I fixed it up.”
The children entered the hut. A thick layer of fresh straw had been laid on the floor. Josef inhaled deeply the sweet aromas of the place. Was it the straw he smelled, or something else? Perhaps something freshly baked? In the corner he saw several rough, wooden boxes with various items stacked on top, a wash basin, some clothes, and plates of food.
Mosche pointed at the wash basin. “First you wash your hands and your face. Then put on a clean shirt and we’ll start the second part of the ceremony.”
Josef did as he was told.
“Okay,” Mosche said. “Now I’m going to put honey on my slate, and you have to lick it off and say the verse that’s written on the slate. Today we’ll use ordinary language, but later you’ll learn it in Hebrew.” He dipped a stick into a small jar of honey and smeared it on a corner
