All things considered, it was not one of Michael Levy’s better days.
He stood behind his paper-strewn desk with the harried air of a man reacting to a dozen crises at once. In his hand was a letter informing him, with regret, that the ladies who volunteered to clean on Sundays would no longer be doing so; their Ladies’ Workers League had schismed and then dissolved, and with it their Charitable Action Committee. Ten minutes earlier, the head housekeeper had informed him that a number of that week’s residents had arrived with dysentery, and they were going through bed linens at an alarming rate. And, as always, there was the almost physical pressure of the nearly two hundred new immigrants who bunked in the dormitories that hung above his head. And as long as they were under his roof, Michael was responsible for their welfare.
The Hebrew Sheltering House was a way station where men fresh from the Old World could pause, and gather their wits, before jumping headfirst into the gaping maw of the New. All were allowed to stay five days at the Sheltering House, during which they were fed and clothed and given a cot to sleep on. At the end of those five days they had to depart. Some moved in with distant relatives, or took the peddler’s path; others were recruited by the factories and slept in filthy flophouse hammocks for five cents a night. When he could, Michael tried to steer the men away from the worst of the sweatshops.
Michael Levy was twenty-seven years old. He had the sort of pink, wide-cheeked face that was cursed to perpetual youth. Only his eyes showed the years: they were deeply lined and shadowed, by reading and fatigue. He was taller than his uncle Avram, and something of a scarecrow, the result of never slowing down and eating a proper meal. His friends liked to joke that with his ink-stained cuffs and tired eyes he looked more like a scholar than a social worker. He would reply that it was only fitting, as his work was more of an education than a classroom could ever offer.
There was pride, and defensiveness, in his answer. His teachers, his aunt and uncle, his friends, even his all-but-absent father: all had expected him to go to university. And they’d been shocked and dismayed when young Michael announced his plan to dedicate himself to social work, and the betterment of the lives around him.
“Of course that’s all good and noble,” a friend told him. “Which one of us isn’t committed to the same thing? But you’ve got a first-rate mind—use that to help people. Why let it go to waste?” The friend in question wrote for one of the Socialist Labor Party papers. Every week his name ran above a moving paean to the Working Man, each turning on a scene of brotherly solidarity that he’d happened to witness—usually, conveniently enough, on the day before his deadline.
Michael stood firm, if somewhat wounded. His friends wrote their articles, they went to marches and listened to speeches, they debated the future of Marxism over coffee and strudel—but Michael heard an airy emptiness in their rhetoric. He didn’t accuse his friends of taking an easy road, but neither could he follow them. He was too honest a soul; he had never learned to deceive himself.
The only one who understood was his uncle Avram. It was the other change in Michael’s life that the Rabbi couldn’t countenance.
“Where is it written that a man must turn his back on his faith to do good in the world?” the Rabbi had asked, staring in horror at his nephew’s bare head, at the neat sideburns where sidelocks had once hung. “Who taught you this? Those philosophers you read?”
“Yes, and I agree with them. Not with everything, maybe, but at least that as long as we keep to our old beliefs, we’ll never find our place in the modern world.”
His uncle laughed. “Yes, this wonderful modern world that has rid us of all ills, of poverty and corruption! What fools we are, not to cast our shackles aside!”
“Of course there’s much that still needs changing! But it does no good to chain ourselves to a backward—” He stopped. The word had slipped from his mouth.
His uncle’s expression grew even darker. Michael saw he had two options: recant and apologize, or own what he’d said.
“I’m sorry, Uncle, but it’s how I feel,” said Michael. “I look at what we call faith, and all I see is superstition and subjugation. All religions, not just Judaism. They create false divisions, and enslave us to fantasies, when we need to focus on the here and now.”
His uncle’s face was stone. “You believe me to be an instrument of subjugation.”
The instinct to protest was on his lips—of course not! Not you, Uncle!—but he held back. He didn’t want to add hypocrisy to his list of offenses.
“Yes,” he said. “I wish I felt otherwise. I know how much good you’ve done—how could I forget all those visits to the sick? And the time the Rosens’ store burned down? But good deeds should come from our natural instinct toward brotherhood, not from tribalism! What about the Italians who owned the butcher’s shop next to the Rosens? What did we do for them?”
“I can’t take care of everyone!” snapped the Rabbi. “So perhaps I’m guilty of only looking after my own kind. That too is a natural instinct, whatever your philosophers might say.”
“But we must grow beyond it! Why reinforce our differences, and keep ancient laws, and never know the joy of breaking bread with our neighbors?”
“Because we are Jews!” his uncle shouted. “And that is how we live! Our laws remind us of who we are, and we gain strength from them! You, who are so eager to throw away your past—what will you replace it with? What will you use to keep the evil in Man from outbalancing the good?”
“Laws that apply to everyone,” said Michael. “That put all men on equal footing. I’m no anarchist, Uncle, if that’s what worries you!”
“But an atheist? Is that what you are now?”
He could see no way around it. “Yes, I think I am,” he said, looking away to hide from the pain in his uncle’s eyes. For a long, miserable time after, Michael felt he might as well have struck the man across the face.
They’d been slow to reconcile. Even now, years later, they only saw each other once a month or so. They kept to cordial small talk and avoided opinions on painful subjects. The Rabbi congratulated Michael on each success and spoke consoling words at his defeats—which were many, for Michael’s job was far from easy. When the previous supervisor, who’d insisted on only taking money from Jewish Socialist groups, had quit, the Sheltering House was weeks away from shuttering for lack of funds. Michael was invited to accept the position and saw for himself the many dozens of men in their dormitories. The weave of their clothes, the cut of their beards, and their vaguely bewildered air all marked them as fresh from the boat. These were the most vulnerable of the immigrants, most likely to be duped or swindled. He reviewed the House’s ledgers, which were in chaos. He accepted the position, then swallowed his pride and went to the local congregations and Jewish councils, begging for lifeblood. In exchange, advertisements for Sabbath services were posted on the notice board in the hallway, next to the announcements of party meetings.
He still believed what he’d told his uncle. He attended no synagogue, said no prayers, and hoped that one day all men would lose their need for religion. But he knew that sweeping change only happened slowly, and he understood the value of pragmatism.
The Rabbi saw the religious advertisements when he visited, but said nothing. He too seemed to regret the rift between them. They were practically each other’s only relations—Michael’s
