DECEMBER 1943
THE COLD DECEMBER WIND blew straight off the East River and right through Jacob’s coat as he hurried home to his apartment. He had to hold his hat firmly on his head to keep from losing it. Snowflakes drifted from the sky, dusting the sidewalks and the meager patches of grass along the streets. Miriam Shoshanna would have said the snow looked lovely, like a sprinkling of powdered sugar.
Jacob stomped the snow off his shoes before coming inside, wiping his feet on the mat. In spite of the bitter weather, he felt more hopeful than he had in many months after he and Rebbe Grunfeld met with the American Jewish Congress. One month from now, President Roosevelt would announce the creation of a new government agency to help rescue refugees. The state department would send any money Jacob helped raise to Europe to rescue innocent victims of enemy persecution, most of whom were Jewish.
“What about Hungary?” he had asked. “Are there plans to help the Jews who are trapped in Hungary?”
The answer had given him hope. The new agency would work with neutral nations such as Switzerland and Sweden, which still had embassies in Axis-controlled countries like Hungary. Food and other aid would be distributed through them.
Jacob had just sat down and opened the newspaper when he heard Esther and Peter arrive home from school. They had fallen into the habit of coming down to his apartment after discarding their coats and boots, bringing their schoolbooks with them and staying until Miss Goodrich arrived home from work. They would sit at his kitchen table to do their homework, listening to classical music on the radio, and Jacob would help young Peter with his arithmetic. He unlocked his apartment door in anticipation, but they didn’t come downstairs right away. When they finally did, tears streaked Esther’s face.
“What’s wrong?” he asked as they came inside.
“We got a letter from Daddy.” She waved it in the air. “He said that by the time we read this he’ll be on his way to England!” She rushed into Jacob’s arms, clinging to him, sobbing. He didn’t know what to say or what to do except to hold her in return. He saw Peter’s silent tears and reached to draw him close, as well. The boy didn’t make a sound, yet his thin body trembled with silent grief.
“I don’t want Daddy to fight in the war!” Esther wept.
“I am so sorry,” Jacob murmured. “So sorry.” He understood the children’s helpless anger and grief, but he had no idea how to console them. So he simply held them, saying nothing until Esther’s tears finally subsided.
“It’s so unfair!” she sniffed, wiping her nose and eyes with her handkerchief. “We need him here!”
“When your father was home on leave he told me that his job is to take care of the vehicles. He did not think he would be doing any fighting.”
“But he’s going to England! That’s where all the bombs are falling on people. You have pictures of it.” She went to the collection of newspaper clippings on his dining room table and began picking out photos and holding them up. He knew what they showed without looking at them: piles of bricks and burnt wood, buildings destroyed, homeless families huddled in the street, gazing at the remnants of their homes, air-raid wardens searching the rubble for survivors. Every afternoon Esther looked through his collection of pictures, as obsessed with them as he was. Now Jacob regretted that she had ever seen them. He took the clippings from her and laid them back down on the table.
“Come, we will go into the kitchen and have tea.”
For the first time he saw the photos the way she must see them. While he had been documenting the world at war, Esther had seen the world as a frightening, capricious place where bombs could fall out of the sky on a whim of the Almighty, crushing her father, just as the car had crushed her mother. And what could Jacob say to Esther? Did he believe, as Rebbe Grunfeld had insisted, that Hashem was his help and his shield, his canopy of protection? Could he promise these children that Hashem would keep their father safe? No, he could not.
When Esther went home today, Jacob decided, he would put the clippings out of sight. They had fueled his own anger and fear as well as hers.
“Here, I bought some cookies the other day,” he said. “Tell me what you think of them.” He pried open the tin and put it in the middle of the table as Esther and Peter sat down. The cookies weren’t nearly as good as Miriam Shoshanna’s homemade ones, but they were the best he could do. He remembered how he used to chide his wife for spoiling these children with treats – and here he was buying cookies for them.
“No one can promise that your father will be kept safe,” he said as he took down three teacups. “But worry and fear will do nothing to help, either.”
Esther sat with her elbows propped on the table, her chin resting on her hands. Peter had begun nibbling on a cookie. “Is it good?” Jacob asked him. He nodded.
“It’s going to be a terrible Christmas,” Esther said.
“I do not know very much about your Christian holidays – only what I see in the department store windows and what I hear about Santa Claus. But why will this holiday be such a terrible one?”
“Because Daddy is so far away! We won’t be able to do any of the things we used to do, like put up a Christmas tree and open presents. It won’t be the same.”
“Traditions are good. They give order and stability to our lives. But change is part of life, too. The secret is to find the balance between the two.”
“I don’t want everything to change.”
“I understand. When our son Avraham went away, his mother and I sometimes found it very difficult to celebrate our holy days. They did not seem the same without him. But Avraham is a grown man, and it would have been wrong for us to keep him a little boy forever. He has his own life to live, just as you will one day grow up and move away from your father.”
“But weren’t your holidays sad without him?”
“Yes, at first. But Miriam said we must learn to celebrate the true meaning of the holiday, with gratitude. She said that happiness is something that comes from our own hearts, not from other people.”
Jacob felt like a hypocrite saying these things. He hadn’t heeded Miriam’s advice. Jacob hadn’t celebrated anything since Miriam died until he’d eaten the Sukkot meal with the rebbe a couple of months ago.
“I miss my son, of course,” he continued. “But when I was a young man, I also left my family and moved far away from home. I am sure that my parents were very sad, but they wanted me to have a better life here in America.”
The water boiled, and he rose to make the tea. He knew just how the children liked theirs – not too strong, with more milk in the cup than tea.
“Thanksgiving Day was terrible, too,” Esther told him. “We had to eat it at Penny’s house, and her parents are old and grumpy. Our grandma came over to eat with us, but she’s sad all the time because all her sons are fighting in the war. Penny tried to get everyone around the table to say what we were thankful for, but I didn’t have any reason to be thankful.”
Peter reached into his pocket and pulled out the piece of paper he always carried. He wrote something on it, then held it out for Esther and Jacob to read: Penny tried to make it nice.
Esther lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “I guess.”
I felt sorry for Penny, he added. Jacob laid his hand on Peter’s shoulder for a moment. He was such a gentle, sensitive boy. Avraham had been that way, too, always thinking of someone else.
“Yeah, I felt a little sorry for Penny, too,” Esther admitted. “She worked so hard in that hot little kitchen, and everyone complained – except you, Peter.” She reached to take a cookie from the tin and then slumped back on her chair. She had calmed down since first coming into Jacob's apartment.
Peter wiped the cookie crumbs from his mouth with the back of his hand and wrote on his piece of paper again: Does your son live near England?
“No. Hungary is quite a distance away. Here, I will show you on a map.” He went into the dining room and retrieved one of the maps he’d cut from the newspaper that showed the movements of invading troops and locations of battles. He glanced at the picture beneath it and shuddered. The caption read, “Death Cart in Warsaw Ghetto,” and the picture showed the shriveled corpses of Jews who had starved to death in Poland. He had cut that photo from the newspaper one year ago and never should have kept it. He would put all of these pictures away after the children left.
“See, Peter?” he said when he returned to the kitchen with the map. “Here is England, where your father will be . . . and here is Hungary, down here. These arrows show which way the troops are marching . . . and for now, England is far away from the fighting.”
“But the Nazis are dropping bombs on London.”
“Yes, Esther. They are. But the British have air-raid warning sirens and bomb shelters for safety.”
“Our minister prays every Sunday for all the men in our church who are fighting in the war, but I don’t even close my eyes. Why bother? God didn’t answer my prayers for Mama.”
Jacob suddenly felt weary. He had to sit down. He pulled his mug of tea closer and took a sip, but didn’t reply.
“Do you think it does any good to pray, Mr. Mendel?”
The truth was that he was still too angry with Hashem to pray. But just as his newspaper photos had fueled Esther’s fear, he saw that his lack of faith would have an influence on her, too. It would be very wrong to lead these children into the dark, hopeless world where he lived. Should he tell them not to come anymore? No, Jacob had grown very fond of them. They were the only bright spot in his life right now. He groped for a reply.
“Sometimes, Esther, it is wrong to judge the effectiveness of prayer by looking at the immediate results. Do you know the story of Joseph from the Bible?”
She looked thoughtful for a moment. “You mean the boy with the coat of many colors?”
“Yes. Exactly so. In the story, everything looked very bad for Joseph – sold as a slave by his own brothers, living far from home. He was even locked in prison for a while, falsely accused of a crime he did not commit. His father feared he was dead.” Jacob had to pause as grief strangled him. He closed his eyes, thinking of his son and the cart full of Jewish corpses, thinking of the detectives who had come to his apartment making false accusations. The police wanted to put Jacob into prison, too, for a crime he did not commit.
“All that time,” he said when he could speak, “all that time Joseph prayed, and it must have seemed like Hashem wasn’t listening.”
“Is that God’s name, Hashem?”
“No, Hashem means ‘ The Name.’ One of the Ten Commandments says it is wrong to take His name in vain. We believe that His name is so holy that we must never speak it. Instead, we say Hashem – The Name.”
“So, Joseph prayed to Hashem?” Esther asked.
“Yes. I am sure that he prayed something like, ‘Get me out of this prison! Get me back home to my family!’ Hashem may not have answered Joseph’s prayers the way that Joseph wanted Him to, but it turned out that Hashem had a very good reason for keeping him in Egypt. Of course, Joseph could not see how it was good until many years had passed. But Hashem was at work all that time, raising Joseph up to become a leader in Egypt. And when famine came to the land of Israel, Joseph’s family came to him there and were rescued.”
Peter wrote something on his piece of paper and pushed it across the table for Jacob to read: Mama used to tell us that story. Jacob thought of Rachel Shaffer and his own Miriam Shoshanna, and several moments passed before he could speak.
“Hashem may not answer our prayers the way we want Him to,” he said, clearing his throat. “He did not deliver Joseph from prison right away. But Hashem was there with Joseph, even in the silence.”
“Is that true, Mr. Mendel? Does God – Hashem – really hear our prayers?”
Esther and Peter were looking to him for answers. And for hope. He felt none. Why had he ever opened his door to them? Should he lie?
“ ‘ The righteous shall live by faith,’ ” Jacob finally said, remembering the rebbe’s words. “Faith is believing, even when you cannot see it. Like Joseph did. He never stopped believing in Hashem. And in time, his prayers were answered in ways he never could have foreseen.”
Jacob wondered if his son, Avraham, still believed, even though he was surrounded by evil on all sides, even though his prayers for his family’s immigration visas had gone unanswered and deliverance had not come.
“I didn’t know that you had the same Bible stories we do,” Esther said.
“Yes, many of them are the same. I believe that your Jesus was a Jewish man, like me, yes?”
“Are you going to get a Christmas tree, Mr. Mendel? Oh, wait . . . I guess you don’t believe in Christmas, do you?”
“No. We do not celebrate Christmas.”
“What do you celebrate, then?”
“Jewish people celebrate Hanukkah in December by lighting special candles to remember the miracle Hashem performed.”
“What miracle?”
Jacob saw the children watching him, waiting for him to explain. Why had he ever opened his mouth? “A long time ago, our enemies tried to destroy our faith and our traditions. They desecrated our temple and allowed the holy lamps to go out.” Jacob thought of the burned-out shul across the street and paused to clear his throat again. “But Hashem gave us victory over our enemies, and we were able to rededicate our temple to Him and light the lamps once again. The problem was, the priests had only enough sacred oil for one night. But they lit them in faith, and by a miracle of Hashem, the lamps burned for eight full days on only a tiny amount of oil. And so we light candles every night during Hanukkah for eight nights. We put the candles in the window as a sign of hope for everyone to see.”
“Why doesn’t God do miracles like that all the time?”
“If we could understand Him, Esther, then that would make Him just like us, yes? Or make us just like Him. He would not be the Almighty One. As He has said, ‘My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.’ ”
Peter bent to write something: Are you going to light candles?
What could Jacob say – that he no longer had any hope? That he no longer believed in miracles? He couldn’t drag these children down any further than he already had. “I have no one to celebrate with,” he said.
Esther jumped to her feet. “We’ll light them with you.” Peter nodded in agreement.
What was the harm in lighting the candles, letting the children hope for a miracle? He rose and went to the kitchen drawer where Miriam had kept the Shabbat candles and the menorah candles and the special havdalah candle. In a way, he hoped the drawer would be empty so he would have an excuse. But it held a plentiful supply, along with some matches. Miriam would have made certain not to run out, and Jacob had not lit any candles since she died.
“Tonight is the second night of Hanukkah,” he said, closing the drawer again, “so we must light two candles, along with the shammus, the servant candle.”
He led the way into the living room and lifted the Hanukkiah from the top of the bookshelf, wiping the dust from it with his hand. Miriam would be disgusted with him if she could see such dust.
“We always used to put it in front of the window on this table,” he explained, “for everyone to see.” He pulled the little end table into place and parted the curtains, then set down the menorah and put the first two candles in their holders. “We add a candle each night for eight nights, lighting them with the servant candle, which will go here, in the middle. Tomorrow we will light three candles, then four, and so on, to remember the miracle of the oil.”
“May I light them?” Esther asked.
The boy couldn’t speak, but he stood by Jacob’s side, eager to help. Avraham had always loved lighting them, too. “Tonight we will have ladies first. Tomorrow it will be your turn, Peter. They must not be lit until after sundown, but the sun sets very early in the winter months, after four o’clock, I believe.”
“It’s twenty minutes past four,” Esther said, glancing at the clock on his shelf.
“Very well, then.” What did it matter if they lit the candles a few minutes early or late? He handed the shammus candle and matches to Esther. “First we must recite the special blessings.” Jacob closed his eyes and recited the Hebrew blessings by heart. How long had it been since he had blessed Hashem? How long since he had spoken to Him at all? When he opened his eyes again, tears blurred his vision. “You may light them now, Esther,” he said softly.
“What were those words you said?” she asked when all three candles were burning.
“They were words of praise to Hashem, the King of the universe, blessing Him and thanking Him for His commandments . . . and for life . . . and for His miracles.”
“Do you still believe in God . . . even though . . . ?”
She didn’t finish, but Jacob knew what she meant: even though the universe seemed to be spinning out of His control with senseless automobile crashes and wars that filled the entire earth. Jacob was very angry with Him, but he nodded just the same. “Yes,” he replied. “I believe.”
But did he believe everything that he had told the children tonight? That Hashem was always at work, even when we could see no proof? That we could trust Him, even when we didn’t understand what He was doing? That Hashem was good and loving, able to perform miracles for His children?
He watched as Esther and Peter gazed at the flickering candles in fascination – symbols of hope that would shine in his front window for everyone to see – and Jacob knew that the answer was yes.
Yes. He still believed all of those things.
Later, when the children were gone and the candles had burned out in wisps of smoke, Jacob whispered a silent prayer for the first time in many, many months. He asked Hashem for a miracle, asking Him to protect Avraham and Sarah Rivkah and Fredeleh wherever they were tonight. And he prayed for protection for Edward Shaffer, too, so he could return safely home to his children.
It wasn’t much. But it was a beginning.