The Summer House
Published in Issue #25 Translated from Hebrew by Zeva Shapiro subscribe to unlock the full storyChana was ten years old when her father, the rabbi, following his doctor’s advice, moved to a summer house in the woods that belonged to Yutka, the landowner.
It was the merchant Baruch Bren, the rabbi’s admirer, who had rented the summer house from the mad squire and arranged for a wagon to take the family there. For Chana, a gate seemed to open in the horizon that enclosed the village, admitting her into a world both shaded by greenery and steeped in full sunlight.
They followed a country road. On one side was the river Ivsha, whose willowy banks provided young branches for Sukkot; on the other side, on land belonging to the Countess, windmills waved their wings like pointers until the wagon moved into a dim stretch of road, covered by a tangle of leaves astir with chirping, whistling, the motion of wings. This was the pine grove at the entrance to the woods. As the day began to decline, the rabbi and his driver alighted from the wagon, and, wrapped in the glow of sunset like a prayer shawl, they stood under a tree to pray.
The summer house, after mezuzot were affixed to its doorposts and kosher dishes brought into its kitchen, became Jewish. It even assumed an air of sanctity when, as a result of the rabbi’s efforts, a Torah scroll was brought from the adjacent village and some of the summer people formed a minyan.
Those who walked here, each one with his own malady, yet dressed in Shabbat clothes, were Jews...
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