Wedding Vow

The first hint of something amiss is the contraption. It stands like a giant spider near the welcome desk in the Grand Concourse lobby. Ten or twelve inches tall, green steel legs rising through the rim of a red bowl to support a collar with adjustable bolts protruding like compass points. Yossel and Reb Leibel, dressed in frock coats with the tone-on-tone black stripes distinguishing the bekishes of Stolicher Hasidim, are eyeing the metal arachnid, Yossel through the viewfinder of his camera. They have arrived at the city’s convention center for a final walkthrough before the wedding of Rav Avram, the only son and heir of the sect’s Rebbe.

Approaching footsteps from the far end of the lobby echo in the early morning stillness. Yossel raises his viewfinder and adjusts the focus ring. He tracks two approaching workmen bearing a giant balsam fir on their shoulders, like a parody of the biblical Israelite spies returning from Canaan laden with the bounty of the Promised Land.

Reb Leibel and Yossel know from Christmas. It is a lesion. Relatively benign in America, thus far, but fiercely malignant in the Old World, where nothing said Merry Christmas like a pogrom. Stolich calendars do not count down the number of shopping days to Christmas or even note the occasion. They count down to Chanukah. Today is the second day of Chanukah and the third will commence at sundown. Wedding guests will start arriving shortly thereafter.

Stolicher Nation will be outraged on behalf of the Rebbe, perhaps to the point of vandalism, should a Nittel boym—a pejorative Yiddish translation; they never uttered the phrase Christmas tree—welcome them to Rav Avram’s wedding. The twenty-two-year-old groom would be apoplectic. He possesses ambition and scholarly brilliance. But he is also impetuous. And he burns with a zeal for parochialism instilled by Stolicher educational institutions, from the humblest children’s cheder to the exalted kollel for married men he will be joining.

“This Nittel boym will not go up before the wedding,” Reb Leibel mutters.

Yossel’s hand drops from the camera’s focus ring, and he tenses. He fears Reb Leibel has sworn a neder, a legally binding vow, one that is not fully within Leibel’s power to fulfill. Like his fellow Hasidim, Yossel was taught as a child that Stolichers forbid the annulment of a neder.

“B’li neder,” Yossel says, attaching a negation to the vow.

“B’li neder,” Reb Leibel says. “And yet, there will be no tree.” Then he smiles and repeats, “b’li neder.”

One of the workmen almost loses his grip at the sight of two Hasidim studying the tree stand, but he recovers and wishes them a good morning. Leibel smiles. “Good morning,” he responds. “There’s a Jewish wedding here tonight, and I’m afraid having this, this tree in the lobby isn’t on the program.”

The man peers down at Leibel and signals him to hang on as he and his partner lower the fir into the stand. He asks Yossel to hold the tree steady, and Yossel reluctantly complies, trying to ignore the agreeable evergreen fragrance, while they tighten all four bolts simultaneously to center the light gray trunk. When the Nittel boym is secure, the man turns to Leibel. “I’m sorry, Rabbi,” he says, while his partner disappears into a nearby storage room. He pulls out a work order from the chest pocket of his coveralls. “Says right here delivery and assembly today. We got a Baptist convention loading-in in the morning.” The partner returns with two large canvas bags full of ornaments—winged angels and tasseled doves, netted balls and iridescent ovals, red-nosed reindeer and white-bearded Santas—and a box containing an illuminated gold tree topper with a scroll pattern.

Leibel raises his palms. “Don’t worry, we will put the tree back after the wedding.”

The guy squints and tilts his head. “I’m afraid only the director of events management can change the order.” A clatter of wheels echoes through the Grand Concourse, as his partner pushes a bin filled with gift-wrapped boxes.

“I’m working with Sophia,” Leibel says. “I assure you she knows what we’re doing. I’ll have her call you to confirm.”

“Sure, but who’s gonna do the decorating?”

“You have my word, b’li neder”—the workman gives him a puzzled look—“the tree will be decorated by morning. And, of course, the union brothers will be paid for the job.” He adds a “b’li neder” to himself. The union mention lends credibility to Leibel’s words. “Also,” he continues, “in appreciation of your cooperation, I would like to offer each of you a hundred dollar tip.”

The workmen reshoulder the Nittel boym, stand and all, and march it into the storage room but Yossel remains uneasy. The tree is hidden, yet inescapable. Like the presence of the Kadosh Boruch Hu—the Holy One blessed be He—or a concealed weapon.

Reb Leibel uses his fingers to tweeze a small green Nittel boym needle from Yossel’s shoulder and makes two mental notes: He needs to contact Sophia for a Nittel boym decorating manual. And he needs to contact Reb Shlomo, who owns Stolich Construction Partners, about having a word with the Teamsters. The Rebbe’s office will happily pay the union guys double to ignore the exclusivity clause in their contract, which should do the trick. According to Reb Shlomo, getting paid a premium for doing nothing is what Teamsters do best.

When the workmen depart, Yossel resumes scouting camera angles for shooting the Rebbe: the Rebbe thanking the boy who will light the menorah; the Rebbe greeting guests at the banquet; the Rebbe descending to the exhibition hall; the Rebbe dancing the Mitzvah Tantz before the bride.

Yossel has photographed the Rebbe in settings as intimate as his study and as public as the sect’s giant flagship yeshiva, the Beis Medrish Gevohah, which Stolich Hasidim call the BMG. Nothing has prepared him for the complexity of Rav Avram’s wedding. He will be shooting the ceremony without any preparation beyond a walkabout of the plaza. The special wedding canopy, known as the Rebbe’s Chuppah, salvaged by a Hasid who escaped the Warsaw Ghetto, remains in an archival storage box. Its pedimented white silk fabric will be mounted on custom Ionic columns once the stage is positioned in the plaza between fountains modeled from a Classical Greek agora. Though the water has been turned off for winter, floodlamps still illuminate from above. The lighting will be tricky and Yossel had asked for the chuppah to be set up the previous night. Sophia was amenable, but Reb Leibel feared an antisemitic backlash should they close the plaza to pedestrians any longer than necessary. He charged his sixteen-year-old grand-nephew Mendel with recruiting yeshiva friends to help in the last-minute assembly. Reb Shlomo took care of the Teamsters.

*

Reb Leibel is relieved to be rid of the Nittel boym. Still, he is unsure how the Rebbe himself would react, is even a bit curious to find out. In private, the Rebbe has a keen sense of the absurd. But Leibel is not taking chances. The Rebbe is frail. Ever since his first heart attack, the Rebbe’s cardiologist is present at events liable to cause excitement.

When the Rebbe’s late father, known as the Tohm Vayosher—Integrity and Uprightness, after the title of his most famous book—died, Leibel was a yeshiva boy. Born an Old World away, the Tohm Vayosher was a connoisseur of goyishe culture. When the Hasidim asked why he pursued an interest that took time from Torah study, he reminded them of the overriding religious duty to save lives: Goyishe cultural literacy, he said, was an essential survival skill in Poland.

Days after the Nazi invasion, the Tohm Vayosher was spirited to the United States with only the ceremonial silver wine goblet passed down by Stolicher Rebbes since the founding of the sect, and a hope that engaging goyishe culture would yield better results in a free country.

His eldest son, the current Rebbe, shared the Tohm Vayosher’s soft spot for goyishe culture. But he viewed the New Country as an existential threat to the bare remnant of Stolich who survived. After ascending the throne, he declared: “In America, the Kadosh Barukh Hu is testing us with the silent genocide of an open society. We must build an ir betzurah to the heavens.” The Rebbe has become so famous for his fortified-city metaphor that he is known as the Ir Betzurah. Media outlets, which occasionally cover the Stolichers to fill their quaintness quota, always lead with the Rebbe’s fortified city.

After the Ir Betzurah, may he live to a hundred and twenty, takes his exalted place in heaven, Rav Avram will raise the fortifications ever higher and station patrols at the gates. Last Passover, when the Rebbe grew fatigued at the end of the first seder, Rav Avram stepped in to deliver an extemporaneous discourse on the Haggadah’s vision of a messianic city of God, with its injunction to “appoint guardsmen for Your city all day and all night.”

In his wildest imagination, the Rebbe could not have envisioned the success of his fortified city. The Crown of Stolich now boasts more adherents than any other Hasidic sect, and almost every Stolicher is gathering for the wedding, like the People of Israel assembling at the foot of Mount Sinai.

*

Unlike the original Mount Sinai, the convention center version lacks a wilderness vibe, but it compensates with indoor plumbing, climate control, logistical flexibility, and catering facilities. Stolicher Nation is flooding the Grand Concourse lobby, sluicing through doors designated by gender. A banquet for men will occupy one full floor; a banquet for women will occupy another. Vertiginous bleachers soar to the fifty-foot ceilings around the perimeter of the eight hundred thousand square foot exhibition hall; a parquet dance floor stretches like a runway down the center from a curtained entrance.

Yossel climbs into a decorative marble niche recessed in the lobby wall. He raises his camera to snap photos of the Rebbe, resplendent in the floral navy and cornflower-blue silk bekishe reserved for him by Stolicher sumptuary codes, head crowned in a shtreimel crafted from the finest Canadian sable pelts. The Rebbe is standing on a cushioned mat behind the welcome desk, framed by the elevator bank. His elbow rests on a draped cloth woven with the trademark crown of Stolich. Flames—three wicks, representing the nights of Chanukah, kindled from a fourth—dance on a menorah spanning the expanse between two mullions of the exterior glass wall.

Black-clad Hasidic men and boys line up for blessings. An assistant stands behind the Rebbe, exhorting them with a rolling hand to move along. A second attendant at the front of the line pats the back of the next Hasid like a turnstile arm urging from behind. Even at this accelerated clip—a quick tap to the bowed black hats of the single males or velvet center of the married men’s shtreimels—it will take the Rebbe several hours to bless everyone. Until he is done, he cannot join his son for the traditional Stolicher vodka toast after the witnesses sign the marriage contract. He locates Yossel in the niche and mouths a quick “Thank you,” leaving the photographer uncertain if he detected an eyeroll and rueful smile. Yossel’s veins vibrate with electricity at the familiarity. He experiences a surge of joy for the Rebbe. And also a little melancholy as the Rebbe’s cardiologist strays into a corner of the frame.

The Ir Betzurah is also aware of his cardiologist. Even should the Rebbe live another ten years, Avrum will be a novelty: a young Rebbe. He does not lack confidence, but the Rebbe is unsure if his son is ready for the burden of answering every question, being obeyed in all things, being regarded as a vessel of the divine. A Rebbe needs a sense of humor. He does not know how his son will escape the humorlessness of his generation, a regrettable byproduct of the Ir Betzurah’s ir betzurah strategy. Still, the Rebbe has faith that the Kadosh Barukh Hu will show the way to his miracle child.

When the Rebbetzin gave birth to a twelfth daughter, the courtiers—even Reb Shlomo—recommended the Rebbe divorce and remarry a woman who could bear him a male heir. “The Kadosh Borukh Hu has not seen fit to bless the Rebbetzin with a son,” they said. They pointed to the Lubavitchers and Breslevers, two Hasidic sects that lacked clear successors and remained without a living Rebbe, and to the Satmars, who splintered into feuding kingdoms after their Rebbe failed to designate a single heir. “Surely the Rebbe does not want to leave a void or cause a family feud. And what of the Torah commandment to father at least one child of each sex?”

The Rebbe smiled and waved them off. “God will provide,” he said.

The Rebbetzin died while giving birth to Rav Avram, who barely survived an umbilical cord wound around his neck. “God will provide” was the opening line of the Rebbe’s eulogy. He bit his lip hard before expounding on a verse from Job: “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; God has given, and God has taken away; blessed be the name of God.” Stolichers flocked to pay condolence calls at the BMG, where the Ir Betzurah sat his week of Shiva to accommodate the crowds. He rose from Shiva on the day of Rav Avram’s bris. The circumcision ceremony was an occasion of communal ambivalence. The Rebbe suffered his second heart attack shortly thereafter.

Rav Avram’s wedding is purely celebratory. The turnout is the largest in Hasidic history, shattering the prior record set by the wedding of the eldest grandson of one of the Satmar Rebbes to a granddaughter of the Bobover Rebbe, a legendary match uniting two storied guest lists. Each of Rav Avram’s dozen sisters—they are known as the female tribes of Israel—will host post-nuptial Sheva Berakhos celebrations. Named for the seven blessings recited for the bride and groom under the chuppah and then again following the Grace After Meals, the Sheva Berakhos will extend the festivities to a week.

*

Yossel’s chest swells as he stands on a platform in the plaza, gazing through his lens at the Hasidim crowded around the agora fountains and overflowing into the streets, men in front of the chuppah and women behind. He raises his camera above the multitudes and studies the swing shift workers in office building windows and residents on condo balconies gaping at the sea of black washing over their neighborhood.

When he pans back, he sees Reb Leibel mounting the stage and checking the Ionic columns to ensure the chuppah is secured. Yossel tracks Reb Leibel as he takes inventory of the fluted microphone stand built to match the columns: a bottle of wine, white, should a drop find its way to the bridal gown; the Stolicher Rebbes’silver wine goblet; a velvet pouch with a glass for the groom to shatter at the ceremony’s end, a reminder that the Holy Temple in Jerusalem yet lies in ruins.

Reb Leibel crosses to a corner of the stage where he has positioned the yeshiva boys—a great honor to thank them for setting up the pedimented canopy in double time. Yossel zooms in as Reb Leibel leans over to confer with his grand-nephew. Mendel laughs.

The elders ascend the stage in coiffed shtreimels and dark winter overcoats with collars as bushy and gray as their beards. Reb Leibel walks through the camera frame to place a manila envelope with the Rebbe’s speech on the capital of the fluted microphone stand and taps the mic to calm the bekishe-dark sea. Yossel trains his lens on the convention center as Rav Avram strides from the building, escorted by his overcoated father and future father-in-law. They link arms with him, carrying processional candlesticks in their outside hands. The men of Stolich, twelve thousand strong, break out in the Wedding Niggun, a stately wordless melody, as the groom advances toward the chuppah.

Yossel snaps a closeup of Rav Avram’s wrist, where a strip of white peeks out from under the tone-on-tone black of his sleeve. Beneath his bekishe, Rav Avram has donned a kittel, a plain white robe worn by Stolicher men when they stand under the chuppah on their wedding day; await God’s judgment on Yom Kippur; and lie in their coffins on the day of their burial. Like the seven days of Sheva Berakhos for newlyweds and the seven days of Shiva mourning for the dead, the kittel, even at a time of exaltation, is an echo of mortality.

Rav Avram’s escorts leave him in the shadow of center stage, where he rocks back and forth in prayer while all eyes turn to the bride. She enters the plaza through a door topped by an entablature, a stage prop from a performance of The Trojan Women Sophia has gotten hold of, her mother and the groom’s eldest sister serving as her candle-toting escorts. The bridal gown, an exemplar of Stolich modesty codes, leaves absolutely everything to the imagination. A long veil, thick and opaque as a Sabbath tablecloth, covers her face. Yossel snaps a few pictures—photographs of women are rarely appropriate—as she presses through the wall of sound with ginger steps, head cast down, her complete faith placed in the Kadosh Baruch Hu and in her seeing-eye escorts to lead her not astray.

Following the betrothal blessing, the groom places a gold band on the bride’s index finger and recites the formula sanctifying her unto him in accord with the laws of Moses and Israel. Yossel clicks the shutter as an elder reads the Aramaic words of the marriage contract. When he finishes, the elder blesses the couple with the merit to build a faithful house in Israel and yields to the Rebbe.

The Ir Betzurah does not bother extracting the text of his speech from the manila envelope on the microphone stand’s capital. “Today’s wedding,” the Rebbe begins in Yiddish, “is a Chanukah wedding. And a Chanukah wedding is an occasion of great significance.” Yossel swivels to capture reaction shots of the transfixed Hasidim, then retrains his lens on the Rebbe, who sways from side to side, the volume of his voice subtly rising and falling as his head oscillates across the mic. “Because Chanukah is a holiday of Jewish eternity, of maintaining the Jewish People as a faithful house in Israel, just as the groom and bride strive to build a faithful house in Israel.

“As we know, the Greeks, who defiled our Holy Temple, and the traitorous Jewish Hellenizers who wanted to accommodate their pagan culture. . . ” He spreads his arms and sweeps them across the stage from column to column, then centers on the mic “. . . tried to uproot Torah from the world. But the Maccabees, who were zealots for the sake of God—and it is a big mitzvah to be zealous for the sake of God—rebelled and triumphed.

“And today,” his voice grows louder and Yossel snaps a picture of the Rebbe shaking his fist, “as we stand beneath this chuppah,” he raises a finger to the pedimented canopy, “which symbolizes a new house in Israel, the Greeks are forgotten. Nothing. Nothing.” Yossel can’t hear his shutter clicking as the Rebbe’s fist pounds the fluted stand. “No trace remains of Greek culture. But we remain steadfast. And the Kadosh Baruch Hu and His holy Torah endure from generation to generation.”

Yossel sees the cardiologist looking on in concern and makes a note to crop him from the photos.

“So we wish mazal tov to the groom and bride, who stand beneath the chuppah like their parents and grandparents before them, and like their descendants—with the Kadosh Barukh Hu’s help—after them, until the Messiah brings redemption to the world. May we merit that the Holy Temple be rebuilt speedily in our days. Mazal tov.”

One by one, Yossel documents the elders who come forward to recite the Sheva Berakhos. After the final blessing, the groom and bride drink from the goblet, the bride’s mother materializing to lift the veil. Rav Avram then raises his right leg, parting his bekishe to reveal the end of a light gray pantaloon where it tucks into a white knee sock. Yossel times his picture to the instant when Rav Avram stamps his foot on the velvet pouch, crunching the glass and triggering a communal shout of “Mazal tov.” The men break into an enthusiastic Hebrew chorus: “Yet again there shall be heard in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride.”

Yossel shoots a burst of photos as the Rebbe, bathed by the floodlamps, links arms with the bundled and be-shtriemeled elders at the lip of the stage. Together, they bounce like a Soviet Union Politburo dancing in cut-out stop motion animation. The Hasidim continue singing until the bride and groom depart to the Yichud room to spend a few minutes alone.

*

At the banquet, Yossel photographs the Ir Betzurah dancing behind the dais, pumping the hands of well-wishers, and leading the Grace After Meals with its cameo appearance by the bride for a Sheva Berakhos encore. With her departure, Yossel pulls his shtreimel down his forehead until it’s tight and slips down a service staircase to the Grand Concourse lobby, sprinting past the storage room with the Nittel boym to the escalator. He claims a spot by the railing with sightlines for shooting the Rebbe’s two-story descent to the Mitzvah Tantz in the exhibition hall below.

Bekishes flow across the bleachers and floor of the exhibition hall until they are dammed by the dance runway. Yossel photographs the Rebbe, who sits by the edge of the parquet tiles with Rav Avram, his grandsons, and his sons-in-law. Reb Leibel and the cardiologist stand a few feet behind. A colossal Hasid—a giant, the son of a giant, from a family of giants that has always performed the task at weddings of the Rebbe’s descendants—bends at the knees to lay down the V-cut end of a long white sash by the curtained entrance at the foot of the runway. He feeds out lengths as he backs toward a footstool, its upholstered seat crocheted with Stolich, the Yiddish letters formed into the shape of a crown. When he sits, the footstool vanishes beneath him—extremely big Reb Muffet engulfing a tuffet. Reb Muffet’s twin colossus, a push broom in one hand and a bath towel thrown over his shoulder, patrols the dance floor for debris and damp spots.

Stolicher Nation hushes. Yossel’s lens follows the Rebbe as he rises, now in his Mitzvah Tantz bekishe of silk, white as a kittel, gleaming in the hall’s lights. A choir of five men, perched with a keyboardist and a sound engineer on a platform built into the bleachers, plaintively leads the Hasidim in renditions of two elegies: a profession of complete faith in the coming of the Messiah, though he has tarried, and a plea to remember Jerusalem and elevate her above all joys.

The bride materializes through the folds of the curtain. She stands alone. Her head is encased in a white cloche that adheres like a suction cup. A new veil, short, and stiff as a visor, arches over her face. Her eyes are cast down at penitent hands, the end of the sash trailing from between her fingers to the floor. Yossel backs up, shooting her from a distance.

A few transitional notes on the keyboard segue into the raucous melody of the Bride’s Niggun. Twelve thousand frenzied men turn to face her, roaring “a-ah, a-ah, a-ah, a-ah, a ya ya yi” in time to the music. As the Rebbe walks toward Reb Muffet, the volume swells further, and the bleachers surge. Reb Muffet rises and hands the other end of the sash to the Rebbe, then retakes the tuffet. He feeds out lengths like a human fishing reel as the Rebbe retreats down the dance floor runway. Yossel marvels at the glow on the Rebbe’s face in the camera as he dances toward the bride in a slow jog, elbows at shoulder level, forearms pumping, the sash undulating in front of his bekishe.

The crowd drowns out the choir and keyboard as Yossel photographs the Rebbe passing within two yards of the inert bride. The sound engineer turns up the volume as high as he can without summoning feedback. With arms extended above his head, the Rebbe retreats down the runway once more and turns, fists pumping, pausing every few paces to jump with two feet. Hasidim thrash and roar ever more loudly. The bleachers erupt. Yossel reminds himself to hold steady as he madly snaps pictures of his ecstatic Rebbe.

When the Ir Betzura collapses, silence falls in the blink of an eye as if the Kadosh Baruch Hu Himself hit Mute. The bleachers loom, hardened into obsidian cliffs. The atmosphere turns as solemn as the BMG on Yom Kippur when the cantor chants, “Who will live and who will die?” The cardiologist grabs his bag and sprints to the Rebbe, his free hand motioning Rav Avram and the rest of the family to stay put. Yossel lowers his camera and watches twenty-four thousand eyes lock onto the cardiologist as he places a stethoscope to the Rebbe’s chest; digs into his bag; snaps an ammonia ampule between thumb and forefinger, nudging it toward the Rebbe’s nose. They watch as the Rebbe’s eyes flutter open; track the cardiologist as he extracts a water bottle from his bag; refocus on the Rebbe when he makes the blessing over water, and drinks. They follow Reb Leibel’s approach and study the body language of the three men.

When the conversation ends, the cardiologist summons the colossal twins to assist. An awkward scatter of applause accompanies the rise of the Ir Betzurah. He signals the sound engineer for a microphone.

“Beloved Stolichers,” he rasps. “By the wedding of my youngest child, you would think I’d have learned to drink more than vodka.” Relieved laughter ripples across the crowd. “I will not, b’li neder, be leaving the wedding celebration of my son, but my doctor and Reb Leibel insist I rest while my family continues with the Mitzvah Tantz.” He holds out the sash to Avram.

When the music resumes, Reb Leibel and the cardiologist escort the Rebbe from the exhibition hall to the Yichud room, where the bride and groom spent their first moments alone. He sits on the sofa and drinks a few more swallows. Reb Leibel helps him lie down, and the Rebbe falls into a slumber. The cardiologist and Reb Leibel settle into chairs near the door to watch the Ir Betzurah, guardsmen at the gate.

*

There is no question the Mitzvah Tantz will continue; the Rebbe has spoken. But the celebration turns rote, and the convention center empties within an hour and a half.

Yossel stands by the elevator bank, camera dangling from his neck. He is thinking of the Rebbe’s eyeroll and rueful smile as he blessed the Hasidim. Mendel and his friends are jousting the Nittel boym through the storage room door, black-clad knights in a shambling tilt with a shaggy lance. Sophia has placed a ladder and a copy of Martha Stewart’s Guide to Decorating a Christmas Tree near the gift bin. The boys pore over the guide as if it were Tractate Trees, a newly discovered volume of the Talmud. They ornament the lower branches, squatting with their bekishes gathered up, and move with increasing speed as they get the knack. When they are done, Mendel climbs the ladder with the topper. “Look, look,” he calls to his friends, who are ringed around the tree, holding brightly wrapped and ribboned boxes.

The Rebbe, still in his Mitzvah Tantz finery, steps from the elevator as Mendel flicks the switch, setting the topper aglow. His friends cheer, raising Christmas presents aloft in salute, their Hasidic regalia flecked by needles glistening like tinsel.

At the sight of the Rebbe, the boys freeze into a holiday diorama fever dream. Reb Leibel’s and the cardiologist’s faces turn white as a kittel. The Rebbe stares, then walks toward the Christmas tree. He looks at Mendel perched on the ladder and the yeshiva boys with presents upraised. He slowly turns to face Reb Leibel.

Then he laughs. And laughs and laughs. And everyone laughs with him. “A Nittel boym, a Nittel boym,” he exclaims between bouts of laughter. He turns to Yossel. “Nu, nu, photographer? Take a picture, take a picture.” Yossel raises his camera, framing the Ir Betzurah’s delighted visage in the foreground with Mendel and the boys behind, their jolly faces luminous in the radiance of the tree topper.

Reb Leibel and the cardiologist approach. “Okay, okay,” the Rebbe says, acknowledging his cardiologist’s look with a flapping hand. Before turning away, he points to the red bowl of the tree stand. “You need to put water,” he says. Then he takes the arms of his escorts and exits laughing to a waiting car. Even in the back seat, the Rebbe cannot stop laughing. He laughs and laughs and laughs until he clutches his heart.

*

News of the Ir Betzurah’s death found Rav Avram as he prepared to recite the pre-consummation fertility prayer. He is spending his first day as Rebbe, his first day as a husband, and what should have been his first day learning in the Kollel with the married men, mourning his father. He will not spend the week celebrating Sheva Berakhos with the sister tribes of Israel. He will spend the week sitting Shiva at the BMG.

The funeral was a communal whiplash; almost every Stolicher attended. Yossel’s microfiber cleaning cloth dampened with tears blotted from his viewfinder. Hasidim throng the study hall silently, waiting to offer condolences to the new Rebbe. He sits in a low Shiva chair at dusk, waiting to lead the nighttime service and recite the Mourner’s Kaddish. To his right is the Rebbe’s table, with the Ir Betzurah’s prayer book, and a leather-bound three-volume set of Tohm Vayosher, his grandfather’s masterwork.

The Rebbe spots Yossel by a window appraising the darkening sky and calls his name. Hasidim shift to let him through.

When Yossel arrives, the Rebbe motions him to lean in close. “Yossel,” he says, “Reb Leibel tells me my father, may the memory of a righteous man be for a blessing, died happy. That he ascended with joy to his place in heaven.”

“Yes,” Yossel chokes out. “The Ir Betzurah, peace be upon him, was laughing the last time I saw him.”

“Reb Yossel, I always want to remember my father with that joy, and I want his joy to serve as an inspiration to me and my Hasidim. I have resolved to display the final photograph of my father wherever I go.”

A “b’li neder” squeaks from Yossel’s throat, but the Rebbe shakes off the disavowal.

“Yossel, Yossel, not ‘b’li neder.’ I made a neder to display the picture wherever I go, and for Stolichers a neder is a neder. Could you please frame for me the last picture you took of my father?”

*

When he returns to his apartment, Yossel sinks into his desk chair. He downloads the photo and stares at the Ir Betzurah, may the memory of a righteous man be for a blessing, laughing in front of the Nittel boym. It is a joyous photograph, but the Nittel boym dominates the image. If he crops out the tree, the photo will no longer be the picture the new Rebbe made a neder to display. He swears his wife to secrecy and consults her. She bites her lip for a long time as she studies the image. “Oy,” she says. “Nevertheless, a neder is a neder.”

In the morning, Yossel slides the picture frame into his camera bag before leaving for the BMG. He hopes the Rebbe will say nothing, hopes for a few more days to think, but the Rebbe motions him over at the end of services. “Nu, nu, photographer?” he says with a smile. Yossel extracts the frame and hands it to the Rebbe.

“Thank you, Yossel, this will be a great consolation.” When he looks at the image, his face tightens for the blink of an eye, but he quickly restores his smile. “Thank you, Yossel,” he repeats and sets the picture of the Ir Betzurah on the Rebbe’s table, near the Tohm Vayosher’s volumes.

Shortly after the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem and destroyed the Holy Temple, the Kadosh Baruch Hu withdrew prophecy from the world, but Rav Avram sees the future. A reign of more than half a century stretches before him. Yossel’s photograph, a dybbuk that cannot be exorcised, will accompany him to tens of thousands of meetings, tens of thousands of appearances at synagogues, cheders, and yeshivas, tens of thousands of life cycle events. It will gaze at him from his nightstand when he goes to sleep and greet him with every dawn.

Rav Avram understands. Deep in his bones, deep in the marrow of his bones, deep in the nuclei of the stem cells in the marrow of his bones, he understands. As surely as if the Kadosh Baruch Hu Himself were hovering over his shoulder and whispering in his ear, he understands.

He will not be remembered for his communal triumphs, even should they exceed those of the Ir Betzurah. He will not be remembered for his scholarly accomplishments, even should they transcend those of the Tohm Vayosher. He will be remembered for the photograph.

And he will be known, inescapably, ineluctably, eternally known—known until the coming of the Messiah and the rebuilding of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and beyond—as The Nittel Boym.