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Ivan-the-Schlepper was a Jew even though he had a very un-Jewish
name. How he got such a Russian name in the middle of our little shtetl
that stuck out like a nose on the map of the town of Narodny is a small
mystery. How he ascended to the lowly position of schlepper is not
really a mystery at all. Ivan was strong. His back was strong. His arms
and legs were strong. His hands were strong. His mind? Well perhaps G-d
felt that too much strength in one body would create an imbalance.
Schlep is a Yiddish word that means pull, push, drag, lift or carry. A
schlepper does all these things and then a few more on the side.
Ivan was a mean-spirited man with a large, squarish head. He looked more
like a Polish peasant than a member of the tribe of Israel. Of course
those people who knew the woman who gave him birth hinted that the
resemblance might not be all that accidental.
Ivan’s mother never ceased to fuel the flames of gossip and eventually
created a full-blown scandal when she ran off with a traveler from
Warsaw soon after Ivan's birth. The bullish youth with the nasty temper
most certainly had little in common with the spindly, deserted husband
who raised the boy alone.
By the age of 14 Ivan, who was already the size of a small ox, had
fought with every boy in the shtetl and had even started a disgraceful
fistfight in the house of study. By 15 Ivan was alone in the world when
the sad-faced, scholarly man he called father accidentally drowned
himself in a well.
It was not only with his knuckles that Ivan sought to give pain. Boys
play harmless jokes on one another and even sometimes on adults. Ivan,
however, did not consider a joke to be fun or funny unless someone was
either hurt or deeply humiliated.
Also living in the shtetl was Shimon. Shimon was simple. Everyone knew
it and nobody disputed it, least of all Shimon. He had heard himself
described that way so often that he customarily introduced himself to
strangers by saying simply, "I am simple."
Shimon always seemed to have a curious, questioning look on his smooth,
round face. His stringbean body had so many tilts and angles to it that
one might imagine it having been constructed as a practice project by
one of the Almighty's apprentices.
Shimon was born with the fleshy rope that connects infant to mother
wrapped around his neck and his face as blue as a sweet, ripe plum.
After that his poor brain always had to run to keep up with his gangly
body. At first the other children of the shtetl poked fun at
Shimon-the-Simple. But there was always a charitable adult hand raised
to stop them and protect him. Eventually the others learned by example
and grew to be his many brothers and sisters; guarding him from and
guiding him through the world.
Berdl-the-Goniff was one of those who grew up with Shimon. Don't be
alarmed by the name Goniff. It is true that a goniff is a thief and
Berdl did steal things, but he was also a good-hearted person who would
always lend a hand to the less fortunate. So he sometimes found packages
before they were lost and he could pass his hands over five apples and
magically transform them to four apples. The Jews in the market knew
Berdl, knew he was an orphan, and knew he was not a great threat. They
managed to have their heads turned the other way when he hovered over
their piles of vegetables and fruits. He never took much and they
considered the small "contributions" to be tzedukah or
charity.
Berdl was an imp and a mischief maker, as well as a petty thief. He was
also a rascal who could be counted on to help with all manner of unusual
dealings. If there was a bribe to be paid or a clandestine note to be
delivered, people inquired discretely where Berdl might be found.
Frequently his lean, agile body could be seen squeezing through shadows
and spaces while running one or another secret errand.
So now you know the schlepper, the goniff and the fool. What you don't
know is the disagreeable trick Ivan played on poor, innocent Shimon and
how Berdl took revenge.
It started on a cloudy day stuck in between two rainy days. Ivan was
carrying a large sack of wheat on his back with a thick band of canvas
across his forehead holding the burden in place. The wheat belonged to
Avraham-the-Baker and it was being carried to a mill owned by Yochnan, a
Pole, for grinding into flour. Now even a schlepper can get tired. Ivan
stopped near the small synagogue to put his bundle down for a minute and
wipe the sweat from his face. For Ivan, the synagogue and the study
house attached to it were just buildings. He had been inside only once
since the time he was pitched out for fighting—and that was to attend
his father's memorial service.
While Ivan was resting, another stranger to the house of prayer happened
to wander by. It was Shimon. Shimon had tried to delve into the
mysteries of the synagogue, but the drone of the Hebrew chants, the
strangeness of the rituals and the unfathomability of the written texts
confused him and he stayed away.
“Where are you going, fool?” Ivan challenged.
“My name is Shimon and I am simple,” responded the foolish one.
“Simple, are you?” Ivan roared. “You are a fool and your brain is
the size of a pea.”
Pleased with himself, Ivan puffed out his chest and strutted around
Shimon.
“It is not sinful to be simple,” said Shimon, repeating what many
people had told him to comfort him. But he was not comforted at that
moment. In fact his lower lip quivered and tears began to form in the
corners of his eyes. Such tears may melt the heart of the kindly soul,
but to a bully they serve only as fuel.
“No, fool, it is not sinful.” Ivan countered. “There is no room in
either heaven or hell for dumb folks such as you. So there is no sin for
you.”
Shimon, quaking, turned to go.
“Wait, fool. I can help you.”
“How help?”
“I can show you wisdom.”
“Wisdom?”
“Yes,” Ivan insisted, circling like an animal around its prey. “If
the others cared for you, fool, they would have shown you a long time
ago.”
“Show me? What?”
“Ahh,” said Ivan knowingly—for now he sensed that his victim was
hooked. “I happen to know how the rabbi and the wise men of the town
get their wisdom. I can show you the secret and you will never be called
‘fool’ again. You will be respected by everyone.”
“Show me the secret,” begged Shimon. He knew he was simple. Being
wise like the others was his lifelong wish.
“Promise me you will never tell who revealed it to you,” Ivan
commanded.
“Never, never—it is a promise.”
“Come with me then.”
And Ivan led Shimon to a weed-covered area on one side of the synagogue.
There were brambles and shrubs and a profusion of small yellow flowers
with thorny stems. In the center of the space was a large, deep puddle.
The rain of the day before had mostly evaporated from the puddle and now
it consisted almost completely of rich, brown mud.
“There it is: The Fountain of Wisdom,” declared Ivan, pointing at
the mud.
“There?”
“Yes,” confided Ivan, “in the morning, before the sun rides into
the sky and before the hour for morning prayers, I often pass this way.
Many times I have seen the rabbi and all the wise men of his council,
fully clothed, rolling in that very mud.”
“Rolling?”
“Wallowing in it like barn animals. And praying.”
“Praying?”
“They cry unto G-d, ‘Have mercy on your servants who are nothing or
less than nothing and grant them wisdom through your sacred mud.’”
“And that is the secret?”
“Of course it is, I have seen it myself. What are you waiting for?”
With this he gave the frightened fool a small shove. Shimon lost his
footing on the slippery ground and fell with a plop into the mud. He
began to cry.
“Fool, what are you crying for? Your salvation is here. Roll! Cover
yourself with the sacred mud and pray. You must keep it up for a long
time to get the results you want. I will go now so you will have privacy
to talk to G-d.”
Poor Shimon didn’t know what to do. He wanted to believe in the
Fountain of Wisdom, but he was afraid. He cried like a child and rolled
and sloshed in the mud and prayed and cried some more. Meanwhile Ivan
ran as fast as he could to the houses around the synagogue and shouted
to any ear that could hear him.
“Come to the synagogue. Come see the fool in the mud. There is a fool
rolling in the mud come see and laugh your insides out.”
The people came. They came from all sides and they did see Shimon the
Simple groveling in the oozing mud. None except the very youngest
laughed at him and they were rebuked into silence.
When asked why he was there, Shimon said, through his sobs, “The
schlepper said it was wisdom. He said the rabbi did it too.”
Curses and angry shouts were hurled at Ivan, but he was already on his
way down the road with his sack of wheat. The walls he passed echoed his
cruel laughter. Ivan was proud of himself.
The townspeople helped Shimon out of the mud. Clean clothing was found
for him and he was given a meal. Shimon was a fool, but he was their
fool. For days people talked about the terrible joke Ivan had
perpetrated. Shimon’s protectors were irate, but there was little they
could do about it.
One such brother who heard the tale was Berdl. He decided there was
something to do about it. Berdl put the thought in his head the way one
puts a coin into a small bank and let it grow there.
The day Berdl’s thought reached its fullest ripening was the day the
oldest daughter of Benesh-the-Merchant, the richest man in the shtetl,
was to be married. Berdl had prepared his plan days in advance and now
he was ready to act upon it.
For Ivan the day was an ordinary work day. He pulled and carried and
pushed and then pocketed a few copper coins for his labors. The previous
day he had schlepped a cart weighted down with four medium sized barrels
of wine to Benesh’s house.
Ivan had just delivered three sacks of freshly milled flour to the house
of Avraham-the-Baker when he met Berdl. Berdl sat atop a dusty trunk and
wept.
“What are you crying about?” asked the schlepper who both admired
and envied the goniff’s crafty ways and alleged exploits.
“Because I am too weak to carry this trunk and I won’t get the gold
coins,” Berdl replied, like a hunter baiting a trap.
“Gold coins?” asked Ivan, sniffing at the bait.
“Yes, I have wedding gifts here for the daughter of Benesh, from her
aged grandfather. Benesh will give me one gold coin when I shower the
bride with the gifts and the grandfather will give me one gold coin when
I return the empty trunk. But I can carry the trunk no further and so I
will get nothing more than a whipping for my efforts.”
Ivan was skeptical. “This old and battered trunk is filled with fine
gifts?”
“Indeed it is. When Benesh was born his father put aside bolts of the
finest silk and lace in this trunk and then hid the trunk in the stable.
He said it would stand there until the day that Benesh’s firstborn
child was married.”
Ivan could almost feel the gold coins dancing in his pocket.
“Dear friend Berdl, I will be glad to carry this burden for you. Let
me carry it to the bride’s house. We will share the gold coins.”
Ivan was thinking that he would give Berdl one of the gold coins when he
looked up and saw cows flying across the evening sky.
“I don’t know,” said Berdl with great hesitation—toying with his
prey. “I have been given special instructions. Are you sure you can do
it?”
“What must I do? Tell me and it is as good as done.” Ivan’s
enthusiasm was childlike.
“You must enter the house shouting, ‘gifts for the bride; gifts for
the bride’ and you must rush to the table where the gifts are being
displayed, unlatch the trunk, raise it up and open it so that the fine
cloths come showering down on the table like a rainbow. Can you remember
that?”
“A gold coin will be my teacher,” Ivan said with candor.
“Good,” said Berdl, “then may G-d speed your path, for truly
brother Ivan it is G-d who has sent you to me.”
With that Ivan took the trunk up on his shoulder and fairly ran toward
Benesh’s house. The coppers jingling in his pocket seemed so
insignificant now that he was tempted to stop and throw them into the
bushes. In his mind he listened to the sweeter music of gold coins
clinking against each other. He dashed through town repeating, “Gifts
for the bride; gifts for the bride” until he came to the fine house of
the wealthy merchant.
The guests, dressed in their sabbath best, had all arrived when Ivan got
to the house. “Gifts for the bride; gifts for the bride,” he
announced as he shouldered aside the servant who opened the door. The
servants tried to stop Ivan and redirect him to the kitchen entrance
where deliveries were being made, but the brutish schlepper just muscled
aside servant and guest alike and charged ahead into the house.
“Gifts for the bride; gifts for the bride.”
He almost rushed into the room where the bride, her face unveiled, sat
with all the women guests, but Gittel-with-a-limp put her ample shoulder
to the door and held it shut against his efforts.
“Gifts for the bride; gifts for the bride.”
It took Ivan a few seconds to discover the large room where the groom
held forth in a learned discussion of obscure points of Talmudic law for
the benefit of all the male guests. There, in addition to the rabbi, the
father of the bride and all the other men, Ivan saw his destination: A
table covered with all manner of gifts for the happy couple.
“Gifts for the bride; gifts for the bride,” he shouted and reached
up to unlatch the trunk he had carried across the town. He took the
trunk in his mighty arms, raised it upside down above his head and shook
it hard.
The lid flew open and out, all over the gifts, the table and the floor,
cascaded a shower of glistening round apples of horse manure—still as
moist and fragrant as when Berdl-the-Goniff had gathered them.
There was a shocked and horrified silence in the room, which was broken
by one feeble, whining voice—Ivan’s “Does this mean I don’t get
my gold coins?”
Then pandemonium broke loose. All the men, from the oldest to the
youngest, crowded in to get a chance to pummel Ivan. Many of them were
settling remembered debts for ill treatment they had received at the
hands of the bully over the years. The old men who walked with canes
used their canes and one or two younger men who, in the manner of the
dandies in Warsaw, affected walking sticks, used their sticks. The
others just employed fists and feet.
Suddenly a voice pierced the tumult.
“Stop, stop! Jews should not mistreat other Jews, no matter what. It
says so in the tamuld. There are enough others who would mistreat us.”
The voice—and the childish mispronunciation of the learned
writings—came from Shimon. Since the simple man was the foster child
of the whole shtetl. It was customary to invite hit to all happy events
such as weddings.
He was repeating to them a comforting thought told to him may times by
an old aunt, when he came to her crying over some torment he had faced.
The men, shame-faced, backed away. Of course they knew better, but it
took a fool to remind them. Ivan had done many wrongs, but their
violence against him was contrary to all the teachings.
By the time they stopped, there was hardly a place on Ivan’s body that
was not bruised. He whimpered like a beaten dog as he forced his aching
limbs to carry him away from the scene. He slunk through town. If he had
a tail it would have been tucked between his legs.
As he made his way to the humble shack he called home, Ivan heard the
voice of Shimon-the-Simple calling out behind him..
“Schlepper,” said Shimon, “you are hurt. Your nose is bleeding.
Here…” And the simple man unknotted the kerchief from around his
neck and handed it to Ivan.
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