Libretto by Aviram Freiberg after S.J. Agnon

-I-

Narrator – There was an old woman in Jerusalem, nicer than anybody you have ever seen. She was good and wise and meek and charming.

The light in her eyes spoke forbearance and mercy,

and the wrinkles in her cheeks, blessings and peace.

Were it not that women are not to be compared to angels,

I would say that she was just like one of God’s own angels.

Another thing about her was that she was spry as a youngster.

The only sign of old age in her was the manner of her dress.

Once I went to visit one of the wise men of Jerusalem

who lived near the Western Wall.

I couldn’t find his house, but I did find a woman coming along

with a can full of water, and I asked her.

Tehilla – Come along and I’ll show you.

Narrator– No need to bother, just tell me where it is and I’ll find the way.

Tehilla – Why do you mind if it is given to an old woman like me to fulfill a commandment?

Narrator – If it’s a commandment you’re fulfilling, then by all means

enjoy the privilege; but give me this can you are holding.

Tehilla – Why do you want to make the commandment less?

Narrator – I certainly don’t want to make the commandment any less, but only to lessen your trouble.

Tehilla – It isn’t any trouble at a11, hut a privilege, for the Blessed Holy One has given His creatures the strength to attend to their needs with their own hands.

Here’s the house of the one you’re looking for.

Narrator – Thank you, said I to her, Shalom and in I went.

-II-

Narrator – A few days later I went to town again to look for an old woman,

a rabbi’s widow, whose grandson l had promised,

before returning to Jerusalem, that I would visit her.

Rebbetzin – Who’s there?

Narrator – I had come from abroad with regards from her grandson.

Rebbtzin –   How many houses does he have? Is there a servant

in his house? Does he have fine carpets in every room?

This cold will be the end of me.

Narrator – Your grandson gave me some money to buy you a stove, a portable stove.

One fills it with kerosene and light the wick and it bums and heats the place up.

Here’s the money.

Rebbetzin – How shall I go and buy a stove?

Have I got feet? Lumps of ice, that’s what I’ve got.

Before ever this cold takes me to the grave it’ll drive me out of my mind.

And there outside Eretz Israel they say that Eretz Israel is a hot country.

For the wicked in hell it’s hot.

Narrator – Tomorrow, the sun will come out and drive away the cold.

Rebbetzin –    Before the comfort will start, the soul will depart.

Narrator – In just an hour or two, I shall send you the stove.

She withdrew back down among her pillows and

cushions and quilts as if to show her would-be benefactor that

his favors were not to be relied on.

-III-

Tehilla –   Don’t you recognize me? Why you’re the one who wanted to carry my can

when you went to visit so-and-so.

Narrator – Why, you are the one who showed me the way, and now here I am,

standing bewildered as though I didn’t know you.

Tehilla –   And do you have to recognize all the old women in Jerusalem?

Narrator – But how did you recognize me?

Tehilla – Since the eyes of Jerusalem continually watch for all Israel,

whoever comes here is engraved on our heart, and we do not forget him.

You have done a very good deed, bringing life to old bones.

The stove you sent to the rebbetzin warms her very soul.

Commandments were not given for us to be ashamed of.

Our fathers who fulfilled many commandments never spoke of them.

But we, since we fulfill so few, it behooves us to celebrate each commandment

We do carry out, so that others may hear of it and learn from our Deeds.

Now, my son, go to the rebbetzin and see how warming the commandment is

which you have fulfilled.

-IV-

Narrator – Are you sick, rebbetzin?

Rebbetzin – I am ill, very ill indeed. There’s no one in the whole world as ill as I.

But alone I am not.

Even here in Jerusalem, where they don’t know me and don’t know of the

honor which surrounded me in my own town,

even here there’s a woman who comes from time to time, fetching me a

spoonful of soup and bringing me food to, my bed.

What do you hear from my grandson?

I’m sure he is angry at me because I never wrote him a letter thanking him for the

stove.

But now you tell me, can I go and buy ink and paper and write letters?

I can barely bring a spoonful of food to my lips.

I’m surprised that Tillie hasn’t come yet.

Narrator – If you are thinking of that charming old woman, she told me that she’ll be along soon.

Rebbetzin – Whether she’s charming, I don’t know, but she certainly is a doer of good deeds. Just see how many pious old women there are in Jerusalem, all buzzing prayers and entreaties like so many bees.

Do you think a single one of them has come to ask me, do you need anything at

all, rebbetzin?

Oh my head, my head. If the pains in my heart don’t drive me from the world,

then my aching head will.

Narrator – I see it’s hard for you to speak.

Rebbetzin –   You say it’s hard for me to speak, but I can tell you I’m hard for me to bear,

all of me. Even the cat feels it and keeps away from me.

And still people say that a cat sticks to its house.

I suppose my neighbors’ mice are sweeter than all the delicacies I feed him.

What did I want to say? I always forget what I want to say.

Tillie isn’t like that. Though she has bundles and bundles of years on her

shoulders, all her senses still serve her.

And she’s twice as old as I am. If my father, of blessed and righteous

memory, were alive he would seem just a baby compared with her.

Narrator – Who is this Tillie?

Rebbetzin – Why, weren’t you the one who just mentioned her?

Nowadays people don’t know Tillie, but in the past everybody did because she

was very rich and owned all kinds of enterprises.

When she gave up her affairs and came to Jerusalem she brought several

barrels full of gold with her. And if it wasn’t barrels,

then she certainly brought one box full of gold.

My neighbor women told me their mothers told them that when Tillie came to

Jerusalem all the important folk were after her, courting her,

one for himself and another for his son.

But she turned them all down and remained a widow, first a rich widow,

then a well-to-do widow, and then just an old woman.

Narrator –   Anyone who sees Tillie, would think that she never

saw a bad day in her life.

Rebbetzin – You say that she never saw a bad day in her life,

but I tell you that she never saw a good one.

I wouldn’t wish even on my enemies the sufferings that Tillie has had.

Oh my aches, my aches, I’m trying to stop thinking about them,

but they won’t stop thinking about me.

The chimney sweep isn’t even inside the chimney,

and already he has a sooty face.

You haven’t so much as sat down properly yet,

and you’re already getting up to go. What’s the hurry?

Narrator – Can you tell me something about her?

Rebbeztin – And if I do tell, will it make things easier for me or for her?

I don’t like all this tale telling. You take cobwebs and stick them together with

other cobwebs and say, It’s a magnificent palace.

But one thing I shall tell you, the Blessed Holy One took pity on that saint,

and so he put an evil spirit into that apostate,

may her name be blotted out.

What are you staring at me for? Don’t you understand Yiddish?

Narrator – Yiddish I understand, but your speech, rebbetzin, I don’t understand.

Who’s that saint, and who’s that apostate whom you cursed?

Rebbetzin – And maybe I ought to bless her?!

maybe I ought to say, you’ve done well, apostate,

that you exchanged the gold coin for a worn copper.

Why are you turning your face on me again as though I were talking Turkish?

You’ve heard that my husband of blessed memory was a rabbi

because they call me rebbetzin,

but you haven’t heard that my father was also a rabbi,

a rabbi compared with whom all the other rabbis were fledglings.

Oh world, you world, false you are, and sham and false everything in you.

But my father of righteous and blessed memory was a real rabbi from his very

childhood, so the matchmakers in the country were all eager to match him off.

There was. a certain rich widow. When I say rich, I mean she was really rich.

She had an only daughter, and if only she hadn’t had her!

She took a barrel of gold coins and told them, those matchmakers,

If you match him to my daughter, then he gets this barrel,

and if it’s not enough I’ll add to it.

The daughter was not worthy of that righteous saint,

because he was a saint and she, may she be damned, was an apostate.

she ran away and entered some nunnery and changed her religion. And when did she run away? when they were leading her to the bridal canopy.

Her mother wasted half her wealth on her in order to get her out of there.

She got as far as the Emperor, the wretched mother,

and even he couldn’t help her at all,

because anybody who once enters a nunnery never comes out of there anymore.

Do you know who that apostate is? The daughter of.. hush, she’s coming.

Tehilla – Are you here? Remain seated, my friend, remain seated.

Visiting the sick is a great commandment.

Rebbetzin, you are looking better all the time.

The Name’s Salvation is as the twinkling of an eye.

I’ve brought you a spoonful of soup, just enough for you to swallow.

Raise your head, my dear, and I’ll arrange the pillow.

That’s it, that’s it, my dear.

-V-

Narrator – Blessed be she who is here.

Tehilla – Blessed is he who comes.

Narrator – Why, you live like a princess.

Tehilla – All daughters of Israel are princesses,

and I, praise the living God, am a daughter of Israel.

Narrator – I sat down facing Tehilla and waited to hear why she had invited me.

At length she began, and told me of the passing of the rebbetzin,

who had died overnight, while her stove burned

and her cat warmed himself beside it until the bier-bearers

had taken her out and whoever it was had come and taken

himself the stove.

Tehilla – You see, my son, a man performs a commandment, and the commandment performs a commandment.

I have heard that you are a man of the pen, that you are a modern-day scribe.

Maybe you can loan me your pen for a little letter.

Take this quill which I myself have prepared, and dip it in this ink.

One begins with the praises of the All-and-Ever-Present, by writing,

“With the aid of the Blessed Name.”

Nice, very nice…

Now write his name.

Shraga. Have you written it?

Well, I was about eleven years old.

One night my father, may he rest in peace, came and said,

Mazal Tov and good luck to you daughter.

Tonight you have been betrothed to Shraga and now you are a bride-to-be.

One Sabbath, about four weeks before the day they had set for the wedding,

Shraga did not come to father.

And where had he gone? To the rabbi of their group of Hassidim,

because his father had taken him there to be blessed for his first donning

of the prayer shawl and phylacteries.

Father nearly swooned at hearing the report.

At the close of the Sabbath, immediately after the Havdala ceremony,

father tore up the betrothal agreement, and sent the torn parts over to the home of Shraga’s father.

Shraga leaped up and swore that he would never forgive us the insult,

and father never bothered to ask Shraga’s forgiveness.

All the wedding preparations had been made.

Nothing was lacking except a bridegroom.

Father sent for a matchmaker and they found me another bridegroom,

with whom I went under the bridal canopy.

Three years after my marriage I had a son, and another one

two years later; and two years after that I had a daughter.

The years ran their course and we made a good living.

I forgot Shraga and forgot that I had never received a writ of forgiveness from him.

One day our son got up early in the morning and went to the Study House.

There he found a man dressed in shrouds like a corpse.

The child was terrified and fainted. With difficulty they brought him back to life.

To life, but not to long life.

After that he went on flickering like a memorial candle during the dosing prayer on Yom Kippur.

And before he ever had a chance to put on his phylacteries he gave up his soul and died.

During the seven days of mourning I sat thinking to myself,

my son died at the close of the Sabbath, after the Havdala ceremony,

thirty days before his time for putting on phylacteries,

and it was at the close of the Sabbath after the Havdala ceremony

thirty days before I was to go under the bridal canopy with Shraga

that father tore up the betrothal agreement.

I reckoned out the times, and was shaken

that these two evil events had happened on the same day and at the same hour.

And even if this were nothing but chance,

it was something that had to be thought over.

Two years later his brother reached the time to become Bar Mitzvah.

He reached it but never arrived.

It happened that he went to the wood of our town with his friends,

in order to bring back branches for the Shavuot Festival.

While they were in the wood he left them and never came back.

A few days later his body was found in the big swamp near the wood,

and we knew that the child had lost his way and fallen into the swamp.

So my husband made the journey to ask about Shraga, yet nobody knew.

At last they told him, if it’s Shraga you’re asking about,

Shraga has been spoiled and become a Misnaged.

Now whenever he journeyed he asked about Shraga.

What with all his journeys my husband grew weak and began to cough blood.

Once, while on a trip somewhere, he became ill and died.

Now he was dead I threw myself entirely into business.

I thought to myself, all my toil I am toiling for my daughter,

so the more wealth I acquire the more I shall benefit her.

I called the matchmakers and they found me a bridegroom

renowned for his knowledge of Torah and an ordained rabbi.

But I never had the privilege of leading them to the canopy,

for an evil spirit entered into my daughter and she became insane.

Write to Shraga that I have forgiven him

for all the troubles which have come upon me on his account;

and write to him that he too has to forgive me,

since I have already been stricken enough.

Narrator – Please tell me, since the day when your father tore up the betrothal

agreement more than ninety years have gone by.

Do you suppose that Shraga is still alive?

And if he is alive, has the place where he is been revealed to you?

Tehilla – Shraga is no longer alive. Shraga is dead.

He passed thirty years ago.

Narrator – If Shraga is dead, how do you wish to send him a letter?

Tehilla – You must be thinking, that the old woman has turned senile, counting as she does on post offices to deliver the letter to a dead man.

Narrator – Then what will you do?

Tehilla – I shall take the letter and place it in the jar,

and take the sealing wax and seal the jar over,

and take the jar and its letter together with me.

Narrator – Where will you take it, where will you take the jar with the letter?

Tehilla – Where shall I take the Jar? I shall take it to my grave,

to my grave I shall take the jar with the letter.

There in the World on High they know Shraga and they know where he is.

Now, my son, give me the quill and I shall sign my name to the letter and
put the letter in the jar.

Afterward I go to confirm the contract.

Narrator – When you told me, that you are going to confirm your contract I thought that you were referring to the contract for your home.

Tehilla – I have gone to confirm the contract for my eternal home.

May I not need to dwell there long before I rise with all the dead of Israel.

Fare you well, my son. I must hurry to my home.

The cleansers and purifiers are surely waiting for me already.