21st Century Bogatyr: October 2022

by Zvi Baranoff

The presence of young children assured spontaneity and a degree of chaos. The two young mothers somehow kept up with their ever increasing brood and brought warmth and comfort to Der Profesor's house.

The children called both Rifka Leeba and Hannah Leah "Mama" and would turn to whichever was closest for comforting or nutrition. Truthfully, none of the children knew which Mama had given birth to them. No outsider could unravel that mystery. The Mamas probably could remember, if pressed.

Dovid certainly couldn't have kept that straight, if he would have been inclined to make the effort. Neither did he know, after a few years of marriage, exactly how many children there were. "A dozen or so…" is how he would usually answer, when asked. There always seemed to be one or more on the way, so to speak, some babies in diapers, and lots of little ones running about.

Dovid was committing more and more time to his work and his involvement in the business brought big advances to his already very successful employer. A major innovation that Dovid brought to Moshe & Mendel's Jew Harp, Tsatske aun Muzik Krom, is the use of solar energy in toys and the shpilplats (playground).

Small toy cars and trains gained increased mobility. Swings, slides and merry-go-rounds now have colorful lights and musical sound…and promote the stores.

Of course, there was an alternative motive.

Space travel, Dovid knew, would require a massive amount of solar panels. Toys and the playground equipment could operate on chips and broken pieces of solar panels. If the chips and pieces were the product, the complete panels would become the byproduct, and the undamaged panels became available at a deep discount. Additionally, all of these purchases flowed through subsidiary associations that funneled money and resources into the space project.

The production of solar panels requires minerals mined from nearly inaccessible places on islands and other continents. Deals, side deals and back deals needed to be negotiated directly with far-flung mining guild members and boat captains. Dovid found himself often traveling globally. He would be away from home, sometimes, for several weeks at a stretch.

Returning from one such trip, Dovid arrived by ship at the Port of New New York shortly before Purim, where he was compelled to stay until after the holiday.

New New York is nearly tropical, with summer-like weather year round. Beaches with a fine rose-colored sand attract vacationers from across the continent and are enjoyed by the locals. The waters are calm and ideal for snorkeling. It is not so bad to be stuck in New New York if one needs to be stuck somewhere.

The Jewish calendar is sprinkled with holidays calling for observance. Obligations, commandments and traditions dictate our practices on Holy Days.

Most of these days are treated with a similar sanctity as Shabbos. Work, handling money, lighting fires and other such activities are proscribed or limited. Additionally, we are told that certain foods must be eaten and others are forbidden or how and where we must sit or items of clothing we must wear or that are forbidden.

Purim is probably the most uncharacteristic and even counterintuitive of all the Jewish holidays.

On Purim, we are told that we must hear the Megillah Esther read, that we should give gifts of treats and that drinking to excess is considered a mitzvah. Das iz alts. What kind of meshugganah holiday is this?

Most Jewish holidays have a Biblical origin, including Purim. The Megillah Esther is in our Holy Book and therefore considered a divine work.

The Megillah, to a casual observer, may seem to be out of place, as Scripture. It may be imagined more readily as a novella and a work of Oriental fantasy than a religious tractate. A serious Biblical scholar recognizes the book to be full of perplexity and is likely to come to similar conclusions as those of a casual reader.

For one thing, the Megillah Esther is the only book within our Tanakh that doesn't mention the Ineffable One and there are no evidently miraculous occurrences or Divine Intervention. Not once. If you don't believe me, check for yourself.

The rest of our Scriptures are full of miracles. The miracles vary widely from the personal level such as Sarai's pregnancy at 90, the fantastic such as Jonah being swallowed by a whale and Balaam's talking donkey, regionally significant as the Plagues in Egypt must surely have been and of global proportions such as the Flood.

The Megillah Esther is a story of backroom deals, subterfuge, palace politics, seduction, and intrigue. In many ways, it is a very foreign tale.

The story centers on values of a foreign kingdom. King Ahasuerus holds an extended celebration with heavy drinking. After a while, he calls for his wife, Queen Vasti, to entertain his drunken entourage. She refuses and is vilified on this account.

If this had been the story of a Jewish monarch, the Queen would have been the hero of the story for declining an unreasonable request. The King would apologize and make amends, hoping to win back the love and respect of his wife.

In the perhaps fictionalized palace of the Persian Kingdom, a very different set of values is obvious.

The King does not react with remorse nor out of passion, jealousy or even anger. The King's concerns seem to be highly legalistic. He turns to the Royal Consultants for advice.

The Royal Advisors fear the independent actions of a Queen could lead to the unraveling of patriarchy. They recommend the banishment of the Queen. They suggest that a more pliable replacement can be found through an audition of every virgin in the domain.

Through this process, by hiding her Jewish identity, Hadassah aka Esther married the King. A Chief Royal Advisor hatched a plot to destroy the Yidden. Esther steps in to influence her husband. So, in this way, the Megillah Esther essentially celebrates and encourages assimilation and marriage to foreigners. This stratagem results in a significant number of slaughtered hooligans at the hands of the Yidden and a massive conversion to Judaism.

On Planet Earth, the celebration of Purim incorporated costumes and an oddly shaped pastry, the triangular hamantaschen. This pastry, it seems, is modeled after the style of hat worn by Napoleon and his troops. The traditional filling for the hamantaschen is munn which is poppy seeds.

On Planet Birobidzhan, the traditional gifting of hamantaschen and other sweets also includes the North African delicacy of majoun, a confection made from dates, nuts and hashish or cannabis butter. The prevalence of majoun is one of the reasons why the Hebraic name Tamar is associated with Purim on Planet Birobidzhan. The other reason, of course, has to do with the Biblical Tamar's costumed seduction of her father-in-law.

The Purim holiday on Earth fell in a rough conjunction with two rowdy holidays of the majority cultures. On the Indian subcontinent, amongst the Hindus there is Holi, celebrated with body painting and the consumption of cannabis infused drinks. In Brazil, Louisiana and some other Catholic influenced regions of Earth, Mardi Gras is celebrated with widespread drunkenness and a fair amount of public nudity. On Planet Earth, the Jewish People were a tiny minority, living alongside and often amongst other cultures.

Purim is a raucous celebration on Planet Birobidzhan, and particularly so in New New York. The celebration on Planet Birobidzhan was likely influenced by the way that Holi and Mardi Gras was celebrated on Planet Earth, even by many Yidden.

The festivities start out staid enough in the early evening with a family oriented costumed parade that weaves through the city, leading to the largest synagogues, where the Megillah Esther is read, according to tradition.

Following the Megillah reading, the crowds from the synagogues empty into the streets, led by the rabbis. Bottles of schnapps are passed around while singing and dancing take place. As the night progresses, parents with young children and those with less wild inclination clear the streets.

There is a tradition that on Purim one should drink until one doesn't know the difference between Haman and Mordechai, or, perhaps, you should drink until you can't tell the difference between Queen Vasti and Queen Esther.

On Planet Birobidzhan, some wags suggest that at the proper level of intoxication for Purim, one cannot distinguish between one's wife and her sister.

Any other day or night, there is a decorum maintained throughout Planet Birobidzhan, with only a modicum of variations on the Kibbutzim. Women's knees are rarely seen on the streets of our cities, and never in our shtetls. Sleeves reach past the elbows and usually to the wrists. Blouses, outside of the house, are buttoned close to the neck. Married women cover their heads with scarves.

On Purim, masks are worn by nearly everyone. With the anonymity of masking, inhibitions are often set aside. With faces veiled, the dress norms are also set aside.

On Planet Birobidzhan, it is generally quite warm for Purim. In tropical New New York the weather can be outright sultry. Some will, as the night unfolds, be wearing little more than a mask, gauze and perhaps makeup, henna or body paint.

No one should be particularly surprised that a fair number of pregnancies are consummated on the night of the Purim celebration. This is a factor in the large number of hastily arranged marriages that take place around Pesach and the volume of birthing around Hanukkah.

On Planet Birobidzhan, it is not particularly unusual for a first child to be born around seven months after a couple stands under the chuppah. The husband will choose to believe that the child born is his offspring. Most of the rest of the year, that is likely true.

For a married woman, a Purim dalliance has little consequence. When an unmarried woman becomes pregnant, a hastily arranged marriage is for the best, and the social ripples of a Purim dalliance is minimal.

If a wedding doesn't take place by sometime around Pesach, however, the young woman begins to swell around the abdomen and neighbors begin to gossip, particularly in the smaller shtetls.

The options for an unmarried pregnant woman in a small shtetl are extremely narrow. Many Purim Meydls leave their homes behind and head to the larger settlements or the cities for some degree of anonymity.

It was early in the winter, not long past Hanukkah. The children had all gone to the spielplat with Hannah Leah. Rifka Leeba was drinking a glass of tea, enjoying the rare moments of privacy and solitude when there was a knock on the door.

At the door stood a young woman, evidently from a small shtetl. In her arms was a newborn baby girl. Rifka Leeba knew at once that this was a Purim Meydl on her doorstep. One look at the baby and Rifka Leeba knew that the child was fathered by Dovid. The little girl looked very much like Dovid's mother.

In an instant, Rifka Leeba imagined how her mother-in-law would have reacted to such a circumstance. She was determined to resolve this situation in the same calculating way as she believed that Dovid's mother would. Rifka Leeba's face became an emotional vail as she ushered the Purim Meydl into her living room and offered her tea.

Rifka Leeba served tea shtetl style, in a glass, with sugar cubes. She offered the Purim Meydl cookies from the bakery on the dishes reserved for company and holidays. She lulled the young woman into a false sense of security. The newborn slept peacefully, swaddled on the sofa, unaware that she was the center of intrigue and her life was on the cusp of a tidal change.

Rifka Leeba did not speak of her husband and paid no attention to the sleeping child. She took even breaths as she spoke in abstractions about vulgarity, sin and bad choices. She spoke about bordellos and whoring and wantonness. She made disparaging implications of the sort of background and family that would lead to a woman bearing a child out of wedlock.

Rifka Leeba dug deep and found a reserve of strength and cruelty that she didn't know she had. She carefully chose each word to inflict pain and suffering, without actually speaking directly to the situation at hand. The younger woman, hardly more than a girl, lacked the stamina or capacity to withstand the calculated emotional barrage.

The Purim Meydl went to the vashzimmer to compose herself. Rifka Leeba removed a bur that had attached itself to her shoe. She placed the sharp thing into the fold of the innocently sleeping sweet child's diaper.

The baby girl instantly began to cry. The infant's mother came quickly to the newborn and frantically tried soothing her to no avail. Rifka Leeba looked on with the appearance of sympathy.

The young stranger tried rocking the baby, offered her a breast, uttered soothing words, and all the other sorts of things that mothers everywhere do for their offspring. The baby's crying got louder and the young woman grew more frantically agitated.

Rifka Leeba, after a time, stepped in and calmly reached out for the newborn. The Purim Meydl, in a state of desperation, placed the screaming baby girl into Rifka Leeba's hands. Rifka Leeba subtly removed the bur as she eased the infant onto her own breast. The baby immediately stopped crying and happily suckled.

Within the hour, the Purim Meydl departed with banknotes from Rifka Leeba's knipple securely folded into the lining of her coat. The baby remained with Rifka Leeba. When Hannah Leah and the brood of kinder returned from the spielplat, there was one more addition to the family.

Hannah Leah raised an eyebrow, but asked no questions except for the child's name. Rifka Leeba, sitting with the child cuddling in her arms, shrugged. "Let's call her Tamar," she said and this was how the girl was brought into the family and named.

This is not a Jewish story. It is, however, a story about Jews. One does not need to be Jewish to read this tale any more than one needs to be a Hobbit or an Elf to read Lord of the Rings.

This story is a work of fiction. The setting for this tale is in the distant future, on the far away Planet Birobidzhan. This planet was settled by Jewish exiles from Planet Earth.

The population of Planet Birobidzhan has been cut off from the Home Planet for a long time. They have developed their own unique culture, traditions and linguistics.

The language spoken on Planet Birobidzhan is primarily Yiddish. I have sprinkled a significant number of Yiddish words and phrases throughout the telling of the tale. I also refer to various Jewish religious and cultural touchstones.

To make this story more accessible, I have included a glossary of words and phrases in Yiddish and Hebrew that are used as well as some explanations of religious terms and holidays.

I hope that readers find this to be useful.

The link to the Glossary is here:

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2023/01/a-useful-guide-glossary-to-planet.html?m=1

פּלאַנעט ביראָבידזשאַן

Do you want to read more about Planet Birobidzhan? Here are all the posted installments so far, in the order that they were posted. Just click your way through the story!

1 On A Planet Safe for Yidden

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/02/on-planet-safe-for-yidden.html

2 Yenne Velt: A History of Planet Birobidzhan

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/02/yenne-velt-history-of-planet-birobidzhan.html

3 Another Globe, Perhaps?

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/02/another-globe-perhaps.html

4 Bereshis: The Transport & Transformation of the Founders

http://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/03/bereshis-transport-transformation-of.html

5 The Town of First Landing

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-town-of-first-landing.html

6 A Personal History of an Early Settler on Planet Birobidzhan

http://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/05/a-personal-history-of-early-settler-on.html