With the Best Intentions, On a New World

 

by Zvi Baranoff 

Rifka Leeba began her schooling a bit younger than most kinder in Moskve on Planet Shney. Being a precocious and bright meydl helped make her more prepared, perhaps. Of course, she had some familial advantages that also smoothed her integration to the scholastic environment. 

Rifka Leeba's grandfather, Dovid, after all, was the driving force behind the initial expedition from Planet Birobidzhan and ultimate settlement on Planet Shney. Planet Shney, like Planet Birobidzhan, had no government to speak of, and certainly no monarchy. Dovid was, however, an honored elder, a natural leader and a recognized ganze macher. In Moskve, he was sometimes affectionately referred to as Dovid Melech, King Dovid. By such association, that made Rifka Leeba a princess. Of course, there were already several similar princes and princesses attending the school, her gaggle of cousins. She certainly had no problems fitting in.

Baruch and Shmuli had an arrangement with Dovid concerning the education of his descendents. Rifka Leeba's tuition was covered by the arrangement. She was also willingly accepted as a student at a tender age that others with less connections may have encountered some discouragement. 

Rifka Leeba enjoyed attending school immensely. She excelled in her studies. She quickly learned the Aleph Beis and became a voracious reader. She also flourished in the social settings of the lunchroom, the playground, the school library, and the extra-curricular activities.

When she left school each day Moskve offered her lots of options for passing the time until dinner. 

Her father's office and pool hall was just a short walk, a skip and a jump from the school. At first, she was a bit short for the pool tables but she wasn't a bad shooter if she stood on a crate. Besides learning pool from her father, Nes taught her how to play poker, palm cards, deal off the bottom of the deck, and other such tricks which she found entertaining. However, as much as she loved being around her father, she usually only went straight to the pool hall one or two days a week. 

Sometimes Rifka Leeba would visit with her grandfather, Dovid. She loved her grandfather from the first encounter on the tarmac when she and her parents landed on Planet Shney. Dovid adored the meydl at first sight. It is true that Dovid was by then quite old and a bit slow but he always had treats in a secret pocket to share. He would pinch her and address her by the pet name, Tamar. Dovid would tell Rifka Leeba elaborate tales of Moshe Pipik, a child that lived on the Home Planet long ago, a child who built a rocket ship from a wooden crate and a variety of junk, flew to the moon, and beyond into distant space although he always made it home in time for dinner. 

Dovid assured Rifka Leeba that she was as sweet as a date and that was why he called her Tamar. The meydl had no reason to disbelieve her grandfather, but his reasons were more complicated than that. Rifka Leeba was named after Nes’ mother, Dovid's first love and favorite wife. Dovid mourned the loss of his wife. His heart would break every time if he were to call this child Rifka Leeba. Besides, Tamar is also the name of Dovid's dearest progeny and the meydl was the spitting image of his beloved daughter.

Rifka Leeba had dozens of cousins in Moskve, particularly the gaggle of kinder of Aunt Tamar's sons, Perez and Zerah. Several of the cousins were not much older than she and attended the same school. She was always welcomed to join them after school, playing games, studying, hiking and exploring, eating in their homes, and sometimes just hanging out.

By far, Rifka Leeba's favorite place to be, was in her Aunt Tamar's upstairs apartment above the bakery adjacent to the school. When classes let out, she could exit the school through the back door and climb the stairs to find Tamar. The apartment was cozy and filled with musical instruments. Tamar would often be practicing her violin when Rifka Leeba arrived. Soon, the child began learning to play the fiddle as well, lessons from her favorite aunt. Between lessons, they drank tea or schnapps, ate kikhlekh or majoun, and shared confidences. 

Shprintza Freyda was glad to have Rifka Leeba enrolled in school, allowing her to pursue her own interests. She was pleased to be living in Moskve, a shtot that was diverse and sophisticated compared to the provincial shtetl where she was raised. And, if she gave it much consideration, she was glad that Nes had the pool hall to go to rather than haunting around the house as he had done for too long. 

Six mornings a week, Nes walked Rifka Leeba to school and then he went to his office, and Shprintza Freyda was free of both husband and child. Shprintza Freyda went to the cafés, the library, and the theater. 

If Shprintza Freyda had remained in the shtetl on Planet Birobidzhan and married the same sort of man as her mother had, she likely would have a house full of children and no personal life to speak of. 

In Moskve on Planet Shney, it was not so unusual for women to bear far fewer kinder than those that lived on Planet Birobidzhan. The women of Planet Shney were interested in other activities beyond breeding and raising children. The founders of Moskve were not so much under the sway of rabbis or religious doctrine as those of Planet Birobidzhan. They assuredly had no obsession with being fruitful and multiplying. The women that had arrived on the Hatikvah had broken free of many of the restraints of the world they had left behind.

The original settlers were the passengers of the retrofitted Hatikvah. Their flight transcended the void for nearly a decade before the eight hundred or so pioneers disembarked on Planet Shney. They were families, bound together on Planet Birobidzhan, gathered carefully by Dovid, chosen for their specific skills and with cohesion reinforced by common visions inspired by the Mushrooms of Planet Shney. 

The population of Planet Shney increased through childbirth at a very slow rate. The population growth of Planet Shney was mostly the result of new immigrants. However, when the first of the shuttle flights arrived twelve years after the Hatikvah, the passengers were disproportionately male. They were men who came to a new world seeking their fortunes. 

Any change to the demographics of immigration was dependent on Nes’ scheme. The proof of his plans was yet in the unseen mists of an uncertain future. A great distance hung between the planets and the time required to travel between the two worlds was far from inconsequential. Nes was confident that his associates on Planet Birobidzhan would follow his direction with a minimal amount of skimming from his investments. That faith did not make the waiting so many years for a return any less frustrating. 

It was a two year shlep before his plans would reach his confidants on the distant world. It might very well take some time and finesse for the incentivization actually resulting in a significant increase in female emigration from Planet Birobidzhan and then another two years shlep back to Planet Shney. In the meantime, only a trickling of wives arrived on Planet Shney to join their husbands that had preceded them. 

Month by month, each shuttle arrived, mostly filled with men on their way to Sibir to seek their fortunes. And, month by month, the gender imbalance on Planet Shney increased. This would have been immediately disruptive if the new immigrants had remained in Moskve. Most of the new immigrants, however, dispersed into the wilderness of Sabir. There, the menschen worked hard, mostly on their own, and consoled themselves with schnapps when they found that life difficult. This postponed the inevitable social crisis of demographics that was unfolding on Planet Shney. 

While there certainly wasn't much to do in Sibir besides work and drink, Moskve also had a dearth of entertaining distractions, even though it was the only shtot on Planet Shney at that time. Nes’ pool hall helped to fill that void. There were enough locals that came to play pool and enjoyed a hand or two of poker to macht a leben but the real gelt came from gold miners with their ore and trappers with their pelts, men that had been out in the harsh wilderness of Sabir for many long and lonely months. Schnapps and a fast spinning dreidl were very effective means of separating excess gelt from miners and trappers. 

Nes tried to keep his mind busy with his small gambling house, which proved itself profitable. He even had to hire on some help with the place, ostensibly so that he could spend more evenings with his wife and daughter. That really was his intention, but his restlessness and shloflozikayt were only temporarily contained. Before long, his nocturnal wanderings began once more. 

Here are the links to the rest of the story as posted so far:

1 - The Miracle of Vilna on Planet Shney 

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2025/01/the-miracle-of-vilna-on-planet-shney.htm

2 - Nes and Shprintza Freyda Spin the Dreidl on Planet Birobidzhan 

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2025/01/nes-and-shprintza-freyda-spin-dreidl-on.html?m=1

3 - From Shloflozikayt to the Vision of a Marvelous Shtot 

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2025/02/from-shloflozikayt-to-vision-of.html

4 - A Strategy for the Yeshiva Takes Shape and Nes Opens a Pool Hall on Planet Shney 

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2025/02/a-strategy-for-yeshiva-takes-shape-and.html

5 - With the Best Intentions, On a New World

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2025/02/with-best-intentions-on-new-world.html

A Strategy for the Yeshiva Takes Shape and Nes Opens a Pool Hall on Planet Shney

 

by Zvi Baranoff 

To establish any new shtot anywhere is a monumental task. To build a shtot in a remote and undeveloped region of the sparsely populated Planet Shney, centered around a prestigious religious learning center probably seemed to be a lunatic’s fantasy to many at first. It would have been inconceivable without the common vision that was inspired by encounters with the Mushrooms of Planet Birobidzhan. The inspirational visualizations alone, however, would have been insufficient for such a miracle. What brought the vision to fruition were the Talmudic wisdom of Baruch and Shmuli combined with the gambler's intuition that was Nes’ birthright. 

Baruch and Shmuli were chavrusa, lifelong study partners. They had brilliant minds and almost always approached any issues from an oppositional theological perspective. They argued about everything, drawing on the scriptures, the Talmud, and rabbinic traditions. Baruch and Shmuli framed any practical matter with an esoteric argument. This was exactly how Nes approached the design of his shtraymlekh, and the foundation of his marketing.

“Shimon the Righteous would say,” Baruch began to pontificate, "that on three things the world stands: on the Torah, on prayer, and on acts of kindness." 

Shmuli promptly countered, “Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel would say that on three things the world stands: on judgment, on truth, and on peace, as it is said 'Judge truth and the justice of peace in your gates.'"

The Great Sages, thought Nes, lived quite a long time ago and far away on the Home Planet. Perhaps that world stood differently than either Planet Birobidzhan or Planet Shney stand, he contemplated. If Nes were to distill his personal world to three essentials, to a three-legged stool on which to stand on, those legs would surely be enterprise, speculation, and the comforts found in a well maintained brothel. And, for now his world was deprived of all that he considered most essential. Nes kept such thoughts to himself, happily listening to Baruch and Shmuli arguing passionately over matters of no particular consequence. 

Nes’ spirit was warmed to be once again where Talmudic and Kabbalistic dialogue took place. This meeting turned out to be, indeed, the initiation of an enterprise that was surely the result of bashert und mazel. 

Rifka Leeba began her schooling the next day. Nes walked his daughter to her classroom every morning. Nes then sat in cloistered strategizing sessions with the school's two administrators over the following few weeks. His nocturnal wanderings ceased. His shloflozikayt had faded. He stayed home and slept through the night, much to Shprintza Freyda's temporary relief.

Soon surveyors were hired to determine the true nature of the valley that had only so far been seen in mushroom-induced visions. A hidden paradise with year round temperate weather and a hot spring was found, mapped, and photographed. 

After the survey was completed, an architect was engaged to design a spectacular yeshiva to fit the unique contour of the landscape. The architectural drawings were central to the pamphlets used to attract faculty and students from Planet Birobidzhan.

Letters were drafted to a wide array of rabbinic authorities on Planet Birobidzhan, offering employment at the barely imagined yeshiva as well as the cost of transportation and relocation for the rabbis and their families. Students were offered a full curriculum and extensive educational experience even as a faculty had yet to be hired and the construction on the campus was barely a thought. After all, it would be nearly two years before anyone on Planet Birobidzhan would know of the school and another two years beyond that before classes could conceivably begin. 

Two charitable funds were established. The first solicited donations for the construction of the campus. Baruch and Shmuli convinced most of the businesses of Moskve to place a pushke on their counters and donations began trickling in. 

It was immediately evident that fulfilling the dream to build a grand yeshiva and a surrounding metropolis necessitated a significant increase to the rate of migration from Planet Birobidzhan and that the gender demographics of immigration needed to be addressed as well. 

The second charity reached out primarily to the miners and trappers that worked for months at a time in the cold, desolate, and lonely region of Sabir. These men were urged to donate to a fund that would finance transportation for potential brides. Wives, it was presumed, would make their lives on Planet Shney considerably less lonely. Gold flowed in liberally to support that cause. Of course, Nes was able to use that gelt liberally, as he saw fit.

The method of trade between the two worlds was, if not quite moribund, certainly extremely complicated. Planet Shney exported furs, gold, and some other minerals to Planet Birobidzhan however imported little more than immigrants. The earliest of the shuttle flights were established as one way transportation for immigrants with the return flights utilized strictly for cargo. All of the ships were built on Planet Birobidzhan. 

The business end on Planet Birobidzhan resulted from an intricate balance of power. The Birobidzhan Pilots Association, operating as a guild or syndicate of sorts, designed, built, and maintained the shuttles and sold passage. They also oversaw warehousing and distribution of the imported goods. However, a significant percentage of the profits of the trade were earmarked for distribution between the stockholders and investors of the original Hatikvah expedition and the family members of those earliest emigrants that had remained behind on Planet Birobidzhan.

The paper Shekels of Planet Birobidzhan had little value and garnered mostly scorn on both planets, a currency of last resort. Much of the gold that was flowing to Planet Birobidzhan was now being minted into coinage, and the gold Shekels became the preferred currency there. However, gold is quite plentiful on Planet Shney and the coins certainly weren't returning and wouldn't have held much value if they had. So, trade remained awkward with much of Planet Shney profits tangled up in various holding companies and proxies on Planet Birobidzhan, as was Nes’ abstract wealth since he had emigrated. 

A creative workaround was needed and when one was devised, the logjam could be cleared. Nes put his mind to solving that riddle. In the meantime, with the help of his new business partners Baruch and Shmuli, he rented a property near the school where he could have a personal office. He installed two pool tables in the front of the building, and tables for poker in the back. The income from these diversions more than covered the cost of maintaining a private office. It soon became a healthy stream of income. 

A number of factors limited the immigration from Planet Birobidzhan to Planet Shney. Ship design determined the number of passengers and the scarcity of ships determined the number of flights. The ships were designed to be fast and efficient. Unfortunately, to increase the speed, the size was minimized. New designs of larger ships were certainly worth pursuing but the most immediate vector for increasing migration involved increasing the number of ships. 

The frequency of flights had been increasing over the years. By that point the ships were arriving monthly, up from every six weeks. Once a week flights were designated as an optimal goal. This particular logjam was clearly a matter that needed to be resolved on Planet Birobidzhan. The burden of the cost of transit rested entirely on the migrants themselves. The exorbitant fares were determined by business interests there and the prices have not decreased over the years. 

Nes determined a multi prong approach and empowered his proxies on Planet Birobidzhan to follow through in his interests. He realized that the filling of each flight required the selling of one hundred individual berths. Nes proposed that his associates charter the entire passage and negotiate a lower rate for buying in bulk and reducing the workload of marketing the bookings. He authorized them to offer passage with a small down-payment rather than the full fare at once. The balance could be covered with monthly payments directly to him on Planet Shney. Finally, he urged them to invest all of his profits from the fur trade into the operation.

Here are the links to the rest of the story as posted so far:

1 - The Miracle of Vilna on Planet Shney 

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2025/01/the-miracle-of-vilna-on-planet-shney.html

2 - Nes and Shprintza Freyda Spin the Dreidl on Planet Birobidzhan 

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2025/01/nes-and-shprintza-freyda-spin-dreidl-on.html?m=1

3 - From Shloflozikayt to the Vision of a Marvelous Shtot 

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2025/02/from-shloflozikayt-to-vision-of.html

4 - A Strategy for the Yeshiva Takes Shape and Nes Opens a Pool Hall on Planet Shney 

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2025/02/a-strategy-for-yeshiva-takes-shape-and.html

5 - With the Best Intentions, On a New World

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2025/02/with-best-intentions-on-new-world.html

From Shloflozikayt to the Vision of a Marvelous Shtot

by Zvi Baranoff 

When the family arrived on Planet Shney, they were met by Dovid and folded into the accepting arms of family and community. A nice furnished house was made available for them. Both Nes and Shprintza Freyda were optimistic, confident of their mazel und bashert. Nes had particularly high expectations that were bolstered by his monumental sense of self assuredness and entitlement. 

For Shprintza Freyda, the pleasure of living in Moskve grew daily. The cultural opportunities abounded and she adored living in a shtot. Shprintza Freyda loved the market, the theater, the cafe where she drank strong tea and played chess, the wonderful library, and her husband's extended family. 

Nes, on the other hand, could not help but think of Moskve as quite provincial, a shtot that was barely more than a shtetl. Beyond a generalized feeling of being trapped in a backwater, Nes faced unanticipated business concerns that played havoc with his confidence, leading it to unravel, nearly to the point of total dissipation. 

On Planet Birobidzhan, Nes had a monopoly on the fur business with nearly all of the furs available being made into expensive shtraymlekh. These hats he marketed to the rabbis planetwide and their most dedicated followers. The deep historic conflicts and competition between the various rabbinic dynasties were a driving force for sales. The shtrayml designs each reflected philosophical, ideological, and Halachic positions to be promoted and manyYidden wore a shtrayml like uniforms or considered these expensive fur hats to be a battle flag of sorts. There are many competitive rabbis and lots of shuls throughout that world and Nes had traveled extensively and shmoozed in the rabbinic homes worldwide, engaged in stimulating Kabbalistic and Halachic conversations, and sold lots of hats. 

Planet Shney had no such web of competing religious authorities. In those early years of settling Planet Shney, there were only two shuls, the Niu Yark Shul and the Niu Yerushalaim Shul. Both shuls were in Moskve, which was the only shtot planetwide. The only other places where Yidden lived were tiny mining outposts that could barely be considered shtetls, scattered widely in the Sibir region. There were insufficient grounds for religious rivalry nor sufficient numbers of committed true believers to build a customer base for shtraymlekh. Besides that, furs were plentiful and everyone already owned a fur hat or two, although generally more utilitarian than the fancy shtraymlekh that Nes created. Therefore, for Nes, no stimulating esoteric conversations and few hats actually sold. 

The business quandary that Nes faced however, involved matters beyond Moskve or Planet Shney. Before leaving Planet Birobidzhan, Nes entrusted his business interests there into the hands of loyal employees. He expected a steady income flow from the enterprise he built on the world of his birth. A few months after arriving on Planet Shney, Nes learned just how complicated business transactions between the two planets really are. 

Since he departed Planet Birobidzhan, it seems that expenses went up significantly and profits plummeted, according to the regular reports he received on each incoming shuttle flight. Adding a further wrinkle to his calculations, the profits earned on Planet Birobidzhan were secured in trusts that were far more easily redeemed there than on Planet Shney. His nest egg grew but was largely inaccessible. 

Nes fell into a funk. Nes suffered with shloflozikayt, a pervasive sleeplessness without reprieve. He would go to bed at night with his wife but while she slept, he would fidget until he climbed out of bed, dressed, and headed out of the house. 

Nes wandered the dark and empty nighttime streets of Moskve, often humming a nigun. His fruitless persistent searching through the darkened Moskve neighborhoods brought him no relief. There wasn't a single pool hall or gambling den to be found in Moskve and there wasn't a real bordello on the entire planet. The layers of wool and furs protected him from the cold, but did not warm his restless heart or comfort his soul. The still unfamiliar stars and bright moons of Planet Shney seemed uncaring nearly to the point of mocking his situation.

It was on one such night, as Nes was walking in the wooded outskirts of Moskve, that he came upon mushrooms growing in a circle, the ones we know of as the Mushrooms of Planet Birobidzhan. Although there was only a sliver of a moon visible and clouds obscuring much of the sky, the mushrooms shimmered and glowed. Nes heard a humming, much like a nigun drawing him to the mushrooms. When he stepped inside the circle, one mushroom spoke directly to Nes in a voice that he alone could hear, directing him to eat of its flesh. Nes uttered a barucha and took a bite of the mushroom.

A most uncharacteristic calm came over Nes, a quietness like none that he had ever known. He sat comfortably on the hard cold ground. A stillness enveloped him. That dark night, Nes saw a hand stretching before him holding a scroll. The scroll unfurled before him, the calligraphed letters sparkling. A voice that wasn't a voice spoke directly to his inner being. "Son of Man”, it said, “open your mouth and eat what is offered. Son of Man, feed your stomach and fill your belly with the scroll that I give you." 

Nes sat spellbound as he watched galaxies unfold before his eyes at a fast pace. The images were dizzying. Then, as if a curtain had been lifted, he saw Planet Shney as if from the back of a great soaring bird. First he was shown the broad region of Sabir, the mostly frozen high plains and forested mountains to the northeast of Moskve and the scattered mining shtetls. Then, he was presented with a view to the south and west of the somewhat more temperate but still undeveloped region known as Eyropa. The perspective settled on a hilltop and he looked into the valley below, where a spring burbled surrounded by palm trees, a warm oasis on the otherwise cold world. In phases like stop-gap photography a shtot grew in that valley, as Nes watched. 

Hours passed and the edge of the sky was beginning to lighten when Nes was once again aware of his presence, sitting on the ground within a circle of mushrooms on the outer edge of Moskve on Planet Shney. The roosters of Moskve had already begun davening their version of Shacharis, the persistent kukuriku call and response that declares the coming sunrise. Nes was cold and his legs were stiff. He stretched and rubbed himself before standing and walking home. Nes slipped into bed beside his sleeping wife and managed an hour or so of deep rest before morning began in earnest. 

It was a few days later that Nes went to the school operated by Reb Baruch and Reb Shmuli. He was there to enroll his daughter, Rifka Leeba. When Nes entered the school office, he was drawn to a marvelous three-dimensional map that was on display there, almost forgetting the intended purpose of his visit. 

Baruch and Shmuli had arrived on the first of the shuttle flights after the original settlement of Planet Shney by the pioneering passengers of the Hatikvah. Baruch and Shmuli had been yeshiva students and then teachers on Planet Birobidzhan in the Seaside Mea Shearim neighborhood of Niu Niu Yark. They were guardedly independent rabbis. Their school was located on a prominent Moskve street purposefully halfway between the Niu Yark Shul and the Niu Yerushalaim Shul. Nearly all of the children of Moskve attended this school. 

Most of the immigrant passengers on the shuttles came with the intention of seeking wealth mining or trapping in Sabir, so were predominantly men. The few women were wives accompanying their husbands or traveling in order to join a husband that preceded them to Planet Shney. Baruch and Shmuli were the only rabbis to arrive on that first flight. The subsequent shuttles that arrived at approximately six week intervals, each with one hundred passengers, included very few rabbis. 

Besides founding the school, Baruch and Shmuli established a business that sold basic supplies for miners and trappers, including extensively detailed maps. They also contracted supplies of lumber for builders and operated as a real estate agency as well. 

Upon entering that office, Nes stared at the raised-relief map for a minute before speaking. Then, he pointed to a particular valley and said, “There is a hot spring here and an oasis.” Both Baruch and Shmuli nodded. “And someday there will be a marvelous shtot there,” Nes continued. 

“You have seen this as well!” Shmuli replied. All three men shared an awareness. Bashert was that these three together were set to dramatically alter the path of development of Planet Shney. 

Here are the links to the rest of the story as posted so far:

1 - The Miracle of Vilna on Planet Shney 

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2025/01/the-miracle-of-vilna-on-planet-shney.html

2 - Nes and Shprintza Freyda Spin the Dreidl on Planet Birobidzhan 

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2025/01/nes-and-shprintza-freyda-spin-dreidl-on.html?m=1

3 - From Shloflozikayt to the Vision of a Marvelous Shtot 

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2025/02/from-shloflozikayt-to-vision-of.html

4 - A Strategy for the Yeshiva Takes Shape and Nes Opens a Pool Hall on Planet Shney 

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2025/02/a-strategy-for-yeshiva-takes-shape-and.html

5 - With the Best Intentions, On a New World

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2025/02/with-best-intentions-on-new-world.html