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
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