A day in Regensburg [excerpt], 2019
author: Joseph Opatoshu
source date: 1933
language: eng
availability: With friendly permission of Friedrich Pustet publishing house

The heavy doors of the synagogue, the Schul, forged and studded with iron stars of David, stood wide open. Cool air flowed from the depths, settling over the paved entrance, where pigeons strolled around, swaying back and forth on their thin, red feet and cooing.

Old Jekil stood at the lectern, having already handed over his duties as Schames, synagogue servant, to his son. His dull face was wrinkled, sunken, marked by age. His white beard, knotted and matted, grew down to his sideburns and eyebrows, as if someone had placed a wreath of garlic around his face.

He looked at the red carpet spread between the lectern and the Torah shrine, gazed at the decorated hanging and wall chandeliers, the polished seats, the freshly painted walls decorated with deers, musical instruments, and inscriptions from the Book of Psalms.

Old Shames saw with satisfaction that the Torah curtain and mantle had been aired and that there was not a speck of dust to be found in the synagogue's prayer room. He pursed his lips and wrinkled his nose as if he were about to sneeze, and said in a young voice to his son:

"Praise His name, when will there be another wedding like this—only once in a lifetime! They say that Schmuel Belasser, our rich, righteous man, has already made arrangements to become related by marriage to another very rich man, namely Eliohu Margolis from Worms. Listen to what I have to say, Berl!"

“I'm listening, Father,” the son adjusted his hat, which looked like a bell with a tassel, and trimmed the wicks of the burnt-down tallow candles.

"How does the saying go, Berl? Words are one thing, deeds another," the Schames pulled at his knee-length trousers, which were tucked into long woolen socks, "for you should know that our Regensburg congregation and the congregation of Worms are the leading ones in Ashkenaz. They are respected communities with tradition, which in recent years have not been on good terms with each other. Now, Berl, peace must be made – Regensburg is becoming related to Worms. Believe me, it will be a celebration with great fanfare. It is said that Prague jugglers will come to the wedding, and our good Lejb from Regensburg has been preparing for the wedding since Passover. He is preparing something ‘to sing and say'. It's a wonder that there is no sign of the beggars yet. It is precisely those who live godlessly who are the first to set off and the first to arrive at the festival."

Berl, thin and frail, stretched, became cheerful, and his blond, sparse beard bristled with pride like the trimmed tail feathers of a rooster about to crow. "Is it true, Father, that Schmuel Belasser paid ten thousand Reichstaler even before the wedding?" “He could have paid twenty thousand!” His father's fingers, bent like pincers, came within a hair's breadth of catching Berl's pointed beard.

Father and son stood there for a while with their heads raised, a twinkle in their eyes and a smile on their beards.

Old Jekil looked at the colorful panes above the Torah shrine. Sunbeams flared and refracted, becoming one with the cheerful chirping of sparrows that echoed into the empty corners of the synagogue. As a boy, Jekil had believed that through the flowered panes, which sat deep above the Holy of Holies, the cantor's prayers rose straight up to heaven. And could anyone deny that this was so?

The old man walked slowly to the exit.

In the vestibule, which was dark and cool like a cellar, stood a copper washbasin, bulbous and dented. Around the spouts and taps, where Jews had been dipping their fingers for centuries, the copper was worn and rubbed away.

Out of habit, the old Schames ran his hands over the damp copper, and his lips began to murmur. For Jekil, the washbasin was not a damaged vessel. There, by the worn spouts, he saw them all: people, families, houses. The house “Zur Krone”, “Zum Weißen Hirschen”, “Zur Sonne” , the house where the sign with the black bear still hangs, the green door, the red door, the fountain - the whole of Regensburg with the synagogue forecourt, the Judengasse, the cemetery on the hill - all of this suddenly came to life in the Schames, waiting for him outside where the sun was shining, all of this assured him that the seventy years – Jekil's seventy years – had not been in vain. His years lived on in the synagogue, in the washbasin here in the vestibule, in the house “Zum Goldenen Löwen” where Jekil lived, in every piece of household goods, even in the sand under his feet.

The Schames went out into the courtyard. His weak ears could barely make out the melody coming from the yeshiva, the talmud school located near the synagogue. He sat down on the bench where his six-year-old grandson, a barefoot boy, was basking in the sun.

“What are you doing here, Daniel?” The Schames opened the stand-up collar of his short, gathered frock coat, which reached down to his navel. “Aren't you going back to class?” “The teacher sent us home,” the grandson slid closer to his grandfather, "there's no learning today, we're having a wedding today."

“You're right, you're right,” the grandfather hugged the sixyear-old boy close.

The day was blue and golden.

The glistening sun stood high in the sky, devouring every little cloud. The synagogue with its vaulted roof, with its rough stone walls crumbling with age, was streaked with silver and gold veins. Everything pushed toward the sky, warming itself, every hiding place, every crevice opened, and above the synagogue dome, in the clear air, the spires of St. Emmeram's church shimmered.