But Jonas Elijah Klapper had. He did not reveal, not even to Reb Chaim, the full extent of what had been received in the Rebbe’s remains. He had been awakened to a knowledge that he had always held within him, nestled inside like something rare and precious, now delivered into the conscious Self that had been prepared for its reception.
It had concerned food, since that, after all, at its simplest level, is what the ritual of shirayim concerns. Here, too, the soul of Jonas was in a state of heightened preparation. It had been given to him to experience the profounder intimations of food since his earliest childhood. At three years of age, he had devised his two-fork method, one in each hand, so that he would not have to wait between mouthfuls. Sometimes his mother made a dish-her Friday-night chicken fricassee with dumplings, her brisket braised with potatoes, her calf liver fried with onions-that moved him to a hedonic delirium far beyond the carnal.
The most exquisite of these experiences had been afforded by her chicken soup-always suffused with emanations of the divine, but most especially when it came blessed with what she called fleishig eier, or “meat eggs.” This was a delicacy as indescribable as it was rare, dependent as it was upon circumstances beyond anyone’s control.
His mother purchased her slaughtered chickens from the poultry market on Essex Street. She would then have to open and eviscerate them, soak and salt them, in accordance with the laws of kashrut (taboos he had discarded, with the exception of that relating to the flesh of the pig). The fleishig eier were the unlaid eggs, clustered in varying stages of immaturity and circumference, that his mother would sometimes find nestled within an old laying hen. They were called fleishig eier because the rabbis had ruled that they belong to the meat category (a logical decision, since they were still a part of the chicken) and thus were immiscible with dairy. His sainted mother would put the fleishig eier in her chicken soup, and they would be served to Jonas alone, placed reverentially before him by one of his sisters. They were orbs of pale yellow, all yolk, their texture denser and firmer than that of matured yolks, and with a concentrated flavor that held suggestions of an otherworldly sweetness.
The rituals prevailing over the Rebbe’s tish harked back to the rites of the High Priest Aharon making his offerings on the altar, which had been described in such an abundance of detail in the Torah portion fated to be read the very Shabbes of Jonas’s visit to New Walden, when the Valdener Rebbe had explained the secret meaning of the aysh zarah, the strange fire, that the sons of the High Priest had introduced, immolating themselves to the cosmic agenda. None of the allusions had been lost on Jonas. He had, at long last, received (the very meaning of the term “Qabalah”) a complete and clarified understanding of (among other receptions) a truth he had always instinctively known-to wit, that the appetitive soul is emphatically not the unrefinable sensibility that the pagan thinkers, through either ignorance or cunning deception, had described. Intelligence operating through longing-orektikos nous-or longing operating through thought-orexis dianoetike -has always been essential to the spiritual and intellectual exertions that alone can redeem.
Jonas was brought back, with a start, to the student sitting inches away from him in his office. He had a task for him. He wished the student to explore the full implications of the traditional Jewish menu. Each of the traditional dishes had symbolic significance: gefilte fish, the balls of ground pike or carp simmered in broth; blintzes, stuffed pancakes; kishke, a sausage made by stuffing a cow’s intestines with a filling of carrots, onions, and matzo meal; farfel, a kind of pasta; tzimmes, a sweet stew made with carrots, sweet potatoes, and prunes; cholent, the Sabbath stew of beans and potato, a bit of beef if one was well-to-do, put into a low oven before sundown on Friday and served hot on Saturday for lunch; luckshen, or noodles; and, of course, kugel, the sacred pudding.
“All of the dishes have Qabalist significance, which must be why, as I have finally come to understand, a Jewish high cuisine never developed. If nothing can, hermeneutically speaking, exceed the potato kugel, then there can be little point in culinary refinement. The refinements are of an entirely different order.”
Professor Klapper reached into the chaos reigning on the surface of his desk and pulled out a book. He opened it to a page that had been marked, pulled his bifocals down from the top of his head, bringing tufts of hair down along with them, and read from the Yiddish, looking up at Cass, when he had finished, in a quizzical fashion.
“Is this not extraordinary?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t understand it.”
“What?”
“I don’t understand Yiddish.”
“Indeed.” The professor examined him closely over the top of his glasses, his chin ruffling out against his shirt front. “Is that not unusual for someone of your background?”
“We’re fallen-away Valdeners, my mother and I. My father doesn’t come from that background at all.”
“In any case, with your privileged pedigree, it should not be difficult for you to assimilate the mama lashon, the mother tongue, with winged speed. In the interim, I shall translate. ‘The tzaddikim, or righteous ones, proclaimed that there are profound matters enfolded in the kugel. For this reason they insisted that every Jew must eat the Shabbes kugel. Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Rimanov recalled that once, when he went out for a walk with the holy rabbi of Ropshitz, all that they talked about for three hours were the secrets that lie hidden inside the Shabbes kugel.’”
He gave Reb Chaim a meaningful gaze and then pulled another book out of the pile on his desk, found the place he had marked, and read:
“‘Reb Itzikel of Pshevorsk taught that there is a special chamber in paradise in which the particular reward for eating kugel on the Shabbes is granted. Even he who has eaten kugel out of low physical desire will receive his reward.’”
Jonas closed the book, at the same time closing his eyes and sighing, sinking into reflection. Suddenly he roused himself with a start, eyelids snapping open like a window shade out of control.
“All of these primary sources, I am certain you will be delighted to learn, Reb Chaim, have been recommended to me by your sanctified relation, the Sage of the Palisades. There is a treasure trove more. Here is one by Rabbi Aaron Roth, of Jerusalem, which leaves no doubt concerning the covenantal significance of the kugel. ‘Kugel is the one special food that all Jews eat, one food in the service of the one God, so that anyone who does not eat kugel on the Shabbes in this country should be investigated for heresy.’”
He placed the book down on his pile, as always making certain to keep the space around the framed picture of Hannah Klepfish cleared.
“You can see the direction in which I am going here.” Again he stared at Cass over his bifocals, the high dome of his forehead corrugated with the inquisitorial ascent of his brows.