Herbst wiped his eyes and his forehead. Then he turned onto Hasollel Street. He came to the offices of the Palestine Post at the head of the street and scanned the newspaper in the display case on the wall, making an effort to avoid the bad news, such as reports of those distressing events known as “riots” that were occurring at the time. He heard the noise of the printing press, which was on the ground floor of the building, duplicating the news. Herbst stood there, his eyes tightly clenched, listening with his feet. He was straining to remember something, but he didn’t know what. He found himself at the window of Bamberger and Wahrmann, the bookstore, where he saw Samuel Karweiss’s book on the history of the Jews in Byzantium and remembered that it had been recommended to him several days earlier. In fact, this is what he had been trying to remember. But he didn’t linger, because he was eager to be the first one to get to see those German classics, and he had wasted too much time on the boy and his story, which wasn’t worth hearing after all, even had he been at leisure, and all the more so when he was in a hurry. At that moment, the barber was stationed outside of his shop, waiting for someone to appear for a haircut or a chat. The barber saw Herbst and said to him, “I see, Dr. Herbst, that you’re in a hurry. You probably don’t want to be detained. Still, it occurs to me to tell you something that pertains to delay. I ask that you listen, not on my behalf, but on behalf of the man who is credited with these remarks. I don’t know if you were already here when Balfour came to this country to celebrate the founding of the university. I don’t imagine you were here yet. The English weren’t allowing Jews from Germany to come in, because they were too German. This doesn’t affect the story itself. As you can imagine, I would have liked to see Balfour; not merely to see him, but to be near him, on the great day of the opening of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. I wasn’t among the guests. Even in my dreams, I didn’t see a way to get a ticket. But how could I give up? I said, ‘It would be enough for someone like me to stand in proximity to Balfour, who was granted what no king or nobleman since Cyrus was granted. If not in proximity, then in the same territory.’ I put on my best clothes and was ready to go. I say ‘to go’ when I should say ‘to run.’ If someone had come and said, ‘Bernhardt, would you like a mule to ride on?’ I would have given him the very shirt off my back right after the celebration. No such person appeared. But my neighbor did appear, a Breslover Hasid, God-fearing, happy, and innocent. I love all Jews, especially the Hasidim of Breslov, whose manner is so pious, and most of all my neighbor the Hasid, for the very fringes of his coat trail good conduct and righteous ways, not to mention what comes out of his mouth. At any time, on any occasion, for any event, he has a phrase of his rebbe’s to offer, or some other pleasantry. Every person has his moment, but not every moment is equivalent for all people. I told him, ‘I can’t stop now, not even for one breath.’ He smiled, a bewildered smile, and said, ‘What’s the hurry?’ I knew that if I told him I was running to see Balfour, he, in his great innocence, would not be able to grasp the importance of the event. I told him I was going on a trip and was in a rush. He smiled broadly, rubbed his hands together, and said, ‘You’re going on a trip. Then let me tell you something relevant. Our holy rebbe, may his merit protect us, used to say that when someone is going on a trip, no one should interfere; he should be allowed to fix his attention on it, lest he forget something.’ Now you tell me, Dr. Herbst, wasn’t it worth your while to linger for the sake of that pronouncement?”
As it happened, after he took leave of the barber, it happened that he was needlessly delayed once again. How did this come about? I won’t refrain from telling all about it, though it compounds the delay.
For about half a generation, most of Jerusalem’s porters have had their headquarters on Hasollel Street, because most of the stores and businesses in the city are located on Jaffa Road. Hasollel Street cuts into the center of Jaffa Road, which is why the porters chose Hasollel. When they are needed to transport something, they are accessible.
Here they are, our redeemed brethren from Persia and its environs. The younger ones sit at the upper end of the street, the old-timers at the lower end, a scheme that predates the houses and the road, going back to a time when the entire street, as well as the section of Jaffa Road that faces Nahlat Shiva, was a heap of rubble, and it didn’t occur to anyone that houses would be built there and stores would open. The older men sit cross-legged, with colorful turbans on their heads. Their beards are black, with a glint of silver that inspires respect. Their trousers are floppy; their waists are girdled with heavy ropes; and on their backs is a small pillow. Their faces are like the face of some ancient king. On any given workday, they are there, many or a few, depending on the volume of business in town. And they offer their backs — lovingly, willingly, happily, skillfully, in heat, chill, rain, wind — to carry any burden. No load is too heavy, even if it has to be transported from one end of Jerusalem to the other. Why did our brethren from Persia elect this particular line of work? Because they derive from the tribe of Dan, and it was the Danites who carried Micah’s idol on their shoulders and worshiped it, though God’s house was in Shiloh. David, king of Israel, and his son Solomon rooted out the idol, but only temporarily, for the people continued to transgress and behave corruptly until the first exile. Now that the era of Israel’s redemption has arrived, and David’s son, the Messiah, will not appear until all the exiles are gathered together in Jerusalem, our people pour in from all over. They have come too, ready to shoulder any burden, because of the sins of their fathers, who were weighted down with idolatry until the first exile. Now that they do their job lovingly and willingly, they are hastening the final redemption.
Our brethren, who are the porters in Jerusalem, take on any load, yet they themselves are totally self-effacing when they work. You find a large oak chest with three heavy doors, the sort of chest one uses for clothes and linens, ambling from yard to yard, from alley to alley, from street to street, neighborhood to neighborhood. Its three mirrors are smiling. All this is unnatural, for the chest is made of wood and glass, both of which are inanimate. How is it possible for a lifeless and inanimate object to amble from place to place? If you look very, very carefully, you see that the chest is balanced on someone’s back, that a man is under the chest, transporting it, that he is bowed by its weight and effaced because he is so small in proportion to this mammoth object. This is also true of barrels, lumber, rocks, and other movable goods that are several times broader and larger than a person. When a porter has no work, he sits among his ropes. If he is a contemplative sort, he begins to contemplate, taking delight in his wife, his sons, his daughters, his home and sleeping mat, the foods and beverages that give strength to those who eat and life to those who drink. And if, because of sins, the Angel of Death should take charge and bring on untimely death to someone, he has the good sense to deal with the orphans and raise them, so they don’t fall into the clutches of secularists who would steer them away from the laws that express the will of our holy Torah, which was brought down from God by our teacher Moses, peace be unto him, with thunder and lightning, at Mount Sinai. When these thoughts begin to spill over, he shares them with a neighbor. Not everything that is on your mind can be conveyed. We can convey some of our thoughts, and, because the subject is timely, we can discuss the Arabs — how misguided they are to be making trouble, for they, too, are in exile under English rule. As for us, our king, the Messiah, is on the way, and every single one of us will rule one hundred and twenty-seven realms, like old Ahasuerus. As for the Arabs, if one of them is ever king, he will be a minor king, enthroned by us, by our Herbert Samuel, who called in Abdullah and told him, “I’m giving you a thousand pounds a year to rule the Bedouin in the desert. Be clever and crafty, so Weissman, the head of the Zionists, has no pretext to cast you out and overthrow your kingdom.” Among these porters, there are those whose minds reach no further than their eyes can see. They reflect on the Ashkenazim, who spend their days running around in an agitated state, trading apartments, trading possessions, casual with money, as if it showers down from heaven, many of them as cruel as the idols Gentiles worship. If a porter asks two or three pennies more than what was agreed, the Ashkenazim roll their eyes in anger, curse, and abuse him as if his offense were on the scale of the golden calf. The porters’ leader, Moshe, is unique. He knows how to get along with all the Ashkenazim. With a smile on his lips, a hand on his heart, he can deal with them. Even those who come from the land of Hitler, that depraved son of a she-devil — they also seek out Moshe.