Fathers, sons and puppets

By TED ROBERTS, the SCRIBBLER ON THE ROOF

Saturday a.m. in shul. Only 9:30 and already my eyes were tired. I rested them for a minute and thought of Yossi the puppet-maker. Surely, you could say with accuracy that Jewish puppet-makers are a rare breed. You could further say, of these few, that none entered the profession via the twisted path of Yossi of Zolno.

Yossi was a fervent student of a Chasid who lived in the nearby forest. Earlier, before he encountered the holy man of the woods, he had been a carpenter – a lonely carpenter because his wife had left years ago with their only son. A son he loved more than the wife; more than life itself. His spirit collapsed with the wife, his son in hand, fled down the dirt road to Cracow. So, a world of consolation to him was his shed beside the house, where the deserted carpenter planed and sawed and nailed together beds or bookcases or cabinets. Then he met the Chasid who illuminated his life.

It was shortly after his life was transfigured that the carpenter, one night, found himself woodworking, and as usual, grieving over his lost son. Surprisingly, from his inspired hands, instead of a bookcase came the wooden replica of a boy. A boy who looked remarkably like the son he had lost.

Yossi was alarmed. In a fit of loneliness and love he accused himself of making a graven image. He ran to the woods to find his Chasid, who was sitting under his favorite Oak tree talking to his followers – but his eyes often wandered to the squirrels scampering up the giant tree and the blue jays chattering in its branches. To him they talked of the Creator and his presence.

The carpenter burst suddenly into the small group of men and excitedly told his mentor what he had done. Had he created an idol? Where was this discussed in the Holy Texts?

“Much is unknown,” said his teacher. “Who knows how or why HE puts star maps in the heads of the migrating swallows? How does the vine find and grip the trellis? How does the speck of an apple seed eventually provide shelter and fruit? Much is unknown.”

But the carpenter continued lamenting his wooden creation. How ashamed he was. His piety had somehow resulted in this sacrilege. The holy man listened carefully to the puppet maker’s distress.

“The heart full of G-d can do no wrong,” he said calmly. “Finish your wooden child. With it, amuse and instruct the children of the District.”

Like a colt in Spring, the newly created puppeteer ran all the way home. Straight to the shed he flew to the half-finished, wooden boy. By morning, in a fury of carving and hammering, he had the completed puppet. From the tips of his shoes to the yarmulke that crowned his head he was complete. Oh his face was the dimly remembered smile of his son. Once more Yossi returned to the woods – to his teacher. “I am ready – and more importantly – Yakov is ready. But what shall I teach the children?”

“Make them laugh,” he replied. “And as they laugh, tell them that G-d is everywhere; in the honeybee and in the Torah. Tell them joy and goodness, as well as Torah study, brings laughter from G-d.”

So with this simple message the follower of the holy man of the forest set off on the roads of the District. In his cart were Yakov and a carpetbag with a change of clothes. It was a 20-year journey. With the aid of Yakov, he taught joy and goodness.

Many years later the puppeteer, now known throughout the district as the foremost teacher of the Chasid’s philosophy, returned to his native woods. And there under the tree was his teacher still gazing at the blue jays, with the same old wonder in his eyes. The puppeteer, with Yakov under his arm, stood silent for a moment. “If this were a fable,” said the man who was beloved by the children of the district, “G-d would make a miracle. I would wake one fine May morning and Yakov would say, ‘Good morning my papa, what road shall we take today?’ He would be flesh and blood like his brother who was taken from me many years ago.”

“But the miracle is already made,” said the Chasid, “and miraculously it has violated none of nature’s laws, because Yakov IS real to every child in the pale. G-d has not intervened so dramatically in the definition of love and inanimate since Bible times. Since the body of Lot’s wife went to stone. But now, to make wood into flesh? Never. All miracles,” said the man of the woods, “were planned by the Creator on the scroll of time that first dusk before the first Shabbos. All miracles were pre-ordained, even the return of Spring. And I’m sorry, my friend, but the rendering of wood into flesh of Adam was not recorded.”

The puppeteer nodded and carefully cradling Yakov, backed slowly away from his Rebbe. There before him lay the crossroads that passed through the district. He looked thoughtfully down each road. But as he paused, there was a stirring beneath his arm. “Good morning, my papa. What road shall we take today?” said Yakov with a wink of his right eye.

Then I woke up, just in time to join the congregation in the singing of Adon Olam.