Reb Zishe’s Chair

[Memoir]

He was an old, very old man. We never knew his true age, but to our young perceptions he was ancient and that was all that mattered. We could hear, perhaps just imagine, his bones and joints creaking as he walked slowly into the classroom every morning, hunched over, his head swiveling from side to side, walking stick firmly planted on the worn linoleum. The fear of God and his servant was back in us. Reb Zishe was in the house.

In the many years of attending cheider, I had many rebbes – or melamdim, to use the Hebrew word. I could tell you about Reb Burich, a kind, pleasant melamed who undressed us in the foyer of the classroom to search our six-year old bodies for a purportedly stolen watch. Or perhaps I could regale you with stories of Reb Duvid, a pot-bellied bundle of energy who filled our 5-year-old mouths with dishwashing soap if so much as the word “meshiga” was uttered. But what can I tell you, dear readers, it is Reb Zishe and all that was good and bad about him that I remember most. Reb Zishe may not have been as elaborate as Reb Shmiel, who instituted a system of servitude throughout our classroom, nor as brutal as Reb Shimon, who once, according to a class count, slapped an eleven-year-old boy one hundred twenty-seven times in a four-minute timespan; still, it is Reb Zishe who remains most steadfastly memorable in his own plodding and unintended way.

Mornings ran like clockwork. We filed into the large classroom, stored our recess and lunch snacks in little cubbyholes that lined the wall beside the door, retrieved our siddurim and, chatting noisily, we sat and waited for the arrival of Reb Zishe. There were thirty of us, but the moment a pair of wizened eyes above a permanently yellow-grey beard peeked into the classroom, a hush was upon us.

Reb Zishe shuffled in. He was only a few inches more than five feet tall, and wore black thick-soled orthopedic shoes that took decisive but contemplating steps along with the worn, wooden walking stick that he hung on the wooden cubbyholes as the door closed behind him. Reb Zishe wore a long, black coat well into the Fall and his traditionally shaped shtufen hat was legendary amongst the students.

Tradition – what Reb Zishe would undoubtedly call common sense fin der heim – permeated daily life in our classroom. A shtufen hat, featuring a deep well with a firm, well-defined circumference of a top, rested more firmly atop the cubbyholes than the newer styled shallow-top hats the younger crowds preferred. As I said, common sense. Ah, those cubbyholes! I may not remember all the details of that kiteh gimel classroom, but those cubbyholes are not easy to forget; for it is to the top of those cubbyholes that Reb Zishe banished Yoselle the Troublemaker after a particularly memorable incident. I will, however, leave the tale of that injustice for another time. For our present tale, I need to familiarize you a little more with the daily life of Reb Zishe’s classroom.

As I was saying, Reb Zishe was all about traditional common sense. If a child stuttered, Reb Zishe declared that student to have been afflicted with “heise pahtehtes” in his mouth. To ward off those hot potatoes, Reb Zishe fed the patient two large tablespoons of bee honey from a special jar he kept in his cabinet for stutterers, coughers, runny noses, and a variety of other maladies. In a similar vein, while most Rebbes took their coffee from a coffeemaker down the hallway, Reb Zishe, ever the simple man, cooked a pot of water on a portable electric stove in the classroom while we chanted Shachris. One morning the electric stove shorted and threw flames and smoke, and Reb Zishe accused Yoely Rozenvasser, one of the class “bums”, of causing the stove to fail by not praying well enough and punished him with having to stand in the corner of the classroom until lunchtime. You should realize that the class essentially ran on a caste system, and the “bums” were naturally on the lower rungs and were easy sacrificial pickings.

Soon after Reb Zishe walked in every morning and started us along on our prayers, out from the cabinet came the electric stove, coffee grounds, an old, sticky mug, a container of soft butter and some eating utensils, all carefully arranged on Reb Zishe’s breakfast table at the back of the classroom. Along with the coffee, there was thickly-buttered fresh rye bread. I don’t remember if Reb Zishe liked to take eggs or tuna with his bread, but I do remember the lip smacking. As we chanted Asher Yutzahr and V’haarev, we all ached for a piece of that bread as Reb Zishe lovingly smacked the rye about with his wrinkled lips and false teeth. And it was not uncommon for one of us to fall into a trance wishing for some fresh rye bread, only to be awakened by a hearty, buttered slap on the cheek.

And so Shachris went along. Burich Sheumar whizzed by, Yishtabach was a good stretch for the legs, all building to the climax that was Shmoine Esreh in Reb Zishe’s class. Standing firmly upright, eyes planted on our siddurim, we took turns reciting aloud the eighteen blessings, and this was where the real morning entertainment lay. This was where the stutterers and gigglers were discovered and dispatched with honey and buttery slaps; this was when the shy ones were too quiet and the overconfident ones too fast. Reb Zishe, who, come to think of it, seemed to only respect the Yang of the Yin-Yang model, defined the malady of talking too fast as a disease of “heise lukshen,” and for a cure Reb Zishe simply attempted manual removal of said hot lukshen with some precise slaps to the cheeks. The shy ones, however, were tougher to heal, and that is why I still remember the incident with Berel.

Berel was an all-around okay kid, and he had a curious mix of shyness and intermittent but incredible stubbornness. There did not seem to be a rhyme or reason for why Berel would suddenly refuse an order from Reb Zishe. Sometimes it happened during the chanting of Asher Yutzar in unison, when Berel would refuse to chant louder despite exhortations from Reb Zishe’s palms, and every now and then Berel refused to provide his jacket for Reb Zishe to sleep on during his lunchtime nap. But more often than not, Berel’s stand would take place during the recital of the Shmoine Esreh. Whether it was at Slach Luni or at Modim, the smooth train of recitals screeched to a halt when it came Berel’s turn to recite. After a few seconds of hushed expectation, Berel usually did his part, if hesitatingly so; but every so often, perhaps once every two or three weeks, Berel remained quiet.

I recall with shame and regret that the rest of us looked forward to Berel’s quiet moments for the change of pace it provided in an otherwise monotonous morning. So when Berel went quiet and the smacking lips and mashed, buttered rye bread were all the louder from the back of the room, the anticipation was palpable as we heard Reb Zishe’s chair slide back and watched him shuffle and plod his way to Berel’s desk. We kept our heads trained on the siddurim and observed the proceedings from the corners of our eyes.

Now, I have been telling you about Reb Zishe’s simple approach to things like coffee, the shape of his hat, and his diet. But my dear readers, you should know that when it came to administering justice Reb Zishe spared no effort. His old brain may not have been suited to use the modern coffeepot in the Rebbes’ room, but when it was time for judgment and its application, when it was time for prahken and petch, Reb Zishe could have bested Kafka at The Penal Colony.

Reb Zishe the simple man could have done the deed by having Berel lean over his desk, as most other Rebbes did. On a bad day, he could have even followed Reb Zurich’s example and pulled up on the offending boy’s pants so the spanks would not get softened by the wrinkles in a boy’s corduroy pants, with the added bonus of giving the boy a wedgie. But this was not to be, for Reb Zishe had bested Reb Zurich, Reb Shimon, and all the other Rebbes by solving the most vexing problem these shleygers had with as simple a device as a classroom chair.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that young boys, even young chasidishe boys, do not like to get hurt. And so whether it is by way of evolution or the design of an almighty deity, we would instinctively squirm, pull away, or try to protect ourselves with our arms when the petch and prahken began to rain down upon us. Some Rebbes solved this problem by steadying the boy’s hand, face, or buttocks with one hand, flailing away with the free hand, while others used the threat of an extended and more brutal punishment as incentive for the boy not to move away from the oncoming assault.

Reb Zishe was democratic about his punishments. He would openly offer us the option of not resisting and thus avoid the chair. But not all boys were strong enough – or perhaps I should say stupid enough – to suppress their natural instincts to avoid pain, and Berel was one of the weak ones. Reb Zishe would therefore stuff Berel’s head in the gap between the seatback and the seat of a classroom chair so that Berel resembled a ox wearing a yoke in the field, and thus Reb Zishe theoretically secured Berel’s face and buttocks to last the duration of the intended punishment.

My dear readers, I am ashamed to admit that to this day I cannot help from laughing when I recall the sight of poor Berel hopping about the classroom with the chair around his neck and the shuffling Reb Zishe hard on his heels.