(Author: Gita Gordon, Vol. 66, #3, Chanukah 2011)
My dear wife,
It is two years since we parted. I thought that the time we were apart would be short. People spoke of fortunes to be made as by Sammy Marks, who left a poor youth, the son of an itinerant tailor and who returned when not too many years had passed, in rich clothing, giving away vast sums of money to charity, before leaving again for South Africa.
Hamelitz newspaper wrote of the wonderful conditions in a land where there is no discrimination. I left so full of hope that our parting would be a short one. Yet here I am, two years have passed, and in that time I managed to save only half the fare needed to bring you here. Not only that, but each night my thoughts have been, ‘What am I bringing her to? “
You see, I share one room with four others. Yet we are scarcely in that room many hours, for every week after Shabbos we set out for the farms to sell our wares. This you already know. What I have not told you before is the bitterness of the life of a peddler. I carry my pack on my back. It is heavy. It must be so or else I would not the goods to sell. Often I cannot sell for money but must barter, taking such things as dried animal skins, making the pack even heavier.
The area I work in is called the Karoo. It is nearly a desert. It has little rain, and when that does come it is on a hot day in summer, and it is unexpected, and it as if the heavens are opening up and sending down the flood of Noah. Sometimes rivers appear, where moments before there was only dry land, and these are so powerful that a man can be swept off his feet and drown.
The distance between the farmhouses is great. It can take more than a day to walk from one farm to another, and this through an area teeming with wildlife and poisonous snakes.
Then at the end of the week, by the time I return to the town for Shabbos, I must get more goods, and get money for the bartered goods, and each week I keep sufficient for my food and rent and the rest I save for your ticket.
So that is how it goes with me. Then this week I decided I would go to the town in time for Chanukah. Perhaps if I was with other Jews, and I lit in their presence, and we sang Ma oz Tzur together, then a miracle would occur and I would have sufficient money to bring you over now, for the burden of waiting is not easy for either of us.
With that in mind, when I finished at the farm, midweek, I thanked them for their hospitality, for truly they are kind these goyim, they give me a place to sleep, and fruit and vegetables to eat, and I decided to make my way to the town.
Now I have never done this journey before. Each week I have followed a set route, going to farms in an unvarying order, and then from the last farm to the town. However, I felt that by following the direction of the sun, I would come to the town, in time to wash and change and light the first flame for Chanukah.
On every day here the sun shines bright. On this day it was hidden by clouds. Clouds in this land, all day. I could not believe it, heavy clouds obscuring the sun and no great deluge of rain.
I walked in the direction I felt to be correct but by midday I saw no familiar landmarks and by that time I should have been on the outskirts of the town. I sat down and ate some bread and drank some water, and after bensching very quickly I started walking again.
Then the darkness that was not due to cloud, but the onset of the night, came upon the land. On a few occasions I have spent the night alone on the veldt, but it is not pleasant. So even when the dusk was replaced by darkness I continued walking. Clearly I would not reach the town, or the Jewish community there, but at least I wanted to find a farmhouse and kindle the Chanukah light among people, even if not my people.
Just when I was giving up hope I began to say tehillim, and forced myself to walk a bit further. Then it was that I saw a light flickering in the distance. Though I was weary I made my way quickly before it should be extinguished and within less than an hour I was at a farmhouse. Just as I knocked at the door, I looked up and saw a mezuzah. I thought I must have come to harm in the veldt, and was suffering from delirium. But the door was opened, and a man peered out at me, and his head was covered with a yarmulke, and he saw I was kissing the mezuzah and he said “Shalom Aleichem Reb Yid”.
Now inside the house there was light from lanterns, but thick curtains kept the house warm, and the light within. Only the one light for Chanukah gave off light to the outside. So you can see that finding this house was a Chanukah miracle of the first order.
But more was to follow. Once I had cleaned myself of the dust of the journey, and kindled my light, and eaten my fill of good kosher food, we spoke.
Now here is the amazing thing. This family fled from Tjeldag in Litta, not many years before, when good neighbours told them of a pogrom that the government was causing the next day. They did not wish to harm the Jews among whom they had lived in peace, but they could not go against government orders, so they warned the Jews to leave, helped them to pack their goods, and took them in carts to the nearby port city. Then, when all the Jews were safe, these people took part in the pogrom as ordered. An empty burned house has much the same appearance as a house burned when filled with goods, and so no one in power would know of their deeds.
So there, in the middle of the veldt, I found the Rosh Yeshiva of Tjeldag, and his Seforim and Torah, and all that was necessary for life and for study. His wife and children helped in the running of the farm, since by this method of earning a living they could keep the laws of Shabbos, whereas a storekeeper in town is unable to do this.
When he heard of my plight, he lent me the money I needed so that now I can buy you a ticket, this ticket that you find with this letter.
Not only that but he will help me purchase a farm near to his. The people there want to leave the Cape and go further north to an Afrikaner republic called the Orange Free State. Their family went ahead, cousins of the wife, and wrote that life is good there, and so they are packing up to leave and wish to sell the farm. I can pay for the purchase of this land to the Rabbi over the next years. He is agreeable to that. He will teach me all I need to know about farming with great flocks of sheep. We will sit together and learn together the laws pertaining to agriculture, to the laws for the care of animals, and the laws pertaining to employing others, for here this business of farming cannot be done without others.
So that is the Miracle that happened this Chanukah. I will meet you when the ship arrives in Cape Town. I will bring you to a home, a fine home, with two rooms and a kitchen. You will have Jewish neighbours. We will lack for nothing
Travel well, and in good spirits.
Your husband
Moshe[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Plaque outside Graaff-Reinet, erected in 1989 in honour of the Jewish smouse (pedlars)
Gita Gordon’s articles and stories have appeared in Jewish newspapers and publications throughout the world. Her books include: South African Journeys (Judaica Press – Hebrew translation, Temurot, Jerusalem Publications), Flashback (Shaar Press), Mystery in the Amazon (Jerusalem Publications) and Scattered Blossoms (Hamodia Publications). She also has contributed to Jewish Affairs and other publications under her ‘official’ name Glenda Wolf.
