Childhood years in Keidan, by B. Cassel

SHEVUOS

After Pesach, Spring ruled our lives more and more each day. The days became warmer, lighter. From the end of kheder until bedtime there was more time to play outdoors, and also more time to devote to making toys. As long as you had a pocket-knife you could make almost anything: from a nut, a stick of wood, a potato and thread came a little mill; with a stick, clip and a bit of paper you could fashion a windmill. Trick-boards; bows and arrows out of a half-hoop, rope and a pointed twig. A pistol from a goose's foot-bone and a stick of wood, and so forth.

But the chief pursuit in those few spring weeks was making whistles from the tender, supple shoots of the willow trees. Keidan in that season was inundated with those sort of shoots, which would be twisted into planks and carrying baskets. But we youngsters would make whistles and flutes. A certain length was cut from the smooth shoot, some little holes were poked out, it was soaked in water, and with a few taps on the shoot the bark stripped off like a jacket. A little piece of wood was insterted not far from the top hole and the whistle, or flute, was ready.

It was, however, the time of Sfire, and you could not whistle, or everyone would glare at you for being an impudent smart-aleck. Lag b'Omer relieved some of the season's severity, but only for a day. So everyone really seized that day, making bows and arrows and going to the woods outside town for a picnic.

But from the first day of Sivan on, life began to be transformed. From then until Shevuos we went half-days to kheder. Rosh Khodesh and the "three days of setting bounds" were preparation days for Shevuos. People went prospecting in the Skongale, where you could cut fragrant water-grass for spreading on floors, and pick bunches of lilacs and other blossoms to stick in the beams and rafters in honor of Shevuos.

The half days that we spent in kheder were devoted to a special lesson: The story of Ruth, her love with Boaz in the field at night among the harvested sheaves. It was a story filled with images of fields, country and nature, things not foreign to us Keidaner children. We also learned to chant the Akdomes, with its poetic portrayal of the Ruler of the World's glory, which would be impossible to describe even "if all the forests were your pens and all the waters ink."

We spent the other half of our free days in different games and in expeditions to Kelerke's fields, the court road or Across-the-River. All that, together with the abundant vegetation and colorful cherry blossoms in the orchards in and around the town, which filled the air with pleasant smells, filled our young hearts with happiness and joy.

Two days before Shevuos my friends and I walked to Janushova, where my mother kept a garden and orchard. I and the gang picked many bunches of lilacs to decorate the house for yontev. The road home, through Long Street, was a gauntlet; from all sides we children were besieged with demands: "Give me a bit of lilac." But our usual answer was "Go chew some mud!" because if we happily supplied everyone who asked, we'd wind up at home without a single flower.

The day before Shevuos we went to cut water-grass at the bottom of the Skongale. We chopped it into little bits, and when Mother had cleaned up the house and scubbed the floor with yellow sand, she spread the water-grass around the house.

It was still very light outside. The house was cleaned and festive, the windows hung with clean drapes; from Apteik's orchard, near where our house stood, a breeze came through the open window carrying smells of blooming fruit trees, and mixed with the scent of lilac and water-grass in the house. Father headed for the bathouse in honor of the holiday.

Meishe "the Heart" (a nickname he received because he always went around with an open "heart," i.e., the top of his shirt was unfastenend) the shames of the Ayn Yakov syagogue, where my father prayed, came with a basket collecting candles for the synagogue. After he took the few tallow candles that Mother gave him, he found it necessary to say a few words in praise of the Shevuos holiday: "A Jewish house smells like the Garden of Eden," and, detecting the smell of the dairy-pastries, the babke with saffron and the coffee that was a centerpiece of the Shevuos meal, he added: "I tell you Chaya Sheyne, I'm so fond of coffee that I don't know if I can hold out until Shevuos!"

As we come home from shul after evening prayers, and Father makes the holiday kiddush over raisin-wine, the holiday feels quite unlike Pesach and Sukkos. First the dairy supper, that we eat only during Shevuos, with farfel-tzimmes and saltenosis filled with cheese and fried in butter and sour cream, and then a strange sense of freedom. Father sits down to say the Tikkun Shevuos prayer, and I run around outside with the children, free as a bird. Mother doesn't even chase us to bed.

In the morning Father came from shul early -- he had prayed at dawn -- before I had done more than bless my tzitzes. We ate breakast with the babke, something that typically happened only on Shevuos. Then we went strolling until noon. And then more delicious dairy dishes with blintzes and coffee. After eating, a stroll to Janushova to visit the orchard and garden.

That is how our world spent the holiday. It was like a long-overdue vacation. And that is why, truly, Shevuos has remained in my memory as the happiest holiday of my youth.

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