When they were ready to go, he came out of the house nevertheless. Mati came over to him and said, “Shalom, Abba.” The boy had such a bright face, it sparkled. The others were watching as though trying to think of something to say that would make it all easier; Yankel gave the boy a shoulder-hug and said, “Go with my blessing.”
His young daughter-in-law, Gidon’s Aviva—from her he felt the warmest understanding—came over and quietly kissed him on the forehead. “You’ll see, Abba, it will be good.”
Then, after a long hugging and snuffling and a last packet of good things to eat from Feigel, Mati got onto the crowded wagon with the rest of them and Gidon drove off.
A saying from the ancient sage, the one called Gamzu, came to Yankel. It was the very saying from which the sage got his name, meaning, “this too.” For to everything, even every disaster, the sage was wont to respond, “Gam zu l’tovah”—This too is for the good.
Nu, a saying. Yet who can tell which way is best for a Jew?
ALSO BY MEYER LEVIN
NOVELS
The Reporter
Frankie & Johnnie*
Yehude
The Golden Mountain
The New Bridge
The Old Bunch*
Citizens*
My Father's House
Compulsion
Eva
The Fanatic
The Stronghold
Gore and Igor
The Settlers*
The Harvest*
The Spell of Time*
The Architect
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL WORKS
In Search*
The Obsession*
*available as a Jabberwocky ebook
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