My father, after all these years still "the master" with hammer and saw, now worked with a special enthusiasm...he put up thin walls to create separate rooms, and made shelves for the dairy and the meat dishes, so that mother should have everything right where she needed it. Finally we could stand back and look at the finished house in its entirety, "all ten fingers and all ten toes".

It was beautiful beyond description!...as beautiful as a Jewish bride before the canopy! It possessed somehow a goodness...it seemed to look at us with warm, friendly eyes, and to speak to us directly in a human tongue: "Come children, quickly....here I will protect you from rain and cold....here I will spread over you my protection, just as "the bird in his nest spreads his wings over his young chicks’".

The first things mother brought into our new home were bread and salt, as an omen so that "God, Blessed be He" should never allow the house to be lacking for bread or salt. Afterwards, father began moving things over from the old place to the new one: the books, the housewares....all the "household goods" which my parents possessed...

We, the "small-fry", were also eager to lend a hand. We would run back and forth, loaded down with heavy parcels, often falling down but each time getting back up on our feet. We never rested...it seemed we were being lofted through the air on wings. It was for us the happiest day in our lives; it was the day for which we had so long hoped and dreamed. We were moving into our own house! How our mother’s face shone with pride and joy! Now she had her own four corners, and would no longer have to complain of her great misfortune at being a "tenant". We would have our own little garden, and come the springtime we would plant it with everything good, with every kind of vegetable. We would sow the seeds of all kinds of flowers and trees. It would be a garden that God and Man would rejoice in!

Sabbath after prayers, father invited all his good friends, and mother her neighbors, her faithful friends, to a house-warming party. Around the long table gathered a prayer-quorum of Jews...Students of Wisdom, dressed in long black Sabbath cloaks...men with long grey and black beards, with long curly forelocks, like braided Sabbath candles. At the head was seated the ancient President of the Congregation, Reb Leyzer; beside him Reb Nyokh’keh (Nahum) the Slaughterer, an "simple, righteous man", a kind soul, who was known throughout der whole region as one of the holiest men. Whenever someone came to him to slaughter a chicken or a duck, not to mention a beheymeh, he would become distraught, because it was his duty, with his sharp knife, to slit the throat of an innocent, dumb beast. But when Sabbath came, and he was not permitted to raise his knife against an innocent beast...on that day he would become the happiest man in the world. And so he felt as he sat now at our table, his eyes were shining mit frayd. He was very satisfied that our mother, with whom he had done so much business "on credit", was now established in her own home.

On the other side was seated the happy, cheerful Shual’keh, a lively little Jew, who in addition to being a teacher was also a Reader of the Law, Leader of Prayer, and also a and a Father of Many Children. And although from all his various callings he derived very few wordly blessings, he was still always carefree, always a happy spirit. Also present was Reb Mayer Pasternak, the trustee from the "other" House of Study, my father’s close confidant, an true good friend, and one from whom he could often borrow a much-needed loan. All these, and other such good friends and neighbors....

Before long mother had laid out on the table an array of sweet, tasty pastries...honey cakes, egg tarts, and other treats that her neighbors and good friends had brought in honor of the housewarming. From somewhere, a bottle of liquor appeared on the table...the men drank "To Life" and made blessings...for the salvation and consolation of All Israel, and also for the happiness and prosperity of their own Reb Israel, the new householder, that from this day forth he should have good luck and prosperity, and that God should see to it that from this new house, whose four corners had for so many years been steeped in the "Voice of the Torah"....that from these four corners there should come forth new generations of scholars....

After a bit of drink, the congregation started to become quite tipsy. Eyes became lit up, there was much reddening of cheeks, and loosening of tongues. My father, his face aflame, with eyes lit up, announced that he finally understood the meaning of the passage: "even if your wife is small, lower your ear to her, and listen to what she tells you"....and if God had now made him to be the master of his own house, he had only his wife to thank. Like a true "woman of valor", she had determined to build this house. And he only hoped that God, Blessed be He, should continue to help him, as He had already helped him until now.

My mother, standing off in the corner, surrounded by her friends, hearing such loving words from her husband in front of such an congregation of Jews, turned throughly red, and with her apron had to wipe away a proud, joyful tear from her eye. Finally she had achieved what she had hoped for; and once she regained her composure, she replied:

"Gentlemen, until now I have been going about like a stranger in a strange land, not having my own roof over my head. And so now I make this vow "before the whole Nation": that my new house will always be a place where strangers are welcome; so that if there should come to the to the village a righteous Jew, a preacher, a scholar, a holy man - he should have where to spend the night."

The happy, cheerful Reb Shaul’keh the Teacher, my father’s friend, started a melody which was quickly taken up by the whole crowd. The long benches were pushed asided and a circle of men was formed, hand on shoulder. Feet were hopping and fingers were snapping. The men’s long black Sabbath cloaks waved gaily in the air. The women, standing off to the side, clapped their hands while we, the small-fry, hung on to the men’s coats, dancing together in the great circle with the happy men, and singing at the tops of our voices:

"What we are is what we are

But Jews is what we are

What we do is what we do

But building Jewish houses is what we do!"