Dignity

...I'm bad enough around weeping women, but seeing this middle-aged man, in a uniform and helmet, huddled in a blanket and quietly blubbering, made me feel—well, quite ashamed...

...But he didn't, and Bracha didn't seem to know who I was asking about, as she had so many regular donors...

...We were to be dropped off at various crossroads and wadi junctions to keep watch all night for Bedouin moving cattle through the firing areas...

...The Rabbanit seemed to read my mind...

...I was slow in following this construction...

...And they showed me the house and explained to me . . . the routine...

...But remember, this takes place in Jerusalem, and while guests at the city's five-star hotel towers may not think it, "Jerusalem stories" still take place all the time...

...And so I did nothing...

...I went to the Alliance and the Shemesh schools, which were excellent schools, and I did well, graduating with a commendation...

...I went out with a group of friends to celebrate graduation...

...During one of Moshe's lengthy pauses, I could hear the grumble of 175mm cannon and 120mm mortars coming from up the valley...

...Well, I just got through saying that watching a man cry was about the most unnerving thing I'd ever experienced, and right on top of that came this...

...When the half-track dropped me off at my designated watch, my partner was already there: a very mournful-looking Moshe, standing like a child in his huge poncho...

...I believe," Moshe said, "that no one should be so poor that he does not have decent clothing to go out in public...

...But this was the first time I'd ever sat next to a man confessing to a murder—a man, you'll recall, holding an M-16 between his knees...

...We had received a "CARE package" from relatives in America who still fondly think of our children as the tots we took away to Israel years ago...

...I peeped at his feet...

...She asked me to sit and I sat on the bed, there was nowhere else...

...I thought about that for a moment and then asked if my clerk's name was Moshe...

...What one must do, how to knock and to accept a glass of tea, because that was part of it, and how much money to leave, and all of that...

...I was shocked...

...In truth, I had seen men cry before...

...In any event, the story ran like this: "I was born," he said, "in Baghdad in 1937...

...A penitent...

...Came my call-up for maneuvers last spring, and there was Moshe at my base...

...And it was...

...Yes, and I had never...

...The Rabbanit simply shrugs...

...She soon gained a reputation as an angel of mercy — not just as a source of material sustenance, but of warmhearted and wise counsel as well...

...I drank my cup of tea and did what I had come to do...

...I was particularly taken by the Clark Kent aspect of the man, the fact that a government office worker with a decent salary would slip away from his desk each day and in the heat of the mid-afternoon sun would don raggy old clothes and shlep a sack around on his back...

...While I sat there nursing my paranoia, Moshe began to tell his story...

...But there was no mistaking it, and let me tell you, watching a man cry is about the most unnerving experience I've ever had...

...if not drunk, then a little crazy in spirit from the evening...

...And she was maybe not beautiful, but a very nice-looking Jewish girl, a sad-looking girl, too...

...The sinner is the most unusual wrong-doer I have ever met, but at least he admits—in fact, he insists— he's a sinner...

...I didn't get a chance to speak to him and don't know that I would have if I had...

...It was already drizzling...

...For him and for me...

...He mulled this a long time...

...I asked...

...I asked...

...And in the course of the evening the conversation turned to that other forbidden subject...

...Or perhaps he had only told the story to himself, over and over again...

...This was confirmed, and when 1 said I thought I'd seen him in other circumstances, the neighboring clerk looked up and laughed and said: "Yes, that's our Moshe...

...But maybe she'd had some falling out with her pimp, and he'd confiscated her clothes . . ." "She never had any pimp" Moshe snapped, challenging me...

...Are you suggesting that this girl didn't have clothes to go out and look for work, that she had to remain in that old building . . .?" "I saw that room," he said, interrupting me again...

...I felt so bad that I wanted to go back to that place and apologize and give her more money...

...He was not, as I'd thought, really dressed in rags, but in a very worn and soiled black suit...

...Anyway, I told him my name, said it was ironic that two Yerushalmim should be thrown together so far from home, and eventually, as we settled in for the night, both my file in Moshe's office and our mutual acquaintance with Rabbanit Bracha were established...

...It was at graduation that...

...Before he said anything else, he said he wouldn't want anyone to write about him...

...While the Jewish people has never lacked for sinners, we do not, strictly speaking, have saints, certainly not the canonized variety conjured up by the English word, which invariably puts us in mind of the radiating nimbus and the beatific gaze...

...Anyone who goes beyond mere righteous behavior and tz'dakah, which are duties incumbent on all, and shares in that attribute of God known as gemilut hassadim, the bestowal of lovingkindness, is something of a saint...

...But we do have the ish kadosh, such as Aaron, who was called "a saint of the Lord...

...But the Rabbanit was not rebuking me...

...But Moshe seemed to acknowledge there would be no escape that night, and indeed, in the course of the long night, this reporter "got his story...

...And we were told to stop complaining...

...The time to do it, my mother always said, was at dusk, when there were few people about and you could leave your package, knock on the door, and slip away...

...He was not in my platoon, but was in the same company, and I saw him queued up at the adjoining mess hall one day, remarkable only in that he was standing quietly in the line of boisterous troops...

...But I said no, I had plenty of money, and before I knew it, it was done, it was agreed...

...Finally 1 said: "I believe I've seen you at Rabbanit Bracha's...

...Anyway, I went up to the fourth floor and knocked and she told me to enter and I did...

...The word in Hebrew, sarsoor, sounded especially obscene the way he said it...

...And my mother was always sending me out with baskets of food, clothing, even pouches of money, to place on someone's doorstep...

...Rabbanit Bracha was another...

...Before I could ask another question a girl appeared and informed me that the matter which had brought me to the office was b'tipul, being taken care of, and I would receive the necessary papers in the mail...

...He shot up out of his chair and mumbled that he had to check something in the archives...

...We were a bunch of young men—girls would not go out to celebrate in such a manner in Baghdad—and we had a fine time...

...They had visited...

...I had never done such a thing...

...These alle zachen men are a fixture throughout Israel, but I never knew one whc solicited old clothes just to give them away...

...I didn't know quite what I wanted to ask...

...And I didn't know what to say...

...Even more, as she sees the lines of people at her door, she grieves that her activities are damaging their dignity...

...She recognizes the need for organization and publicity in her efforts to help the poor, but as a modest and self-effacing woman, she dislikes being identified as a doer of good deeds...

...What struck me about this man was that he was dressed so poorly himself...

...My puzzlement grew while the man worked over my papers...

...Today there's a daily stream of visitors to the Kapach flat at 12 Rehov Lod in the capital's Nachlaot quarter...

...I murdered her dignity...

...And they were kidding and teasing, and they even said they would put up the money for me, as a gift, since I had a commendation on my diploma from school...

...They say he goes out 'collecting' for three hours every day...

...I waited five minutes or so and then asked the clerk at the next desk if my man was coming back...

...Still, I said, "Surely you can't believe your little mistake caused...

...You see, when I opened my wallet I discovered that instead of leaving the woman the 'agreed amount,' I had left for her the smallest of notes, an old note, in fact...

...Before I said anything else, I said I couldn't promise not to write about him...

...At first I though it was just the rain leaking off his helmet...

...Bracha spoke a few words to him, but he only muttered something and quickly left...

...Then very abruptly, he announced, "Gamarnu...

...In response to this, he started to cry...

...But there was nothing else in the room, not a chair, not a rug...

...I learned later from one of the Kapach daughters that he was a "regular"— one of their most reliable and resourceful collectors of very good used clothing—and a man whom Bracha held in awe...

...The next day," he said, "the young woman was found dead...

...But I knew it sounded asinine in my own mind...

...I felt rebuked for my act of quasi-charity...

...I said I certainly wouldn't ridicule him, but if I did decide to write about him, I could do it without his help, by talking to his co-workers and neighbors and the like, or I could do it by getting the story straight from Moshe...

...Well, thank heavens for the Jewish army...

...She accepted my donation (or relieved me of my burden...

...no rubber boots, just nondescript black shoes...

...I remember the laughing...

...Jerusalem's immigrant community was beset with problems of dislocation and cultural adjustment...

...And we were out in a lonely, windswept wadi long after midnight and I suddenly wondered how taking a box of clothing to Rabbanit Bracha Kapach three years earlier had put me here in this—to state it mildly—highly disconcerting situation...

...If I could have gotten up and left I would have...

...There goes a man of true charity, of real lovingkindness," she said...

...It couldn't be a total secret, as his co-worker seemed to know about his activities...

...If I could have said anything, I would have...

...Well, well, I thought, what have we here...

...It was insane...

...The hundreds of people who lined up each morning before Pesach had to have registration numbers...

...I joined my friends at a little cafe, where I received their 'congratualtions.' It was while we were having coffee that I discovered my great mistake...

...No more was it a matter of dropping off baskets on other people's doorsteps...

...The penultimate Psalm even refers to Israel as kahal chassidim, "an assembly of saints...

...Never eats lunch...

...Other times I kept my eye out for Moshe—not really, but each time I saw one of Jerusalem's many ragmen, I was reminded of him...

...Uh-huh...

...And in a surprisingly even voice, he said, "It's nothing I can't talk about...

...He had the same dark face, small mustache, warm brown eyes, the same black kippa clipped to his thinning hair...

...not as if he were paying out some long-held secret, but a story which he had related so many times that it bored him...

...Yes, even the poor are supposed to give tz'dakah — but this split-seamed rag-picker in torn rubber boots...

...It was related in fits and starts, yet in a rambling, flat-toned, almost leisurely manner which suits a long uninterrupted night...

...The worst part of it was...

...What with our runaway inflation, the need has just become greater in recent years...

...The east...

...I'm not sure he remembered me, but I think he did...

...Then he asked if, theoretically, someone were to write him up, would the writer have to use his name...

...This year in fact Bracha Kapach had to borrow an apartment nearby to hold her hundreds of crates of matzot, cooking oil, sugar, meal, eggs, wine and other staples...

...People began coming to hers...

...So we walked to the Hannuni district, and there was much laughing and pounding on my back...

...But in the past dozen years or so this little act of charity has grown to an operation of massive proportions...

...The Rabbanit expressed this concern to me the first time I met her, and it confirmed in my mind that the woman was something more than just a person who practiced tz'dakah...

...I asked him why the laughter was so terrible, but instead of answering me, he abruptly concluded his story...

...most of their gifts, new and used, simply won't fit my kids...

...To first principles...

...He said he didn't know...

...A few evenings later we moved out to the field, and my luck, I was among a small group selected for one of those bizarre tasks which are forever being cooked up in the military mind...

...Why I did this I do not know...

...My grandfather was relatively wealthy," she says, "but he taught us always to set aside a portion of whatever we had each day for the less fortunate...

...This is a Jerusalem story...

...They said she never left her room...

...There were some awkward moments...

...The Rabbanit, for example, has long practiced the ancient custom of maos hitim, the distribution of matzot to the poor...

...It's over...

...Besides, I didn't want to endanger his dignity...

...One of my friends said that he knew of a young women, a Jewish girl who lived alone, an orphan, and very poor...

...I wanted to say that prostitutes were notorious for their self-destructive personalities, that this woman's suicide was most likely the result of an accumulation of miseries...

...Strange—but then there were a lot stranger things in this town, I thought...

...I can't tell it the way he told it...

...And with her dignity unprotected, I swept it away...

...In the basement, which has become a sort of warehouse, they try on used clothing and shoes which the good woman collects — and some garments not so used, since she also shakes down shops for slow-moving stock...

...Despite the image of the old rag-picker with the bundle on his bent back, he was more nearly in his early forties...

...A secret do-gooder...

...It still sounded utterly mad to me...

...I murdered someone...

...And he was gone...

...Lev Bearfield is the pen name for an Israeli journalist...

...A few months later, 1 was back at that government office (the promised reply on my query never came in the mail), and Moshe was not in...

...the thing happened...

...I also discovered that I'd assigned him in my mind more years than I should have...

...But such was the mood that I could not even suggest this...

...One side of my head felt proud, but the other side felt sad because she had seemed so sad...

...She was not of the local community, but from the east, or so he believed...

...Or was it...

...The important thing was to give anonymously — and to preserve the dignity of the recipient...

...Moshe was on his way out as I was coming in, but I did have time to observe that my original impressions had been incorrect...

...It wasn't quite coincidence that this fellow—whom I'll call Moshe— was there when 1 arrived...

...The saint is one of your conventional saints, and of course by definition she denies she is a saint at all...

...But as we were talking, another man entered the basement to leave off a huge bundle of clothes...

...Now it seemed I'd done a good job of frightening him away...

...I interrupted at this point...

...our job was simply to shoo them away before the artillery barrages began...

...I probably would have forgotten about the man had I not seem him again a few months later at Rabbanit Bracha's...

...We lived near the great Meir Synagogue and we had a good life, no problems...

...They thought it was all a grand joke...

...Either way, they said she was very beautiful and well worth a visit...

...He told it as if it were a familiar telling...

...No closets, no garments anywhere...

...I joined in their laughter...

...But my friends roared with laughter at the 'great bargain' I had received...

...But it was an error, there must be no doubt of that...

...You might say it was the equivalent of ten cents...

...We were all given blankets, ponchos and field phones, and told we would be picked up some time after dawn...

...Then I put my money on the little stand and I left...

...She had thrown herself out of her window and was impaled on an iron spike fence...

...Rabbi Yosef Kapach, the Rabbanit found no shortage of people in need and, as a matter of course, she resumed her good works...

...She was in the bed, and in fact the bed was the only furniture in the room...

...This included the Moslems among us...

...Well, I don't have to describe my frame of mind, what I was thinking or feeling...

...This of course didn't matter to Bracha...

...In fact, in the grist-mills of my mind 1 was thinking of using him for a story...

...There was a little stand by the bed with a primus and kettle, for making tea...

...One friend said this was because she was a cripple, she was always in bed, but another said this was untrue, she was always in bed for the other reason...

...Heady stuff...

...The bureaucratic welfare agencies were one thing...

...In any event, my first visit four years ago had nothing to do with dignity or charity...

...He said— not in so many words, but he indicated—that if anyone wrote about him it would be like holding him up to ridicule...

...But perhaps because Moshe had seen from my files that I am a newspaperman, he feared I'd want to use him as material for a story...

...Nevertheless, as things happen in the army, and especially in battalion-sized field exercises, I did get my chance to talk to Moshe—more than I'd anticipated...

...Anyway, they said she . . . conducted business in her room in an old building in the poor quarter...

...Perhaps my nervousness and haste to leave, or the poor lighting, or my being slightly drunk...

...I promised that if I decided some day to write about him, I would definitely not use his name, identify his office, or reveal anything else like that...

...We were told we would stand duty in pairs...

...Probably from Kurdistan...

...He's crazy...

...I had come to donate some used clothing, but I was motivated by self-interest: these were outgrown and outworn garments which were simply cluttering the limited closet space in our small Israeli flat...

...For a long while it appeared I'd done just that...

...So, knowing that Bracha needed children's clothing more than anything else, I made up a bundle and went back to Rehov Lod...

...Why Bedouin might be exercising their cattle at night was not for us to question...

...And that was that...

...These were my closest friends, Jews and Moslems, we got along quite well at the time, politics never entered our lives...

...But that was all right...

...Once she arrived in Jerusalem in the 1940s with her husband...

...Yet he was neatly dressed in a white shirt, striped necktie, Orion sweater and well-pressed blue slacks...

...Yet the situation has left Bracha uncomfortable...

...And changes his clothes and then comes back to work...

...We were...

...Then he fell silent...

...1 was also intrigued by the fact that Moshe had run off as soon as I'd mentioned seeing him at Bracha's...

...Been doing it for years...

...One of the anonymous Just Men...

...Yet all that year I never saw him again...

...In fact he looked just like all the other minor officials in this department, or in any number of other offices throughout the government bureaucracy...

...Just how much of an institution the rabbi's wife has become is seen most acutely on holidays...

...I didn't really get intrigued until March of 1978, when I had business in a certain government ministry office and I discovered thai the clerk dealing with my file was none other than this same Moshe...

...But nothing I could say would undo a belief that Moshe had carried about with him for the past 30 years...

...In late summer I had a hassle with the phone company, which is located close to Rabbanit Bracha's home, and I stopped by there on the off chance Moshe would come lugging his sack in...

...About a year later I saw him in one of Jerusalem's better neighborhoods, and I watched him for a while as he went from apartment house to apartment house with his sack over his shoulder...

...Crazy...

...His response couldn't have been more startling...

...That was the worst, the worst thing of it that I remember...

...In the parlor they seek the Rabbanit's advice...

...I didn't have to ask directly the question that had been on my mind: why the ragman routine...

...Anyway, we went to the cinema and had a light dinner and went to a cafe and had more than a light amount to drink...

...That girl," Moshe went on, talking into the dark now, "just had nothing to cover her dignity...

...They indulged in alcohol as well, even though it was forbidden...

...Such a woman is Rabbanit Bracha Kapach, whose extraordinary character has made her something of an institution in Jerusalem...

...There was a lot of laughing...

...My friends would have called me a fool...

...But she maintains that helping others is merely a family tradition which she learned in her girlhood in Yemen...

...I offered him a damp cigarette, but he made no acknowledgement, so I sat smoking and trying to steady my nerves while he wept away...