It was soon known in the neighborhood that the shoemaker left his wife and children.
\nRumors abounded as to why and where he went. Varied and imaginative they were — even that
\nhe went to look for the hidden place of the Ark of the Covenant. All of the rumors placed him in
\nthe desert because the reported sightings of him had him heading south. But as to exactly where in the desert, no one agreed. Some placed him in the caves near Qumran — perhaps because his wife said that shortly before he disappeared, she heard him murmur over and over: \u201dThe wars of the children of light against the children of darkness.\u201d Others placed him in the cliffs above Ein Gedi.
\nHis wife, who was known to refer to him even before he abandoned her, as \u201cthe eccentric\u201d or \u201cthe crazy one,\u201d depending upon her charity, after a year met a man, moved in with
\nhim and, after another year without a sign of her husband\u2019s returning, married him.
\nThree years later the shoemaker returned, seemingly uncaring whether his wife had
\nremarried, and ignored his children whom his wife had raised to avoid him. He angrily dismissed
\nany questions as to his whereabouts during the previous three years; in any event because of his quick to anger temperament, few dared ask him where he had been, or what he did there. Even the most persistent of neighborhood busybodies knew to hold their peace in the presence of the shoemaker. The saying, \u201cIf you don\u2019t want to be the sole of a shoe, don\u2019t antagonize the
\nshoemaker,\u201d was common neighborhood coinage. Nobody called him by name, he was always
\n\u201cthe shoemaker,\u201d as if to use his name was too personal, evincing a familiarity that could be
\ndangerous. I called him — to myself \u2013 \u201cEnoch\u201d; because of the legend of Enoch the shoemaker who with every stitch connected the upper and lower world. There was something about him of a prophet of wrath \u2013 except that he didn\u2019t prophesize. Or if he did, we failed to grasp his prophecy.
\nUpon his return, the shoemaker shooed the cats out of their quarters and reopened his
\ncobbler shop which had remained closed during his absence. No longer with access to his
\nformer living quarters (which his wife had sold when she moved in with her new husband), he
\nslept on a mat on a narrow, raised platform which he built above his work bench inside the shop,
\ndubbed by neighborhood wags as his \u201cProcrustean bed.\u201d The shoemaker didn\u2019t have many costumers, either because of his strangeness or because of his temperament or because he was far from being a master of his craft, and the customers that did frequent his shop did so because it was located close to where they lived. Most of all, his prices were low.
\nFrom time to time, I gave him some business because I was curious about him and
\nbecause I was drawn to the odor of leather and glue that filled the shop. He didn\u2019t mind if I
\nlingered there without saying much. He usually had some tacks in his mouth, more, I suspected,
\nas a defense against having to speak than as a work convenience. I didn\u2019t pester him with
\nquestions, adopting he strategy of silence, or indifference, which didn\u2019t help me much, even
\nthough he tolerated, and eventually seemed to even enjoy, my presence. Maybe he just got used to me\u2014like an old shoe.
\nOne day, as he was working on the sole of my shoe, he uttered, more to himself than to
\nme, \u201c\u2018And ye shall tread down the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet,\u2019\u201d
\nhis hammering punctuating his avowal. And then he stopped, dropped his hammer on his
\nworkbench, spit out the tacks (an act which surprised and startled me), and began mumbling
\nsomething about the Rabbi from \u2013 he couldn\u2019t pronounce the name very well — one of those
\ntowns in Eastern Europe. An uncommon rambling on the shoemaker\u2019s part about a rabbi who
\none day astounded his disciples by entering his room and refusing to leave it for the rest of his
\nlife, dependent upon them to bring him food. Here the shoemaker paused as if wrestling with
\nsome thought and then, holding my glance in his, added something about how the presence of
\nevil in the world might possibly have been too much for the rabbi\u2019s sanity to bear. \u201c\u2018Trapped in a
\nfortress of evil without anyone to ransom him.\u2019\u201d
\nI nodded and said nothing. What could I say?
\nSome days afterward, the shoemaker was gone again. A second time. The desert again? No one knew. Speculation nourished the neighborhood gossip in the following days. Someone said that before he left, he murmured over and over, \u201cDispersed to the place of the wicked to their subduing by fire.\u201d
\nToward the end of the same week, I heard a knock on my door. I opened it. A youth
\nstood there, a pair of shoes in his hands. \u201cFrom the shoemaker,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t leave him any
\nshoes to be repaired,\u201d I told him. \u201cHe said they were a gift,\u201d the youth persisted. I glanced at the size written faintly inside the left shoe — it was my size. Although they had been polished to a
\nbright sheen, the shoes were not new, and I surmised that somebody had left them to be repaired and failed to come back for them. But why look a pair of gift shoes in the mouth? They were expensive shoes. The shoemaker\u2019s from better days? Maybe his wedding shoes? I thanked the lad and gave him some change. As he was about to leave, I grabbed his arm. \u201cTell me, do you know where the shoemaker went? His shop is closed.\u201d The boy shrugged, already thinking perhaps of what candy bars to buy with the coins I had given him.
\nI didn\u2019t get around to putting on the shoes for a couple of weeks, until my usual pair
\nsprung a hole in the sole of one. As I put on the right shoe, I spied something inside. It was a
\nfolded piece of paper, which had been inserted in the toe portion of the shoe. I opened it. On it
\nwas written a single word: \u201cAzaz.\u201d I repeated the word over and over, trying to fathom what it
\nmeant, this shoemaker\u2019s code delivered in a shoemaker\u2019s fashion. Finally, it rang a bell.
\nSomething about a scapegoat.
\nThe \u201cAzaz\u201d wouldn\u2019t let go of me. It was as if the shoemaker was pushing me, to use the
\nclue he had vouchsafed me, to solve the mystery of his disappearance. I began to delve into the
\nSubject.
\nI had been right about the scapegoat connection. The scapegoat was a goat that carried
\nthe sins of the people placed on it, designated \u201cfor Azazel,\u201d which was driven onto the desert to
\nperish as part of the ceremonies of the Day of Atonement. The rabbis of the time interpreted
\n\u201cAzazel\u201d as \u201cAzaz\u201d, which meant \u201crugged\u201d and \u201cel\u201d, which meant \u201cstrong\u201d. They considered
\nthat \u201cAzaz\u201d referred to the rugged mountain cliff from which the scapegoat was cast down.
\nOthers said it referred to the goat-like spirit haunting the desert to which the Israelites were
\naccustomed to offering sacrifices. The shoemaker had had a wispy, goat-like beard. Surely
\ncoincidence, but I found it disturbing nonetheless.
\nI never saw the shoemaker again. Nor did anyone else. Perhaps his one-word message
\nmeant that he hadn\u2019t yet given up the search for the key to the presence of evil and his beholding with his own eyes \u201dthe recompense of the wicked.\u201d I was not a type to go on quests, even though the nature of evil often confounded me. Although it is forbidden to feel envy toward a poor, lost shoemaker, I felt envy: I had to live with the vexatious question of evil; the shoemaker had gone to try to decipher it and strive with it.<\/p>\n
When I wake up at night and cannot sleep, the bad thoughts come. And so I, too, ponder
\nthe nature of evil in the world. Maybe for the shoemaker the days and the nights had become
\none.
\nRashi said: \u201cSatan prosecutes in the hour of danger\u201d \u2013 that is, at such a time of danger he doesn\u2019t differentiate between the just and the wicked. Perhaps the shoemaker realized that the evil in himself or his attempt to uproot it impelled him to be alone in the desert. To be \u201dsubdued by fire\u201d or to be \u201ca brand plucked out of the fire.\u201d
\nThe Ramban said that just as the fire intended to destroy the thorns gets out of control
\nand destroys the crops, the evil inside of us must be restrained.
\nThe shoemaker was not a person of restraint.<\/p>\n
For days the shoemaker and his quest weighed heavily upon me. It did not lift until
\nshortly before the Day of Atonement when I chanced (if chance it was) upon the story of how
\none day Rabbi Levi Yitzhak was asked by a poor shoemaker if he had something that needed
\nfixing. The rabbi chastised himself, \u201cYou see, even he can see that I need to fix myself.\u201d
\nWhich may explain why I continue to bring my shoes for repair to shoemaker shops
\noutside of my neighborhood when it would be easier to buy a new pair of shoes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was soon known in the neighborhood that the shoemaker left his wife and children. Rumors abounded as to why and where he went. Varied and imaginative they were — even that he went to look for the hidden place of the Ark of the Covenant. All of the rumors placed him in the desert…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":229,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"issue":[10],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n