"Berdl the Goniff and the Great Baby Exchange"
by Martin A. David

A third kind of wedding is the joining of orphans or the offspring of families with little or no means. At these nuptial festivities, it is the guests and neighbors who supply most of the food and drink, but the size of the feast never seems to shrink the magnitude of the joy.

It was the middle kind of wedding that provided a background for this story. The children of two beloved, learned, wise, compassionate and very poor rabbis were being brought together. Itzig, the son of Moshe Ben Beryl, the rabbi of our Narodny shtetl, was signing a marriage contract with Schendl, the daughter of Rabbi Jacov Ben Itzkhak, from the town of Dolek, which lay over some rolling hills just several hour’s wagon ride from Narodny. The most commonly heard blessing being bestowed on the engaged couple was “May your progeny bring forth a dynasty of great Talmudic scholars.” The spouses-to-be had gotten a glimpse of each other at the betrothal ceremony and, although they both were too young to understand what marriage really meant, were neither frightened nor horrified by what they saw.

When we say the fathers, Rabbi Moshe and Rabbi Jacov, were poor, we do not mean they lacked for any of the necessities of life. Food and firewood and used, but quite presentable clothing, all arrived on their doorsteps whenever such things were needed and their neighbors, Jews and Poles alike, made sure that want never cast a shadow on them.

Piotr-son-of-Piotr, a Polish landowner for whom Rabbi Jacov had once helped settle a dispute, made sure the bride had a respectable dowry. Benesh-the-Merchant from our own shtetl made sure that barrels of wine stood ready and that chickens and a well-fattened sheep arrived in plenty of time to be slaughtered in the ritual manner, koshered, and then prepared to serve the guests. Musicians arrived from all sides, ready to play just for the joy of playing. There were almost more volunteering hands than there were tasks to busy them.

And the guests. There was no lack of guests. It is a mitzvah, a good deed, to attend such a happy occasion. It was, if such a thing is possible, even more of a mitzvah to dance at the wedding linking the houses of two such prominent scholars as Rabbi Moshe and Rabbi Jacov. The guests came from every corner of the shtetl, they came from the surrounding countryside, and they came, in a long line of wagons, droshkies and ox carts, from the town of Dolek where the bride had grown up. Whole families came to share the joy. Fathers and mothers and older children sang songs in the fronts of wagons while old grandmothers and grandfathers held on tight and hoped their bones would not shatter from all the rattling. In the backs of the wagons, away from the glare of parental sight, younger children swatted and punched each other and ended up looking and smelling nothing at all like the clean little angels that had been loaded into the vehicles hours before.

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