Tag #120218 - Interview #78540 (Yankl Dovid Dudakas)

As for Saturday, I knew it was coming by the smell. Each Friday the smell of the challah loaves my mother was making early in the morning woke me up. I can still remember the smell. Besides challah, she made little rolls with cinnamon and jam, and they decorated our Saturday dinner table. Sabbath was strictly observed in our household. My father liked telling a Jewish fable. He said there lived Mordke Habath, a poor Jewish man. Once, when he had no money to celebrate Saturday, he came to the synagogue crying. He told people that his wife had died and he had no money for the funeral. Compassionate Jews immediately collected some money for Mordke. He went home and gave this money to his wife to make a Saturday dinner. Very soon a funeral team came to Mordke’s house. They were to bury the deceased one on that same day. They were shocked seeing their client well alive standing by the stove. Mordke calmed them down: ‘Don’t worry, she’ll be yours one day. She isn’t going to live forever, is she?’ My father often told this fable to prove that even the poorest Jew was to celebrate Saturday and it is the law for a Jewish person.