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REGION OF CALM AND
DREAMING LAKES
RABBI ELIJAH GORDON
HIS LIFE AND WORKS
By
Hirsch Loeb Gordon
copyright
1926
by Rabbi Elijah Gordon
part
I
The northeastern part of the government
of Vilna, (formerly) Russia, is covered by vast and impenetrable forests,
impassable marshes and thickets, numerous lakes and swampy meadows, with
cleared and dry spaces occupied here and there by manors, villages and
small towns. The moisture of the soil feeds the four rivers Disna, Dvina,
Vilyia and Nieman and forms many larger lakes like those of Svir, Vishniev,
Shvacksenta, Miastra, Narotah and Myadsiol. The country people consist mainly of
White Russians Byelorussia, whose Russian vernacular has been greatly
Polonized, and in whose veins flows much of Lithuanian blood. These
peasants are uncouth, ignorant and superstitious rustics but, like the
average Russian Mouzhik simple, god-fearing and amiable.
While some of them are engaged in agriculture, their main occupation is
fishing, for the swarming lakes provide them with abundant supplies, which
they carry to the cities of Vilna and Minsk for further distribution.
ENTENTE CORDIAL
The villages are grouped around the
small towns or Myestetchkos, populated mostly by Jews, whom
cruel Czarist laws forbade to own land in the open country, even within
the few governments, where their sojourn was tolerated. The peasants
flocked to the Myestetchko on Sundays to attend the services at the Tserkov (church) and to the weekly Rynock(Fair) held
on Wednesdays, when they could sell the products of their net, stable and
plough and in turn buy imported wares and implements in the Jewish
stores. The
Myestetchko, or more exactly,
its Jewish inhabitants, were on a higher plane of civilization. Peasants
visited it daily. One ordered a holiday suit from the Jewish tailor,
another-a pair of fancy
sapogi (high boots) of the Jewish
shoe-maker, and a third had his horse shoed or his cartwheels rimmed in
the ever-busy Jewish smithy. It was from the Jewish traveling merchant or
newspaper reader that the peasants learned of what was going on in their
country and in the wide world. The Jewish tsirulnick (barber.
surgeon) or feldsher (quack) relieved him of his pain by
letting his blood, extracting his aching teeth or pacifying his colic with
vials of cubeb and licorice. It is a region of calm, the calm
of dreaming lakes never disturbed by marked changes. Life flows unruffled,
still. The marshes and extensive forests did not encourage much rambling
and journeying, and peasants, living villages a dozen miles apart, saw
each other only on the Yarmarki. (Annual fairs). Tolerance
towards alien creeds peacefulness of mind, resignation to fate and to
allotted position, typify their character and life.
HOW MYADSIOL ADOPTED
FAMILY NAMES
Part II
One of the Myestetchkos
in that region is that of Myadsiol. Its history goes back more than eight
centuries and is quite prominent on mediaeval geographical maps. Local
legends ascribe to it great prominence in the period of the ancient
Lithuanian monarchy. Its Jewish community, numbering about 200 souls, is
also of very remote beginnings. Most of them bear the family name Gordon,
while the remainder of the surnames are Hodosh. Gordon and Hodosh are still
predominating names in the membership list of the Myadsiol Benevolent
Association of New York City, the president of which is Mr. L. Gordon, a
brother of Rabbi E. Gordon. According to local tradition the surname
Gordon was suggested for adoption by one of the Jewish burghers of
Myadsiol, a business woman, who on her travels met venerable merchants by
that name. But, as a matter of fact, the Gordons seem to be related to the
reputed Gordons of Bialystock. The surname Hodosh is said to have been
bestowed upon the latter settlers of Myadsiol to denote their recency;
Hodosh, meaning "new" in Hebrew.
ELIAHU’S PARENTS AND
CHILDHOOD
One of the most esteemed citizens of
Myadsiol was David Zeeb Gordon (d. Oct. 24, 1913),*(all dates are
according to the Gregorian Calendar) who with his wife Esther Hayah (d.
April 12, 1917) represented the ideal type of Lithuanian Jewry. Well
versed in the Bible and Rabbinical lore, virtuous and upright above all
praise, with almost saintly piety and meekness and with the ever
hopeful endurance that sweetened and gladdened their toilful life, they
were living examples of the righteous and pious eulogized in the Psalms.
On February 27th, 1865, Esther Hayah gave birth to her first child,
Elijah, who was immediately consecrated to a divine life.
Elijah entered one of the local Heders
at the age of five and his unusual intelligence very shortly won for
him the fame of a prodigy. The facility with which he acquired the
difficult parts of the Hebrew Bible and the keen
pilpul
(casuistry) of the Talmud, was above any precedent in his
birthplace and in the
neighboring Jewish towns. After he had been transferred from one Melamed (teacher) to the other, they finally decided that he
exhausted their erudition and by their advice he was sent to the
Rabbinical school of Smorgoni, about 60 viersts north of Myadsiol, under
the presidency of Rabbi Loew Lichtmacher, His preciosity amazed his new
masters and when he reached the age of thirteen he was transferred to the Mayleh
Yeshiva of Vilna, founded in 1832.
JEWS and LITHUANIANS
Part III
The Jews and Lithuanians lived in
peace and in harmony. They are both very ancient nations, both in
numerical minorities among their neighbors and both oppressed for
centuries. The Lithuanian language, which is, according to I. Taylor and
W. Dwight, the primitive Aryan tongue, challenges the archaity of the
Hebrew. Many scholars claim that the Lithuanians are descendants of the
Biblical Hittites, who, together with the Pelasgians, gave birth to
Hellenic culture. The evidence submitted is very plausible. The friendship
between the Lithuanians and the Jews is four thousand years old, for it
was Abraham who was a sojourner in the land of the Hittites and it was in
their ancient city Hebron that he bought a burying place for his family.
The mystetchko of
Komai, in the government of Kovno, can be taken as the typical Lithuanian
town. The Jew and the Lithuanian were brolai (brothers) to
each other. They shared their liudimas (sorrow) and dziaugsmas (joy). In the weekly turviete (market)
days the farmer visited his Jewish draugas (friend) to
discuss business and family affairs at a glass of hot arbata (tea) or cold
alus (beer). The Jewish daktaras of Komai
cured their ailments, the Jewish skrybelius (hatter), kurpius (shoe-maker) and kraucis (tailor) furnished
them with their holiday attire. The old kalvis (smith) was
kept continuously busy with a gentile clientele. When Simhat Torah
came many a Lithuanian jaunikaitis (boy) and mergina
(girl) filled up the side benches of the old synagogue, gleefully and in
astonishment watching the Hakafot, the songs and the
fantastic candelabra with their self-propelling parchment-hoods.
Rabbi E. Gordon was especially esteemed by the Lithuanian
rustics and townsmen, as if he were their own Kinufas
(priest). They submitted their grievances to him sought his counsel and
asked his benediction. Twice a year, before Passover and before Sukkot
(Feast of the Tabernacles) they emptied many carloads of potatoes in his
yard and other products of field and garden
to be distributed free among the poor Jews of Komai.
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