MISTER MYSTERY RESPONDS

Finally, the wise men of Chelm managed to erase the "Shem" from the Golem's forehead. Curiously enough, they found no mud in Chelm and its surroundings, so they invented a mixture of beeswax and oil that, over time, would be market worldwide under the name of Plastilina. They all did it in unison: while the Golem slept, they pounced on him and covered with Plastilina his forehead. Seeing himself without a living body to cling to, Menashe Abramowizc’s dybbuk abandoned that pile of mud remotely resembling a man and stood in front of those other candidates to be possessed. He first took possession of Dovid's body, with which he practiced transvestism in a sordid den of the port of Odessa. When the authorities imprisoned Dovid for disorderly conduct, the dybbuk moved to the body of Feivel, whereby he seduced and married an elderly rich widow of Bialystok to assassinate her immediately afterwards and appropriate all her money. When Feivel went to prison for the crime, M...

It seems that every day is Shabbat eve in Chelm for a week now. As soon as it starts to get dark, the villagers rush to lock themselves in their homes. Not to celebrate the arrival of the Shabbat, no. But to avoid bumping into the dybbuk! (Or into the Golem. Or into Frieda Zalmatscka the-frog-eater. Or into the gigantic frog that ended up eating Frieda Zalmatscka. Or into Frieda Zalmatscka the-frog-eaten.) Fortunately, the wise men of Chelm finally decided to reveal the existence of the Golem to the people, who reluctantly agreed to entrust him with the mission of patrol at night the streets of the village. The Golem has thus become the protector of the Jews of Chelm and, as such, must be responsible for catching the dybbuk who escaped from the cemetery with the skeleton of Menashe Abramowicz on his back. Because nobody would like to bump on a dark night into a dybbuk! Even less into the dybbuk of Menashe Abramowicz, of unlucky memory for, a century ago, in his lifetime, he stole all ...

At sunset, a group of women storms into the town hall shouting: "Elders! Hurry! The town is in danger!" Evron stands as the spokesperson for his colleagues: "What's up, women?" "A band of enraged goys is heading here with bad intentions!" "Lightning has struck the golden dome of their church and now they blame the Jews for it", another woman explains. "According to Stefan Sobreski, they have the intention to bathe all Jewish men of legal age in Bordelaise sauce!" A premonition of impending catastrophe falls on the wise men of Chelm. They have had very bad experiences related to the Bordelaise sauce. In a bistro of Lublin they were charged an astronomical amount for a chicken a la Bordelaise and, on another occasion, in a French restaurant they ordered a dish called “Escargots bordelaises” ignoring that in French the word ‘escargots’ means snails which, as every Jew knows, are not kosher. The elders begin to mourn and tear th...

This enigmatic phrase causes an irate and sudden reaction by Dudel: “Esoterically speaking?! Why does the Golem suddenly have to speak esoterically? That'll make things even more difficult!” Since no one has ordered him to stop, the Golem continues to read imperturbably. He is standing in the center of the room with the Zohar open in his hands, reading with his deep voice that sounds like it's coming from beyond the grave. “Stop Golem!”, Evron orders. “Let us see if we can try to make things a little easier. Don’t speak esoterically, please Golem. Speak plainly, as if your audience were a bunch of fools. Fershtay? (Do you understand?)” “Yeah”, the Golem responds. “Golem already knew that he has an audience of fools. Golem is not stupid.” These last words create a stir in the room. But Evron calms the nerves by giving the Golem a signal to continue reading, which he obeys: “Dad and mom sleep together. It is what is called ‘sleeping together’ and is when dad and mom sleep i...

"Stop!" Evron orders. “We have enough matter with this phrase.” The Golem obeys immediately and is paralyzed with the open book in his hands. The wise men of Chelm do not take his eyes off him, who seems to have disconnected from everything around him. "It's really odd", Feivel says. "Well (Evron states), all Zohar quotes are odd. That's the reason why we are here: to decipher them." "I mean the Golem. When you have said 'stop' he has become petrified." "And what did you expect? That he would cut and run like the previous reader? This is not Mordekai! (Zal er hobn a zis toyt; a fur mit tsuker zol im loyfn: ‘May he have a sweet death; a truck filled with sugar should run him over’) This is a Golem! He obeys everything you order. It's his nature." "Can I do a test?", Elijah asks. "Neyn. We're here to analyze the Kabbalah, not the Golem." "The Kabbalah’s quote doesn’t have much myste...

Dovid breaks in the town hall and bumps into Evron, who rushes to ask him with expression of concern: “How’s the Grand Rabbi doing?” “Still dead. I wouldn’t bet on it.” “But he was a miracle worker!” “I guess even to work miracles you need to be alive. Or at least, not be dead.” “Then, we have a serious problem.” “What do you mean?” “We have a monster locked in the Beit Midrash! And there is no one with enough knowledge to control it!” “Do you mean the Golem?” “No, I mean my sister-in-law Henye. Of course I mean the Golem! How many monsters do we have locked in the Beit Midrash?!” “I think it’s no big deal. We Jews have always had problems and in the end we have always gotten ahead.” “You go tell Rabbi Tzvi. That will comfort him a lot.” Dovid goes to the door: “I’ll tell him but ...” “Forget it. I was being ironic.” And after a long reflective silence, Evron suddenly asks: “Do you think he can hear us?” “As I said, I wouldn’t bet on it.” “Neyn! I don't mean the Gr...

Have any of you, readers, had the feeling that what you were witnessing with your own eyes simply could not be? Have any of you seen, say, a non-cartoon seal dancing twist with a cane? Or a rain whose drops go up instead of down? Or a native of a lost tribe of the Amazon who spontaneously starts singing "Danny Boy" or some other Irish ballad? Yes? Well, then it will be easy for you to get an idea of the feeling of disbelief that overwhelms the wise men of Chelm as soon as they see the golem in motion. (Allow me, however, to advise you to visit a specialist.) Instead, the Grand Rabbi Tzvi does not seem particularly incredulous about it. Especially after the golem has given him an affectionate pat on the back that has slammed him against the wall and a lever has been needed to free him. Surprisingly, the rabbi emerges unscathed but leaves all his teeth embedded in the wall, which does not prevent him from laughing out loud celebrating his feat of giving life to the golem. “Bu...

As they climb up the narrow, steep spiral staircase that leads to the synagogue attic, the wise men of Chelm exchange comments on the usefulness of a staircase to access the upper floor of a building, which is the worldly issue that they have been weighing in the course of the last days. Upon reaching the landing of the attic, they are in such a small space that most of them must wait on the stairs. That allows them to value more carefully the practical aspect of that ingenious invention called "stairs". What a difference between this and the rudimentary method they use in the town hall to access the upper floor! That method requires two people, one to bend down and offer their hands intertwined as an impulse platform and another to deposit a foot in it. Depending on the expertise and strength of the one who stays on the lower floor, the one who ascends to the upper floor can suffer an accident, either because he fails to pass through the open hole between the two floors and...

When the wise men of Chelm learns from the Grand Rabbi Tzvi Krochmal Rapoport of Lizhensk that the key he so urgently needs is that of the attic of the old synagogue, they are perplexed. “But since when is there an attic in the old synagogue?”, they ask in surprise. Only Fishel, the oldest of them all, seemingly has the answer to that question: “That attic is there from time immemorial. Even from before the synagogue was built. Even from before the town was built. Even from before the world was built!...” And perhaps he would have continued going back even further in time if Evron had not categorically ordered him: “Shut up! You are saying nonsense!” "The question is where the key can be", Dudel says. Then Fishel goes back on: “That key is lost from time immemorial. Even from before the attic was built. Even from before the synagogue was built. Even from before the town was built. Even from before the world was built!...” Dovid, who is at his side, slaps him and Fishel...

Finding a true "miracle worker" rabbi is not an easy task. Finding a rabbi with a reputation as a "miracle worker" is easier. Finding a rabbi who pretends to work miracles is a pushover.  And the latter is what the wise men of Chelm found. The rabbi in question called himself Grand Rabbi Tzvi Krochmal Rapoport of Lizhensk, but in the Lizhensk's Civil Registry he was inscribed as «Tzvi the village shlemiel» (Tzvi the village idiot). The miracles that supposedly were within his reach covered a wide variety of cases. From finding a lost pet to moving a mountain, going through all kinds of feats each more ludicrous than the next. When the old wise men of Chelm organized a party in the town hall to honor him, the inhabitants of Chelm were able to witness with their own eyes one of the miraculous feats of their new rabbi: he could eat nonstop for three hours. They were also able to realize certain peculiarities of his idiosyncrasy. For example, in his public appearan...

KAFKA AND THE KAFKAESQUE PRAGUE Have you ever wondered why Kafka's novels are riddled with strange, inexplicable phenomena? If so, I will give you the answer: Kafka's novels are inextricably linked to the city of Prague and, at least in Kafka’s times, Prague was a mysterious city. Of course, Prague citizens did not usually wake up in the morning turned into a cockroach. That was an exaggeration, a poetic license of the great writer who one day, as a child, was playing with a magnifying glass and, when observing through it his father’s bed, saw a cockroach. That vision traumatized him and largely marked the relationship with his father, whom since then he could not look at without imagining him as a “monstrous vermin”. But apart from the inventiveness of the Prague writers, very numerous at that time (so much so that it is estimated that two out of every three Prague citizens were either writers or illiterate, or both at the same time), in Prague strange things happened:...

In the year 1937, the "On Leong", one of the tongs or Chinese secret societies of New York City, declared war on a rival tong, the "Hip Song", because of a dispute regarding the length of the queue   that Chinese men should wear. At that time there lived in Chinatown a reputed Chinese magician named Cao Xing who felt a great affinity for Jewish culture. To the point that he used to walk around Jewish neighborhoods disguised as an orthodox jew with a long false beard, long false payots, long false hair and a long false brain that enabled him to speak and understand Yiddish with the exception of some loose words like fridn, kvetch or mishposheh. Thanks to this good characterization, he had managed to make friends with a Williamsburg rabbi called Weinman. This rabbi instructed him in the Kabbalah and, at the request of Cao Xing (who when disguised as a Jew was called Gershom Alishpensky), taught him the secret procedure for building a Golem  with the strength of three...