With thanks to my son Joshua Israel Geller for the
idea.
It was one of those perfect mid-autumn mornings with a fresh
tang in the air and a warm sun filtering through the clouds
and smoke and landing softly on the treetops that dotted the
avenue.
Chava hurried down the subway steps with a pang. She would
have preferred to enjoy the fresh morning but if she traveled
above ground she would most certainly be late. She managed to
squeeze her lithe frame in just as the doors of the car were
closing. She heaved a sigh of relief. The train lurched
forward and as Chava surveyed the car for a seat, her mouth
dropped open. The car was full, not of people but of people-
sized esrogim, lulavim, hadassim and arovos.
The few esrogim were sitting and learning or standing
and saying Tehillim. The lulavim were bent over a
sefer in deep concentration. The haddasim were
all standing, having relinquished their seats to others and
the arovos were all sitting staring into space,
oblivious to those around them. Spotting Chava, one of the
esrogim got up to offer her a seat.
Chava shook her head slowly both in answer to the offer and
to clear it. "Thank you," she finally managed nonplussed,
"but I have to turn off the alarm clock now." Indeed the
shrill ringing of the alarm clock permeated her dream and the
early-morning New York subterranean wonderland disappeared to
be replaced by the dawning of a fresh Israeli day.
Bleary-eyed, Chava stumbled out of bed and into the kitchen
where she found her husband David dressed and sipping a cup
of coffee with an open sefer in his hands.
"You're up early," she said washing her hands and putting up
more coffee.
"Well," he answered, "after a stretch of getting up for
selichos, my body seems to think this is the new
status quo. I'm going to have a serious talk with my
metabolism as soon as it wakes up properly. What are you
doing?" he asked. "You don't like coffee."
"It's this dream I had. Really weird," she said measuring
sugar into her coffee cup.
"Oh?" He raised a curious eyebrow. Chava told him about the
dream and then looked at him expectantly.
"What do you think it means?"
David sighed and furrowed his brow as he always did when his
wife asked him to expound on deep philosophical issues,
something he found more comfortable leaving to her. "I think,
my dear, it means that you heard me last night when I said I
wouldn't be home for supper today because I'm going after
work to the shuk arbaa minim and then to my
shiur."
She furrowed her brow back at him.
"You also mentioned yesterday that you miss New York in the
fall with all the leaves changing, etc., etc."
"Oh, right." But although David had logically explained the
dream away, and after all it's not too unusual to be dreaming
about esrogim a couple of days before Succos, she
still couldn't shake the strange other-worldly haze that
still enveloped her mind.
"Not enough sleep," she decided, and shrugging the dream off,
she occupied herself with the myriad tasks of getting ready
for work and beginning her day.
Chava worked in a multi-storied office building in Ramat Gan
that housed what should have been an illegal number of law
offices and financial consultancies. She worked for a
religious firm as an English secretary.
She raced across the lobby towards the full elevator and
caught it just before the doors closed, and began its
lackadaisical ascent of the modern tower.
Suddenly the elevator jolted, then shuddered, and heaving a
sigh, it stalled. The reaction was immediate if varied. Some
people grumbled, others started pressing the buttons, a
couple of them smiled at the prospect of delaying the start
of their work day.
"It appears we're stuck," one older man chortled, stating the
obvious.
As if on cue, five cell phones were simultaneously whipped
out. Chava stared as, in concert, five numbers were plugged
in and the phones were placed to the caller's ears. One man
stood absorbed in a sefer. He hadn't even blinked when
the car stalled and continued learning undeterred. A motherly-
looking woman took out a worn Tehillim and started reciting.
One young girl was talking animatedly on her cell phone,
sharing the great adventure of being stuck in an elevator,
with a friend.
Another woman whom Chava recognized as a secretary in an
adjoining office took out a large bottle of mineral water and
some cups and started offering them around. An annoyed man in
a business suit started banging on the doors.
"Who is it?" called someone from below.
"What do you mean 'Who is it'?" said the irate man. "We're
stuck in the elevator."
"Good thing you told me, I wouldn't have known," said the
voice tinged with sarcasm. "We know you're stuck. We were
repairing the electricity and a wire shorted. We're working
on it. We'll have you out soon."
"I have a meeting in five minutes!" he said, looking
instinctively at his watch.
"I'll keep that in mind," answered the voice.
The girl who had finished her conversation started to get
jittery. The Tehillim lady noticed and offered her her
Tehillim. "Here," she said. "It will make you feel better."
The girl hesitated and looked around, taking a silent census
whether she should succumb to religious persuasion or not,
but most people weren't looking at her so she took the
Tehillim with a shy murmured, "Thank you."
The minutes dragged on. The girl recited, the Tehillim lady
took out another Tehillim from her bag, smiling
intermittently at anyone whose eye she managed to catch, the
water lady gave out seconds, the talmid chochom continued to
learn, a few people chatted on the phone instead of with each
other and the irate man continued to bang on the doors at
intervals as if he were the percussionist in a symphony
orchestra taking his cues from an invisible conductor.
Chava had a deja vu. Where had she seen this scene before?
Then she remembered her dream. She started mentally matching
up the four species to the people in the elevator, as in one
of those worksheets children get in kindergarten. She felt
guilty. She didn't even know these people. It was wrong to
judge them. There'd been enough judgment lately. And then,
she considered which species would she be? She looked around
the elevator for something she should do. She felt strangely
separate from the scene. As if she were observing it from a
distance.
Suddenly, one by one the people started to change. The lady
who had been giving out water transformed into an esrog
. The irate man became an arovoh. The man learning
turned into a lulav and the woman with the Tehillim
became a hadas.
Chava's mind whirled in confusion. She felt stifled and in
need of air. She blinked a few times and opened her eyes.
She was lying in the succah. It had been a dream. A
dream within a dream.
She sat up as her husband came back from Ma'ariv.
"Did you get some rest?" he asked her.
"Well, I slept," she answered, "but I don't know how restful
it was."
"Hmm . . . I usually sleep well in the succah."
"I had a strange dream."
"Oh. Want to tell me about it?"
"Maybe later," she smiled. "As soon as I'm sure that I'm
really awake."
Just then a neighbor appeared at the entrance.
"Knock, knock." She said jovially. "Sorry to disturb you but
could I borrow a couple of chairs? I have some unexpected
guests."
"Sure, sure," David said handing them over.
"Sarah, you always have guests," Chava beamed at her. "How
can that be unexpected?"
Sarah laughed. "Thanks so much. Have a nice evening." And she
wafted away.
David sat down and poured a drink for himself and his wife,
made the blessing, took a sip, smacked his lips and opened a
sefer to learn.
Another neighbor peered in, a young avreich from the
next building. "Moadim lesimchah," he said
tentatively. "Would it be alright if I learned in here with
you a bit? My kids are all over the place making noise and I
can't concentrate."
David looked uncomfortably at his wife who had winced
slightly at the complaint about the noisy kids. How she
wished she had something like that to complain about. David
thought it would do his neighbor some good to hone his
sensitivity but at his wife's wordless acquiescence he said,
"Sure pull up a chair."
"I'll go get some refreshments," Chava offered, excusing
herself. As she left their succah, the song of Succos -
- the mingling of laughter and voices blending in amiable
conversation, learning, prayer and song rose up in an
offering to Hashem who looks down upon His . . .
"Would you all stop that infernal racket!" a coarse voice
from above broke through Chava's reverie. Chava wondered yet
again why secular people came to live in religious
neighborhoods if all they were going to do was complain about
the religious activities.
She sighed as she slowly walked up the stairs to her
apartment. "It takes all kinds, I guess," she thought to
herself. And now she was sure she wasn't dreaming.
