Christmas Story: Mendel Claus

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Dear Readers,

  This one is for the holiday, but I assure you that the events within are true for the time stream of origin.  Like yesterday's, it's not too far from your own time stream.

   The notion of some kind of "Jewish Conspiracy" is something you hear a lot about.  Thankfully, in your time stream, these are mostly jokes and not actual paranoia.  In the time stream that I'm featuring today, however, there is a global cabal of sorts, organized of specific Jews.

  Its aim is to repair the world.  And it does it in a most interesting way.

  Always,

  Dr. John Skylar
  Chairman
  Department of Anachronism
  University of Constantinople

Two boys outside laughed and yelled, "Man, I don't even know what we did last night!"


I heard them walk past.  Like all the other frat trash in Myrtle Beach, they missed the restaurant.  Almost everyone missed it, even though it offered the best breakfast along the surf.  As I sat at the table at Jerusalem Glatt Kosher restaurant, I stared right into the old rabbi's eyes.

Well, not his real eyes.  The photo on the wall looked just like the photo at every Chabad-Lubavitch restaurant in the world.  With his dark eyes and frizzled beard, he stares at patrons for all eternity, a sterner, Jewish version of the Dalai Lama.  I see the serenity in his face, but the deeper knowledge as well that nothing in this world will be quite as good as its potential could reach.  Menachem Mendel Schneerson was his name, and in his life, he served as the Lubavitcher Rebbe, the high judge and monarch of a sect of ultra-religious "chasidic" Jews.

Of course, these events took place years after his supposed "death."  An apostate (or apikoris) Jew, I came for nothing other than the shakshuka.  It's the best kept secret of the Mediterranean, save the location of the ark.  Something like huevos rancheros, but more like eggs poached in curry.  My stomach rumbled for it like the top of the Mountain of Sinai.

I could hear the owner on the phone, no doubt as he ignored and overcooked my eggs.  I'll translate for you from Yiddish, "Yah, the Rebbe will be fine to go tonight."

Something I could not hear came back over the line.

"No, no, I don't think it will be too cold.  Remember, his suit is very warm.  We will be fine.  It will happen, like every year."

My ears perked up.  I told myself I came for the shakshuka, but I'm a reporter.  His words were the real reason.

A lot of lower-level Chabad people reacted to the Rabbi Schneerson's death with disbelief.  They thought he was the Moshiach, the Anointed, the descendent of David destined to restore the kingdom of Judah.  The Messiah.  When he died, some even adopted a pseudo-Christian belief that he would come back, stronger than before.  Zombie Mendel would lead us to the promised land.

But I knew better.  Rabbi Schneerson never died.  In fact, he found a way around it.  That serene, smiling face in the wall photo knew more about life, death, and everything in between than any of the doctors who now adhered to his followers' pan-Jewish missionary organization.  With no son, a secretive group raised money and funded crappy little restaurants like the one where I could now smell my burning shakshuka.

I listened in on the phone conversation again, "Yes, of course all the packages are ready.  They are meeting at the Chabad House now."

Another pause as he listened.

"Okay.  I'll call you in an hour.  Make sure you've cleaned the sled, bubeleh."  He clicked off the phone and I heard pots and pans clang against each other as he tried with desperation to save my meal.

That disingenuous Israeli smile greeted me from behind the counter, "Ehhh, please to give me a few more minutes...ehhh...ze eggs arrrre ehh, needing more cooking."

I grinned.  It's not like I cared.  I'd heard what I needed to hear.  Years before, when I worked as a young reporter for a paper now long mulched into Kindling by Amazon's business model, I interviewed the Rebbe.

We talked about nonsense.  What it meant to be at the helm of a Chasidic organization.  Yankel Rosenbaum's death to an angry mob in the early 90s racial tensions across the US.  It was a big deal at the time, and for the very religious, it's still a big deal.  They called it a "pogrom," and if it was, it was the only one in American history.

It's the end of the interview that I remember, though.  The Rebbe leaned close to me, rather limber for an man of 89 years, and said, "Nu [so], what do you think of this holiday on December 25th?"

I furrowed my forehead.  He didn't want to say "Christ," so instead he used the date.  I came up with an answer, "It's a good thing, I guess."

Rabbi Schneerson smiled at me.  It was like a summer rainshower.  I've never been smiled at like that, before or since.  He continued, "I think maybe it's not such a good thing for the kids who don't get presents.  We have many of these in Brooklyn.  I don't leave Crown Heights much, but even here there are many.  What that they should get presents!  I want to do something for them."

One of his flock, this Yankel, was stabbed and brutally murdered by those kids' relatives.  But Rabbi Schneerson could think only of doing good things for them.

I laughed a little, "But you are a Rebbe!  Why would you worry about Christmas?"

He didn't blink to hear the name, but instead continued, "Because I wish their Santa Claus was real.  I wish they could maybe have someone who left gifts for them.  Maybe he wouldn't go down the chimney so much, like the one in stories.  Maybe he could use kefitzat haderech."

He spoke of something I knew only as a fable.  A kabbalistic fable, that explained why some characters in the bible could go from place to place with no time in between.  In essence, kefitzat haderech is spiritual teleportation.  You go from one place to another with just the power of faith.  Frank Herbert stole the word for his book Dune, but stole all the meaning from it also.  I laughed.

He smiled again, "Sarah laughed too, when Hashem [God] said she would have a child at 100.  But I know it can be done."

He looked so much more serious.  I couldn't feel the laughter within me any longer.  Could this Rabbi really be saying what I thought?  "You're serious.  You're saying that a Chasidic Rabbi could be...could work as..."

"Yah, Santa Claus.  Think about it, you've got a yiddisher kop [smart mind].  What do we do on the 24th and 25th?  We sit around and we do nothing!  We see movies.  Maybe learn a little Torah.  And out in the streets, where are the goyim [non-Jews; lit. "nations"]?  They're in their homes, with their families.  They sleep early."

I just managed a nod.

"And nu, look at me.  Just because my suit is black, I'm not Santa Claus.  We have the little Chabad Houses, all over the world.  In every city.  I have my students, they teach everywhere.  We raise millions, each year, and we spend it on kindness and other Jews.  They say there is a Jewish Conspiracy!  Even the secular Jews say this!  What if we gave them one?"

I stammered, "I guess...I guess it could do some good."

"Yes...it could.  I am thinking, maybe, in a few years I will start this plan.  In the fall, the Chabad Houses will start making toys.  Even the one in Anchorage.  I will see to it.  We have factories.  The Rubashkins can make it happen.  And dress me in red, nu, what do you get?"

My eyes went wide, "Santa Claus."

"I was thinking maybe you'd say a shlemiel [fool] in a red suit, but you gave the answer I really wanted.  It was nice talking with you.  You liked my little joke?  I think I got you!"  He started laughing.

It didn't convince me though.  I knew he really meant it.  Jewish lore says the best way to give someone charity is so that the recipient and giver never know each other.  It saves embarassment for those who need both help as well as dignity.  Santa Claus meant a perfect way to do that.

When the Rebbe died in 1994, though, I wondered.  Did he ever try and do it?  Did the ultra-religious start to leave gifts for Christian children?  I thought about it only a little, until I heard about a family in Iowa that could not explain the clothes they found under their tree.  Then all the families in Gary, Indiana in Christmas 1996.  Then the families in Brooklyn.

And now, with the conversation I heard in the restaurant, I knew.  I'd tracked the story for years, but now I had the proof, at least proof for my ears.  The Rebbe never kidded.  And he never died, either.  He just found a new way to fix the world.  I wonder if he brought reindeer.

One question I knew the answer to.  He would never eat the cookies.  No way to know that they are kosher.