moshe, of beer sheva st.

Rabbi Eliezer said: Let the honor of your fellow person be as dear to you as your own. -Pirkei Avot 2:15 

Moshe is a wanderer. This is partially why we become quick friends, because I like to wander, too. Moshe sits at the Y Café on Nissim Behar the whole day and reads newspapers and talks to the customers. I sit at the Y Café with my laptop to work on my editing, so Moshe and I spend many hours a week in each other’s company. Moshe spends the rest of the day either wandering or learning at Kol Rina, the shul on Beer Sheva St.

He walks me to the framing store to pick up a newly framed print to drop off at his apartment. His hands and fingernails are dirty from newsprint. He struggles a bit to get around at his age, but there is a jolliness in his stride and he walks with a sense of purpose in his wanderings. He is happy to be going wherever it is that he is going.

When I am at the laundromat Moshe sits in a white plastic chair beside the television and tells me about the news and about his shul and his classes or he watches me play anagrams, cross-legged on the hard floor with Elka and Jess. For weeks he tells Jess and I that he wants to take us out for a nice lunch. This is his big plan. We hesitate because we don’t want him to spend his money on us. We have no idea how much or how little he has and we don’t want to chance him spending too much of it. But he keeps persisting; he really wants this date.

Finally we schedule a day and a time. We meet him after his class at the shul. He announces we’re not going to go to the café on Nissim Behar. He has big plans for us. He wants to take us to a nice place on Bezalel, a change of scenery for all three of us he says. It takes forever for our entourage to reach the restaurant, all the while Jess and I thinking he’s going to fall and break a hip any second.

To him, everything we say, everything we do is wonderful. I love him for his unconditional acceptance and his unconditional approval. To him we are young and smart and happening. We can do no wrong. We sit for hours talking. I am thirsty for his stories but really, he is more interested in hearing about our plans and telling us how wonderful we are. That is the treat for him. He insists on getting us extra brownies to go.

In a few weeks, Jess will return to America and I will move to Beit Hakerem with Elka. As we part ways at the corner of Nissim Behar and Beer Sheva he scribbles down his mailing address. “You tell your roommate Elka, I want to bring her some ice cream. Once you leave here I don’t think I’ll ever see you again. I don’t think you’ll come here to visit me anymore. But, please, come back sometimes and visit me,” he pleads.

Weeks pass by and I never go back to Nachlaot to visit. A few months later, I walk through the neighborhood to see a friend. It is nighttime. Through the window of Y Café, I see Moshe at his usual spot. He is drinking tea, his grubby fingers smudged with newsprint, clasped loosely around the cup. I can’t tell for sure, but I think he is arguing with the waitstaff. Probably about something he saw on the news. I hesitate for a moment and keep on walking; I do not see Moshe again.

I still don’t understand why I don’t go back to visit him. My only explanation is that, sometimes, I am not a very good person. For this I have no answer: how I can make a person so happy just by being there and yet instead I seek the approval and praise of those who cannot or do not want to love me.