One of my Yiddish teachers shared this poem with us a couple of weeks ago and as a class we translated it well enough to get the gist. And to revel in the joy that we can get through 36 lines of poetry in our new language. (New? Several of us have been in the same zoom class for over three years.
Itzik Manger is one of the lights of 20th Century Yiddish literature and while outwardly simple, his poems contain great richness. While I was happy with what achieved in the context of class, I wanted to bring my own poetic sensibilities to it. I went though a period of writing formal poetry and recognized in the Manger some of the formalism he was adhering to.
Some notes:
* Avreml is a dimunitive of Abraham.
* Avrom Avinu, Abraham our father, is a common epithet for Abraham, the first of the patriarchs. Similar epithets include Dovid HaMelech (David the King) and Moishe Rabinu (Moses our teacher).
* In Hebrew, the number 18 is spelled חי which are the first two letters of the word for life (חיים), and is symbolically related to it. One often gives gifts of money in multiples of 18 for this reason.
Avreml, when will you and I
have a child? We are so old.
Any woman as old as I,
Has eighteen children already.
Avrom our father smiled and laughed,
Blowing smoke from his pipe. Believe it,
My wife. If the good lord is so moved,
Even a broom will fire a round.
Abe, my love, every night you hear
Me cry, my body racked with sobs.
Hagar is only our servant,
I, dear Avrom, am your true wife.
Often the star in the window
I think is the soul of our child.
In the raindrops, in the shadows,
In the wind, wandering each night.
Avrom our father smiled and laughed,
Blowing smoke from his pipe. Believe it,
My wife. If the good lord is so moved,
Even a broom will fire a round.
When sometimes I see Hagar’s child
At play in the sun and the sand,
I caress the boy on his head,
And my hand becomes strangely sad.
When I take the child in my lap,
He smiles so good and so sweetly,
That my eyes grow damp and large,
And my blood becomes strangely sad.
Avreml, when will you and I
have a child? We are so old.
Any woman as old as I,
Has eighteen children already.
Avrom our father smiled and laughed,
Blowing smoke from his pipe. Believe it,
My wife. If the good lord is so moved,
Even a broom will fire a round.
Joe Jots 