But I distinctly remember that he was with us there, at the rabbi's bed. And when I probe my memory, I also recall the faces of the founders of our kibbutz standing along the walls. Some of them are still shod in the high rubber boots they wore during our wet winters. Their boots are sopping with our reddish mud, the loam of the land of Israel, not the dark Polish forest mud whose exact color even I don't know. Through the open window comes the piercing cry of wailing.
Some women mourning in the distant throng can no longer control themselves.
I don't know. I'm not an expert in religious law. All I know is what I can see in my dream. Some of them were already bursting into tears. May the rabbi live, amen.