The Echo in the Shul Basement

Chapter 1Three Minutes

Yossi Landau had exactly three minutes to say, in front of the whole shul, what he had learned.

It was for the siyum on Sunday. Every boy in the class would stand up, one at a time, and say a few sentences about the masechta they had finished. Rebbi Stern had asked Yossi to go last, because, he said, Yossi had the best mind in the class.

"The best mind," said Yossi, at the dinner table on Wednesday, "and the worst voice."

"Your voice is fine," said Mommy.

"It shakes. Every time. When I stand up, it goes wobbly like jelly, and my knees go too." He pushed a pea around his plate. "Last year at the Chanukah party I forgot the whole thing in the middle and just stood there. Everybody was looking."

"Everybody forgets things," said Mommy gently.

"Not like that."

His little sister Rivka, who was six, said, "I can say mine without shaking. 'Mah nishtanah halaylah hazeh.'"

"It's October," said Yossi.

"I'm practicing."

Yossi laughed in spite of himself, and the tight feeling in his chest loosened for about four seconds. Then it came back.

That night, he lay in bed and tried to say his speech in the dark. He got through the first sentence. Then his throat squeezed, and the words came out thin, as if they were being pulled through a straw.

He pulled the blanket over his head. Sunday was four days away.

Chapter 2The Voice Downstairs

On Thursday, Yossi stayed after school to help Rebbi Stern carry a box of sefarim to the shul, which was next door. He carried it down the back stairs to the basement, where the old books were kept in a long room that smelled of dust and paper.

He set the box on a shelf. He was about to leave when he heard a voice.

It came from the far end of the basement, behind a stack of folding chairs. It was a man's voice, low and rough, saying the same thing over and over.

"Th-th-the g-greatest kindness... The greatest kindness is... The greatest k-k..."

Then it stopped. A long, heavy sigh. And it started again from the beginning.

Yossi stood very still. His first thought was a ghost, which was silly, because ghosts did not practice speeches. His second thought was: someone is hiding down here.

He took one step closer. The voice went on, with its stops and starts and its patient, tired starting over. It was not frightening. It was the saddest voice he had ever heard, and also, somehow, the bravest.

He did not go any closer. It did not feel right. Whoever it was, they had come down here because they did not want to be heard.

Yossi tiptoed back up the stairs, and he did not tell Rebbi Stern. But all evening, the echo followed him. The greatest kindness... The greatest k-k...

Chapter 3The Man Behind the Chairs

On Friday afternoon, Yossi went back.

He told himself he was only fetching a book. He walked down the stairs very slowly, making noise on purpose so nobody would be startled. And at the bottom, he said loudly, to nobody, "Hello? Anyone here?"

A chair scraped. A figure stood up behind the stack of folding chairs, an older man with a gray beard and a black hat in his hand. It was Mr. Katz. Yossi knew him from shul: the quiet man who sat at the back and always stayed after to stack the chairs. He was the gabbai's helper. He never talked much. Yossi had never heard him say more than a sentence.

"Oh," said Mr. Katz. His face went red above his beard. "I didn't know anyone was... I was just..." He stopped. His jaw worked. "I was d-d-doing inventory."

Yossi looked at the man's empty hands. He wondered whether there was any inventory at all. There was, on the folding chair, a folded paper with writing on it, and next to it a small cup of water.

For a second, they just looked at each other.

Yossi had a choice. He could pretend he had not heard. He could say "okay" and leave. That would be easy. But Mr. Katz was standing there, and he deserved to know that the one who had heard him would keep it kind.

"I heard you yesterday," he said. "Practicing. I wasn't trying to listen. I didn't go closer."

Mr. Katz sat down heavily on a chair. He looked about a hundred years old. "You heard."

"Yes."

"I have a speech," said Mr. Katz at last, very quietly. His words came in careful pieces. "On Sunday. At the siyum. Rebbi Stern asked me to say a few words about my father. He was the founder of this shul. And I said yes. I don't know why I said yes."

"You stutter," said Yossi, and then he winced. "I mean. I'm sorry. I mean you get stuck on some words."

"I stutter," said Mr. Katz, calmly. "It's okay to say. It's the plain truth. I have stuttered since I was five. And for sixty years, I have stayed quiet at shul so nobody would have to wait for me."

Yossi sat down on the chair across from him. His own voice, he realized, was shaking, but for a different reason. "My voice shakes too," he said. "Not the same. But when I have to say something in front of everyone, it wobbles. I'm speaking on Sunday too. I'm last."

Mr. Katz looked at him for a long moment. Then, unexpectedly, he smiled. It lit his whole face.

"Then we are two scared men in a basement," he said, and it came out smooth, all in one piece.

Yossi laughed. And Mr. Katz laughed too, a surprised, rusty laugh, as if he had forgotten it was in there.

Chapter 4Practice

They practiced together. It was Mr. Katz's idea.

"My speech teacher taught me a trick," he said. "Slow down. Breathe before you start. Let the words come out easy, not hard. You do not have to push. And the most important thing," he added, "is to remember that the people listening are not judges. They are your neighbors. They want you to do well."

Yossi tried it. He breathed. He let his shoulders drop. His first sentence came out steady, a little slow, but steady.

"Good," said Mr. Katz. "Again."

For two hours on Friday and one hour on Saturday night after Shabbos, they sat in the basement among the dusty sefarim. Yossi said his speech. Mr. Katz said his. They took turns being the audience. When Mr. Katz got stuck, Yossi did not finish his sentence for him, because he had learned that finishing it would be a kind of hurry. He just waited. He looked at the man's face and nodded and let the silence be quiet and kind. And the word came, sooner or later.

When Yossi's voice shook, Mr. Katz did not say "don't be nervous." He said, "It is allowed to shake. Say it anyway. The words are still true."

By Saturday night Yossi's speech was not perfect. But it was his. He knew where the breaths went. He knew that the shaking was only a feeling, like weather, and that he could say a true thing through weather.

On Sunday morning, the shul was full. Chairs were set in long rows. Mothers wore their best sheitels and hats. Little brothers squirmed. Rebbi Stern stood at the front with a list.

One by one, the boys came up. They said their words. Some were loud, some mumbled, one forgot a sentence and everyone smiled kindly and waited. Yossi sat in the front row with his hands wet, and next to him, at the end of the row, sat Mr. Katz with his folded paper.

"Mr. Katz," said Rebbi Stern at last. "A few words about our founder, Reb Aharon Katz."

Mr. Katz stood up. He walked slowly to the front. He put the paper down on the table and looked at the room.

The room waited.

"The g-greatest kindness," he said. And stopped. Yossi's heart thumped.

Mr. Katz breathed. In the front row, Yossi breathed with him, in and out.

"The greatest kindness is the one you do without being asked," said Mr. Katz, slow and clear. "My father, Aharon Katz, did that every day of his life." And he went on, with a stop here and a stop there, and nobody minded, and when he finished there was a silence, and then a sound Yossi had never heard in that shul, a whole room clapping for an old quiet man.

Then it was Yossi's turn. He walked up. His knees did their jelly dance. His voice, when he began, wobbled.

He stopped. He breathed. He looked at Mr. Katz in the front row, who nodded, small, steady.

"It is allowed to shake," Yossi said to himself. And he said it anyway. All three minutes. Every word.

Afterward, Rivka tugged his sleeve. "You were great! You didn't forget anything."

"I shook," said Yossi.

"A little. Nobody cared." She thought. "Can I say Mah Nishtanah now?"

He laughed. Across the room, Mr. Katz caught his eye, and lifted his cup of water in a quiet toast.

Yossi lifted his own.