Read All Who Go Do Not Return for Free Online

over his head and torso, sending a gentle breeze over our sweaty foreheads.
    Prayer began moments later. We stood in a tight semicircle around the rebbe, whose face was obscured, only the bulk of his large, swaying body visible from behind. A handful of burly students were stationed in the front row, creating a force field of empty space around the rebbe while behind them the rest us elbowed for a better spot.
    He who makes peace among the heavens, may He make peace among us. The prayer leader called out the last verses of kaddish, and I readied myself with my little Psalms.
    With the last chorus of “Amen,” I pushed my way through the tight semicircle and approached the rebbe. My hands trembled as I laid the book on the lectern and watched as the rebbe’s thick hands reached for it. From behind the folds of his tallis, his eyes met mine for a quick second, piercing me with their silent scrutiny. I took several steps backward and watched as he glanced at the volume, flipped the front cover, and read my gold-embossed name. For a moment I held my breath, waiting for the rebbe to turn and say that it was not the right kind. Instead, he glanced once again in my direction, and I saw a hint of a smile, as if an acknowledgment of my boldness in offering a volume so ordinary. I felt a flutter of victory.
    It was all over very quickly. After prayers, the rebbe was led around the premises by Reb Chezkel as the student body surged several paces behind. As soon as the rebbe’s car left, taking off with its strobe lights flashing and siren shrieking to announce the rebbe’s departure to the Hasidim of Williamsburg, we took to analyzing each moment of the visit. Every step, every glance, every twitch of the rebbe’s eyebrow, had been carefully observed and scrutinized, and for the rest of the week, it was all the students talked about.
    Inside the front cover of the little volume, following the guidance of my friend Chaim Elya, I wrote: In this Book of Psalms, the Rebbe of Skvyra, may he live many long years, recited chapters 91 to 95 on Thursday, the 27th day of Cheshvan, 5748.
    It wasn’t until my first visit to the village of New Square that I came to understand what really set the Skverers apart. The death anniversary of the rebbe’s grandfather, Reb Duvidel of Skvyra, was approaching, and the yeshiva organized an official trip to the sect’s headquarters. The rebbe would be leading a memorial tisch, a traditional communal meal.
    I wasn’t eager to attend. Rebbes were still not on my mind much. In Borough Park, where I lived, there was no shortage of those who laid claim to the title. They all seemed indistinctive and uninspiring, caricatures of pietistic pretense, each with his gauzy white beard, glazed eyes under thick eyeglasses, blue or white floral caftans: the Munkatcher, the Bobover, the Stoliner, the Skulener, the Rachmastrivker; Hungarian and Polish, Romanian and Galician, even the occasional Lithuanian. On the rare occasion that I would attend one of their tischen, I would listen as they spoke, mumbling in odd singsong voices, always variations on the same themes, about Torah study and prayer and the Sabbath kugel and good Jews and bad non-Jews. There were songs, on occasion, as often as not uninspiring, tepid melodies sung half-heartedly and off-key by sparse crowds. Usually, I would attend only with friends, if it was a special occasion and there was the promise of entertainment—a Purim play in Munkatch, the menorah lighting in Rachmastrivka, dancing till dawn at Bobov on the seventh night of Passover, which was pleasant enough for about five minutes but surely not for five hours. For the most part, little of it held my interest; I was far more concerned that my black caftan would become creased, that my polished black shoes would be scuffed, and that my Sabbath beaver hat would get knocked into a bowl of chicken soup.
    Reb Chezkel, however, made it clear that attending the tisch in New Square was