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livelihood from the treasures their ancestor Reb Yudel Hasid had discovered, and the fourth generation finished off that wealth and didn’t leave Simon Kumer, father of Isaac, son of the son of the daughter of Reb Yudel’s daughter, even the remnants of remnants of those treasures. And now that he is pressed for money, no miracle occurred to him, and he didn’t find a treasure as his ancestor did. Reb Yudel who had perfect trust in God was paid by the Holy-One- Blessed-Be-He to match his trust, while Simon his descendant placed his trust in trade, and trade sometimes brings honors to those who practice it and sometimes brings horrors on those who practice it.
    Now a new worry was added to his worries, finding money for the journey. In those days there was some idle money among the well-to-do men of the city, for the royal authority had issued a decree against pawning, and they were afraid to lend to a Gentile who might report it to the government, yet they did take the liberty of lending to Jews at a fixed rate of interest. But where will a poor Jew get money to pay? And there’s another problem here too, for Isaac won’t find any work in the Land of Israel, and by the time his departure is paid for, he’ll need to borrow to pay for his return.
    Meanwhile, the time came for Isaac to be drafted into the army, and there was not a chance that he would be excused, for he was a healthy fellow and without the wherewithal to bribe the army commanders, and serving in the army meant profaning the Sabbath and eating forbidden foods. In spite of himself, Simon went back to pondering the journey.
    Thus he went to the pawn shop and borrowed money for travel expenses and for clothes and footwear, for Isaac’s clothing had laid him bare and his footwear wore him down because it was patched. He bought him clothes and ordered him shoes and a hat. Clothes of wool, shoes of sturdy leather, a hat of black felt, for they weren’t yet experts on the climate of the Land of Israel and didn’t know what clothes that Land demanded. True, they heard that the Land of Israel was a hot land, but they thought hot means beautiful, an in the poem of our bard, the marvels of a land where spring blooms eternal. For he is going to a place where they didn’t know him and his clothes will show that he is from a fine home. Then Simon has six shirts sewn for him and ironed meticulously, because the ones he had showed more rips than patches, for ever since the day his mother died, no hand had mended them. If Simon had been blessed with wealth, he would have provided wedding garments for his son, but now he wasn’t blessed, he provided him with supplies for the road. And he took a pillow and a featherbed from his wife’s bed and gave them to Isaac. Then he took a valise and a sack, a valise to put the clothes and shirts in, and a sack to put the pillow and featherbed in.
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    Isaac parted from his father and his brothers and his sisters and all his other relatives and set out on the road. To the disgrace of his hometown, we must say that he parted from it without pain. A city that didn’t send a Delegate to the Zionist Congress and was not inscribed in the Golden Book of the Jewish National Fund is a city you leave without pain.
    Isaac came to the railroad station and bought himself a ticket, and boarded the train. He squeezed his sack under the bench and the valise he held in his hand and sat down wherever he sat down, his heart beating like those wheels beating their rhythm beneath his feet, and like those wheels, when they beat they travel on, so did Isaac’s heart travel on. Yesterday he had worried lest there be some obstacle and he wouldn’t go. And lo and behold, there was no obstacle and he is traveling. He had already left the borders of his hometown and was entering the limits of another city, and from that
    city on to another city. And if no mishap befell him on the way, in two days he would reach Trieste and sail on the sea to the Land of