Jesses Star Read Online Free Page B

cornstalk looked, resting upon the two leafy walls of the sukkah.
    â€œGood work, Yossi,” the Rebbe said.
    Yossi grinned but didn’t dare look aside.
    Next cornstalk. Stuck in the pile. Yank. Elbows in! Dusty cornstalks tickling his nose. Stagger left, right, left. Come on, you silly stalk! Tangled.
    â€œLook at Yossi dance,” Jonah jeered.
    Yossi’s cheeks flamed. Good thing no one could see. Too bad
he
couldn’t see, either. Cornstalks in his face. Stilts slipping. Elbows in! Cornstalk up his nose. Tickle. “Ah
—”
Blindly stepping from side to side. “Ah
—”
Dried leaves scratching his cheeks. “Choooo!”
    One stilt caught in one sukkah wall, the other in the opposite wall. Yossi shot forward. Up flew the cornstalks. Down came the walls. Yossi crashed onto a tangle of willow branches, onions, poles, apples and pumpkins. The cornstalks landed on his head.
    â€œYossi!” Mama screamed.
    â€œThe sukkah!” the Rebbe wailed.
    â€œLord save us!” Golda cried.
    â€œClumsy oaf!” Jonah said. “I told you he’d destroy the sukkah.”
    Yossi wished he could stay buried beneath the cornstalks. Unfortunately, Papa yanked him to his feet. Papa’s face was white with rage. Mama’s was red with shame.
    â€œGo home!” Papa roared. “And take those worthless sticks with you!”
    Miserably, Yossi gathered up his stilts and slunk out of the crowd. “Useless fool,” he heard.
    â€œTroublesome pest.”
    â€œBumbling brat.”
    But I could have … Yossi said to himself. I would have … I meant to…
    But he knew that meaning to didn’t make up for anything. This time, he was really in disgrace.

Chapter Six
    The Rebbe poured wine into a chipped clay goblet. “Now, my friends, let us say
Kaddish
, and thank the Lord for all the blessings He has bestowed on us.”
    It was that evening. Yossi stood in the sukkah — now completely rebuilt — with Mama, Papa, Miriam and the rest of the villagers. Together they were celebrating the first evening service of Sukkot.
    â€œGive thanks to the Lord, for the Lord is good,” Yossi chanted in Hebrew along with the congregation. “The Lord’s kindness endures forever.”
    The Rebbe raised the goblet and took a sip of wine. As he lifted his arm, Yossi looked up, up to the roof of the sukkah. Through the leafy cornstalks, patches of yellow moonlight shown down on the villagers, lighting their faces with gold.
    Yes, Yossi thought, the Lord
was
good. Despite Yossi’s disaster, the sukkah was a place of beauty, graced with the abundance of field and garden. And even though the soldiers had taken half the beets, the root cellar still bulged with turnips and potatoes. There was food aplenty for the winter.
    So, too, were Mama and Papa good. To be sure, they’d punished him severely, restricting him to the cottage for the next week. Still, they’d let him out for a few hours tonight, to attend services. And they hadn’t burned his stilts. Yet.
    There were many blessings to thank God for this Sukkot, Yossi reflected.
    In his left hand, the Rebbe took an oval-shaped, lemon-like yellow fruit. Called an
etrog
, it symbolized the bounty of the earth. In his right hand, he took a palm branch intertwined with twigs of myrtle and willow, called a
lulav
. Chanting a prayer, the Rebbe waved the lulav up and down, turning first to the north, then to the south, east and west, to show God’s presence everywhere.
    Yossi watched the Rebbe turn. North, south, east, west. Everywhere in the whole wide world, there God was. And where would he — Yossi — go, if he could go anywhere? He remembered the place the villagers had spoken of. Canada. That sounded like a fine place. He didn’t know exactly where it was, though he knew it was far away, across Russia, across Europe, across the Atlantic Ocean. You would have to take a ship to