The Diary of Yitzhak Lamdan
(Interpretive Summaries of Each Entry)

Interpretive Summary – June 29, 1914

Two days have passed since Yitzhak last wrote in his journal. He now reports that Abraham Weitz’s son, David, came to Mlynov and stopped by in Yitzhak’s home. When he saw him, he thought that at last he would get an update about his ambition to immigrate. But David indicated that matters were on hold; they were waiting to see if a relative named Abraham Lender was going to make aliyah. If Lender was going, they would go. If not, they wouldn’t go. Yitzhak does not report why the Weitz decision depended on Lender. While there was no decision yet about traveling, David did confirm their plans to add Yitzhak to their certificate of immigration as soon as it was feasible. While the update made Yitzhak feel a bit better knowing he was not forgotten, he was still worried and remained in a “crisis state” remained. He knew that if Mr. Weitz didn’t make aliyah Yitzhak’s father would not allow him to go either.

July 1914

Interpretive Summary – July 2, 1914

Nothing has happened or changed for the last two days since Yitzhak last journaled, but he feels that he should write more frequently. He has no new information and continues to fret about whether his plans to make aliyah will come to fruition. Yitzhak expresses his turmoil, not wanting to think about it, but not being able to stop.

He mentions writing a poem called "Sinking Feelings," (a poem that has not been recovered). Meanwhile, he is still waiting for a response to a postcard he sent to the editorial staff of the magazine, Shaharit, complaining that he has still not received the third issue. And he is eager to receive an issue of Perahim that was going to publish a poem he wrote called “Spring Rain.”

Interpretive Summary – July 6, 1914

Writing on Tuesday, July 6, Yitzhak mentions having a response on the Sabbath from the principal of the agricultural school in Petah-Tikvah, a man named Dr. Pikhulitz. Whether it was a letter or postcard is not clear. The response was to a postcard Yitzhak sent inquiring about the requirements to enter the school and the life of students. Yitzhak specifically mentions receiving the response on the Sabbath and one naturally wonders what this means since he lives in a religious household. Did someone deliver a letter or postcard to his home, or did he go to the local post office in Mlynov? Did he open it and read it on the Sabbath? He doesn’t say.

In any case the principal, Dr. Pikhulitz, did not fully understand what Yitzhak was initially asking in his postcard. Yitzhak was trying to understand how students at the school make a living in the Land of Israel and any qualification barriers to entering the agricultural school. From the response, Yitzhak gleaned that he could not make a living working for others, but the principal didn’t seem to understand what he was asking about requirements. Yitzhak decides it is not worth writing again because he hopes he will be making aliyah in the near future.

But the situation is still unclear. He is still in the dark about Abraham Weitz’s plans and he ponders going to the town of Bokiima to speak to him. As noted earlier, Bokiima is about a seven mile walk from Mlynov so to go and return in one day is a hefty hike. Even though a wagon appeared at Yitzhak’s home, that the Weitz family sent to purchase household goods, he hesitates to get on the wagon heading back lest he bother them by showing up unannounced. Yitzhak decides instead to wait hoping that Abraham Weitz’s son David will come during the week and if that doesn’t happen Yitzhak will send a message asking when he can visit them.

Meanwhile a day after Yitzhak sent another postcard to the staff of Shaharit complaining that he didn’t get his copy of the recent issue, the edition arrived. “Such is life, ” Yitzhak thinks, realizing that he wasted a post card.

Interpretive Summary – July 8, 1914

It has been two days since Yitzhak has written in his diary and he indicates nothing has happened. There has been no update about the pending opportunity to travel to the Land of Israel. He is in turmoil whether he should wait for Abraham Weitz’s son David to visit again or to wait for the Weitzes to send a courier for supplies at Yitzhak’s family store and to send a letter to them asking when he can visit and discuss the situation. He thinks such a letter might prompt a reply in writing. But he admits that all his earlier letters were met with silence. He is not sure what he will decide to do and feels that pessimistic about his prospects and his “crisis period” is filled with self-doubts. In the meantime, he wrote a poem in one sitting but needs to make corrections before putting it in his own book of poetry.

Interpretive summary – July 9

Yitzhak reports that Abraham Weitz got a postcard from his son Yosef who was living in the Land of Israel. One wonders how Yitzhak knew about the postcard and what it said? Did the Weitz family tell him or perhaps did the postcard arrive in Mlynov get held for pickup by the Weitz family at the Lamdan store? In any case, Yitzhak quotes from the postcard. Yosef reports that he is involved with others in buying land near Rehovot and is hopeful the acquisition will be done by the end of summer and that a portion of the land is retained for their relative Mr. Lender. He goes on to write that his family that in making their plans they should consider coming earlier.

Needless to say, Yitzhak gets excited and can’t restrain himself from thinking about the fulfilment of his dreams. Using gardening/ agricultural metaphors he describes his dreams: “Hope blossoms in me, deep, deep are its roots in my heart and soul. My blood waters and irrigates her and she nourishes it…and if this hope of mine is uprooted, God forbid, (how terrible!).”

Interpretive summary – July 12, 1914

It is July 12, 1914, three days since Yitzhak wrote in his journal. It is a fast day on the Jewish calendar that recalls the day the walls of the Jerusalem were breeched before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. Normally this fast would place on the 17th of Tammuz and not on the 18th, but this year the 17th fell on a Sabbath when fasting is forbidden. So the fast day takes place on a Sunday instead.

Yitzhak makes no mention of fasting and thus we do not know whether he was observing the fast. Instead, Yitzhak is surprised by his feelings at some difficult news that just arrived that day. “I don’t know whether to be happy or sad” he writes.

While he was composing a letter to send to David Weitz [Abraham’s son], a wagon appeared at his home carrying Abraham Weitz. Weitz informed him that he would not travel during the present summer for a number of reasons but that his daughter Hinda and his relative Abraham Lender might go in the month of Elul (two months hence). Yitzhak remarks in his journal that he is not sure if his situation is better or worse. His parents told him that his plans were no longer viable. But Yithak pushed back and told them it didn’t matter if they went or not since he would try to pursue getting his own immigration documentation.

Though he still feels like he is in a crisis state, he is surprised by his internal state and perhaps that he is taking the difficult news in stride. “I am not happy and I am not forlorn, I am ready,” he writes drawing on a quote from the writer Z. Shneour with which he begins his journal entry.

Interpretive Summary – July 16, 1914

Yitzhak is writing in an alley behind his house and is acutely aware of the natural beauty around him. He sits in the shade of a willow and hears insects pleasantly buzzing around him while golden sunlight scatters around him. And though the natural beauty arrests his attention, he catches himself. Physically he enjoys the sights and sounds, but his soul and heart are elsewhere longing for the Land of Israel.

In language that is partially poetic, Yitzhak draws the ironic contrast between life in exile (galut), which abounds in natural beauty, and the reality of life as it would be in the Land of Israel, which he knows is difficult. But this contrast is superficial. Naysayers tell him his aspirations are vapid hallucinations. Is not everything in the Land of Israel wilderness and broken earthenware fragments, isolated shrubs, and gloomy rock”? Lamdan acknowledges the reality. But if you rub your eyes the dreams will come alive and everything will be beautiful. In answering “naysayers,” Yitzhak here anticipates one of his literary devices in his later poem Masada.

Outward reality is misleading. Though everything appears beautiful around him, he is in exile, his birthplace is a “stepmother who tortures him.” Yitzhak desires to reach the Land of Israel like “a son who has not seen his mother in many days.” “Who will make me a shepherd under the azure skies of our land?” he asks. While he has golden rays of sun around him while he writes, his “soul thirsts for sunlight in our father’s land.” Yitzhak longs to stand among the many Hebrew workers and hold a hoe, a spade and a plough, and to work and to sing from the joy of building, raising the ruins, singing the song of rebirth of cultivated fields and vineyards of our land. “Alas how strong are the longings for our homeland!

Interpretive Summary – July 19, 1914

Three days have passed since Yitzhak last made a diary entry. He continues his diary on Sunday July 19th. The entry is a mix of philosophical reflection, despair and hope, and a mundane but interesting account of how he injured his foot. He also recounts an interesting story he heard from Abraham Weitz during his earlier visit on July 12th.

The day before Yitzhak made his entry, prayers were said on the Sabbath for the new month of Menachem Av. The name of the month is Av (which means father) but it is customary to call the month Menachem Av (consoling father) to acknowledge that the month is a low point of the Jewish calendar commemorating the destruction of the first and second Temple in Jerusalem.

Yitzhak is both philosophical and morose in this diary entry. The Yiddish folk saying which he quotes, “A man plans and God laughs” captures his mood. He has been planning to go to the Land of Israel, but at the moment his plans are not materializing. Yitzhak ponders whether all human plans are in vain given that the end of life is ultimately death. Even if one realizes one’s goal, is all in vain? “What is the profit in all this if death will in the end take him from the land of the living?”

It is not surprising that given thoughts of mortality and the fleeting nature of human endeavors, Yitzhak quotes from the biblical Book of Ecclesiastes, which wonders about the meaning of life admist the transient nature of human experience. Yitzhak’s writing about futility is powerful and convincing, leading one to wonder whether he is disingenuous when he goes on to say that such thoughts only intrude momentarily and do not undermine his dream of making aliyah.

To that end, Yitzhak shifts the focus of his entry to his latest attempt to get an update from the Weitz family about plans for the journey to the Land of Israel. Yithak’s impatience is evident in this and earlier entries. He received an update a week ago, on July 12th, when Abraham Weitz paid a visit to his family home. He learned then that Weitz wouldn’t be making the journey himself but that his daughter Hinda and their relative Abraham Lender might go in another month.

Now a week later, Yitzhak indicates he hoped to visit Weitz at his home in Bokiima the day before, on the Sabbath day, “but there was no wagon.” The surprising implication appears to be that Yitzhak would have traveled on a wagon on the Sabbath day had one been available, an activity that is forbidden by Jewish law on the Sabbath. One is left wondering whether Yitzhak is already disregarding religious practice or just thinking about it.

Even apart from the religious question, Yitzhak acknowledges he would not have been able to take a wagon anyway, even if it had appeared, because of an injury to his foot. A footnote Yitzhak adds opens a window into everyday life in Mlynov: The injury took place nine days earlier (July 10th). Yitzhak’s brother Moshe asked him to get him some cold water from the well behind their house and a piece of the well’s drawing mechanism fell on Yitzhak’s foot. Although nine days have passed, his foot is still in pain and he still can’t walk very easily.

Yitzhak’s train of thought leads him next to recount a story he heard from Mr. Weitz when he was previously visiting, possibly on July 12th when Weitz last appeared at their home on a wagon. Weitz apparently told the story of a young man named Shmuel from the small town of Hubyn Pershyi, whose journey to the Land of Israel was cancelled at the last minute by his sponsors from his hometown. The young man’s name was Shmuel Bortnik. Yitzhak was friendly with him as we shall see in a subsequent entry. And the town of Hubyn Pershyi, which was 54 km east of Mlynov, was where Yitzhak’s brother, Moshe, worked in some sort of senior position.

Apparently, the residents of Shmuel’s town had agreed to sponsor his journey to the Land of Israel. Shmuel headed to the nearby town of Radzivilov [Radyvyliv, Ukraine] to leave for his journey when the residents of his hometown suddenly retracted their decision to send him to the Land of Israel. Shmuel was naturally devastated and Weitz expressed sympathy for how distraught Shmuel was by the loss of his opportunity. And Yitzhak naturally identified with the anguish of his friend. “Alas, how difficult is this situation and what a great inner tragedy for this young man. Ha! Overwhelming sorrow upon you, my dear friend, my soul is also silent crying out of sight, from fear that its hope will be in vain.”

Interpretive summary – July 21, 1914

In this entry on this day, Yitzhak indicates he is writing in his journal to organize his thoughts, not because something noteworthy had happened. Yitzhak discusses an interesting visit by a friend with a business proposition and the discussion triggers Yitzhak thoughts about making aliyah and reveals just how isolated and misunderstood Yitzhak feels in this aspiration.

A young man named Shimon Berger came to Yitzhak’s home. He is a friend who Yitzhak mentions again later in his diary. Shimon had just returned from Dubno where he has been for a week and is excited about a business opportunity purchasing hops. But he needs to rent an office and hire a bookkeeper, and he hopes Yitzhak’s brother Moshe will be the bookkeeper. Then Shimon turns his attention on Yitzhak and prods him and suggests that he too should take a role in the business and thereby prepare himself to be a man and for the tough working life in Palestine. It is interesting to note that this is the first time in Yitzhak’s diary the term “Palestine” is used and only when quoting the words of a third person. Yitzhak never uses the term himself but always refers to the place as Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel, or the land of my ancestors and with other similar descriptions.

Though Yitzhak doesn’t take Shimon Berger seriously, his suggestion still triggers Yitzhak’s own self reflections on his aspirations. Yitzhak acknowledges that neither strangers nor those close to him can understand his dreams. And he knows he can’t work in a warehouse because “haggling is totally strange to me and I am not patient by nature.”

Yitzhak goes on to describe his aspirations again to leave exile and make aliyah in now familiar terms, “to the land of revival, the land of the ancestors and offspring; to work there on the people’s field and its literature, to drive a post in the soil of our land and dwell among her mountains [35] to enjoy oneself in the radiance of her sun, the blue of her heavens, and see with my eyes the rebirth of my people and the development of her name.”

What is new for the first time is Yitzhak’s revelation that he hopes to work not just on the land but in “the field of literature and the people.” Previously when he refers to the fields in the Land of Israel, he appeared to be speaking about matters of the soil, agricultural revival, and physical rebuilding of the land. But here he apparently alludes to a hope that he can work in the field of literature and be a writer in the Land of Israel.

He ends his journal entry with a fervent prayer that the God who brought the first Zionists of Bilu to the land not let him “down in exile.” And indeed, the budding young writer is struggling, as he admits in the conclusion to this entry. He hopes to be a writer in the Land of Israel, but he is having a hard time expressing his feeling in poems. He has tried a number of times already but not had success. Yitzhak compares himself to a person who becomes dumbstruck while in the middle of speaking and is filled with so many ideas and feelings that he wants to express but cannot say. By evoking this powerful metaphor about his poetic impotence, Yitzhak belies his failure. He doesn’t know it yet obviously, but one day he will find the words to express his feeling of being alone and out on a limb by himself.

Interpretive Summary – July 22, 1914

Yitzhak indicates that a courier from the Weitz family arrived at his home today. The courier brought a note came from David Weitz requesting that Yitzhak renew their subscription to the newspaper, HaZeman, which he had not received for a while and assumed the subscription lapsed. The request indicates that the Lamdan convenience store in their home functioned as a nexus for letters and communications and Yitzhak’s administrative role in this activity. It is evident that David Weitz couldn’t resubscribe himself from his smaller town of Bokiima and he relied on the Lamdan store to do this. Whether the Lamdan store was involved in sending and receiving mail or whether it had something to do with guaranteeing the payment is not clear. In any case, Yitzhak himself was responsible for orchestrating the subscription.

Yitzhak realizes that David Weitz has made a mistake. The subscription had not in fact lapsed. Yitzhak had created the subscription two months earlier and subscribed the Weitz family for a six month period. David apparently did not remember. The newspaper has not arrived for some other reason. Yitzhak suspected a foul-up by the administrative offices rather than an end of the newspaper’s life, which he felt would be a real shame.

In responding to David’s request, Yitzhak took the opportunity to request any news about David’s sister’s plans to go to the Land of Israel.

Interpretive Summary – July 23, 1914

Yitzhak’s entry for July 23rd discusses a failed opportunity to visit Abraham Weitz, the fact that his brother Moshe is soon to leave for Hubyn Pershyi where he works, and an exchange of letters with Shmuel Borshtak the young man who had his journey to the Land of Israel abruptly cancelled. The entry is also of interest in illustrating the movement of letters among friends as a means of encouragement among aspiring Zionists.

Yitzhak begins with his dismay that his plans to catch a wagon to visit Weitz fell through. A wagon didn’t show up that day even though it was a market day. He expects the Weitz famiy will send someone for meat the next day, but he expects the person to come on foot, not by wagon. Yitzhak now expects he won’t get an update for two weeks since the first nine days of Av are a period of mourning, and it is not customary to go on visits to other families.

Yitzhak then mentions that his brother has not yet left Hubyn Pershyi with Abraham Borshtak and that he received a letter written by the sister of Shmuel Borshtak on her brother’s behalf. Shmuel Borshtak was the young man whose aliyah was abruptly canceled (see July 19th). The letter indicates Shmuel wants Yitzhak to come visit. Yitzhak responds with a letter of his own explaining he is in a crisis moment with regard to his journey and must stand guard to ensure he doesn’t miss any news. He also expresses words of empathy to his friend over his cancelled trip and offers him advice that if he still hopes to make aliyah, he should join an agricultural school.

Yitzhak then turns to the grief he feels not knowing his situation and the questions swirling around in his head. Was Abraham Weitz’s journey cancelled for good? Would Weitz’s daughter Hinda go? Yitzhak is afraid if he does not gain clarity soon, it will be too late to make the necessary preparations like getting his immigration documentation and allaying his parents’ concerns. He ends with a prayer that “bursts” from his heart.