A Price Above Rubies Page #3

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Just relax and breathe.

Good.

It must be overwhelming for you.

A new city, a new family,

all these new pressures.

You're just wound up too tight.

Just relax and breathe.

Relax.

I know it can be hard sometimes.

Is a new neighborhood,

new people.

You'll be all right.

You just need to breathe.

Just relax and breathe.

Sonia, my God!

Whas gotten into you?

You need help.

The Rebbe will see you now.

You know, some of these others

have been waiting longer.

Maybe another day might be...

Sonia, don't make a scene, please.

Okay?

Go on.

Come on in, Mrs. Horowitz.

Take a seat.

I understand your husband

is a truly inspired teacher...

as well as a great scholar.

Filling the hearts of our children

with a love of Torah...

is the greatest mitzvah of all

in Gos eyes.

He's making you nervous?

Get my wife right away.

I understand you're troubled.

I don't know what to say.

I can't find the words.

The Almighty gave you

a soul to nurture.

He gave you a body

in which to house it.

He gave you a mind in order

to understand your soul's needs.

And He gave you a tongue

in order to express them.

If the desire to hear your soul

is strong enough...

you'll find the words.

I don't even know where my body ends

and my soul begins.

I felt, ever since

I was a very young girl...

like there was a fire...

inside of me.

It used to be nice.

It kept me warm.

But is been getting hotter.

It...

It makes my stomach burn...

and my nerves and my skin.

I can hardly put on a shirt.

I can't even breast feed my child.

Is too hot!

Everything is too hot.

Every touch burns me.

I have no soul.

The Almighty gave every one

of us a soul!

Whatever torment you are suffering,

you must always remember that.

You have a soul!

Maybe. But if I do,

it wasn't God who gave it to me.

"In defiance of Biblical prophesy...

and the holy redemption

of the Jewish people...

through Gos grace alone,

Boro Park's Rebbe Moishe Myerson...

has demonstrated that he is little more

than a gentile heretic...

in the guise of a Jew."

Who do these people think they are?

They've gone too far this time,

these fanatics.

Rebbe, please tell

us you won't let this attack go

without a stinging rebuttal.

Rebbe?

If you prefer,

we can compose a letter.

- Tomorrow.

- But, Rebbe, if we wait

till tomorrow, this article...

I said tomorrow!

Guess who!

Have you gone crazy?

You could give a person a heart attack.

Ah.

Something smells good!

- Is the cholent.

I'm making it special for...

- No, no, is not that.

Is you that smells so good.

God forgive me.

But I think is 20 years

since I told you how beautiful you look.

Is been 20 years

since I looked beautiful.

Moishe! You've heard

too many evil stories today.

Sometimes is the exposure to evil

that brings out our best side.

Look, you shouldn't get

so excited.

The doctor says you can't

allow yourself to get...

Oh, what doctor?

What do doctors know about love?

When the Rebbe's heart

stopped beating last night...

we lost more than just a man.

For his was a heart that beat not only

to maintain the life of one man...

it beat to maintain

the vital circulation

of the entire nation of Israel.

And who can even begin

to understand...

what force could be strong enough

to still such a heart?

What kind of a terrible power...

could have caused such a tragedy?

When the Rebbe's heart

stopped beating last night...

we lost our own Moishe Rebbenu...

who led us from the depths of the

holocaust and reinvigorated an entire...

Sonia, what did she say?

Sonia?

Shh.

Shh. I know.

Oh. Shh.

Shh.

Why are you hiding?

There's nobody here but you.

Who are you hiding from?

Are you cold?

Mendel isn't home.

I know.

Can I come in?

Actually it was you I came for.

I want to offer you a job.

Your analysis of the brooch I showed you

last shabbes was right on the money.

I want you to run my store

here in Boro Park.

I thought you worked in Manhattan.

I didn't know you had a store

here in the neighborhood.

Thas because I don't.

At least not officially.

Is a basement a few blocks away.

From there, I see a select variety

of jewelry, only the very finest pieces.

My buyer Heschel has impeccable taste,

but he's getting old.

I want you to take over for him.

Hmm? Go into the city

three days a week...

and pick out only the best pieces

you come across.

There should be no more than 30 or 40

pieces in the store at any given time.

Three days a week,

you stay in the store to sell...

but the other three

you'll be in the city...

on 47th street, all over.

Sometimes even out of state

for a few days on a special buy.

What do you say?

Ah, oh, well...

Well, I'm a mother now.

Half the mothers in Boro Park

are running cash businesses

out of their own basements.

The days that you're in

the city, you can leave Shimmie

by my wife or by Rachel.

- The other days you keep him

with you in the store.

- Oh, what does Mendel say?

Does it matter?

Does he even know about it?

I thought I'd let you tell him.

A cash business means no taxes paid,

and no taxes paid means theft.

Even if it is from

the government, is a sin.

Once when I was a boy...

I stole the answers to a test

from my teacher's drawer.

I copied them and put them back

before he noticed.

I got 100 on the test,

and I felt terrific.

I was dancing for a week

like Gene Kelly.

I knew then that my conscience

would be useless to me.

So, without telling him why, I asked

my father to teach me how to avoid sin.

He told me about his teacher...

a tzaddik who kept a notebook

in which he recorded all his sins...

from the day of his bar mitzvah onward.

One day when he was 93 years old...

the tzaddik forgot his notebook

on his desk at the yeshiva.

Just one notebook.

Most people would have a library full.

My father and some of

the other boys ran over...

to see what sins

the great rebbe had committed.

But when they opened the notebook,

they couldn't believe their eyes.

The first page had not yet even been

completely filled up.

If we all wrote down our sins,

my father said...

we'd be more careful

about committing them.

We sin because we're careless

and we don't think about it.

My father was an idiot.

The tzaddik kept his book of sins

for his students to discover.

But his other sins

he kept in his heart...

for they were dearer to him

even than was God...

and he couldn't bear

to part with them.

Piety is the standard

by which we are judged.

But is the quality of our sins

which sets us apart.

You'll start on Monday.

Good morning, Mr. Kapoor. I'm Sonia

Horowitz, Sender Horowitz's new buyer.

Good morning, Miss Horowitz.

But I'm not...

Actually is Mrs. Horowitz. And there's

something I'd like to show you.

You recognize this?

No?

You can't remember an antique

brooch designed by Querelle

worth 30,000 bucks...

which you parted with for only

five, but is really worth

nothing because is a fake?

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