Illusions of Love Read Online Free PDF

feel the wind pressing against his clothes, which were still damp from his attempts to wash them the previous night.
    Now he had several suits and a woman to wash and iron them. But he never forgot who he was. Every morning and every night he went through the ritual of putting on his skullcap, tall is and phylacteries. As a mark of reverence, he placed one diminutive black box on the inner side of his left arm, just about the elbow, then coiled the thin leather strap around his forearm exactly seven times. It had been written that God made the world in seven days. Another black box was placed high up in the middle of his forehead, then he looped the thin strap around his head and knotted it. The two ends of the strap were joined over his shoulder and brought forward. Then he wound the strap from the arm band three times around his little finger, which signified the Hebrew letter of shin. When all of this was done, Ephraim intoned the passages which were written on tiny parchments and placed inside the small boxes: And thou shall bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be for
     
    front lets between thine eyes. And thou shah write them upon the doorposts of thy house and upon thy gates. He swayed back and forth, chanting the singsong phrases as had his father before him. When he finished he was overcome with a feeling of peace and purpose. He had held fast to the beliefs to which he had been born. They were sustained all these years.
    In that extraordinary moment of communion he found an added solace which nourished his soul. Soon he would be reunited with his family.
    His arms ached to embrace them and his heart overflowed with love.
    Nothing he had acquired would be meaningful until he was with them again.
    But Ephraim’s dreams were not to be fulfilled. After almost one year of waiting, Ephraim received a letter from his oldest sister, Hannah.
    Tears rolled down his cheeks as he read . My dearest brother Ephraim,
    Knowing the great hardships you have had to endure makes this letter so very difficult for me to write. I wish I could have spared you this pain, but Momma and Poppa died this winter, less than one month apart.
    It was as if once she died he had no will to go on. Now they lie side by side buried in the French dirt. I weep because of that. Momma and Papa wanted to be buried in Palestine, high on the hills of Mount Olive, but God must have decided otherwise.
    Now, dearest Ephraim, I beg you to try to understand and forgive us.
    The family that is left has no wish to go to America. Instead, it has been decided that we want to live out our lives in Jerusalem. In their last days on earth, this, not America, was your parents’ dream.
    Please, dearest Ephraim, know how much we love and miss you, but this is the way our lives were fated. Remember the love we share with you even at opposite ends of the world.
    Take care, dear brother . Ephraim could read no more. He wailed as he tore the lapel of his jacket, rending it in
     
    the traditional gesture of mourning. He then sat shiva for seven days, ignoring all his friends’ and acquaintances’ attempts to cheer him. In his bereavement, he was concerned that without his family, his accomplishments were meaningless. He had not left home and come to this alien place to become rich for his own sake. He had sustained the loneliness for only one reason: that one day he would be able to support his family in comfort and freedom. Well, now they had found their own freedom in the Holy Land and all his worldly success seemed futile.
    With little but his business to occupy him, he worked tirelessly and his bank grew to be a serious force in the California financial world.
    But despite his increased success, Ephraim’s spirits remained low until one summer day fate intervened in the person of Sarah Baum.
    Sarah had journeyed West with her mother and father, three sisters and two brothers. Hearing that one of the San Francisco banks was run by a Jew, her father came in