While We're Far Apart Read Online Free PDF

street, toward the vegetable stand and the Italian grocery store and the mailbox. Jacob walked past all three places and simply kept going, walking and walking and walking.
    Thirty minutes later when his temper had finally cooled, he turned toward home, exhausted and hungry. Everyone would be inside their own houses by now, eating their Shabbat dinners, singing psalms, blessing Hashem. Jacob no longer had to worry about bumping into anyone he knew.
    He was a few yards from the back door of the shul when he noticed the smoke. He halted, staring at the familiar brick building as if unable to comprehend what he was seeing. Billowing black smoke poured from beneath the roof. Bright orange flames danced behind the first-floor windows.
    “No . . .” he whispered. “No!” Jacob turned and ran back to the cigar store he had just passed, open late on a Friday night. He pushed through the door, out of breath. “Call the fire department! The shul is on fire!”
    “The what?”
    “The synagogue! The synagogue down the street, on the corner! Congregation Ohel Moshe. Hurry! I saw smoke! And flames inside!”
    As soon as the man reached for the telephone, Jacob rushed outside again. Maybe he could find a way to throw some water on the flames until the fire department arrived. He had been gone barely a minute, but when he neared the building again he could see that the flames were already too much for him. He could see them on the second floor, flickering behind the window in the women’s section.
    The fire was rapidly spreading out of control.
    It must have started in the beit midrash , and with so many books in that study room there was plenty of fuel to burn. All those books, the sacred books! What a terrible tragedy that holy books containing the word of Hashem should burn! That was what that madman Hitler had been doing – burning books. And synagogues. Jacob glanced around frantically. He should hear sirens by now. What was taking the fire department so long? The Torah scrolls! They were going to burn!
    He must not let that happen.
    Flames already engulfed the rear of the building by the back door, so Jacob hurried around to the main door, in front. It was locked. Of course it would be locked. Evening prayers had finished. Everyone had gone home. He reached into his pocket for the key, given to him when he served as the gabbai , organizing the prayer times and assigning a huzzan to lead them. And there it was, still on the key ring along with his apartment key. A year had passed, and he had never thought to give it back.
    People were starting to gather in the streets, pointing to the smoke and flames. As Jacob unlocked the door with shaking hands, he heard someone shout, “Don’t go in there! Wait for the firemen!”
    He opened the door. A wall of smoke was waiting inside to greet him, rushing out at him. Hot, blinding smoke. He could barely see where he was going, but it didn’t matter. He knew every inch of the shul’s rooms and hallways by heart. The building faced east, toward Jerusalem, and the Aron Ha Kodesh, where the Torah scrolls were kept, was on the easternmost wall.
    “You see, Hashem? You see the mitzvah I am doing for you?” he said as he groped his way toward the sanctuary. “You did not see fit to save my Miriam, but I am still saving your Torah.”
    He paused at one of the basins outside the sanctuary and removed his jacket to soak it with water from the sink. The faucet handles were fiery hot to the touch and they burned his hands, but he held the drenched jacket over his nose and mouth as he pushed his way through the second set of doors. Hungry flames were devouring the women’s section above him. The thick smoke made him gag and cough, even with the jacket over his face. He could feel the heat on his bare arms as he groped his way up the aisle past the bimah . He remembered how proudly his son had stood on that platform to read Torah for the first time. Was Hashem going to allow this shul, and the