Chad Gadya

I'm Not a Chalkydri Whisperer

    I wanted this quest to be over. My legs were as stiff as wooden rods and my mind fuzzy from compounding exhaustion and fear. More than anything, I longed to be home. I wanted to wake up to the smell of the citrusy etrog trees wafting into my bedroom. I wanted to milk the goats and talk to each of them by name. I wanted to attend services and play games after the oneg, running through the dining hall while the adults watched us with broad smiles.

    I even missed school and it wasn't even in session. That was probably a good thing, though, because I was pretty sure my 504 plan did not excuse absences related to questing. At this point, there was only one thing keeping me going on this quest: the promise of challah on Shabbat (even if Rabbi Amado bought it from Einstein's Bagels). I suppose the companionship of my mother and friends also helped. We talked to pass the time, though there were hours where we didn't exchange a word, using every ounce of energy to match forward.

     We ran out of cheese blintzes the next day and we didn't stumble on a single town. We passed a few farmsteads, but the doors were quickly shut in our faces. We stopped for the night under a copse of trees. We gathered some mushrooms, but it really wasn't much and my stomach was cramped with hunger.

    My mother directed us to gather fronds to form beds to sleep on. When we finished, my mother began to tell a story. "Have you heard of how giants used to roam the earth?"

    "They did?" I asked, laying on my stomach and propping my elbows on the ground so I could rest my chin on my hands.

     My mother smiled. "Yes, they used to live among humans."

    "How tall were they?" Kuni asked.

    "The shortest were seven feet," my mother answered.

  "That's huge," Marzipan said. "Did they eat goats?"

    My mother pursed her lips. "They probably did."

    "I don't like them then," Marzipan decided.

    "Did God make these giants like he made humans?" I asked.

    My mother shook her head. "It happened in the olden days — several generations after Adam and Eve — that angels noticed how beautiful some of the humans were. They came and visited earth. Some of these angels fathered children with the daughters of man. These children were giants."

    "Did they have wings?" I asked.

     "I don't believe so," my mother said, "but they were stronger than humans. They fought beasts, conquered cities, and grew famous, spawning many tales of heroes. The trouble was, a lot of them were arrogant. They used their strength to subdue and control humans and in time, their ways spread. Humans began to act like giants and cruelty became the common language of the world."

   "God looked down on earth," my mother continued, "and wept at all the wickedness that abounded. Adonai decided to flood the earth, but preserve the righteous. He spoke to Noah and told him to build an ark."

     The shadows of the day slid over my mother's face as she spoke. "Noah did so and he brought animals onto his ark. There were two of each animal that wasn't kosher and seven of each kosher creature. Noah also invited his entire family: his wife and daughters and sons and their families. The boat was crowded and when it began to rain, the giants realized they had been left behind."

"The flood did not mean the end of the giants, though," my mother said. "Angels continued to procreate with humans and produce children more powerful than ordinary humans. In time, however, this became less common. People began to fear angels and the race of giants has all but died out."