The next night a guest lacturer from the executive committee of the national trade union spoke in the dining hall on the plight of Soviet Jewry, reading from a large number of crumbling old letters that had reached him in devious ways from behind the Iron Curtain. His audience was composed almost exclusively of the older members of the kibbutz, the younger ones, with a single exception, having found other entertainment. Srulik the music man, who was sitting next to him, later swore to all his acquaintances that several especially heartrending passages had made the newcomer shed a tear. By the time the question period arrived, however, Azariah had either got a grip on himself or had had a change of heart, for he not only asked a question but refused to accept the answer given and continued to query the lecturer until a full-fledged argument broke out.

In one way or another, Azariah Gitlin was considered odd by most people who met him or who had heard about him from others. “Yolek’s Spinoza,” he was frequently called behind his back. High-school wits amended this to “Chimpanoza.” Etan R. mimicked Azariah’s manner and speech standing knee-deep in mud, dripping wet and orating about the nature of justice, which, after all, could be found only on a kibbutz, and at the same time demanding an urgent meeting with its “head.” Yet not even Etan could help acquiescing, albeit with a shrug, when little Shimon claimed that the new mechanic could talk politics for hours and make them sound as thrilling as a detective or science-fiction story. There was nothing dull about him, provided, of course, that one had the time to listen.

Apart from an occasional smirk or snide remark, no one would have dreamed of hurting Azariah Gitlin. It took all kinds. If a bizarrely philosophical, overtalkative, and somewhat pathetic young man just happened to land among them, what harm was he doing? He worked hard, he did what he was told, and some said that he wasn’t even half bad at it. Besides, you could see that he had had a hard life. Sometimes, during an argument in a committee, someone would cautiously poke fun at Yolek by saying, “Come on, Yolek, you’re beginning to sound like that Spinoza of yours.”

What was on most people’s minds was neither Azariah Gitlin nor the headlines in the newspapers but the flooding taking place in the low-lying fields. The winter crops were in danger of rotting in the ground.