In all of the Americas, north, south and middle, Shmelke told me, his favorite stop was Cusco, the old Inca capital city in Peru. He and his followers settled into the Mottel Patel just beyond the astonishing stonewalled Inca ruins of Sacsayhuamán, on a hill overlooking the city. The setting inspired teachings about the temporal nature of human existence, a passing shadow, a fleeting dream, as well as about the rise and fall of empires and nations, and attempts throughout history by human predators to exterminate whole peoples—why some survive, such as we Jews, and others disappear, for instance, the Incas. It was also of course an occasion to reflect on walls—walls that protect, walls that divide, and so forth—Walls that are worshipped, Shmelke added pointedly, such as our own Western Wall in Jerusalem, a form of idolatry, didi. But even Herod the Great could not have constructed walls of such magnificence and perfection as the walls of the fortress or temple or whatever it was of Sacsayhuamán—giant, smooth boulders fitted together without mortar to perfection like a jigsaw puzzle so that even the thinnest blade of a knife could not be inserted between them. Who were the master masons that built these walls? The Spaniards believed it was the work of demons. Others are convinced it was extraterrestrial aliens transporting the giant stones in their spaceships from a faraway planet in a distant solar system, and setting them down on this hill, since such a creation is beyond human power.

But whoever was responsible, for us it was an almost ideal setting, my brother recalled: Walls behind which we could seek the privacy and seclusion in nature to meditate, to practice our hitbodedut and converse with God in solitude from the depths of our souls with such closeness and intimacy, as with a loving father; large open spaces within the walled compound in which my Hasidim could dance ecstatically in circles for hours as tour groups in identical logo hats came and went led by guides holding aloft an umbrella to show the way under the sun, stopping as they trudged back to their buses to drop coins and bills into the cups my boys held out. They were young, my wild boys, busting with energy and enthusiasm in their white, knitted kippot and striped, blue-and-gold kapotes, their beards and peyot flying like birds. I don’t hold them responsible for what happened, they were soaring on spiritual heights, on the condor wings of the one above. But in short order the Incas showed up as if risen from the dead, climbed up the hill in their bright woolen ponchos, blowing on their bamboo windpipes. Who knew they still even existed? We thought the Spanish had taken care of them all. We had no intention, God forbid, of poaching on their territory.