Page 203 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

Old age and the future

one has to be careful in handling it. No: it is the very small things that
are sometimes big obstacles. Sam thinks he is putting out some of the
most artistic and finest quality upholstery, and he has been at it all his
life, so he is very particular. Although I only do a small job,
shellacking and varnishing the legs of the sofas and chairs, only about
two or three inches long, Sam examines and scrutinizes each little leg
like it was a diamond
I have done all kinds of work, for myself and for other people,
which had to be done right and speedily, for profit is the life of
business, and now I have to go slow and be an expert. It is pretty
hard to change habits at my age. Finishing furniture is not such an
artistic job—in a few weeks I will be an expert smearer. But in that
place it is difficult to work well; it is crowded, with not enough light,
and the articles keep shifting so many times. I would rather do the
meanest labor and have peace of mind than worry over such trifles. I
had to give up traveling in the Moon. It broke down again and again,
and I could not find parts for it. Now I am using the Olds to go to
work, which is not very pleasant either, as I have to travel through
heavy traffic going home, and I do not like crowds. I would like to
retire on my old age pension, but I dread being all alone at home days
and nights, so I will try to hold on to any job as long as my strength
will permit—not for the sake of money, but just to be occupied.
The subject that is interesting now to every intelligent Jew—if he
has the intelligence to see beyond the material advantages that we
have gained—is not the future of the Jews in Palestine, who are
taking care of themselves, but the Jews in the Diaspora. Every idea is
a nucleus; a certain amount of humans rotate around this center.
Religion has been, under different forms in many divisions, a central
point which draws and holds different races and groups together for
centuries. When a small tribe begins to amalgamate within a larger
group and institutes a government, organizes a language, establishes a
trademark, like a flag, their language is the nucleus that holds them
together and, rotating, makes them bigger and stronger, like the
whirlpool drawing anything near it into its vortex. We Jews, when in
Egyptian bondage, in Babylonian captivity, in exile amongst the
nations of the world from one end of the earth to the other—we

199