Bread Givers

“I’m only a sinful woman […] God be praised for the little we have. I’m willing to give up all my earthly needs for the wine of Heaven with you. But […] God gave us children. They have a life to live yet, here, on earth.”

Sara sees how Shenah believes in Reb Smolinsky’s misogyny because she thinks that it is God’s word. In spite of this, Shenah uses her leverage as Reb Smolinsky’s wife to remind him that they cannot abandon their children’s needs simply because he wants to study the Torah. This quote demonstrates the complex ways that Shenah navigates The Threat of Patriarchal Control, simultaneously belittling herself and uplifting her daughters.

“I should set you up in business yet! […] I’m marrying your daughter—not the whole family. Ain’t it enough that your daughter kept you in laziness all these years? You want yet her husband to support you for the rest of your days? In America they got no use for Torah learning. In America everybody got to earn his living first. You got two hand and two feet. Why don’t you go to work?”

Berel Bernstein describes Americanization, which Reb Smolinsky views as a threat to true Judaism. Berel is the first character in the novel who confronts Reb Smolinsky for the way that he lives off his daughters’ work. His words reflect the theme of Traditional Values Versus Modern Aspirations.

“And so Mashah […] helpless with the first great sorrow of her life, gave in to Father’s will. She let go her chance of fixing up her happiness because of Father’s unforgiving pride. And Jacob was never seen in the house again.”

Even though Mashah feels ready to forgive Jacob for how he treated her, Reb Smolinsky forbids her from seeing him. Mashah submits to her father’s will because she believes that it is her duty. Sara sees how Mashah never fully recovers from this experience but instead allows Reb Smolinsky’s will to break her; Mashah’s sorrow over Jacob marks a major turning point in her character arc as she changes from a beautiful, selfish girl to a discouraged, impoverished woman.

“We’d come home worn and tired from working hard all day and there was Father with a clear head from his dreams of the Holy Torah, and he’d begin to preach to each and every one of us our different sins that would land us in hell. He remembered the littlest fault of each and every one of us, from the time we were born.”

Sara describes how Reb Smolinsky’s preaching makes them bitter towards him because they work all day while he sits at home. Sara notices how her father’s berating becomes so difficult to handle that her sisters are willing to marry anyone to escape Reb Smolinsky. This quote highlights the stark contrast between the “worn and tired” women and Reb Smolinsky’s “clear head.”

“I began to feel I was different than my sisters. They couldn’t stand Father’s preaching any more than I, but they could suffer to listen to him, like dutiful children who honor and obey and respect their father, whether they like him or not. If they ever had times when they hated Father, they were too frightened of themselves to confess their hate. I too was frightened the first time I felt I hated my father. I felt like a criminal. But could I help it what was inside of me? I had to feel what I felt even if it killed me.”

Sara knows that she is different than her sisters because she hates Reb Smolinsky. This signifies an important moment of realization for Sara because she does not fear that she may not go to heaven if she hates her father. Instead, she wants to be authentic, even if it means being an outcast.

“‘Where were your brains? Didn’t you go out with the man a whole month before you were married? Couldn’t you see he was a swindler and a crook when you talked to him?’ ‘Couldn’t I see?’ cried Mashah. ‘I thought you said you saw. You said you knew yourself a person on first sight. You picked him out! You brought him to the house! I didn’t care about any man any more. I only wanted to run away from home.’ ‘You wanted to run away because you were a lazy empty-head […] As you made your bed, so you got to sleep on it.’”

For the first time since her affair with Jacob, Mashah argues with Reb Smolinsky because of his hypocrisy. Reb Smolinsky reveals his arrogance when he refuses to address Mashah’s accusations, instead choosing to insult her. This conversation foreshadows Reb Smolinsky’s problems when he asks for his daughter’s help after marrying Mrs. Feinstein. In that instance, Mashah, Bessie, and Fania tell him that he must live with his decisions just as he told them to live with theirs when they came to him for help.

“‘What are you always blaming everything on the children?’ I burst out at Father. ‘Didn’t you yourself make Fania marry Abe Schumukler when she cried she didn’t want him? You know yourself how she ate out her heart for Morris Lipkin—’ ‘Hold your mouth!’ And he walked away as if I was nothing.”

This quote shows the first time Sara confronts Reb Smolinsky about how his actions hurt his daughters. However, Reb Smolinsky only sees Sara as insignificant, as his body language makes clear. Instead of engaging with Sara or taking responsibility for his actions, Reb Smolinsky chooses to walk away from the conversation, establishing a clear physical and emotional rift between himself and his daughter.

“‘So with the blood money of your children’s wages, you got to feed the starving Russians, thousands of miles away.’ […] It was no use talking. Father was like a stone in his high purpose of living for God and working for the good of the world.”

Shenah confronts Reb Smolinsky’s decision to send their money away to charities in Russia. However, Reb Smolinsky does not see the contradiction and cruelty in sending away his daughters’ earnings while the Smolinskys hardly have enough to eat on their own. The phrase "blood money" emphasizes the grueling nature of his daughters’ labor.

“What! Sell my religion for money? Become a false prophet to the Americanized Jews! No. My religion is not for sale. I only want to go into business so as to keep sacred my religion.”

This quote exemplifies Reb Smolinsky’s arrogance. Reb Smolinsky believes that profiting off Judaism would be evil. His pride over the loftiness of his vocation as a scholar of the Torah causes him to refuse money that he could easily give to his family to help feed them.

“Never come back to darken my days. At least a few years before my end I want to be free from you. If I were only a widow, people would pity themselves on me. But with you around, they think I got a bread giver when what I have is a stone giver.”

After Reb Smolinsky loses their money, Shenah falls apart because she knows she could have prevented it if she had been there to help her husband. Shenah references the title of the novel by telling Reb Smolinsky that he is not a “bread giver” as people think. This quote establishes a central irony of the novel: the Smolinsky women are the “bread givers” who sustain the family even though Reb Smolinsky believes that they are worthless.

“For seventeen years I had stood his preaching and his bullying. But now all the hammering hell that I had to listen to since I was born cracked up my brain. His heartlessness to Mother, his pitiless driving away Bessie’s only chance to love, bargaining away Fania to a gambler and Mashah to a diamond-faker—when they each had the luck to win lovers of their own—all these tyrannies crashed over me. Should I let him crush me as he crushed them? No. This is America, where children are people.”

This quote shows Sara’s final breaking point against her father’s oppression. Sara decides to lean into Americanization because she realizes that she has the right to make her own decisions about her own life, rather than listen to what her father decides for her. Her words mark a turning point in her navigation of Traditional Values Versus Modern Aspirations.

“‘I’ve got to live my own life. It’s enough that Mother and the others lived for you.’ ‘Chzufeh! You brazen one! The crime of crimes against God—daring your will against your father’s will. In olden times the whole city would have stoned you!’ ‘Thank God, I’m not living in olden times. Thank God, I’m living in America! You made the lives of the other children! I’m going to make my own life!’ ‘You hard heart! You soul of stone! You’re the curse from all my children. They all honored and obeyed their father.’ ‘And what’s their end? Look at them now! You think I’ll slave for you till my braids grow gray—wait till you find me another fish-peddler to sell me out in marriage!’”

Sara and Reb Smolinsky’s argument highlights Traditional Values Versus Modern Aspirations. Sara confronts her father because she does not want to end up like her sisters. From this fight, Sara internalizes Reb Smolinsky’s belief that she is a hard-hearted individual. However, Hugo shows Sara that wanting fair treatment does not make her a cruel person.

“Mashah sank into a chair, her drawn lips whitened with pain. Moe glanced at her swollen ankles. ‘Always there’s something the matter with you. I hate sick people. You’re just like a horse. You work, work, till you can’t move. You don’t know when to stop till you drop. If I’d ever go out with you now, people would only wonder how such a nice man come to have such a worn-out rag for a wife.’”

Moe’s words reveal the quiet degradation of women from their husbands. Sara sees that Moe’s impossible standards trap Mashah because she cannot make herself beautiful for him and continue to feed her children and support the family. The imagery of Mashah’s white lips and swollen ankles emphasizes the physical toll that poverty and patriarchy take on women.

“I could see you later. But I can’t go to college later. Think only of the years I wasted in the shop instead of school, and I must catch up all that lost time.”

Sara’s words to Shenah haunt her later in the novel when Shenah dies. Sara focuses on her education so much that she does not visit her mother until she is too sick to get out of bed. Sara regrets saying this to Shenah after she dies and experiences guilt which she relieves by taking care of Reb Smolinsky instead.

“But next morning when I got into the street, I grew panicky with self-consciousness. Everybody seemed to be staring at me. I felt shamed and confused with my false face. It was as though the rouge had turned into a mask, and I could not breathe through the cover. I sneaked through the streets like a guilty thing. When I got to the laundry I hurried into the cloakroom to tear the roses off my hat and wash the paint off my face.”

This quote highlights The Complexities of Assimilation and Identity. Sara hopes that if she wears makeup like her coworkers they will accept her. However, the makeup embarrasses her when she goes in public because she fears that her coworkers will use it against her.

“I used to say to my loneliness: If it will not kill you, it will be the making of you. All great people have to be alone to work out their greatness. But now all my high talk was hollow and unreal. The loneliness of my little room rose about me like a thick blackness, about to fall on me and crush me.”

Sara’s determination to pursue her education fuels her through her feelings of loneliness. However, Sara realizes that no matter how much she studies, she still craves relationships with other people. Her loneliness is tangibly represented as a heavy, crushing darkness.

“I no longer saw my father before me, but a tyrant from the Old World where only men were people. To him I was nothing but his last unmarried daughter to be bought and sold. Even in my revolt I could not keep back a smile.”

Sara sees Reb Smolinsky as a symbol of the “Old World.” She feels grateful that she can see her father so clearly because it makes her disobedience easier as she feels resolved in her convictions. The motif of the Old World versus the New World illustrates the theme of Traditional Values Versus Modern Aspirations.

“I saw there was no use talking. He could never understand. He was the Old World. I was the New.”

Sara gives up arguing her side because she knows no matter what she says, Reb Smolinsky will not see her as a human being. Sara separates herself from her father in her mind by using the motif of the Old World versus the New World. This separation allows Sara to emotionally disconnect from her decision to disobey her father.

“A triumphant sense of power filled me. Life was all before me because my work was before me. I, Sara Smolinsky, had done what I had set out to do. I was now a teacher in the public schools. And this was but the first step in the ladder of my new life. I was only at the beginning of things.”

After she becomes a schoolteacher, Sara allows herself a moment of celebration alone. Sara takes comfort in the fact that she accomplished her task without help from anyone else, representing her journey of individuation.

“‘Be good to Father,’ she begged. ‘I’m leaving him in his old age when he needs me most. Helpless as a child he is. No one understands his holiness as I. Only promise me that you’ll take good care of him, and I can close my eyes in peace.’”

One of Shenah’s last words to Sara is to make her promise to take care of Reb Smolinsky. This quote shows that even at the end of her life, Shenah believes in Reb Smolinsky’s holiness and thinks that her children should respect him, no matter what he has done to them. Shenah has internalized the patriarchal control Reb Smolinsky wields over her.

“Maybe after all my puffing myself up that I was smarter, more self-sufficient than the rest of the world—wasn’t Father right? He always preached, a woman alone couldn’t enter Heaven ‘It says in the Torah: A woman without a man is less than nothing. No life on earth, no hope of Heaven.”

When Sara experiences self-doubt, Reb Smolinsky’s words come back to her. This shows how Reb Smolinsky’s manipulation continues to affect Sara, even though she does not believe in his patriarchal belief system. This quote highlights the insidious nature of patriarchal control over women.

“I thought that in America we were all lost. Jewishness is no Jewishness. Children are no children. Respect for fathers does not exist. And yet my own daughter who is not a Jewess and not a gentile—brings me a young man—and whom? An American. And for what? To learn Hebrew. From whom? From me. Lord of the Universe! You never forsake your faithful ones.”

Reb Smolinsky outlines his fear of Americanization because he fears that Jewish children are losing their cultural heritage. However, Hugo’s request encourages him that there are still young Jewish people who want to study their religion. Hugo represents a middle ground in the struggle between Traditional Values Versus Modern Aspirations.

“I almost hated him again as I felt his tyranny—the tyranny with which he tried to crush me as a child. Then suddenly the pathos of this lonely old man pierced me. In a world where all is changed, he alone remained unchanged—as tragically isolate, as the rocks. All that he had left of life was his fanatical adherence to his traditions. It was within my power to keep lighted the flickering candle of his life for him […] The look of bitterness faded from his face and he opened the Bible, his eternal consolation. Instantly he was transported to his other world.”

Sara struggles with having compassion for her father and resisting his intolerant beliefs. At the end of the novel, she decides to allow him to stay in his “Old World” because it gives him comfort amidst change. However, seeing Reb Smolinsky lose himself in his Bible reminds Sara of the pain from her childhood when Reb Smolinsky would shut his family out.