The following day was Friday, the busiest in the Judengasse. Zorn had
made all arrangements with Rindskopf, but owing to the Sabbath he was
obliged to remain here until Sunday. And this was the Sabbath of
Sabbaths. It was the Saturday before the Passover—Shabbos H’godol—the
Great Sabbath. Albert welcomed his father’s suggestion to accompany him
to the synagogue that evening. Everything about him seemed so strange
and quaint.
It was beginning to grow dusk when father and son started for the house
of worship. The air was cool and refreshing, and the sinking sun was
behind the high walls of the quarter. All men, and some women, were on
their way to the courtyard which enclosed the House of God. The
erstwhile grimacing faces, on which was written abject misery, were now
serene, carefree, spiritual—
“In der Dämmerungstunde, plötzlich,
Weicht der Zauber und der Hund
Wird aufs neu ein menschlich Wesen—”
Some walked hurriedly, as if belated, others strolled in pairs,
leisurely, exchanging a few words of week day interest, but peace,
almost unearthly peace, everywhere. The long Judengasse was quiet, with
an air of restful melancholy about it, the melancholy and rest of a
plaintive song sung in a minor key. Not a horse stirred, not the creak
of a wheel; the voice of traffic was hushed. Nothing but footsteps of
those wending their way to prayers. Here and there one caught a glimpse
of a table in a courtyard, its legs upward like a horse on its back, and
other articles of household furniture, cleansed and scoured and left to
dry and air until the morning before the holiday, when everything must
be clean and free from every crumb of leavened bread.
Albert had never seen such a large house of prayer. It was hundreds of
years old, and within its lofty walls many a tear had been shed—nay,
rivulets had flowed from Israel’s eyes—and sometimes not unmixed with
blood. For this synagogue had housed those who fled from massacres, from
flames, from swords. Barricaded behind the tall doors, maidens sought
shelter from ravishers, children from untimely death, old women from
slaughter. Thrice this House of God had been defiled by Preachers of
Brotherly Love; thrice the torch of fanaticism had scorched its portals.
Like a man bent in sorrow, this edifice betrayed the scars of
persecution. The Old Synagogue of Frankfort looked solemn, sad,
awe-inspiring.
Albert felt the solemnity and the sadness of the old house of worship.
It was vast and lofty. Many brass chandeliers with scores of wax candles
were suspended from the high arched ceiling, snapping and flickering
every time the great door swung open. Rows of high desks, made specially
for repose of the prayer books, filled the front part, while the rear
was devoid of all obstruction and reserved as standing room for the poor
who held no pews. The nearer the row to the wall facing East the higher
the rank of its occupants. For the Judengasse was never democratic. Its
spirit was aristocratic. All had their ranks, and one could classify
them according to the rows of the pews. In the very rear were the
humblest—the water-carriers, the cobblers, the blacksmiths, the
tailors—then came the small traders, and gradually the guilds rose
higher and higher until they reached the row against the Wall facing
East, where the dignitaries sat, the learned and the rich.
Zorn and his son were the guests of the dignitary whose pew was next to
that of the Rabbi, a zealot, the descendant of a long line of rabbis.
Albert looked around with unconcealed bewilderment. For although he had
scoffed at, and mimicked, the gestures of the zealots and mocked at
their dogma and forms, he was now conscious of reverence. Even the
Rabbi’s curly locks, dangling over his ears, his untrimmed beard, his
long silk gabardine, his knickerbockers and white stockings, the
mitre-like black fur cap on his head, his broad white linen collar—none
of these provoked mockery in the youth. The figure before him conjured a
Velasquez he had once seen in Prince Joachim’s gallery in his native
town. He only saw in the visage before him the pure white skin shining
through the scanty youthful beard, spirituality in the large pupils of
his grayish blue eyes. While the prayers had not yet begun, the Rabbi,
his face turned to the wall, was lost in devotion, swaying his body
rapturously—sighing and praying and snapping his fingers in divine
forgetfulness.
A resounding blow upon the altar was a signal for silence. All murmurs
hushed. An irrepressible cough here and there accentuated the sudden
stillness.
“_Lecho Daudi likras Kallo_,” the cantor in his lyric tenor trolled the
first verse of a symbolic hymn composed by Salomo Alkabiz many centuries
ago. After the manner of the Song of Songs, the Sabbath is compared to a
Princess, with whom Israel is enamoured and whom he is wooing.
The rabbi, his face still turned to the wall, breathed every syllable as
if he were in a trance, rolled his eyes heavenward in sublime ecstasy,
spread his arms as if opening them for his beloved, a new light shining
upon his countenance, glowing with the ardor of a lover, as he softly
murmured,
“_Lecho daudi likras Kallo,_
_Pnei Shabbos Nekablo._”
Friday evening is the hour of betrothal of the Princess Sabbath to her
lover Israel, but the Judengasse sighed even as it chanted this ditty.
Now the whole assemblage swayed like a forest in a storm—one could hear
the soughing of the trees—responding with renewed ecstasy—
“_Lecho daudi likras Kallo,_
_Pnei Shabbos Nekablo;_”
and the sweet tenor picked up the refrain in the next quatrain and
melted with song.
Albert did not join in the services, though his father held the prayer
book before him. His eyes wandered. The flickering cathedral candles in
front of the singing cantor cast a strange glamor over his bearded face
and over his blue-black and white-striped robe; the dazzling gold and
silver threads in the brocade curtain over the ark shimmered in the
scintillating light of the _Ner-Tomid_.
Albert soon found himself in the midst of the great stream leaving the
synagogue. The stream moved exceedingly slow. When one leaves the House
of God one must not make God feel that he runs away from Him, just as
one must hurry on the way to the synagogue in order to show anxiety to
get to His presence. The ancient worshippers of Jehovah knew every whim
and caprice of their Lord. They knew His appetite for the fat of lamb
and veal and His relish for oil and frankincense—the rising smoke of
all offerings was perfume to His nostrils. So, eager to please their
Maker, they sauntered through the Judengasse with deliberate ease—there
was pronounced luxurious relaxation in their movements—in pairs, in
threes, in small groups, preceded by their children, moving shadows on
the moon-lit ground. Albert walked along musing. There was mockery and
reverence in his heart; the reverence and mockery were blended, as he
caught snatches of conversation from the throng.