tell you, his heart was drawn to the Rebbe as if with pincers. He was no
learned man, himself, and he stared at the Rabbi of Brisk as a cock
looks at a prayer-book.[141] He made no objections to my holding to the
Byàle Rebbe, only he would have nothing to do with him himself. When I
told anything about the Rebbe, he would pretend to yawn, and yet I
could see that he pricked up his ears, but his son, the son-in-law of
the Brisk Rabbi, would frown and look at me with mingled anger and
contempt, only he never argued; he was silent by nature.
And it came to pass on a day that Reb Yechiel's daughter-in-law, the
Brisk Rabbi's daughter, was expecting the birth of her first
child--well, there is nothing new in that, you say? But "thereby hangs a
tale." It was well known that the Brisk Rabbi, because he had shaved a
Chossid, that is, caused him to be deprived of beard and ear-locks, was
made to suffer by the prominent Rebbes. Both his sons (not of you be it
said!) died within five or six years, and not one of his three daughters
had a boy, beside which every child they bore nearly cost them their
life.
Everyone saw and knew that it was a visitation of the great Rebbes on
the Brisk Rabbi, only he himself, for all his clear-sightedness, did not
see it. He went on his way as before, carrying on his opposition by
means of force and bans.
I was really sorry for Gütele (that was the name of the Rabbi's
daughter), really sorry. First, a Jewess; secondly, a good Jewess, such
a good, kind soul as never was known.
Not a poor girl was married without her assistance--a "silken creature!"
And she was to be punished for her father's outburst of anger! And
therefore, as soon as I heard the midwife busy in the room, I wanted to
move heaven and earth for them to send to the Byàle Rebbe--if only a
note without a money-offering--after all, it wasn't as if _he_ needed
money.
The Byàle Rebbe never thought much of money.
But whom was I to speak with?
I try it on with the Brisk Rabbi's son-in-law--and I know very well that
his soul is bound up with her soul, that he has never hid from himself
that domestic happiness shone out of every corner, out of every word and
deed--but he is the Brisk Rabbi's son-in-law, he spits, goes away, and
leaves me standing with my mouth open.
I go to Reb Yechiel himself, and he answers: "It is the Brisk Rabbi's
daughter. I could not treat him like that, not even if there were peril
of death, heaven forbid!" I try his wife--a worthy soul, but a simple
one--and she answers:
"If my husband told me to do so, I would send the Rebbe my holiday
head-kerchief and the ear-rings at once; they cost a mint of money; but
without his consent, not a copper farthing--not a tassel!"
"But a note--what harm could a note do you?"
"Without my husband's knowledge, nothing!" she answers, as a good Jewess
should answer, and turns away from me, and I see that she only does it
to hide her tears--a mother--"the heart knows," her heart has felt the
danger.
But when I heard the first cry, I ran to the Rebbe myself.
"Shemaiah," he answered me, "what can I do? I will pray!"
"Give me something for her, Rebbe," I implore, "anything, a coin, a
trifle, an amulet!"
"It would only make matters worse, which heaven forbid!" he replied.
"Where there is no faith, such things only do harm, and she would have
none."
What could I do? It was the first day of Tabernacles, there was nothing
I could do for her, I might as well stay with the Rebbe. I was like a
son of the house. I thought, I will look imploringly at the Rebbe every
minute, perhaps he will have compassion.
One heard things were not going on well--everything had been
done--graves measured, hundreds of candles burnt in the synagogue, in
the house-of-study, and a fortune given away in charity. What remains to
be told? All the wardrobes stood open; a great heap of coins of all
sorts lay on the table, and poor people came in and took away--all who
wished, what they wished, as much as they wished!
I felt it all deeply.
"Rebbe," I said, "it is written: 'Almsgiving delivers from death.'"
And he answered quite away from the matter:
"Perhaps the Brisk Rabbi will come!"
And in that instant there walks in Reb Yechiel. He never spoke to the
Rebbe, any more than if he hadn't seen him, but:
"Shemaiah," he says to me, and catches hold of the flap of my coat,
"there is a cart outside, go, get into it and drive to the Brisk Rabbi,
tell him to come."
And he was evidently quite aware of what was involved, for he added:
"Let him see for himself what it means. Let him say what is to be done!"
And he looked--what am I to say? A corpse is more beautiful than he was.
Well, I set off. And thinking, I thought to myself, if my _Rebbe knows
that the Brisk Rabbi expects to come here_, something will result.
Perhaps they will make peace. That is, not the Brisk Rabbi with the
Byàle Rebbe, for they themselves were not at strife, but their
followers. Because, really, if he comes, he will see us; he has eyes in
his head!
But heaven, it seems, will not suffer such things to come to pass so
quickly, and set hindrances in my way. Hardly had I driven out of Byàle
when a cloud spread itself out over the sky, and what a cloud! A heavy
black cloud like soot, and there came a gust of wind as though spirits
were flying abroad, and it blew from all sides at once. A peasant, of
course, understands these things, he crossed himself and said that the
journey, might heaven defend us, would be hard, and pointed with his
whip to the sky. Just then came a stronger gust of wind, tore the cloud
as you tear a piece of paper, and began to blow one bit of it to one
side, and one to the other, as if it were parting ice-floes on a river;
I had two or three piles of cloud over my head. I wasn't at all
frightened at first. It was no new thing for me to be wet through, and I
am not alarmed at thunder.
In the first place it never thunders at Tabernacles, and secondly, after
the Rebbe's Shofar-blowing! We have a tradition that after the
Shofar-blowing thunder has no power to harm for a whole year. But when
the rain suddenly gave a lash across the face like a whip--once, twice,
thrice--my heart sank into my shoes. I saw that heaven was against me,
driving me back.
And the peasant, too, begged, "Let us go home!"
But I knew there was peril of death. I sat on the cart and heard
through the storm the moans of the woman and the crack of the husband's
finger-joints: he wrings his hands; and I see Reb Yechiel's dark face
with the sunken, burning eyes: "Drive on," he says, "drive on!" And we
drive on.
And it pours and pours, it pours from above and splashes from below,
from underneath the wheels and the horse's feet, and the road is
swamped, literally covered with water. The water frothed, the cart
seemed to swim--what am I to tell you? Besides that we lost our way--but
I lived through it!
I brought back the Brisk Rabbi by the Great Hosanna.[142]
II
I must tell you the truth, that no sooner had the Brisk Rabbi taken his
seat in the cart than it grew still! The cloud broke up and the sun
shone through the rift, and we drove into Byàle quite dry and
comfortable. Even the peasant remarked it, and said in his own language:
"A great Rabbi! a powerful Rabbi!"
But the main thing was our arrival in Byàle.
The women who were in the house crowded to the Rabbi like locusts--they
nearly fell on their faces before him and wept--the daughter in the
inner room was not heard, either because of the women's weeping, or else
because she had no strength left to complain--Reb Yechiel did not see
us, he was standing with his forehead pressed against a window-pane, as
though his head were burning hot.
The Brisk Rabbi's son-in-law did not turn round to greet us, either. He
stood with his face against the wall, and I could see plainly how his
whole body shook, and how his head knocked against the wall.
I thought I should have fallen. Anxiety and terror had taken such hold
on me that I was cold in every limb, I felt that my soul was chilled.
Well, did you know the Brisk Rabbi? That was a man--a pillar of iron, I
tell you!
A tall, tall man, "from his shoulders and upward he was higher than any
of the people;" he cast awe round him like a king.
A long white beard, one point of it, I remember now, had tucked itself
under his girdle, the other point quivered over it. His eyebrows were
white, thick, and long, they seemed to cover part of his face. When he
raised them--Lord of the world! The women fell back as though they were
thunderstruck, he had such eyes! There were daggers in them, glittering
daggers! And he gave a roar like a lion: "Women, be gone!"
Then he asked in a lower and gentler voice:
"And where is my daughter?"
They showed him.
He went in, and I remained standing quite upset: Such eyes, such a
voice! It is quite another sort another world! The Byàle Rebbe's eyes
are so kind, so quiet, they do one's heart good; he gives you a look,
and it's like a shower of gold--and his voice--that sweet voice--soft as
velvet--Lord of the world! it goes to your heart and soothes it and
comforts it--one isn't afraid of _him_, heaven forbid! The soul just
melts for love of him, she desires to escape from the body and unite
herself to _his_ soul--she is drawn as a butterfly (lehavdîl) to a
bright flame! And here--Lord of the world, fear and trembling! A Gaòn, a
Gaòn of the old days! And he has gone in to a woman in child-bed!
"He will turn her into a heap of bones!" I think in terror.
I run to the Byàle Rebbe. And he met me in the door with a smile:
"Have you seen," he said to me, "the majesty of the Law? The very
majesty of the Law?"
I felt relieved. If the Rebbe smiles, I thought, all will be well.
* * * * *
And all was well. On Shemini Atseres[143] she was over it.
And on Simchas Torah the Brisk Rabbi presided at table. I would have
liked to be at table somewhere else, but I did not dare go away,
particularly as I made up the tenth man needed to recite grace.
Well, what am I to tell you? How the Brisk Rabbi expounded the Torah? If
the Torah is a sea, he was Leviathan in the sea--with one twist of his
tail he swam through ten treatises, with another he mixed together the
Talmud and the codes, so that it heaved and splashed and seethed and
boiled, just as they say the real sea does--he made my head go
round--but "the heart knoweth its own bitterness," and my heart felt no
holiday happiness! And then I remembered the Rebbe's dream--and I felt
petrified. There was sun in the window and no want of wine at table, I
could see the whole company was perspiring. And I? I was cold, cold as
ice! Over yonder I knew the Torah was being expounded differently--there
it is bright and warm--every word is penetrated and interwoven with love
and rapture--one feels that angels are flying through the room, one
seems to hear the rustle of the great, white wings--_aï_, Lord of the
world! Only, there's no getting away!
Suddenly he stops, the Brisk Rabbi, and asks:
"What kind of rabbi have you got here?"
"A certain Nòach," they reply.
Well, it cut me to the heart. "A certain Nòach!" O, the flattery, the
flattery of it!
"Is he a wonder-worker?"
"Not very much of one, one doesn't often hear about him--the women talk
of him, but who listens to them?"
"Then he just takes money and does nothing wonderful?"
They tell him the truth: that he takes little money, and gives away a
great deal.
The rabbi muses.
"And he is a scholar?"
"They say, a great one!"
"Whence is he, this Nòach?"
Nobody knows, and _I_ have to answer. A conversation ensues between me
and the Brisk Rabbi:
"Was he not once in Brisk, this Nòach?" he asks.
"Was not the Rebbe once in Brisk?" I stammered. "I think--yes!"
"Ah," says he, "a follower of his!" and it seems to me he looks at me as
one looks at a spider.
Then he turns to the company:
"I once had a pupil," he says, "Nòach--he had a good head, but he was
attracted to the other side[144]--I spoke to him once, twice--I would
have spoken to him a third time, to warn him, but he disappeared--is it
not he? Who knows!"
And he began to describe him: thin, small, a little black beard, black,
curly ear-locks, a dreamer, a quiet voice, and so on.
"It may be," said the company, "that it is he; it sounds very like!"
I thanked God when they began to say grace.
But after grace something happened that I had never dreamt of.
The Brisk Rabbi rises from his seat, calls me aside, and says in a low
voice:
"Take me to _your_ Rebbe and _my_ pupil! Only, do you hear? no one must
know!"
Of course, I obeyed, only on the way I asked in terror:
"Brisk Rabbi, tell me, with what purpose are you going?"
And he answered simply:
"It occurred to me at grace, that I had judged by hearsay--I want to
see, I want to see for myself, and perhaps," he added, after a while,
"God will help me, and I will save a pupil of mine.
"Know, rascal," he said to me playfully, "that if your Rebbe is _that_
Nòach who studied with me, he may some day be a great man in Israel, a
veritable Brisk Rabbi!"
Then I knew that it was he, and my heart began to beat with violence.
And the two mountains met--and it is a miracle from heaven that I was
not crushed between them.
The Byàle Rebbe of blessed memory used to send out his followers, at
Simchas Torah, to walk round the town, and he himself sat in the balcony
and looked on and had pleasure in what he saw.
It was not the Byàle of to-day: it was quite a small place then, with
little, low-built houses, except for the Shool and the Rebbe's Kläus.
The Rebbe's balcony was on the second floor, and you could see
everything from it as if it all lay in the flat of your hand: the hills
to the east and the river to the west. And the Rebbe sits and looks out,
sees some Chassidîm walking along in silence, and throws down to them
from the balcony the fragments of a tune. They catch at it and proceed
on their way singing, and batches and batches of them go past and out of
the town with songs and real gladness, with real Rejoicing of the
Law--and the Rebbe used not to leave the balcony.
But on this occasion the Rebbe must have heard other steps, for he rose
and came to meet the Rabbi of Brisk.
"Peace be with you, Rabbi!" he said meekly, in his sweet voice.
"Peace be with you, Nòach!" the Brisk Rabbi answered.
"Sit, Rabbi!"
The Brisk Rabbi took a seat, and the Byàle Rebbe stood before him.
"Tell me, Nòach," said the Brisk Rabbi, with lifted eyebrows, "why did
you run away from my academy? What was wanting to you there?"
"Breathing-space, Rabbi," answered the other, composedly.
"What do you mean? What are you talking about, Nòach?"
"Not for myself," explained the Byàle Rebbe in a quiet tone, "it was for
my soul."
"Why so, Nòach?"
"Your Torah, Rabbi, is all justice! It is without mercy! There is not a
spark of grace in your Torah! And therefore it is joyless, and cannot
breathe freely--it is all chains and fetters, iron regulations, copper
laws!--and all higher Torah for the learned, for the select few!"
The Brisk Rabbi is silent, and the other continues:
"And tell me, Rabbi, what have you for All-Israel? What have you, Rabbi,
for the wood-cutter, for the butcher, for the artisan, for the common
Jew?--specially for the simple Jew? Rabbi, what have you for the
_un_learned?"
The Brisk Rabbi is silent, as though he did not understand what was
being said to him. And still the Byàle Rebbe stands before him, and goes
on in his sweet voice:
"Forgive me, Rabbi, but I must tell the truth--your Torah was _hard_,
hard and dry, for it is only the body and not the soul of the Law!"
"The soul?" asks the Brisk Rabbi, and rubs his high forehead.
"Certainly, as I told you, Rabbi, your Torah is for the select, for the
learned, not for All-Israel. And the Torah _must_ be for All-Israel! The
Divine Presence must rest on All-Israel! because the Torah is the soul
of All-Israel!"
"And _your_ Torah, Nòach?"
"You wish to see it, Rabbi?"
"Torah--_see_ it?" wonders the Brisk Rabbi.
"Come, Rabbi, I will show it you!--I will show you its splendor, the joy
which beams forth from it upon all, upon All-Israel!"
The Brisk Rabbi does not move.
"I beg of you, Rabbi, come! It is not far."
He led him out on to the balcony, and I went quietly after. "You may
come too, Shemaiah," he said to me, "to-day you will see it also--and
the Brisk Rabbi will see--you will see the Simchas Torah--you will see
_real_ Rejoicing of the Law!"
And I saw what I had always seen, only I saw it differently--as if a
curtain had fallen from my eyes.
A great wide sky--without a limit! The sky was so blue! so blue! it was
a delight to the eye. Little white clouds, silvery clouds, floated
across it, and when you looked at them intently, you saw how they
quivered for joy, how they danced for Rejoicing in the Law! Away behind,
the town was encircled by a broad green girdle, a dark green one, only
the green lived, as though something alive were flying along through the
grass; every now and then it seemed as if a living being, a sweet smell,
a little life, darted up shining in a different place; one could see
plainly how the little flames sprang up and danced and embraced each
other.
And over the fields with the flames there sauntered parties and parties
of Chassidîm--the satin and even the satinette cloaks shine like glass,
the torn ones and the whole alike--and the little flames that rose from
the grass attached themselves to the shining holiday garments and seemed
to dance round every Chossid with delight and affection--and every
company of Chassidîm gazed up with wonderfully thirsty eyes at the
Rebbe's balcony--and I could see how that thirsty gaze of theirs sucked
light from the balcony, from the Rebbe's face, and the more light they
sucked in, the louder they sang--louder and louder--more cheerfully,
more devoutly.
And every company sang to its own tune, but all the different tunes and
voices blended in the air, and there floated up to the Rebbe's balcony
_one_ strain, _one_ melody--as though all were singing _one_ song. And
everything sang--the sky, the celestial bodies, the earth beneath, the
soul of the world itself--everything was singing!
Lord of the world! I thought I should dissolve away for sheer delight!
But it was not to be.
"It is time for the afternoon prayers!" said the Brisk Rabbi, suddenly,
in a sharp tone; and it all vanished.
Silence ... the curtain has fallen back across my eyes; above is the
usual sky, below--the usual fields, the usual Chassidîm in torn
cloaks--old, disconnected fragments of song--the flames are
extinguished. I glance at the Rebbe; his face is darkened, too.
* * * * *
They were not reconciled; the Brisk Rabbi remained a Misnagid as before.
But it had one result! He never persecuted again.
XXVI
THE IMAGE
Great people have been known to do great wonders; witness the time when
they attacked the Ghetto in Prague, and were about to assault the women,
roast the children, and beat the remainder to death. When all means of
defense were exhausted, the Maharal[145] laid down the Gemoreh, stepped
out into the street, went up to the first mud-heap outside the door of a
school-master, and made a clay image.
He blew into its nostril, and it began to move; then he whispered a name
into its ear, and away went the image out of the Ghetto, and the Maharal
sat down again to his book. The image fell upon our enemies who were
besieging the Ghetto, and threshed them as it were with flails--they
fell before him as thick as flies.
Prague was filled with corpses--they say the destruction lasted all
Wednesday and Thursday; Friday, at noon, the image was still at it.
"Rabbi," exclaimed Kohol, "the image is making a clean sweep of the
city! There will be no one left to light the fires on Sabbath or to take
down the lamps!"[146]
A second time the Maharal shut his book; he took his stand at the desk
and began to chant the psalm, "A Song of the Sabbath Day."
Whereupon the image ceased from work, came back to the Ghetto, entered
the synagogue, and approached the Maharal.
The Maharal whispered into its ear as before, its eyes closed, the
breath left it, and it became once more a clay image.
And to this day the image lies aloft in the Prague synagogue, covered up
with cobwebs that stretch across from wall to wall, and spread over the
whole arcade, so that the image shall not be seen, above all, not by the
pregnant women of the "women's court." And the cobwebs may not be
touched: whoever touches them, dies!
No man, not the oldest there, recollects having seen the image; but the
Chacham Zebî, the Maharal's grandson, sometimes wonders, whether, for
instance, such an image might not be included in one of the ten males
required to form a congregation?
The image, you see, is not forgotten--the image is there still.
But the name with which to give it life in the day of need has fallen as
it were into a deep water!
And the cobwebs increase and increase, and one may not touch them.
What is to be done?
GLOSSARY
(ALL WORDS GIVEN BELOW, UNLESS OTHERWISE SPECIFIED, ARE HEBREW.)
CHANUKAH Feast of Dedication, or Feast of Lights, commemorating the
victory of Judas Maccabeus.
CHASSIDÎM _See_ Chossid.
CHEDER Private religious school.
CHOSSID (pl. Chassidîm). Briefly, a mystic. _See_ the article Hassidîm,
in the Jewish Encyclopedia, V.
DAYAN Assistant to the rabbi of a town.
DREIER (Ger.). A small coin.
ESROG (pl. Esrogîm). The "fruit of the tree Hadar," used with the Lulav
on the Feast of Tabernacles. _See_ Lev. xxiii. 40.
FELDSCHER (Ger.). Assistant army surgeon; the successor to the
celebrated Röfeh of twenty or thirty years ago.
GEHENNA The nether world; hell.
GEMOREH The Rabbinical discussion and elaboration of the Mishnah. _See_
Talmud.
GEVIR (pl. Gevirîm). Influential rich man.
GROSCHEN (Ger.). A small coin.
GULDEN (Ger.). A florin.
GÜTER YÜD (Ger., "Good Jew"). Chassidic wonder-worker. _See_ Rebbe.
HAVDOLEH Division; the ceremony ushering out the Sabbath or a holiday.
HEKDESH Free hospital.
KABBALAH A mystical religious philosophy, much studied by the
Chassidîm.
KADDISH Sanctification; a doxology. Specifically, the doxology recited
by a child in memory of its parents during the first eleven months
after their death, and thereafter on every anniversary of the day of
their death.
KEDUSHAH Sanctification; an important part of the public service in the
synagogue.
KISSUSH Sanctification; the ceremony ushering in the Sabbath or a
holiday.
KLÄUS (Ger.). House of study; lit., hermitage.
KOHOL The community; transferred to the heads of the community.
KOPEK (Russian). Small Russian coin, the hundredth part of a ruble.
KOSHER Ritually permitted.
LÀMED-WÒFNIK. One of the thirty-six hidden saints, whose merits are said
to sustain the world. Làmed is thirty; wòf is six; and nik is a Slavic
termination expressing "of the kind."
LEHAVDÎL Lit. "to distinguish." Elliptical for "to distinguish between
the holy and the secular." It is equivalent to "excuse the comparison";
"with due distinction"; "pardon me for mentioning the two things in the
same breath"; etc.
LULAV (pl. Lulavîm). The festal wreath used with the Esrog on the Feast
of Tabernacles. _See_ Lev. xxiii. 40.
MAARIV The evening service.
MASKIL An enlightened one; an "intellectual."
MINCHAH The afternoon service.
MINYAN A company of ten men, the minimum for a public service.
MISHNAH A code of laws. _See_ Talmud.
MISHNAYES Plural of Mishnah; specifically, the volumes containing the
Mishnah.
MISNAGID (pl. Misnagdîm). One opposed to the mystical teaching of the
Chassidîm.
MOHEL The one who performs the rite of circumcision.
PARNOSSEH Means of livelihood; sustenance.
RABBI Teacher of the Law; the religious guide and arbiter of a
community; also teacher, as at a Cheder.
REB Mr.
REBBE The acknowledged leader of the Chassidîm, usually a
wonder-worker; called also "Güter Yüd." and Tsaddik.
REBBITZIN Wife of a rabbi.
RÖFEH Jewish physician.
RUBLE (Russian). Russian coin worth about half a dollar.
SECHSER (Ger.). A small coin.
SHOCHET Ritual slaughterer.
SHOFAR Ram's horn, used on New Year's Day, etc. _See_ Lev. xxiii. 24.
SHOOL (Ger., Schul'). Synagogue.
SIMCHAS TORAH. The Festival of Rejoicing in the Law, the ninth day of
the Feast of Tabernacles.
SLICHES Penitential prayers. Applied to the week, more or less, before
the New Year, when these prayers are recited at the synagogue.
STÜBELE (Ger.). Chassidic meeting-house.
TAKI (Russian). Really.
TALLIS Prayer-scarf.
TALMUD The traditional lore of the Jews, reduced to writing about 500
of the present era. It consists of the Mishnah and the Gemoreh.
TALMUD TORAH. Free communal school.
TEFILLIN Phylacteries.
TIKERIN Assistant at the women's bath.