"Where do you get them, Ezrielk?"
The little Ezrielk would open his eyes (he kept them shut while he
sang), his two big blue eyes, and answer wonderingly:
"Don't you hear how everything sings?"
After a little while, when Ezrielk had been singing so well and so
sweetly and so wonderfully that the Kabtzonivke Jews began to feel too
happy, people fell athinking, and they grew extremely uneasy and
disturbed in their minds:
"It's not all so simple as it looks, there is something behind it.
Suppose a not-good one had introduced himself into the child (which God
forbid!)? It would do no harm to take him to the Aleskev Rebbe, long
life to him."
As good luck would have it, the Hostre Rebbe came along just then to
Kabtzonivke, and, after all, Ezrielk belonged to _him_, he was born
through the merit of the Rebbe's miracle-working! So the Chassidim told
him the story. The Rebbe, long life to him, sent for him. Ezrielk came
and began to sing. The Rebbe listened a long, long time to his sweet
voice, which rang out like a hundred thousand crystal and gold bells
into every corner of the room.
"Do not be alarmed, he may and he must sing. He gets his tunes there
where he got his soul."
And Ezrielk sang cheerful tunes till he was ten years old, that is, till
he fell into the hands of the teacher Reb Yainkel Vittiss.
Now, the end and object of Reb Yainkel's teaching was not merely that
his pupils should know a lot and know it well. Of course, we know that
the Jew only enters this sinful world in order that he may more or less
perfect himself, and that it is therefore needful he should, and,
indeed, he _must_, sit day and night over the Torah and the
Commentaries. Yainkel Vittiss's course of instruction began and ended
with trying to imbue his pupils with a downright, genuine,
Jewish-Chassidic enthusiasm.
The first day Ezrielk entered his Cheder, Reb Yainkel lifted his long,
thick lashes, and began, while he gazed fixedly at him, to shake his
head, saying to himself: "No, no, he won't do like that. There is
nothing wrong with the vessel, a goodly vessel, only the wine is still
very sharp, and the ferment is too strong. He is too cocky, too lively
for me. A wonder, too, for he's been in good hands (tell me, weren't you
under both Moisheh-Yusis?), and it's a pity, when you come to think,
that such a goodly vessel should be wasted. Yes, he wants treating in
quite another way."
And Yainkel Vittiss set himself seriously to the task of shaping and
working up Ezrielk.
Reb Yainkel was not in the least concerned when he beat a pupil and the
latter cried and screamed at the top of his voice. He knew what he was
about, and was convinced that, when one beats and it hurts, even a
Jewish child (which must needs get used to blows) may cry and scream,
and the more the better; it showed that his method of instruction was
taking effect. And when he was thrashing Ezrielk, and the boy cried and
yelled, Reb Yainkel would tell him: "That's right, that's the way! Cry,
scream--louder still! That's the way to get a truly contrite Jewish
heart! You sing too merrily for me--a true Jew should weep even while he
sings."
When Ezrielk came to be twelve years old, his teacher declared that he
might begin to recite the prayers in Shool before the congregation, as
he now had within him that which beseems a good Chassidic Jew.
So Ezrielk began to davven in the Kabtzonivke Old Shool, and a crowd of
people, not only from Kabtzonivke, but even from Kamenivke and
Ebionivke, used to fill and encircle the Shool to hear him.
Reb Yainkel was not mistaken, he knew what he was saying. Ezrielk was
indeed fit to davven: life and the joy of life had vanished from his
singing, and the terrorful weeping, the fearful wailing of a nation's
two thousand years of misfortune, might be heard and felt in his voice.
Ezrielk was very weakly, and too young to lead the service often, but
what a stir he caused when he lifted up his voice in the Shool!
Kabtzonivke, Kamenivke, and Ebionivke will never forget the first
U-mipne Chatoenu led by the twelve-year-old Ezrielk, standing before the
precentor's desk in a long, wide prayer-scarf.
The men, women, and children who were listening inside and outside the
Old Shool felt a shudder go through them, their hair stood on end, and
their hearts wept and fluttered in their breasts.