The seventy-year-old Reb Shloimeh's son, whose home was in the country,
sent his two boys to live with their grandfather and acquire town, that
is, Gentile, learning.
"Times have changed," considered Reb Shloimeh; "it can't be helped!" and
he engaged a good teacher for the children, after making inquiries here
and there.
"Give me a teacher who can tell the whole of _their_ Law, as the saying
goes, standing on one leg!" he would say to his friends, with a smile.
At seventy-one years of age, Reb Shloimeh lived more indoors than out,
and he used to listen to the teacher instructing his grandchildren.
"I shall become a doctor in my old age!" he would say, laughing.
The teacher was one day telling his pupils about mathematical geography.
Reb Shloimeh sat with a smile on his lips, and laughing in his heart at
the little teacher who told "such huge lies" with so much earnestness.
"The earth revolves," said the teacher to his pupils, and Reb Shloimeh
smiles, and thinks, "He must have seen it!" But the teacher shows it to
be so by the light of reason, and Reb Shloimeh becomes graver, and
ceases smiling; he is endeavoring to grasp the proofs; he wants to ask
questions, but can find none that will do, and he sits there as if he
had lost his tongue.
The teacher has noticed his grave look, and understands that the old man
is interested in the lesson, and he begins to tell of even greater
wonders. He tells how far the sun is from the earth, how big it is, how
many earths could be made out of it--and Reb Shloimeh begins to smile
again, and at last can bear it no longer.
"Look here," he exclaimed, "that I cannot and will not listen to! You
may tell me the earth revolves--well, be it so! Very well, I'll allow
you, that, perhaps, according to reason--even--the size of the
earth--the appearance of the earth--do you see?--all that sort of thing.
But the sun! Who has measured the sun! Who, I ask you! Have _you_ been
on it? A pretty thing to say, upon my word!" Reb Shloimeh grew very
excited. The teacher took hold of Reb Shloimeh's hand, and began to
quiet him. He told him by what means the astronomers had discovered all
this, that it was no matter of speculation; he explained the telescope
to him, and talked of mathematical calculations, which he, Reb Shloimeh,
was not able to understand. Reb Shloimeh had nothing to answer, but he
frowned and remained obstinate. "He" (he said, and made a contemptuous
motion with his hand), "it's nothing to me, not knowing that or being
able to understand it! Science, indeed! Fiddlesticks!"
He relapsed into silence, and went on listening to the teacher's
"stories." "We even know," the teacher continued, "what metals are to be
found in the sun."
"And suppose I won't believe you?" and Reb Shloimeh smiled maliciously.
"I will explain directly," answered the teacher.
"And tell us there's a fair in the sky!" interrupted Reb Shloimeh,
impatiently. He was very angry, but the teacher took no notice of his
anger.
"Two hundred years ago," began the teacher, "there lived, in England, a
celebrated naturalist and mathematician, Isaac Newton. It was told of
him that when God said, Let there be light, Newton was born."
"Psh! I should think, very likely!" broke in Reb Shloimeh. "Why not?"
The teacher pursued his way, and gave an explanation of spectral
analysis. He spoke at some length, and Reb Shloimeh sat and listened
with close attention. "Now do you understand?" asked the teacher, coming
to an end.
Reb Shloimeh made no reply, he only looked up from under his brows.
The teacher went on:
"The earth," he said, "has stood for many years. Their exact number is
not known, but calculation brings it to several million--"
"E," burst in the old man, "I should like to know what next! I thought
everyone knew _that_--that even _they_--"
"Wait a bit, Reb Shloimeh," interrupted the teacher, "I will explain
directly."
"Ma! It makes me sick to hear you," was the irate reply, and Reb
Shloimeh got up and left the room.
* * * * *
All that day Reb Shloimeh was in a bad temper, and went about with
knitted brows. He was angry with science, with the teacher, with
himself, because he must needs have listened to it all.
"Chatter and foolishness! And there I sit and listen to it!" he said to
himself with chagrin. But he remembered the "chatter," something begins
to weigh on his heart and brain, he would like to find a something to
catch hold of, a proof of the vanity and emptiness of their teaching, to
invent some hard question, and stick out a long red tongue at them
all--those nowadays barbarians, those nowadays Newtons.
"After all, it's mere child's play," he reflects. "It's ridiculous to
take their nonsense to heart."
"Only their proofs, their proofs!" and the feeling of helplessness comes
over him once more.
"Ma!" He pulls himself together. "Is it all over with us? Is it all up?!
All up?! The earth revolves! Gammon! As to their explanations--very
wonderful, to be sure! O, of course, it's all of the greatest
importance! Dear me, yes!"
He is very angry, tears the buttons off his coat, puts his hat straight
on his head, and spits.
"Apostates, nothing but apostates nowadays," he concludes. Then he
remembers the teacher--with what enthusiasm he spoke!
His explanations ring in Reb Shloimeh's head, and prove things, and once
more the old gentleman is perplexed.
Preoccupied, cross, with groans and sighs, he went to bed. But he was
restless all night, turning from one side to the other, and groaning.
His old wife tried to cheer him.
"Such weather as it is to-day," she said, and coughed. "I have a pain in
the side, too."
Next morning when the teacher came, Reb Shloimeh inquired with a
displeased expression:
"Well, are you going to tell stories again to-day?"
"We shall not take geography to-day," answered the teacher.
"Have your 'astronomers' found out by calculation on which days we may
learn geography?" asked Reb Shloimeh, with malicious irony.
"No, that's a discovery of mine!" and the teacher smiled.
"And when have 'your' astronomers decreed the study of geography?"
persisted Reb Shloimeh.
"To-morrow."
"To-morrow!" he repeated crossly, and left the room, missing a lesson
for the first time.
Next day the teacher explained the eclipses of the sun and moon to his
pupils. Reb Shloimeh sat with his chair drawn up to the table, and
listened without a movement.
"It is all so exact," the teacher wound up his explanation, "that the
astronomers are able to calculate to a minute _when_ there will be an
eclipse, and have never yet made a mistake."
At these last words Reb Shloimeh nodded in a knowing way, and looked at
the pupils as much as to say, "You ask _me_ about that!"
The teacher went on to tell of comets, planets, and other suns. Reb
Shloimeh snorted, and was continually interrupting the teacher with
exclamations. "If you don't believe me, go and measure for
yourself!"--"If it is not so, call me a liar!"--"Just so!"--"Within one
yard of it!"
Reb Shloimeh repaid his Jewish education with interest. There were not
many learned men in the town like Reb Shloimeh. The Rabbis without
flattery called him "a full basket," and Reb Shloimeh could not picture
to himself the existence of sciences other than "Jewish," and when at
last he did picture it, he would not allow that they were right,
unfalsified and right. He was so far intelligent, he had received a so
far enlightened education, that he could understand how among non-Jews
also there are great men. He would even have laughed at anyone who had
maintained the contrary. But that among non-Jews there should be men as
great as any Jewish ones, that he did _not_ believe!--let alone, of
course, still greater ones.
And now, little by little, Reb Shloimeh began to believe that "their"
learning was not altogether insignificant, for he, "the full basket,"
was not finding it any too easy to master. And what he had to deal with
were not empty speculations, unfounded opinions. No, here were
mathematical computations, demonstrations which almost anyone can test
for himself, which impress themselves on the mind! And Reb Shloimeh is
vexed in his soul. He endeavored to cling to his old thoughts, his old
conceptions. He so wished to cry out upon the clear reasoning, the
simple explanations, with the phrases that are on the lips of every
ignorant obstructionist. And yet he felt that he was unjust, and he gave
up disputing with the teacher, as he paid close attention to the
latter's demonstrations. And the teacher would say quite simply:
"One _can_ measure," he would say, "why not? Only it takes a lot of
learning."
When the teacher was at the door, Reb Shloimeh stayed him with a
question.
"Then," he asked angrily, "the whole of 'your' learning is nothing but
astronomy and geography?"
"Oh, no!" said the teacher, "there's a lot besides--a lot!"
"For instance?"
"Do you want me to tell you standing on one leg?"
"Well, yes, 'on one leg,'" he answered impatiently, as though in anger.
"But one can't tell you 'on one leg,'" said the teacher. "If you like, I
shall come on Sabbath, and we can have a chat."
"Sabbath?" repeated Reb Shloimeh in a dissatisfied tone.
"Sabbath, because I can't come at any other time," said the teacher.
"Then let it be Sabbath," said Reb Shloimeh, reflectively.
"But soon after dinner," he called after the teacher, who was already
outside the door. "And everything else is as right as your astronomy?"
he shouted, when the teacher had already gone a little way.
"You will see!" and the teacher smiled.
* * * * *
Never in his whole life had Reb Shloimeh waited for a Sabbath as he
waited for this one, and the two days that came before it seemed very
long to him; he never relaxed his frown, or showed a cheerful face the
whole time. And he was often seen, during those two days, to lift his
hands to his forehead. He went about as though there lay upon him a
heavy weight, which he wanted to throw off; or as if he had a very
disagreeable bit of business before him, and wished he could get it
over.
On Sabbath he could hardly wait for the teacher's appearance. "You
wanted a lot of asking," he said to him reproachfully.
The old lady went to take her nap, the grandchildren to their play, and
Reb Shloimeh took the snuff-box between his fingers, leant against the
back of the "grandfather's chair" in which he was sitting, and listened
with close attention to the teacher's words.
The teacher talked a long time, mentioned the names of sciences, and
explained their meaning, and Reb Shloimeh repeated each explanation in
brief. "Physics, then, is the science of--" "That means, then, that we
have here--that physiology explains--"
The teacher would help him, and then immediately begin to talk of
another branch of science. By the time the old lady woke up, the teacher
had given examples of anatomy, physiology, physics, chemistry, zoology,
and sociology.
It was quite late; people were coming back from the Afternoon Service,
and those who do not smoke on Sabbath, raised their eyes to the sky. But
Reb Shloimeh had forgotten in what sort of world he was living. He sat
with wrinkled forehead and drawn brows, listening attentively, seeing
nothing before him but the teacher's face, only catching up his every
word.
"You are still talking?" asked the old lady, in astonishment, rubbing
her eyes.
Reb Shloimeh turned his head toward his wife with a dazed look, as
though wondering what she meant by her question.
"Oho!" said the old lady, "you only laugh at us women!"
Reb Shloimeh drew his brows closer together, wrinkled his forehead still
more, and once more fastened his eyes on the teacher's lips.
"It will soon be time to light the fire," muttered the old lady.
The teacher glanced at the clock. "It's late," he said.
"I should think it was!" broke in the old lady. "Why I was allowed to
sleep so long, I'm sure I don't know! People get to talking and even
forget about tea."
Reb Shloimeh gave a look out of the window.
"O wa!" he exclaimed, somewhat vexed, "they are already coming out of
Shool, the service is over! What a thing it is to sit talking! O wa!"
He sprang from his seat, gave the pane a rub with his hand, and began to
recite the Afternoon Prayer. The teacher put on his things, but "Wait!"
Reb Shloimeh signed to him with his hand.