"Of course," I said mendaciously. I felt ashamed to confess my
ignorant unconcern as to the proximity of the solemn season of
ram's-horn blasts and penitence.
"Well, it is at New Year the pilgrims flock to their Wonder Rabbi,
that he may hear their petitions and bear them on high, likewise
wrestle with Satan, and entreat for their forgiveness at the throne of
Grace." There was a twinkle in Yarchi's eyes not quite consistent with
the gravity of his words.
"Do Wonder Rabbis live nowadays?" I asked.
A pinch of snuff Yarchi was taking fell from between his fingers. "Do
they live!" he cried. "Yes--and off white bread, for poverty!"
"We have none in America. I only heard of one in Prague," I murmured
apologetically, fearing the genus might be of the very elements of
Judaism.
"Ah, yes, the high Rabbi Loew, his memory for a blessing," he said
reverently. "But these new Wonder Rabbis can only work one miracle."
"What is that?" I asked.
"The greatest of all--making their worshippers support them like
princes." And he laughed in admiration of his own humour.
"Then you are a heretic?" I said.
"Heretic!" Yarchi's black eyes exchanged their twinkle for a flash of
resentment. "Nay; they are the heretics, breeding dissension in
Israel. Did they not dance on the grave of the sainted Elijah Wilna?"
Tired of tossing the ball of conversation up and down, I left the
window and joined the philosopher under his porch, where I elicted
from him his version of the eighteenth-century movement of
_Chassidim_, (the pious ones), which, in these days of English books
on Judaism, will not be so new to American Jews as it was to me. These
Shakers (or, as we should perhaps say nowadays, Salvationists), these
protestants against cut-and-dried Judaism, who arose among the
Carpathians under the inspiration of Besht (a word which Yarchi
explained to me was made out of the initials of Baal Shem Tob--the
Master of the Good Name), had, it seemed, pullulated into a thousand
different sects, each named after the Wonder Rabbi whom it swore by,
and in whose "exclusive divine right" (the phrase is Yarchi's) it
believed.
"But _we_ have the divinest chief," concluded Yarchi, grinning.
"That's what they all say, eh?" I said, smiling in response.
"Yes; but the Zloczszol rabbi is stamped with the royal seal. He
professes to be of the Messianic seed, a direct descendant of David,
the son of Jesse." And the hunchback chuckled with malicious humour.
"I should like to see him," I said, feeling as if Providence had
provided a new interest for my boredom.
Yarchi pointed silently with his discoloured thumb over the plain.
"You don't mean he is kept in that storehouse!" I said.
Yarchi guffawed in high good-humour.
"That! That's the _Klaus_!"
"And what's the _Klaus_?"
"The _Chassidim Stubele_ (little room)."
"Is that where the miracles are done?"
"No; that's their synagogue."
"Oh, they just pray there!"
"Pray? They get as drunk as Lot."