I
Now that I have come to the close of my earthly days, and that the
higher circles will soon open to me, whereof I have learned the
secrets from my revered Master--where there is neither eating nor
drinking, but the pious sit crowned and delight themselves with the
vision of the Godhead--I would fain leave some chronicle, in these
confused and evil days, of him whom I have loved best on earth, for he
came to teach man the true life and the true worship. To him, the ever
glorious and luminous Israel Baal Shem, the one true Master of the
Name, I owe my redemption from a living death. For he found me buried
alive under a mountain of ashes, and he drew me out and kindled the
ashes to fire, so that I cheered myself thereat. And since now the
flame is like to go out again, and the Master's teaching to be choked
and concealed beneath that same ash-mountain, I pray God that He
inspire my unready quill to set down a true picture of the Man and his
doctrine.
Of my own history I do not know that it is needful to tell very much.
My grandfather came to Poland from Vienna, whence he had been expelled
with all the Jews of the Arch-Duchy, to please the Jesuit-ridden
Empress Margaret, who thus testified her gratitude to Heaven for her
recovery from an accident that had befallen her at a court ball. I
have heard the old man tell how trumpeters proclaimed in the streets
the Emperor's edict, and how every petition proved as futile as the
great gold cup and the silver jug and basin presented by the Jews to
the Imperial couple as they came out of church, after the thanksgiving
ceremony.
It was an ill star that guided my grandfather's feet towards Poland.
The Jews of Poland had indeed once been paramount in Europe, but the
Cossack massacres and the disruption of the kingdom had laid them low,
and they spawned beggars who wandered through Europe, preaching and
wheedling with equal hyper-subtlety. My father at any rate escaped
mendicancy, for he managed to obtain a tiny farm in the north-east of
Lithuania, though what with the exactions of the Prince of the estate,
and the brutalities of the Russian regiments quartered in the
neighborhood, his life was bitter as the waters of Marah. The room in
which I was born constituted our whole hut, which was black as a
charred log within and without, and never saw the sunlight save
through rents in the paper which covered the crossed stripes of pine
that formed the windows. In winter, when the stove heated the hovel to
suffocation, and the wind and rain drove back the smoke through the
hole in the roof that served for chimney, the air was almost as
noxious to its human inhabitants as the smoke to the vermin in the
half-washed garments that hung across poles. We sat at such times on
the floor, not daring to sit higher, for fear of suffocation in the
denser atmosphere hovering over us; and I can still feel the drip,
drip, on my head, of the fat from the sausages that hung a-drying. In
a corner of this living and sleeping room stood the bucket of clean
water, and alongside it the slop-pail and the pail into which my
father milked the cow. Poor old cow! She was quite like one of the
family, and often lingered on in the room after being milked.
My mother kneaded bread with the best, and was as pious as she was
deft, never omitting to throw the Sabbath dough in the fire. Not that
her prowess as a cook had much opportunity, for our principal fare was
corn-bread, mixed with bran and sour cabbage and red beets, which lay
stored on the floor in tubs. Here we all lived together--my
grandfather, my parents, my brother and sister; not so unhappy,
especially on Sabbaths and festivals, when we ate fish cooked with
butter in the evening, and meat at dinnertime, washed down with mead
or spirits. We children--and indeed our elders--were not seldom kicked
and cudgelled by the Russian soldiers, when they were in liquor, but
we could be merry enough romping about ragged and unwashed, and our
real life was lived in the Holy Land, with patriarchs, kings, and
prophets, and we knew that we should return thither some day, and
inherit Paradise.
Once, I remember, the Princess, the daughter of our Prince, being
fatigued while out hunting, came to rest herself in our mean hut, with
her ladies and her lackeys, all so beautiful and splendid, and
glittering with gold and silver lace. I stared at the Princess with
her lovely face and rich dress, as if my eyes would burst from their
sockets. "O how beautiful!" I ejaculated at last, with a sob.
"Little fool!" whispered my father soothingly. "In the world to come
the Princess will kindle the stove for us."
I was struck dumb with a medley of feelings. What! such happiness in
store for us--for us, who were now buffeted about by drunken Cossacks!
But then--the poor Princess! How she would soil her splendid dress,
lighting our fire! My eyes filled with tears at the sight of her
beautiful face, that seemed so unconscious of the shame waiting for
it. I felt I would get up early, and do her task for her secretly.
Now I have learnt from my Master the mysteries of the World-To-Come,
and I thank the Name that there is a sphere in heaven for princesses
who do no wrong.
My brother and I did not get nearer heaven by our transference to
school, for the Cheder was a hut little larger than and certainly as
smoky as our own, where a crowd of youngsters of all ages sat on hard
benches or on the bare earth, according to the state of the upper
atmosphere. The master, attired in a dirty blouse, sat unflinchingly
on the table, so as to dominate the whole school-room, and between his
knees he held a bowl, in which, with a gigantic pestle, he brayed
tobacco into snuff. The only work he did many a day was to beat some
child black and blue, and sometimes in a savage fit of rage he would
half wring off a boy's ear, or almost gouge out an eye. The rest of
the teaching was done by the ushers--each in his corner--who were no
less vindictive, and would often confiscate to their own consumption
the breakfasts and lunches we brought with us. What wonder if our only
heaven was when the long day finished, or when Sabbath brought us a
whole holiday, and new moon a half.
Of the teaching I acquired here, and later in the Beth-Hamidrash--for
I was destined by my grandfather for a Rabbi--my heart is too heavy to
speak. Who does not know the arid wilderness of ceremonial law, the
barren hyper-subtleties of Talmudic debate, which in my country had
then reached the extreme of human sharpness in dividing hairs; the
dead sea fruit of learning, unquickened by living waters? And who will
wonder if my soul turned in silent longing in search of green
pastures, and panted for the water-brooks, and if my childish spirit
found solace in the tales my grandfather told me in secret of Sabbataï
Zevi, the Son of God? For my grandfather was at heart a _Shab_
(Sabbatian). Though Sabbataï Zevi had turned Turk, the honest veteran
was one of those invincibles who refused to abandon their belief in
this once celebrated Messiah, and who afterwards transferred their
allegiance to the successive Messiahs who reincarnated him, even as he
had reincarnated King David. For the new Sabbatian doctrine of the
Godhead, according to which the central figure of its Trinity found
successive reincarnation in a divine man, had left the door open for a
series of prophets who sprang up, now in Tripoli, now in Turkey, now
in Hungary. I must do my grandfather the justice to say that his
motives were purer than those of many of the sect, whose chief
allurement was probably the mystical doctrine of free love, and the
Adamite life: for the poor old man became more a debauchee of pain
than of pleasure, inflicting upon himself all sorts of penances, to
hasten the advent of the kingdom of God on earth. He denied himself
food and sleep, rolled himself in snow, practised fumigations and
conjurations and self-flagellations, so as to overthrow the legion of
demons who, he said, barred the Messiah's advent. Sometimes he
terrified me by addressing these evil spirits by their names, and
attacking them in a frenzy of courage, smashing windows and stoves in
his onslaught till he fell down in a torpor of exhaustion. And, though
he was so advanced in years, my father could not deter him from
joining in the great pilgrimage that, under Judah the Saint, set out
for Palestine, to await the speedy redemption of Israel. Of this Judah
the Saint, who boldly fanned the embers of the Sabbatian heresy into
fierce flame, I have a vivid recollection, because, against all
precedent, he mounted the gallery of the village synagogue to preach
to the women. I remember that he was clad in white satin, and held
under his arm a scroll of the law, whose bells jingled as he walked;
but what will never fade from my recollection is the passion of his
words, his wailing over our sins, his profuse tears. Lad as I was, I
was wrought up to wish to join this pilgrimage, and it was with bitter
tears of twofold regret that I saw my grandfather set out on that
disastrous expedition, the leader of which died on the very day of its
arrival in Jerusalem.
My own Sabbatian fervor did not grow cold for a long time, and it was
nourished by my study of the Cabalah. But, although ere I lay down my
pen I shall have to say something of the extraordinary resurgence of
this heresy in my old age, and of the great suffering which it caused
my beloved Master, the Baal Shem, yet Sabbatianism did not really play
much part in my early life, because such severe measures were taken
against it by the orthodox Rabbis that it seemed to be stamped out,
and I myself, as I began to reflect upon it, found it inconceivable
that a Jewish God should turn Turk: as well expect him to turn
Christian. But indirectly this redoubtable movement entered largely
into my life by way of the great Eibeschütz-Emden controversy. For it
will not be stale in the memory of my readers that this lamentable
controversy, which divided and embittered the Jews of all Europe,
which stirred up Kings and Courts, originated in the accusation
against the Chief Rabbi of the Three Communities that the amulets
which he--the head of the orthodox tradition--wrote for women in
childbirth, were tainted with the Sabbatian heresy. So bitter and
widespread were the charges and counter-charges, that at one moment
every Jewish community in Europe stood excommunicated by the Chief
Rabbis of one side or the other--a ludicrous position, whereof the
sole advantage was that it brought the Ban into contempt and disuse.
It was not likely that a controversy so long-standing and so
impassioned would fail to permeate Poland; and, indeed, among us the
quarrel, introduced as it was by Baruch Yavan, who was agent to
Bruhl, the Saxon Minister, raged in its most violent form. Every fair
and place of gathering became a battle-field for the rival partisans.
Bribery, paid spies, treachery, and violence--all the poisonous fruits
of warfare--flourished, and the cloud of controversy seems to overhang
all my early life.
Although I penetrated deeply into the Cabalah, I could never become a
practical adept in the Mysteries. I thought at the time it was because
I had not the stamina to carry out the severer penances, and was no
true scion of my grandsire. I have still before me the gaunt,
emaciated figure of the Saint, whom I found prostrate in our outhouse.
I brought him to by unbuttoning his garment at the throat (thus
discovering his hair shirt), but in vain did I hasten to bring him all
sorts of refreshments. He let nothing pass his lips. I knew this man
by repute. He had already performed the penance of _Kana_, which
consisted in fasting daily for six years, and avoiding in his nightly
breakfast whatever comes from a living being, be it flesh, fish, milk,
or honey. He had likewise practised the penance of Wandering, never
staying two days in the same place. I ran to fetch my father to force
the poor man to eat, but when I returned the obstinate ascetic was
gone. We followed his track, and found him lying dead on the road. We
afterwards learnt that even his past penances had not pacified his
conscience, and he wished to observe the penance of Weighing, which
proportions specific punishments to particular sins. But, finding by
careful calculation that his sins were too numerous to be thus atoned
for, he had decided to starve himself to death. Although, as I say, I
had not the strength for such asceticism, I admired it from afar. I
pored over the _Zohar_ and the _Gates of Light_ and the _Tree of Life_
(a work considered too holy to be printed), and I puzzled myself with
the mysteries of the Ten Attributes, and the mystic symbolism of
God's Beard, whereof every hair is a separate channel of Divine grace;
and once I came to comical humiliation from my conceit that I had
succeeded by force of incantations in becoming invisible. As this was
in connection with my wife, who calmly continued looking at me and
talking to me long after I thought I had disappeared, I am reminded to
say something of this companion of my boyish years. For, alas! it was
she that presently disappeared from my vision, being removed by God in
her fifteenth year; so that I, who--being a first-born son, and
allowed by the State to found a family--had been married to her by our
fathers when I was nine and she was eight, had not much chance of
offspring by her; and, indeed, it was in the bearing of our first
child--a still-born boy--that she died, despite the old family amulet
originally imported from Metz and made by Rabbi Eibeschütz. When,
after her death, it was opened by a suspicious partisan of Emden, sure
enough it contained a heretical inscription: "In the name of the God
of Israel, who dwelleth in the adornment of His might, and in the name
of His anointed Sabbataï Zevi, through whose wounds healing is come to
us, I adjure all spirits and demons not to injure this woman." I need
not say how this contributed to the heat of the controversy in our own
little village; and I think, indeed, it destroyed my last tincture of
Sabbatianism. Looking back now from the brink of the grave, I see how
all is written in the book of fate: for had not my Peninah been taken
from me, or had I accepted one of the many daughters that were offered
me in her stead, I should not have been so free to set out on the
pilgrimage to my dear Master, by whom my life has been enriched and
sanctified beyond its utmost deserving.
At first, indeed, the loss of Peninah, to whom I had become quite
attached--for she honored my studies and earned our bread, and was
pious even to my mother's liking--threw me into a fit of gloomy
brooding. My longing for the living waters and the green
pastures--partially appeased by Peninah's love as she grew up--revived
and became more passionate. I sought relief in my old Cabalistic
studies, and essayed again to perform incantations, thinking in some
vague way that now that I had a dear friend among the dead, she would
help me to master the divine mysteries. Often I summoned up her form,
but when I strove to clasp it, it faded away, so that I was left
dubious whether I had succeeded. I had wild fits of weeping both by
day and night, not of grief for Peninah, but because I seemed somehow
to live in a great desert of sand. But even had I known what I
desired, I could not have opened my heart to my father-in-law (in
whose house, many versts from my native village, I continued to
reside), for he was a good, plain man, who expected me to do
posthumous honor to his daughter by my Rabbinical renown. I was indeed
long since qualified as a Rabbi, and only waited for some reputable
post.
But a Rabbi I was never to be. For it was then that the luminous
shadow of the Baal Shem fell upon my life.