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.
"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 unlearned?"
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.
TORAH The Jewish Law in general, and the Pentateuch in particular.
TOSSAFOT An important commentary on the Talmud, composed chiefly by Franco-German authorities.
TSADDIK Lit. "righteous man"; specifically, a Rebbe, a wonder-worker, a "Güter Yüd."
The Lord Baltimore Press
BALTIMORE, MD., U. S. A.
Changes made in the text
(not of the etext transcriber):
staid longer=>stayed longer
[1] A Bible commentator of the sixteenth century.
[2] Conveyance opportunely going the same way.
[3] Shatnez, mixture of wool and linen, forbidden in the Pentateuch.
[4] From the Talmudical treatise on damages.
[5] College.
[6] Five good marks, the highest number given in the Russian schools.
[7] The correct name of the town.
[8] The tenth of Tishri. New Year is Tishri 1.
[9] Holy day. Hebrew.
[10] In desperate cases of illness, people vow to supply the synagogue with candles equal to the length of certain parts of the cemetery.
[11] Small lumps of dough dropped into the soup while it is cooking.
[12] Servituty. These are of different kinds.
[13] Bride-maidens—girls of marriageable age.
[14] Thick chicken soup with balls of flour.
[15] Father.
[16] Of the bridegroom in Shool to the Reading of the Law.
[17] The Friday nearest December 21.
[18] Diminutive of Tate = Father.
[19] No unbaptized Jew may become an official in the courts in Russia.
[20] For the soul of the dead, to wash and dry itself.
[21] A verst is .663 of a mile.
[22] A Lithuanian mile = 5.56 English miles.
[23] A Jew taken from his home as a child, under Nicholas I, estranged from his family and his faith, and made to serve in the army.
[24] Jewish name for the typical Russian.
[25] Addressing them in Polish instead of Russian.
[26] "When you are a hundred and twenty years old"—the ideal age for the Jew, the age reached by Moses.
[27] Get up! Russian.
[28] Three men necessary for a certain form of grace.
[29] Pièkalik—built on to the stove.
[30] Little souls fly, little souls fly!
[31] "You also have a soul?" Polish.
[32] Because he was suspected of not keeping the dietary laws.
[33] Our little Talmud student would not be familiar with much of the Prophets' writings beyond what is contained in the prayer-book. The study of the Prophets savored rather of free-thinking.
[34] A tiny bit of wood tied up and thrown away with the nails. The superstitions behind this practice are not confined to the Jews.
[35] Which had been invested with wonder-working powers.
[36] "Fine meal," as in Gen. xviii. 3; used also figuratively.
[37] Head-dress with broad ribbon to hide the hair of a married woman.
[38] A celebrated Hebrew novel by Mapu.
[39] Eve of the Day of Atonement.
[40] Pious offerings dropped into the collecting-box of "Meïr Baal-Ness," to be found in every orthodox Jewish house. The money is for the poor Jews in Palestine.
[41] Free meals given to poor students at the tables of different householders.
[42] Instead of bringing him up to the study of the Law.
[43] The man in the moon is sometimes identified with Joshua in Jewish legend.
[44] According to the Talmudical legend.
[45] Little Jew.
[46] Adapted from the twelfth principle of the Jewish faith, relating to the Messiah.
[47] Sabbath dish prepared the day before, and kept in a heated oven overnight.
[48] Bontzye "mum."
[49] Men of great learning in the Law.
[50] By which the law is made applicable to an elderly woman.
[51] Grandsons. A celebrated Rebbe would have "sons" and "grandsons" among his adherents. The former would remain, the latter would come and go in companies and more or less respectable conveyances.
[52] Owing to the emigration of the younger men to America in the "bad times."
[53] "Chapter of Song," a Midrash, found in some editions of the prayer-book.
[54] "Töre is die beste S'chöre." From a Yiddish cradle-song.
[55] Hebrew blessing before eating bread.
[56] According to the Talmudic legend like Moses and other saints.
[57] Rúach, Hebrew for wind and spirit both.
[58] Who stand for colonization in Argentina and Palestine, respectively.
[59] God.
[60] They have understood that the writer's mission is connected with the matter of Jewish recruits.
[61] Unfit for military service.
[62] "Bride"-grace, girlish charm.
[63] A Hebrew newspaper
[64] Followers of the Rebbes of Radzin and Belz, respectively.
[65] To his prayer-scarf. See Num. xv. 38.
[66] Followers of the Rebbes of Radzin and Belz, respectively.
[67] The plaintiff must take action in the place of domicile of the defendant.
[68] Belz being in Austrian Poland. There were two famous Rebbes of Belz in the last century; the second died in 1894. It has been asserted that thirty thousand Jews followed him to his grave.
[69] For having no passports.
[70] Sir, my lord. Polish.
[71] And still Jacob did not become like Laban. A Midrash, a rabbinical amplification of the Biblical text.
[72] An exclamation corresponding to the Italian che!
[73] Not our people!
[74] Commotion.
[75] Nickname for a Jew, diminutive of Jacob.
[76] Anti-Semitism.
[77] Prayer of supplication.
[78] Kith and kin.
[79] A Kabbalistic allusion.
[80] Maimonides.
[81] The curtain hung in front of the Ark.
[82] To their prayer-scarfs.
[83] Opponents might deny them burial in a choice place.
[85] Peace be upon you! Hebrew.
[86] Surname.
[87] Special calling-up of a bridegroom to the Reading of the Law.
[88] Up to the time when universal conscription was introduced in Russia in 1874, every Jewish community, Kohol, had to furnish a given number of recruits, the Government asking no questions as to how these were obtained.
[89] Which exempts him from military service.
[90] Who have adopted German = Western ways of life.
[91] Gentile.
[92] Worn beneath the outer garments.
[93] The "Sabbath of the Vision," preceding the Ninth of Ab (fast in memory of the destruction of the Temple), when the lesson from the prophets is Isaiah I, beginning, "The Vision of Isaiah." At this period there is much almsgiving.
[94] According to the Talmudic legend.
[95] The standard code of laws.
[96] "Hear, O Israel, etc." The Chassidîm are not punctilious about observing the prescribed time limits for the recitation of the Shema.
[97] Pölen = Poland.
[98] "A sach melòches un wenig bròches."
[99] So called from Moses xv. 1, read on the day when—it is not far from the "New Year for trees"—children place food for birds in the windows.
[100] Machine for making paper out of rags.
[102] Right of a land-owner to keep a distillery—which was frequently let out to a Jew.
[103] Boarding with the wife's parents.
[104] Macaroni-seller.
[105] The rebukes and threats in Lev. xxvi and Deut. xxviii.
[106] Used when speaking of animals.
[107] "Beyond the Good"—the powers of darkness. We touch here on Kabbalistic lore relating to the origin of evil.
[109] Order of service.
[110] Bread made with saffron.
[111] Followers of the Kotzk and Belz Rebbes, respectively.
[112] The service read in the home on the first (and the second) Passover eve.
[113] Passover cakes soaked in broth or other liquid.
[114] Rabbinical amplification of the Biblical text.
[115] This is an allegory referring to certain aspects of Zionism.
[116] "Happy, etc.," Ps. lxxxiv. 5, three times dally in the prayers.
[117] When the weeping female relatives of the sick force their way through the male congregation to the Ark, throw it open, and bedew the scrolls with their tears.
[118] Confirmed.
[119] A man of influence. Hebrew.
[120] The Rebbe's.
[121] Rich man's wife. Hebrew.
[122] Hannah my crown.
[123] Chazan, the reader or reciter of the prayers in the synagogue
[124] Reciting of prescribed prayers.
[125] Lest the meat and milk should not be ritually permitted.
[126] Our brothers, the children of Israel.
[127] Kind of cloak.
[128] Russian term of contempt, in contradistinction to Yevrèi = Hebrew.
[129] This was an important article of trade, required for the peasants' carts, etc.
[130] Wedding jester and improvisatore.
[131] Croup.
[132] He visited, I visited. Hebrew.
[133] A kind of cake.
[134] Gymnasium, in Russia as in Germany, is a college.
[135] Idol. Hebrew.
[136] As of those religious precepts which it is not possible to carry out literally.
[137] Qualification for eternal bliss.
[138] A suburb of Warsaw.
[139] Russian officials.
[140] As beseemed an orthodox, married Jewess.
[141] Allusion to the ceremony performed on the eve of the Day of Atonement, when a cock or hen is twirled round the head, and a prayer is read.
[142] The seventh day of Tabernacles.
[143] The eighth day of Tabernacles.
[144] To the teaching of the Chassidîm.
[145] "The great Rabbi Loeb" who lived in the sixteenth century, and who became the central figure of many a legend.
[146] No Gentile to be hired for that purpose.