Like many another outcast he had come with his story and his mystery out of the “poisonous East,” and there was no tie between him and his neighbours save the tie of Judaism. It is a wonderful bond between men, this tie of Judaism, a bond of steel that it has taken four thousand years of suffering and death to forge, and its ends are fastened to men’s hearts by rivets that are stronger than adamant, and the rabbis call these rivets “The fear of God.”
The heat of summer came on. You who swelter in your parlour these sultry days—do you know what the heat of summer means to two families chained by poverty within a solitary room in a Ghetto tenement, where there is neither light nor air, where the pores of the walls perspire, where the stench of decay is ever present, where there is nothing but heat, heat, heat? You who have read with horror the tale of the Black Hole of Calcutta—have you seen a child lie upon a bare floor, gasping, and gasping and gasping for breath amid the roomful of silent people who are stitching for bread? I would give a year of my life to wipe out a certain memory that is awakened each time I hear a child cry—it was terrible.
But I was telling you the story of Shatzkin.
The heat of summer came on, and his youngest-born died in his arms for lack of nourishment. And while his wife sat wringing her hands and the other children were crying, Shatzkin laid the lifeless body upon the bare floor, and, donning his praying cap, raised his voice and chanted:
“Great is my affliction, O God of Israel, but Thou knowest best!”
And it grew hotter, and the other children succumbed.
“You had better send them to the country,” said the doctor, and, seeing Shatzkin staring at him dumbly, “Don’t you understand what I mean?” he asked. Shatzkin nodded. He understood full well and—and that night another died, and Shatzkin bowed his head and cried:
“Great is my affliction, O God of Israel, but Thou knowest best!”
Within a week the Shatzkins were childless—it was a terrible summer—and when the congregation B’nai Sholom assembled upon the following Sabbath and the rabbi spoke words of comfort, Shatzkin, with his face buried in his hands, murmured:
“My sorrow is nigh unbearable, O God of Israel, but Thou knowest best!”