“The words of the prophet,” my uncle concluded, “shall not be fulfilled until a nation arises which lives to do His will, which obeys His law; which if it creates cities, creates them for His glory; if it builds bridges, builds them to serve Him better; if it goes to war, goes to liberate the oppressed.”
“There is such a nation, Isaac Bolsover,” the pastor said, evidently astonished by this quotation from the Talmud so eloquently elaborated by my uncle,—“just one. It has fought a great war to liberate slaves, it professes to build cities to His glory; it receives all the strangers who come to it, when they flee from the wrath of the mob or the avenger. That nation is America. It is far away from us and we know little about it; but I believe it is the nation which will keep itself worthy to receive the reward, and that it will lead the nations into brotherhood.
“Good-night,” he said, rising from the prophet’s chair, with the prophet’s glow upon his face. “May you have a peaceful Passover, and remember that the prophet’s word shall be fulfilled.”
I had never seen my uncle so erect as when he stood to say good-bye to the pastor. For a moment he seemed caught by a great current, which lifted him from his isolation into a large world movement. “Good-night, and may God reward you for the kindness you have done to Israel this night.”
I held out my hand to the pastor and he took it gently; it was a soft hand, almost like a woman’s, but its touch was full of throbbing life, and by a sudden impulse I kissed it.
Hardly had the pastor gone, when my uncle resumed his chanting and read the closing prayers. Sleepily but happily we responded with hallelujahs and amens.
Before he left us my uncle pointed to the cup of Elijah and said to my mother: “That wine is unclean and so is the cup. The lips of a Gentile have touched it.”
Ah, mother of mine! how she rose in her gentle, womanly dignity as she replied: “He had a right to drink from it. Was he not our Prophet Elijah, and was he not sent from Jehovah to deliver us?”
When my uncle had gone and I was in bed, my eyes almost closed in sleep, my mother came to me, bearing in both hands the cup of Elijah.
“Drink from this cup, my son,” she said; “for the lips of a living prophet have touched it”—and I drank from the cup of Elijah.