These ancestors of whom I know, harmed no man and must have done some good; yet they were regarded as aliens and could not move freely beyond a certain boundary. The Porte was our home and this diminutive Ghetto shut us in—or shut us out. In later days I discovered that it did both.
I have looked down from many a hilltop since that morning; from the ruins of Athens, the hills of Rome, the mountains round about Jerusalem, the sky-scrapers of the New World metropolis, and I have discovered that one’s world, no matter how large or how small, is full of compartments. Everywhere people shut themselves in and shut others out; they are moved by what they call class-feeling, race-prejudice, religious intolerance; but it is all of a kind, only labelled differently according to the circumstances. The main lines of our divisions were visible from the little hilltop in that little corner of the world and were plowed into the consciousness of the people through hundreds and thousands of years of conflict—and alas! they bore sacred symbols.
The synagogue, with its oriental minarets, was crowded in among the encroaching houses of the Ghetto; the Roman Catholic church, with its severe buttresses, bulbous steeple and shining cross, occupied the centre of the town, dominating the landscape; the Protestant church, with its ugly, square tower, over which a rooster weather-vane indicated the shifting winds, stood at the edge of the town, close to green fields and pastures.
Once my brother by vaccination, wishing to ingratiate himself, told me he believed the Jews were the trunk of the tree, the Catholics were the branches, and the Protestants were the leaves which the wind shook and carried away and scattered. That was good news to me and I rewarded him with a big piece of bread and butter. After it was safe in his grasp he said: “Yes, the Jews are the trunk, but it is old and decayed, and the Lord has grafted a new tree upon another trunk.” Then he ran away as fast as he could, and I hoped that kind Providence would let him stumble and fall; but Providence seemed to be on his side. Nevertheless, that was good news to me—news which no doubt he had heard some time in church. It was a truth which expressed relationship, but it was one of which the synagogue seemed quite unconscious.
Our rabbi’s chief function seemed to be, to determine for the housewives whether a pot in which meat had been cooked might still be used if a drop of milk fell into it; whether a goose whose fat leg showed a bruise must be sold to the Gentiles or whether it was kosher for the Sabbath meal, and how the rigid rabbinic laws could be circumvented without transgression.
Thus, our Sabbath law forbade all manner of work for us and our servants; but the Gentile servants did light our fires, cook our meals, and sweep our rooms. “Of course,” the rabbi said, “the servants have to live—they do it for themselves and not for us—we just eat with them.”
On the Sabbath no burden must be carried; but one must have a handkerchief. “Then bind it about your loins and it is part of your apparel.”
“Two thousand yards is the distance one may walk on the Sabbath, but if I have to walk four thousand—what then?” “Stop at the two-thousand yard line, put a piece of bread on the ground and say: ‘This is where I live,’ then walk two thousand yards more.”
Such was the casuistry with which our rabbi’s mind was filled. Poor man! he had to spend his time with “annis and cummin,” he had to glorify trifles and so minimize the real glory. He had so much to say about rabbi this and rabbi that, and so little of what God said to the seers and prophets.
This was my early quarrel with the synagogue, although at that time I could not express myself. First, it made the traditional ceremonials and observances a law of God. Secondly, it was intolerantly exclusive against those outside its own pale and those within, who saw the larger light. Yet memories crowd upon me whenever I see the synagogue from this hilltop.