Ber smiled bitterly
"How can you prevent it? I guessed you wanted to speak about it to the Rabbi, and I went after you to warn you and save you from the consequences of such a step. You thought that if you put the case before him, he would rise in anger and forbid any one to do such an infamous deed If he did that they would obey him; but he will not."
"Why should he not?" exclaimed Meir.
"Because he does not understand anything about it. If you questioned him about clean or unclean food, whether it was allowed to snuff a candle on the Sabbath, or gird the loins with pocket-handkerchiefs, he would answer readily enough. He would tell you whether to bless first the wine or first the bread, or how the spirits transmigrate from one body to another, how many Sefirots emanate from Jehovah and how to transpose the sacred letters in order to discover fresh mysteries, or about the arrival of the Messiah. But if you began to speak to him about distilleries, taxes, estates, and things in connection with them, he would open his eyes widely and would listen to you like a man struck with deafness, because these things are to him like a sealed letter. For him, beyond his sacred books, the world is like a great wilderness."
Meir bent his head.
"I feel the truth of what you say; yet if I asked him whether it be right for the sake of gain to wrong an innocent man?"
Ber answered:
"He would ask you whether the innocent man were an Edomite or an
Israelite."
Meir looked intently at the sky, thinking deeply, and evidently puzzled.
"Ber," he said at last, "do you hate the Edomites?"