"Do this, O Lord. Say all unto me, Amen." He stopped, and there was a short silence of stupefaction, and then out of several hundred throats came the cry, "Amen!" "Amen!" called out the members of the Ezofowich family who rose from the floor, shaking the dust from their rent garments. "Amen!" called out the group of poor people who had wrung their black, work-stained hands.
"Amen!" came from the voices of the weeping women in the gallery.
"Amen!" repeated at last a chorus of young voices.
The Rabbi took his hands off the balustrade, and looked around the congregation with amazed eyes.
"What is that? What does this mean?"
Then Eliezer turned his face to him and the people. The hood of his tallith had slipped from his head on to his shoulders. His face, usually white, was flushed, and his blue eyes glowed with anger and courage. He raised his band, and said, in a loud voice:
"Rabbi, it means that our ears and our hearts will not listen to any such curses any more!"
These words were like the signal for battle. Scarcely had he finished speaking when some fifty young men ranged themselves on either side of him. Some were the excommunicated man's personal friends; others had only seen him from a distance; among them were even those who had blamed him and condemned his rashness.
"Rabbi!" they called out, "we will hear such curses no more!"
"Rabbi! your curse has made us love the accursed!"
"Rabbi! with that herem you have laid a burden upon a man who was pleasant in the sight of God and man!"