He choked with excitement and became silent, and in that interruption
Meir's pure and sonorous voice resounded:
"Reb, they are very poor!"
"En-Sof is revengeful and merciless!"
"They are much persecuted!"
"The Incomprehensible persecutes them!" shouted Reb.
"The Eternal does not command us to persecute. Rabbi Huna said: 'Even if the persecution is righteous, the Eternal will take the part of the persecuted one!'"
Reb Moshe's cheeks were red as flame. His eyes seemed to devour the face of the young man, whose looks had now grown bold, and his lips quivered with the words that came rushing to them, but were not pronounced.
The whole gathering was astonished—frightened—depressed. Such a quarrel with the melamed seemed to some of them a sin, to others a danger for the bold young man, and even for the whole family. Therefore Saul looked up sharply from beneath his bushy gray eye-brows into his grandson's face, and hissed:
"Sh-a-a-a!"
Meir bent his head before his grandfather, in token of humility and obedience, and one of Saul's sons, in order to pacify Reb Moshe's anger, asked him: