An Obscure Apostle: A Dramatic Story

by Eliza Orzeszkowa

Szybow was situated about twenty miles from the place at which this conversation was held.

The nobleman answered, "I was not."

"And what now?" answered Chaimek still more softly.

The answer of the jolly nobleman to that embarrassing question is not recorded, but the use of Szybow as an argument against the insult shows that to the Jew Szybow was of the same relative importance as were Rome and Cracow to the nobleman, i.e., as the place which was the concentration of civil and religious authorities.

If someone were to have asked the Jew why he attributed such importance to a small, poor town, he would probably mention two families who had lived in Szybow for centuries—Ezofowichs and Todros. Between these two families there existed the difference that the Ezofowichs represented the concentration in the highest degree of the element of secular importance, i.e., large family, numerous relatives, riches, and keenness in the transaction of large business interests, and in increasing their wealth. On the other hand, the Todros family represented the spiritual element—piety, religious culture, and severe, almost ascetic, purity of life.

It is probable that if Chaimek were asked the reason for the importance given to the little town, he would forget to name the Ezofowichs because, although the Israelites were proud of the riches and influence of that family as one of their national glories, this lustre, purely worldly, paled in comparison with the rays of holiness which surrounded the name of Todros.

The Todros were for generations considered by the whole Hebrew population of Bialorus and Lithuania as the most accomplished example and enduring pillar of orthodoxy. Was it really so? Here and there could be found scholarly Talmudists, who smiled when a question arose in regard to the Talmudistic orthodoxy of the Todros, and when they gathered together the name of Todros was sadly whispered about. But although the celebrated orthodoxy of the Todros was much discussed by these scholars, they were greatly in the minority—only a score among the masses of believers. The crowd believed, worshipped, and went to Szybow as to a holy place, to make obeisance and ask for advice, consolation, and medicines.

Szybow had not always possessed such an attractive power of orthodoxy; on the contrary, its founders were schismatics, representing in Israel the spirit of opposition and division, Karaites. In the times of yore they had converted to their belief the powerful inhabitants of the rich land on the shores of Chersoneses, and they became their kings. Afterwards, in accordance with the traditions of that reign, they wandered into the world with their legislative book, the Bible, double exiles, from Palestine and Crimea, and a small part of them, brought to Lithuania by the Grand Duke Witold, went as far as Bialorus and settled there in a group of houses and mud-hovels called Szybow.

In those times, on Friday and Saturday evenings, great tranquillity and darkness was spread through the town, because Karaites, contrary to the Talmudists, did not celebrate the holy day of Sabbath with an abundance of light and noisy joy and copious feasts, but they greeted it with darkness, silence, sadness, and meditation upon the downfall of the national temple, and the glory and might of the people of Israel. Then, from the blackest houses, from behind the small dark windows, there flowed into the quiet without the sound of singing; the parents were sadly telling their children of the prophets who, on the shores of the rivers in Babylon, broke their harps and cut their fingers so that none could force them to sing in captivity, of the blessed country of Havili, situated somewhere in the south of Arabia, where the ten tribes of Israel lived in liberty, happiness, and peace, not knowing quarrels or the use of the sword. They talked of the holy river, Sabbation, hiding the Israelitic wanderers from the eyes of their toes. In time, however, lights began to shine in the windows on Fridays, and then, little by little, they began to talk and pray aloud. Rabbinits arrived. The worshippers of Talmudistic authorities, representative of blind faith in oral traditions gathered and transmitted by Kohens, Tanaits, and Gaons, came and pushed aside the handful of heretics and wrecks. Under the influence of the newcomers the community of Karaites began to melt away. The last blow was struck at it by a man well-known in the history of Polish Hebrews—Michael Ezofowich, Senior.

He was the first of his name to emerge from obscurity. His family, settled in Poland for a long time, was one of these which, during the reign of Jagiellons, under the influence of privileges and laws in Poland promulgated by a (for that time) high civilisation, was united by sympathetic ties to the aboriginal population, and Ezofowich was appointed Senior over all the Hebrew population of Lithuania and Bialorus, by King Zygmunt the First, by a document which read thus: