For a few moments there was silence between them. Then the rabbi turned to David again and continued to speak to him as though he were really grown up, and not a little boy who had studied Hebrew and history with him all winter.
"I am not afraid to go into battle," he said quietly, "but I feel that it will take far more bravery to fight for our country right here at home. I must be on hand to cheer and comfort my people; to teach those who lose their dear ones on the battlefield to look to our God for consolation; to teach those who stay at home to do their part too, even if it be but knitting and baking dainties for our soldiers. That will be easy," he mused, "but how can I endure living here under British rule, feeling myself a slave among a slave people?" He threw back his head, his eyes glowing with the light of battle. "Our people have wandered, many of them, from Spain to Holland, from Holland to this blessed land, to be free; how can I, a leader in Israel, bow down to the sons of Belial who will come among us!" His hands clenched the wickets of the gate; he breathed hard and was silent.
As he spoke in ringing tones, an almost forgotten picture flashed before David's eyes. He was listening again to the rabbi's story of the days when the Romans besieged Jerusalem and laid it waste and took the people captive. He remembered how Mr. Seixas had glowed with pride when he told of those ancient Jews—"Fighters all, David, who could not live as slaves."
"Mr. Seixas," asked David, suddenly, "in the old days when the Romans burned the Temple and everything, what did the rabbis do? Did they fight like Bar Kochba and the other generals?"
With a visible effort, the rabbi wrenched himself back to the present. "The Romans"—he repeated, vaguely. "What did the rabbis do?" Again his voice thrilled with pride as it had done when he had first told the child the story of Bar Kochba's rebellion. "They were brave men, David; priests and warriors. Rabbi Akiba did the thing I must try to do—kept the fighters brave and loyal; and when he could do no more, he died as bravely as the bravest soldier of them all."
"But there was one rabbi who didn't die," insisted David. "I forget his name, but I liked him better than all the others because he got the best of the Romans. Don't you know—he pretended he was dead and had his pupils take him to the Emperor in a coffin, that the guards wouldn't stop them when they passed the gates. And when the Emperor asked him what he wanted, he said 'Just let me build a school and I won't trouble anybody! What was his name, Mr. Seixas?"
"You are thinking of Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai," answered his teacher, slowly. "You are right—he did 'get the best of the Romans,' as you say. He would have died rather than breathe the air of a Roman court like Josephus; instead he continued to fight the enemy of his people; he handed down to his disciples the sword with which they were to fight through the centuries."
"What sword?" asked David, puzzled.
"Not a real sword; the study of our Law, our Torah. He opened a school at Jabneh, you remember, and there he taught his scholars to be good Jews, even though Jerusalem was destroyed." His eyes widened and again he seemed to be looking far away. "Jerusalem was destroyed, even as the city of my hope will be taken from me. But Rabbi ben Zakkai escaped to Jabneh and continued the battle there!" He spoke almost in a whisper and a strange light glowed in his face. "Have you been sent to teach me the truth, David? Truly, 'out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast Thou ordained truth.'"
Mistress Seixas appeared at the doorway, a bright-faced young woman, pretty in her Sabbath finery of gay silk mantle and flowered bonnet. "I am all ready, Gershom," she told her husband as she came down the path.