Reb Zerach opines that the matter is a deep one and worth consideration; but he himself does not eat Sheruyah?[113]
"Do you enjoy Passover cakes dry?"
"For dessert?" smiles Reb Zerach. "And where are my teeth to eat them with?"
"How then do you observe the precept: 'And thou shalt rejoice in thy feasts,' as regards the body?"
"All sorts of ways. If it likes currant wine—well and good. I myself revel in the Haggadah. I sit and repeat and count the plagues, and count and double them and multiply."
"Materialism!"
"Materialism? After all the misery and the hard labor—after the long exile of the Divine Presence? In my opinion, there ought to be a custom introduced of repeating the plagues seven times, and seven times 'Pour out thy wrath!' But the great thing is the plagues! I delight in them. I wish I could open the door at the plagues—let them hear! Why should I be afraid? Do you suppose they understand Hebrew?"
Reb Shachneh is silent for a while, and then he relates the following:
"Listen! This is what happened one day with us. I assure you I won't exaggerate. In perhaps the tenth house from the Rebbe's of blessed memory, there lived a Shochet who was (may I be forgiven for saying so—he is no more of this world) a mad butcher, a butcher among butchers, one in a thousand. A neck like a bull's, eyebrows like bristles, hands like logs, and a voice, a voice! When he spoke, it sounded like distant thunder, or musketry. He must have been at one time or another a Belzer."
"Well, well," growls Reb Zerach.