I felt relieved. If the Rebbe smiles, I thought, all will be well.
———
And all was well. On Shemini Atseres[143] she was over it.
And on Simchas Torah the Brisk Rabbi presided at table. I would have liked to be at table somewhere else, but I did not dare go away, particularly as I made up the tenth man needed to recite grace.
Well, what am I to tell you? How the Brisk Rabbi expounded the Torah? If the Torah is a sea, he was Leviathan in the sea—with one twist of his tail he swam through ten treatises, with another he mixed together the Talmud and the codes, so that it heaved and splashed and seethed and boiled, just as they say the real sea does—he made my head go round—but "the heart knoweth its own bitterness," and my heart felt no holiday happiness! And then I remembered the Rebbe's dream—and I felt petrified. There was sun in the window and no want of wine at table, I could see the whole company was perspiring. And I? I was cold, cold as ice! Over yonder I knew the Torah was being expounded differently—there it is bright and warm—every word is penetrated and interwoven with love and rapture—one feels that angels are flying through the room, one seems to hear the rustle of the great, white wings—aï, Lord of the world! Only, there's no getting away!
Suddenly he stops, the Brisk Rabbi, and asks:
"What kind of rabbi have you got here?"
"A certain Nòach," they reply.
Well, it cut me to the heart. "A certain Nòach!" O, the flattery, the flattery of it!
"Is he a wonder-worker?"