"She will be expecting me, too," he said, smiling ruefully. "However, she has faith in God. Never yet have we lacked food. Surely He who feedeth the ravens—" He broke off with a sudden thought, leapt down, and ran back.
"What is it?" I said.
I saw him draw out his knife again and slit open the sacks. "The birds shall keep Passover," he called out merrily.
The woman was still sobbing as he climbed to his place, but he comforted her with his genial and heterodox philosophy.
"'Tis a device of Satan," he said, "to drive us to despondency, so as to choke out the God-spark in us. Your sin is great, but your Father in Heaven awaits you, and will rejoice as a King rejoices over a princess redeemed from captivity. Every soul is a whole Bible in itself. Yours contains Sarah and Ruth as well as Jezebel and Michal. Hitherto you have developed the Jezebel in you; strive now to develop the Sarah." With such bold consolations he soothed her, till the monotonous movement of the cart sent her into a blessed sleep. Then he took out a pipe and, begging permission of me, lighted it. As the smoke curled up his face became ecstatic.
"I think," he observed musingly, "that God is more pleased with this incense of mine than with all the prayers of all the Rabbis."
This shocked even me, fascinated though I was. Never had I met such a man in all Israel. I shook my head in half-serious reproof. "You are a sinner," I said.
"Nay, is not smoking pleasurable? To enjoy aright aught in God's creation is to praise God. Even so, is not to pray the greatest of all pleasures?"
"To pray?" I repeated wonderingly. "Nay, methinks it is a heavy burden to get through our volumes of prayer."
"A burden!" cried the old man. "A burden to enter into relation with God, to be reabsorbed into the divine unity. Nay, 'tis a bliss as of bridegroom with bride. Whoso does not feel this joy of union—this divine kiss—has not prayed."