Their charity and care for the poor, their institutions for nursing the sick, their special societies for burial of the dead, are well enough known. It is not nurses and grave-diggers hired for money, but the elders of the people, who are eager to perform these acts. The Polish Jews are indeed for the most part not yet enlightened by science, their manners and way of life are still rude; but they are loyal to the religion of their fathers and the laws of their country. They do not come before you with courtesies, but their promise is sacred. They are not gallants, but your women are safe from any snares with them. Woman, indeed, after the manner of the Orientals in general, is by them not particularly esteemed; but all the more on that account are they resolved on fulfilling their duties towards her. Their children do not learn by heart any forms for expressing love and respect for their parents—for they do not keep French demoiselles;—but they show that love and respect all the more heartily.
The sacredness of their marriages, and the ever fresh tenderness which arises from this, deserve especially to be mentioned. Every month the husband is wholly separated from his wife for a fortnight (the period of monthly purification in accordance with the rabbinical laws); they may not so much as touch one another, or eat out of the same dish or drink out of the same cup. By this means satiety is avoided; the wife continues to be in the eyes of her husband all that she was as maiden in the eyes of her lover.
Finally, what innocence rules among unmarried persons! It often happens that a young man or woman of sixteen or eighteen years is married without knowing the least about the object of marriage. Among other nations this is certainly very seldom the case.
[CHAPTER XVI.]
Jewish Piety and Penances.
In my youth I was of a somewhat strong religious disposition; and as I observed in most of the rabbis a good deal of pride, quarrelsomeness, and other evil qualities, they became objects of dislike to me on that account. I sought therefore as my model only those among them, who are commonly known by the name of Chasidim, or the Pious. These are they who devote the whole of their lives to the strictest observances of the laws and moral virtues. I had afterwards occasion to remark that these on their part do harm, less indeed to others, but all the more to themselves, inasmuch as they root out the wheat with the tares;[41] while they seek to suppress their desires and passions, they suppress also their powers and cramp their activity, so much so as in most cases by their exercises to bring upon themselves an untimely death.
Two or three instances, of which I was myself an eye-witness, will be sufficient to establish what has been said. A Jewish scholar, at that time well known on account of his piety, Simon of Lubtsch, had undergone the severest exercises of penance. He had already carried out the T'shubath Hakana—the penance of Kana—which consists in fasting daily for six years, and avoiding for supper anything that comes from a living being (flesh, milk, honey, etc.). He had also practised Golath, that is, a continuous wandering, in which the penitent is not allowed to remain two days in the same place; and, in addition, he had worn a hair-shirt next his skin. But he felt that he would not be doing enough for the satisfaction of his conscience unless he further observed the T'shubath Hamishkal—the penance of weighing—which requires a particular form of penance proportioned to every sin. But as he found by calculation, that the number of his sins was too great to be atoned in this way, he took it into his head to starve himself to death. After he had spent some time in this process, he came in his wanderings to the place where my father lived, and, without anybody in the house knowing, went into the barn, where he fell upon the ground in utter faintness. My father came by chance into the barn, and found the man, whom he had long known, lying half-dead on the ground, with a Zohar (the principal book of the Cabbalists) in his hand. As he knew well what sort of man this was, he brought him at once all sorts of refreshments; but the man would make no use of them in any way. My father came several times, and repeated his urgent request, that Simon would take something; but it was of no avail. My father had to attend to something in the house, whereupon Simon, to escape from his importunity, exerted all his strength, raised himself up, went out of the barn, and at last out of the village. When my father came back into the barn again, and found the man no longer there, he ran after him, and found him lying dead not far from the village. The affair was generally made known among the Jews, and Simon became a saint.
Jossel of Klezk proposed nothing less than to hasten the advent of the Messiah. To this end he performed strict penance, fasted, rolled himself in snow, undertook night-watches and similar severities. By all sorts of such operations he believed that he was able to accomplish the overthrow of a legion of evil spirits, who kept guard on the Messiah, and threw obstacles in the way of his coming.[42] To these exercises he added at last many Cabbalistic fooleries—fumigations, conjurations, and similar practices—till at length he lost his wits on the subject, believed that he really saw spirits with his eyes open, calling each of them by name. He would then beat about him, smash windows and stoves under the idea that these were his foes, the evil spirits, somewhat after the manner of his forerunner Don Quixote. At last he lay down in complete exhaustion, from which he was with great difficulty restored, by the physician of Prince Radzivil.