The voice of old Rabbi Zaddik fell upon them like a restraining hand. He told them to be calm and pray on to their God who would not desert them. He would be the one the Cossacks sought. They were all in the hands of God.
Then a man spoke whom they adored like a saint, because he was filled with the wisdom of the Talmud; they reverenced him as a judge in Israel.
Already Reb Chajim, at a signal from the Rabbi, had cleared his throat, and taken up the singing where he broke off; already the replies of the congregation were beginning, timid at first, when blows thundered on the door. It rang out like the thunder of Judgment Day. The words froze on their lips. Eyes swelled to bursting. But not a sound was heard. The men did not even turn their heads.
The door was thrown open and Cossacks rushed in. One went along the central aisle to the altar. He asked if that accursed traitor Rab——
“Hear Israel, the eternal, the one God, the eternally One!” Then a voice in deadly fear interrupted the leader before he could finish his question. It came from the back of the room and filled the Temple with woe such as was never heard before. Then all together the voices called: “The eternally One.” It was as if they were trying to throw up a wall of defense.
Angrily the leader commanded silence. And the wandering song stuck in their throats and trembled convulsively upon their lips.
The Rabbi spoke: “Sir, they are praying. Do you not see it? To-day is the holy day of the Jews.”
The officer replied that that was a matter of indifference to him. For traitors there was no holy day. He, Rabbi Zaddik was accused of aiding the Austrian troops. He went to meet them fourteen days before their entry and had given them information. That was enough.
The Rabbi replied that he went to meet the German and Austrian armies, but he went with a Polish officer and certain citizens; they went to beg the soldiers to spare the people.
“It’s a lie!” responded the leader. He likewise declared that there was a telephone concealed upon the altar which was to be a signal to the enemy. The Rabbi, and eleven others from the front seats—in order to make a round dozen—were to be hanged. “And the rest of you are to go at once into exile.”