Ghetto Comedies Part 15

'Bah!' replied the _Parna.s.s_ impatiently, 'any text can be twisted to point any moral. You must preach next Sabbath.'

'But we are reading the _Sedrah_ (weekly portion) about Joseph. How are you going to work Sabbath-keeping into that?'

'It is not my profession. I am a mere man-of-the-earth. But what's the use of a preacher if he can't make any text mean something else?'

'Well, of course, every text usually does,' said the preacher defensively. 'There is the hidden meaning and the plain meaning. But Joseph is merely historical narrative. The Sabbath, although mentioned in Genesis, chapter two, wasn't even formally ordained yet.'

'And what about Potiphar's wife?'

'That's the Seventh Commandment, not the Fourth.'

'Thank you for the information. Do you mean to say you can't jump from one Commandment to another?'

'Oh, well----' The minister meditated.

IV

'And Joseph was a goodly person, and well favoured. And it came to pa.s.s that his master's wife cast her eyes upon Joseph....'

The congregation looked startled. Really this was not a text which they wished their pastor to enlarge upon. There were things in the Bible that should be left in the obscurity of the Hebrew, especially when one's womenkind were within earshot. Uneasily their eyes lifted towards the bonnets behind the balcony-grating.

'But Joseph refused.'

Solomon Barzinsky coughed. Peleg the p.a.w.nbroker blew his nose like a protesting trumpet. The congregation's eyes returned from the balcony and converged upon the _Parna.s.s_. He was taking snuff as usual.

'My brethren,' began the preacher impressively, 'temptation comes to us all----'

A sniff of indignant repudiation proceeded from many nostrils. A blush overspread many cheeks.

'But not always in the shape it came to Joseph. In this congregation, where, by the blessing of the Almighty, we are free from almost every form of wrong-doing, there is yet one temptation which has power to touch us--the temptation of unholy profit, the seduction of Sabbath-breaking.'

A great sigh of dual relief went up to the balcony, and Simeon Samuels became now the focus of every eye. His face was turned towards the preacher, wearing its wonted synagogue expression of reverential dignity.

'Oh, my brethren, that it could always be said of us: "And Joseph refused"!'

A genial warmth came back to every breast. Ah, now the cosmos was righting itself; Heaven was speaking through the mouth of its minister.

The Rev. Elkan Gabriel expanded under this warmth which radiated back to him. His stature grew, his eloquence poured forth, polysyllabic. As he ended, the congregation burst into a heartfelt '_Yosher Koach_'

('May thy strength increase!').

The minister descended the Ark-steps, and stalked back solemnly to his seat. As he pa.s.sed Simeon Samuels, that gentleman whipped out his hand and grasped the man of G.o.d's, and his neighbours testified that there was a look of contrite exaltation upon his goodly features.

V

The Sabbath came round again, but, alas! it brought no balm to the congregation; rather, was it a day of unrest. The plate-gla.s.s window still flashed in iniquitous effrontery; still the unG.o.dly proprietor allured the stream of custom.

'He does not even refuse to take money,' Solomon Barzinsky exclaimed to Peleg the p.a.w.nbroker, as they pa.s.sed the blasphemous window on their way from the Friday-evening service.

'Why, what would be the good of keeping open if you didn't take money?' navely inquired Peleg.

'_Behemah_ (animal)!' replied Solomon impatiently. 'Don't you know it's forbidden to touch money on the Sabbath?'

'Of course, I know that. But if you open your shop----!'

'All the same, you might compromise. You might give the customers the things they need, as it is written, "Open thy hand to the needy!" but they could pay on Sat.u.r.day night.'

'And if they didn't pay? If they drank their money away?' said the p.a.w.nbroker.

'True, but why couldn't they pay in advance?'

'How in advance?'

'They could deposit a sum of money with you, and draw against it.'

'Not with me!' Peleg made a grimace. 'All very well for your line, but in mine I should have to deposit a sum of money with _them_. I don't suppose they'd bring their pledges on Friday night, and wait till Sat.u.r.day night for the money. Besides, how could one remember? One would have to profane the Sabbath by writing!'

'Write! Heaven forbid!' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Solomon Barzinsky. 'But you could have a system of marking the amounts against their names in your register. A pin could be stuck in to represent a pound, or a stamp stuck on to indicate a crown. There are lots of ways. One could always give one's self a device,' he concluded in Yiddish.

'But it is written in Job, "He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise." Have a little of Job's patience, and trust the Lord to confound the sinner.

We shall yet see Simeon Samuels in the Bankruptcy Court.'

'I hope not, the rogue! I'd like to see him ruined!'

'That's what I mean. Leave him to the Lord.'

'The Lord is too long-suffering,' said Solomon. 'Ah, our _Parna.s.s_ has caught us up. Good _Shabbos_ (Sabbath), _Parna.s.s_. This is a fine scandal for a G.o.d-fearing congregation. I congratulate you.'

'Is he open again?' gasped the _Parna.s.s_, hurled from his judicial calm.

'Is my eye open?' witheringly retorted Barzinsky. 'A fat lot of good your preacher does.'

'It was you who would elect him instead of Rochinsky,' the _Parna.s.s_ reminded him. Barzinsky was taken aback.

'Well, we don't want foreigners, do we?' he murmured.

'And you caught an Englishman in Simeon Samuels,' chuckled the _Parna.s.s_, in whose breast the defeat of his candidate had never ceased to rankle.

'Not he. An Englishman plays fair,' retorted Barzinsky. He seriously considered himself a Briton, regarding his naturalization papers as retrospective. 'We are just pa.s.sing the Reverend Gabriel's house,' he went on. 'Let us wait a moment; he'll come along, and we'll give him a piece of our minds.'

'I can't keep my family waiting for _Kiddush'_ (home service), said Peleg.

'Come home, father; I'm hungry,' put in Peleg junior, who with various Barzinsky boys had been trailing in the parental wake.

'Silence, impudent face!' snapped Barzinsky. 'If I was your father----Ah, here comes the minister. Good _Shabbos_ (Sabbath), Mr.

Gabriel. I congratulate you on the effect of your last sermon.'

An exultant light leapt into the minister's eye. 'Is he shut?'