Ghetto Comedies Part 16

'Is your mouth shut?' Solomon replied scathingly. 'I doubt if he'll even come to _Shool_ (synagogue) to-morrow.'

The ministerial mouth remained open in a fishy gasp, but no words came from it.

'I'm afraid you'll have to use stronger language, Mr. Gabriel,' said the _Parna.s.s_ soothingly.

'But if he is not there to hear it.'

'Oh, don't listen to Barzinsky. He'll be there right enough. Just give it to him hot!'

'Your sermon was too general,' added Peleg, who had lingered, though his son had not. 'You might have meant any of us.'

'But we must not shame our brother in public,' urged the minister. 'It is written in the Talmud that he who does so has no share in the world to come.'

'Well, you shamed us all,' retorted Barzinsky. 'A stranger would imagine we were a congregation of Sabbath-breakers.'

'But there wasn't any stranger,' said the minister.

'There was Simeon Samuels,' the _Parna.s.s_ reminded him. 'Perhaps your sermon against Sabbath-breaking made him fancy he was just one of a crowd, and that you have therefore only hardened him----'

'But you told me to preach against Sabbath-breaking,' said the poor minister.

'Against the Sabbath-breaker,' corrected the _Parna.s.s_.

'You didn't single him out,' added Barzinsky; 'you didn't even make it clear that Joseph wasn't myself.'

'I said Joseph was a goodly person and well-favoured,' retorted the goaded minister.

The _Parna.s.s_ took snuff, and his sneeze sounded like a guffaw.

'Well, well,' he said more kindly, 'you must try again to-morrow.'

'I didn't undertake to preach every Sat.u.r.day,' grumbled the minister, growing bolder.

'As long as Simeon Samuels keeps open, you can't shut,' said Solomon angrily.

'It's a duel between you,' added Peleg.

'And Simeon actually comes into to-morrow's _Sedrah_' (portion), Barzinsky remembered exultantly. '"And took from them Simeon, and bound him before their eyes." There's your very text. You'll pick out Simeon from among us, and bind him to keep the Sabbath.'

'Or you can say Satan has taken Simeon and bound him,' added the _Parna.s.s_. 'You have a choice--yourself or Satan.'

'Perhaps you had better preach yourself, then,' said the minister sullenly. 'I still can't see what that text has to do with Sabbath-breaking.'

'It has as much to do with Sabbath-breaking as Potiphar's wife,'

shrieked Solomon Barzinsky.

VI

'"And Jacob their father said unto them, Me have ye bereaved. Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin."'

As the word 'Simeon' came hissing from the preacher's lips, a veritable thrill pa.s.sed through the synagogue. Even Simeon Samuels seemed shaken, for he readjusted his praying-shawl with a nervous movement.

'My brethren, these words of Israel, the great forefather of our tribes, are still ringing in our ears. To-day more than ever is Israel crying. Joseph is not--our Holy Land is lost. Simeon is not--our Holy Temple is razed to the ground. One thing only is left us--one blessing with which the almighty father has blessed us--our Holy Sabbath. And ye will take Benjamin.' The pathos of his accents melted every heart.

Tears rolled down many a feminine cheek. Simeon Samuels was seen to blow his nose softly.

Thus successfully launched, the Rev. Elkan Gabriel proceeded to draw a tender picture of the love between Israel and his Benjamin, Sabbath--the one consolation of his exile, and he skilfully worked in the subsequent verse: 'If mischief befall him by the way on which ye go, then shall ye bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.'

Yes, it would be the destruction of Israel, he urged, if the Sabbath decayed. Woe to those sons of Israel who dared to endanger Benjamin.

'From Reuben and _Simeon_ down to Gad and Asher, his life shall be required at their hands.' Oh, it was a red-hot-cannon-ball-firing sermon, and Solomon Barzinsky could not resist leaning across and whispering to the _Parna.s.s_: 'Wasn't I right in refusing to vote for Rochinsky?' This reminder of his candidate's defeat was wormwood to the _Parna.s.s_, spoiling all his satisfaction in the sermon. He rebuked the talker with a noisy '_Shaa_' (silence).

The congregation shrank delicately from looking at the sinner; it would be too painful to watch his wriggles. His neighbours stared pointedly every other way. Thus, the only record of his deportment under fire came from Yankele, the poor glazier's boy, who said that he kept looking from face to face, as if to mark the effect on the congregation, stroking his beard placidly the while. But as to his behaviour after the guns were still, there was no dubiety, for everybody saw him approach the _Parna.s.s_ in the exodus from synagogue, and many heard him say in hearty accents: 'I really must congratulate you, Mr. President, on your selection of your minister.'

VII

'You touched his heart so,' shrieked Solomon Barzinsky an hour later to the Reverend Elkan Gabriel, 'that he went straight from _Shool_ (synagogue) to his shop.' Solomon had rushed out the first thing after breakfast, risking the digestion of his Sabbath fish, to call upon the unsuccessful minister.

'That is not my fault,' said the preacher, crestfallen.

'Yes, it is--if you had only stuck to _my_ text. But no! You must set yourself up over all our heads.'

'You told me to get in Simeon, and I obeyed.'

'Yes, you got him in. But what did you call him? The Holy Temple! A fine thing, upon my soul!'

'It was only an--an--a.n.a.logy,' stammered the poor minister.

'An apology! Oh, so you apologized to him, too! Better and better.'

'No, no, I mean a comparison.'

'A comparison! You never compared me to the Holy Temple. And I'm Solomon--Solomon who built it.'

'Solomon was wise,' murmured the minister.

'Oh, and I'm silly. If I were you, Mr. Gabriel, I'd remember my place and who I owed it to. But for me, Rochinsky would have stood in your shoes----'

'Rochinsky is lucky.'

'Oh, indeed! So this is your grat.i.tude. Very well. Either Simeon Samuels shuts up shop or you do. That's final. Don't forget you were only elected for three years.' And the little man flung out.

The _Parna.s.s_, meeting his minister later in the street, took a similar view.

'You really must preach again next Sabbath,' he said. 'The congregation is terribly wrought up. There may even be a riot. If Simeon Samuels keeps open next Sabbath, I can't answer that they won't go and break his windows.'

'Then _they_ will break the Sabbath.'

'Oh, they may wait till the Sabbath is out.'