Ghetto Comedies Part 21

And yet it's the last thing their menkind think of till I remind them of it on their return.'

'_I_ certainly brought back none,' said the _Parna.s.s_, smiling in spite of himself.

'You have been in India?'

'I have,' replied the _Parna.s.s_, with a happy inspiration, 'and I brought back to my wife something more stimulating than chutney.'

'Indeed?'

'Yes, the story of the Beni-Israel, the black Jews, who, surrounded by all those millions of Hindoos, still keep their Sabbath.'

'Ah, poor n.i.g.g.e.rs. Then you've been half round the world.'

'_All_ round the world, for I went there and back by different routes.

And it was most touching, wherever I went, to find everywhere a colony of Jews, and everywhere the Holy Sabbath kept sacred.'

'But on different days, of course,' said Simeon Samuels.

'Eh? Not at all! On the same day.'

'On the same day! How could that be? The day changes with every move east or west. When it's day here, it's night in Australia.'

Darkness began to cloud the presidential brow.

'Don't you try to make black white!' he said angrily.

'It's you that are trying to make white black,' retorted Simeon Samuels. 'Perhaps you don't know that I hail from Australia, and that by working on Sat.u.r.day I escape profaning my native Australian Sabbath, while you, who have been all round the world, and have either lost or gained a day, according as you travelled east or west, are desecrating your original Sabbath either by working on Friday or smoking on Sunday.'

The _Parna.s.s_ felt his head going round--he didn't know whether east or west. He tried to clear it by a pinch of snuff, which he in vain strove to make judicial.

'Oh, and so, and so--atchew!--and so you're the saint and I'm the sinner!' he cried sarcastically.

'No, I don't profess to be a saint,' replied Simeon Samuels somewhat unexpectedly. 'But I do think the Sat.u.r.day was meant for Palestine, not for the lands of the Exile, where another day of rest rules. When you were in India you probably noted that the Mohammedans keep Friday.

A poor Jew in the bazaar is robbed of his Hindoo customers on Friday, of his Jews on Sat.u.r.day, and his Christians on Sunday.'

'The Fourth Commandment is eternal!' said the _Parna.s.s_ with obstinate sublimity.

'But the Fifth says, "that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy G.o.d giveth thee." I believe this reward belongs to all the first five Commandments--not only to the Fifth--else an orphan would have no chance of long life. Keep the Sabbath in the land that the Lord giveth thee; not in England, which isn't thine.'

'Oho!' retorted the _Parna.s.s_. 'Then at that rate in England you needn't honour your father and mother.'

'Not if you haven't got them!' rejoined Simeon Samuels. 'And if you haven't got a land, you can't keep its Sabbath. Perhaps you think we can keep the Jubilee also without a country.'

'The Sabbath is eternal,' repeated the _Parna.s.s_ doggedly. 'It has nothing to do with countries. Before we got to the Promised Land we kept the Sabbath in the wilderness.'

'Yes, and G.o.d sent a double dose of manna on the Friday. Do you mean to say He sends us here a double dose of profit?'

'He doesn't let us starve. We prospered well enough before you brought your wretched example----'

'Then my wretched example cannot lead the congregation away. I am glad of it. You do them much more harm by your way of Sabbath-breaking.'

'My way!'

'Yes, my dear old father--peace be upon him!--would have been scandalized to see the burden you carry on the Sabbath.'

'What burden do I carry?'

'Your snuff-box!'

The _Parna.s.s_ almost dropped it. 'That little thing!'

'I call it a c.u.mbrous, not to say tasteless thing. But before the Almighty there is no great and no small. One who stands in such a high place in the synagogue must be especially mindful, and every unnecessary burden----'

'But snuff is necessary for me--I can't do without it.'

'Other Presidents have done without it. As it is written in Jeremiah: "And the wild a.s.ses did stand in the high places; they snuffed up the wind."'

The _Parna.s.s_ flushed like a beetroot. 'I'll teach you to know _your_ place, sir.' He turned his back on the scoffer, and strode towards the door.

'But if you'd care for a smaller snuff-box,' said Simeon Samuels, 'I have an artistic a.s.sortment.'

XV

At the next meeting of the Synagogue Council a notice of motion stood upon the agenda in the name of the _Parna.s.s_ himself:

'That this Council views with the greatest reprobation the breach of the Fourth Commandment committed weekly by a member of the congregation, and calls upon him either to resign his seat, with the burial and other rights appertaining thereto, or to close his business on the Sabbath.'

When the resolution came up Mr. Solomon Barzinsky moved as an amendment that weekly be altered into 'twice a week,' since the member kept open on Friday night as well as Sat.u.r.day.

The _Parna.s.s_ refused to accept the amendment. There was only one Sabbath a week, though it had two periods. 'And the evening and the morning were one day.'

Mr. Peleg supported the amendment. They must not leave Mr. Simeon Samuels a loophole of escape. It was also, he said, the duty of the Council to buy a barometer the rogue had foisted upon him.

After an animated discussion, mainly about the barometer, the President accepted the amendment, but produced a great impression by altering 'twice a week' into 'bi-weekly.'

A Mr. John Straumann, however, who prided himself on his style, and had even changed his name to John because Jacob grated on his delicate ear, refused to be impressed.

Committed _bi_-weekly _by_ a member sounded almost jocose, he argued.

'Buy! buy!' it sounded like a butcher's cry.

Mr. Enoch, the _kosher_ butcher, rose amid excitement, and asked if he had come there to be insulted!

'Sit down! sit down!' said the _Parna.s.s_ roughly. 'It's no matter how the resolution sounds. It will be in writing.'

'Then why not add,' sarcastically persisted the stylist, '"Committed _bi_-weekly _by_ a member _by buying_ and selling."'

'Order, order!' said the _Parna.s.s_ angrily. 'Those who are in favour of the resolution! Carried.'