Rabbi and Priest Part 17

After the close of the lesson, the teacher said:

"Come, Mendel; it is quite a while since we have walked together. Let us go into the fields."

Mendel, who adored his preceptor, was well pleased to have an opportunity of relieving his heart of its burden, and gladly accepted the invitation. For a while the two strolled in silence. The air was balmy and nature was in her most radiant dress.

"Tell me," at length began the Rabbi; "tell me why you appear so dejected?"

"You will reproach me if I confess the cause," answered the boy, tearfully.

"You should know me better," answered the Rabbi. "You ought to be aware that I am interested in your welfare."

"Well, then," sobbed Mendel, no longer able to repress his feelings, "I am unhappy because of my ignorance. I wish to become wise."

"And then?" asked the Rabbi.

The boy opened his eyes to their full extent. He did not comprehend the question.

"After you have acquired great wisdom, what then?" repeated the Rabbi.

"Then I shall be happy and content."

The Rabbi stopped and pointed to a dilapidated bridge which crossed the Dnieper at a place to which their walk had led them. Sadly he called his pupil's attention to a sign which hung at the entrance of the structure and which bore the following legend: "Toll--For a horse, 15 kopecks; for a hog, 3 kopecks; for a Jew, 10 kopecks."

"Read that," he said; "and see how futile must be the efforts of wisdom in a country whose rulers issue such decrees."

"Perhaps you are right," said the boy, sorrowfully; "and yet I feel that G.o.d has not given me my intellect to keep it in ignorance and superst.i.tion. It must expand. Look, Rabbi, at this river. They have dammed it to keep its waters back; but further down, the stream leaps over the obstruction and forces its way onward. Its confinement makes it but sparkle the more after it has once acquired its freedom. Is not the mind of man like this river? Can you confine it and prevent its onward course?"

The Rabbi gazed with looks of mingled astonishment and admiration upon the boy at his side.

The boy continued:

"I would become wise like you and Pesach Harretzki. I would acquire the art of reading other works besides our ancient folios. Rabbi, will you teach me?"

"Has Harretzki been putting these new ideas into your head?" asked the old man.

"No; they were there before he came. You yourself have often told me: 'Study rather to fill your mind than your coffers.' I have some of Harretzki's books, however, and at night when I cannot sleep I take them out of my closet and look at them. But they are not in Hebrew and I cannot read them. Rabbi, I beg of you to teach me."

Rabbi Jeiteles was in a quandary. He hated the bigotry and narrow-mindedness which forbade the study of any subject but the time-honored Talmud. He himself had been as anxious as was Mendel to strive after other knowledge. On the other hand, he bore in mind the prejudice which the Jews entertained against foreign learning, and he clearly foresaw the many difficulties which Mendel must encounter if his desire became known.

"Well, Rabbi, you do not answer," said the boy, inquiringly.

"Bring me your books to-morrow and I will decide."

Mendel seized the preceptor's hand and kissed it rapturously.

"Thanks," he murmured.

Teacher and pupil turned their steps homeward, the one perplexed, the other overjoyed.

The sun had not fully risen on the morrow, when Mendel, with his precious books carefully concealed, sought the Rabbi's presence, and the two withdrew into an inner room, beyond the reach of prying intruders.

The teacher glanced at the t.i.tles. They were Mendelssohn's "Phaedon," and Ludwig Philippson's "The Development of the Religious Idea," both written in German. Mendel did not take his eyes from his teacher; he could scarcely master his impatience.

"Well, Rabbi," he asked, "of what do they speak?"

"Of things beyond your comprehension," replied the teacher. "The writers of both these books were good and pious Jews, who, because of their learning, were branded and ostracized by many of their co-religionists.

Their only sin lay in the use of cla.s.sical German. You must know that many hundreds of years ago, our ancestors lived in Germany, and, mingling with men of other creeds, learned the language of their time.

By and by, persecutions arose and gradually the Jews were driven into closer quarters and narrower communities. Many emigrated to Poland and Russia, carrying with them their foreign language, which was little changed except by the addition of Hebrew--and, in this country, of a few Russian words--so that what was once a language became a semi-sacred jargon in which the translations of our holy books were read. When Mendelssohn began to write in the ordinary German, he was thought to be ashamed of his fathers' speech and to have abandoned it for that of their oppressors. Pause before you choose a path which may estrange you from all you love best."

"Did these men accomplish no good by their writings?"

"Much good, my son; but through much travail."

The more the teacher talked, the more gloomy the picture he drew, the greater became the enthusiasm of the pupil, the firmer his determination to emulate the example of the men of whom he now heard for the first time. The Rabbi at last consented to instruct the boy in the elements of the Russian and German languages.

While the old man did not for a moment close his eyes to the perils which his pupil invited by his pursuit of knowledge; while he did not conceal from himself the fact that his own position would be endangered if the nature of his teachings was suspected, he was happy in the thought of having before him a youthful mind, brave to seek truth. Rabbi Jeiteles was a learned man; his youth had been spent in travel. He had seen much and read more, and even in the bigoted community in which he lived he kept abreast of the knowledge of the times.

The first lesson was mastered then and there. It was a hard and tedious task and progress was necessarily slow, but Mendel possessed two great essentials to progress, indomitable perseverance and an active intellect, and his teacher displayed the painstaking care and patience with which love for his pupil inspired him.

Day by day, Mendel added to his store of knowledge. He was still the most industrious Talmud scholar of the college; his remarkable apt.i.tude and zeal for the studies of his fathers was in nowise diminished; but when the hours at the _jeschiva_ were at an end, instead of returning to his uncle's home, or of spending his time upon the streets with his boisterous playmates, he would walk with Rabbi Jeiteles in the fields, or remain closeted with him, pursuing his investigations in new fields of knowledge. Nor were his labors at an end when he had retired to his bed-room. In the still hours of the night, when every noise was hushed and he deemed himself safe from intrusion, he would rise, silently open his closet for his carefully concealed volume and creep back to bed.

Then, by the aid of secretly purloined candle ends, he would read hour after hour, and often the dawn found him still at his books.

CHAPTER XIII.

PERSECUTIONS IN TOGAROG.

The flight of time brings us to the year 1855--the epoch of the Crimean War.

Ever since the days when Bonaparte was driven from burning Moscow, there was a popular belief that the Russian soldiery was superior to that of the western nations. The Emperor Nicholas was a thorough soldier as well as a tyrant, possessing an enormous and well-equipped army, which he deemed invincible. This boasted superiority was now to be tested. For years the Russians had been groaning under heavy taxes. During this period they had been finding fault with their central government in a mild, Siberia-fearing manner. To keep them from brooding on their oppressed condition, visions of glory and conquest were to be opened to them by a foreign war. As the patriotic enthusiasm and military fervor increased, the praises of Nicholas were sounded throughout the vast dominion. "The coming war was regarded by many as a kind of crusade, and the most exaggerated expectations were entertained of its results. The old Eastern question was at last to be solved in accordance with Russian ideals, and Nicholas was about to realize Catherine's grand scheme of driving the Turks out of Europe. That the enemy could prevent the accomplishment of these schemes was regarded as impossible. 'We have only to throw our hats at them,' became a favorite expression."[10]

The greater portion of the army was concentrated at the Southern extremity of Russia, for it was here that the fleets of the allied powers would be encountered. Like devastating swarms of locusts the semi-barbarous warriors descended upon the fertile fields, destroying all that lay in their path. Great was the misery of the peasantry in that section of the Empire; greater still the hardships endured by the Jews, who were despoiled of their possessions and driven from their homes.

In the village of Togarog the Jewish quarter was exactly as we last saw it--poverty-stricken and dilapidated. Nothing appeared to be changed in it except the miserable inhabitants. The Governor of Alexandrovsk continued to persecute the Jews with relentless ferocity, and the kidnapping of their children was followed by other acts almost as cruel.

If a Jew was suspected of possessing money, he was forced by the gentle persuasion of the Governor's men to disgorge. Broken in fortune and in spirits, the Israelites were indeed in a pitiable plight.

Mordecai Winenki was reduced to dire want. Deprived of the means of livelihood by the removal of his former pupils, despoiled of his meagre savings, the reward of years of toil, there was no occupation open to him but to peddle, the meagre income from which, added to the earnings of his wife by knitting and sewing for the neighboring peasantry, gave them a scanty subsistence.

For six days of each week they toiled patiently, saving and sc.r.a.ping to provide for the holy Sabbath, the celebration of which alone compensated for days of misfortune and privation. On the Sabbath all work was laid aside; the dreary room blazed with the lights of many candles; white, unsullied linen adorned the table; a substantial meal was served, and joy returned to the oppressed and weary hearts. Then the father and mother spoke lovingly of the dear ones whom a cruel despotism had torn from them, and a prayer of thanks was sent to the G.o.d of Israel that one of the boys, at least, was alive and well; for Mendel since his arrival in Kief had regularly corresponded with his parents, and his progress and welfare were in a measure a compensation for the trials they had endured. Of Jacob they had never discovered a trace, and they had long since believed him dead.

It was the Sabbath eve. Mordecai and his wife were seated in their humble little room, happy for the time being, in spite of their deplorable condition. A sudden noise in the street interrupted their conversation. The narrow Jewish quarter became animated, and a company of Russian soldiers, led by the Elder of the village and followed by a group of ragged urchins, marched with martial tread through the crooked lane.

"Soldiers!" cried Mordecai and his wife, in one breath. "G.o.d help us, they will quarter them on us!"

It was the advance guard of the great army that had entered Togarog.

Before Mordecai and his wife could recover from their fright, the door opened and half a dozen soldiers entered the room.