Stories and Pictures Part 19

"Well," he continued, "had any one of them a different kind of eye from yours; different hands or feet or limbs? Don't they laugh just as you do? And if they cry, do they shed another sort of tears? Why should they not have a real soul as well as we? All men are alike, children of one family, one G.o.d is their Father, one earth their home. It is true that at present the nations hate each other, and each one persuades itself that _it_ is the crown of creation, and occupies all G.o.d's thoughts; but _we_ hope for a better day, better and brighter, when humanity will acknowledge one G.o.d and one law, when the words of our holy prophets will come true, when there shall be an end to all wars and jealousy and hatred; when all will serve one Creator, and it will be as the verse says: 'For out of Zion shall go forth the Law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.'"

I knew that verse from the paragraph, "And it came to pa.s.s, when the Ark set forward," in the prayer-book.[33]

The teacher went on talking for some time, but I understood little of what he said; I could not believe that "a Gentile has brains, too," that all men were equal. I knew that the teacher held heretical opinions; he did not even believe in the transmigration of souls, as I saw for myself after the death of Fradel Mifkeres (the heretic), when a black dog appeared on the roof of the house where she had lived.

Then he pared his nails in order, and never cut a "witness"[34] to throw out of the window.

I should very soon have run away from him; I should have told my mother of the way he talked, only--

I am sure you guess what and whom I mean.

8

This alone remained fixed in my head, that there would be a time when the other nations would come to us to learn Torah, and that it might be to-morrow.

Times with us just then were quite Messianic; strong hints of it were discovered in the Book of Daniel, and the word that stood for the current year indicated it; besides, there was a pa.s.sage in the Zohar, and in the Midrash ha-Neelom, and it was whispered from ear to ear that the Rebbe of Kozenitz had stopped reciting the Supplications; and there was reliable news from Palestine that no fox had been seen near the "western wall" all that year.

And people looked every day for Messiah the son of Joseph; Kohol gave bribes to escape paying taxes; when Messiah came, who would trouble about little things like that?

The women came off worst. A few years previously the steps of their bath had fallen in. Goodness knows, it took asking enough before the money was granted for new ones. And now the wood was there, ready and waiting, only it seemed a pity, all the same, to hire a workman and spend those few rubles. And I firmly believed that in a short time Yashek, who pushed me when I was skating, just as I was doing a "cobbler," so that, thanks to him, I all but broke my neck; that Voitek, who always made a pig's ear at me, and Yantek, who counted us--_raz, dva, tshi_--that all three, I say, would come and humbly ask me to explain a ritual question, for instance, concerning things improper for the touch, as a stone on Sabbath.

And I, "merciful and a son of the Merciful," would not remember against them what they had done to me, but would tell them. I would be a friend to them and explain to them the mystery of the iron and the paper bridge; tell them not to venture on to the iron bridge--indeed, that it would be best to keep away altogether, if they wished to save their souls.

9

On the eve of New Year I completed the course with Zerach Kneip, and felt as it were the relief of the exodus out of Egypt.

I had been told that my new teacher, Reb Yozel, never pinched; never even hit you for nothing. I had been used to see Reb Yozel at prayers.

He was a tall Jew, with huge eyebrows, so that his eyes were quite hidden. He wore his kaftan open, and the "little prayer-scarf" appeared on each side of his long, pointed beard. He walked softly and talked softly, as though of secrets. And while he talked, he nodded his head slowly, lifted his brows, drew his forehead together, thrust out his lips and whiskers, and slid both hands into his girdle; it seemed as though every word he spoke were of the greatest importance.

Reb Yozel had been "messenger" for a time to one of the great wonder-workers, and he had even now a certain amount of oils, coins, amulets, salves, etc.,[35] to sell on commission; he was reckoned the first exorcist in the town, and if the rabbi were poorly, he would preach instead of him on the Great Sabbath and the New Year, and deliver memorial addresses. The rabbi was a weak old man, and Reb Yozel looked to filling his place when he had accomplished his one hundred and twenty years.

Beside this, Reb Yozel was a celebrated blower of the Shofar, and when he repeated the blessing before blowing--how goes the saying?--fish trembled in the water.

And I was filled with pride at the thought of being his pupil.

We had not reached the Day of Atonement before I had an opportunity of questioning Reb Yozel about the soul.

The soul, with me, had become a sort of _idee fixe_; it was never out of my thoughts. The first thing Reb Yozel did was to empty my head of the notion of other people being our equals, and to fill it up again with "Thou hast chosen us."

"Not in vain," said he, "do we suffer exile, scorn, and other plagues not mentioned in the denunciations of the Pentateuch. Were we like to other nations, we should have _this_ world the same as they have it; 'the child whom the father loveth, he correcteth,' so that it may study and enter the gates of knowledge.

"But even with us Jews," went on Reb Yozel, "souls are not all alike; there are coa.r.s.e, ordinary souls, like Zerach Kneip's, for instance; your teacher, the heretic, has a soul like Korah; there are also very great souls, some of which come from out the s.p.a.ce under the Throne of Glory; these belong to the category of _kemach slet_."[36]

I understood little, especially about the s.p.a.ce under the Throne of Glory; I only knew the meaning of _kemach slet_, and supposed the difference between soul and soul was like that between rye-flour, corn-flour, wheat-flour, and the flour which was used for the Sabbath loaf. The greatest of all the souls must be mixed with saffron and raisins.

10

"The great thing," said Reb Yozel, "is to suffer.

"No soul will be lost; they must all return to the state in which they were previous to their stay on earth. And the souls can be cleansed only by suffering. The Creator, in His great mercy, sends us suffering so that we may remember we are but flesh and blood, a broken potsherd, mere nothings, who fall into dust and ashes at His look; but in the other world also the souls undergo purification."

And he told me all that was done to the poor souls in the seven torture-chambers of Gehenna.

11

About the holiday times I had more leisure for looking round at home.

Just before Tabernacles, we had a great wash.

One night I dreamt that I was in the next world. I saw how the angels stretched out their hands from heaven and caught hold of the souls who were returning thither. The angels sifted them; those that were clean and white as snow, flew up like doves out of their hands as though into Paradise. The dirty ones were thrown into a heap, and the heap was thrown into the sea of ice, beside which stood black angels with their sleeves rolled up, who washed them. After that they were boiled in a black pot over h.e.l.l-fire.

And when the dirt was squeezed out of them and they were ironed, the weeping of the souls was heard from one end of the world to the other.

There, in the soiled heap, I recognized the soul of my teacher; it had his long nose, his hollow cheeks, his pointed beard, and it wore his large, blue spectacles. They washed it, and it only looked the blacker.

And an angel called out: "That is the soul of the heretical teacher!"

Then the same angel said angrily to me:

"If you walk in his ways, your soul will be as black as his, and it will be washed like this every evening, till it is thrown into Gehenna."

"I will not walk in his ways!" I cried out in my sleep.

My mother woke me and took my hand down from my breast.

"What is it, my treasure?" she asked in alarm. "You are bathed in perspiration;" and she blew upon me--_fu_, _fu_, _fu!_

"Mother, I have been in the other world!"

Early next morning my mother asked me in all seriousness if I had seen my father there. I said, "No."

"What a pity! What a pity!" she lamented. "He would certainly have given you a message for me."

12

What was to be done, if the teacher even made game of dreams?

For his own sake, still more for Gutele's, I wished to save him, and I described to him the whole of my dream. But he said dreams were foolish; he paid no attention to such things.

He wanted to prove to me out of the Bible and the Talmud that dreams were rubbish, but I stopped my ears with my little fingers and would not listen.

I saw clearly that he was lost; that his sentence would be a terrible one; that I ought to avoid him like the plague; that he was like to ruin my soul, my young soul.

But, again, what was to be done? I made a hundred resolves to tell my mother, and never kept one of them.