Yiddish Tales Part 29

And even if I live many years and grow old, I shall never forget the day and the men, and what was done on it, for they were no ordinary men, but great heroes.

Those were bitter times, such as had not been for long, and such as will not soon return.

A great calamity had descended on us from Heaven, and had spread abroad among the towns and over the country: the cholera had broken out.

The calamity had reached us from a distant land, and entered our little town, and clutched at young and old.

By day and by night men died like flies, and those who were left hung between life and death.

Who can number the dead who were buried in those days! Who knows the names of the corpses which lay about in heaps in the streets!

In the Jewish street the plague made great ravages: there was not a house where there lay not one dead--not a family in which the calamity had not broken out.

In the house where we lived, on the second floor, nine people died in one day. In the bas.e.m.e.nt there died a mother and four children, and in the house opposite we heard wild cries one whole night through, and in the morning we became aware that there was no one left in it alive.

The grave-diggers worked early and late, and the corpses lay about in the streets like dung. They stuck one to the other like clay, and one walked over dead bodies.

The summer broke up, and there came the Solemn Days, and then the most dreadful day of all--the Day of Atonement.

I shall remember that day as long as I live.

The Eve of the Day of Atonement--the reciting of Kol Nidre!

At the desk before the ark there stands, not as usual the precentor and two householders, but the Rabbi and his two Dayonim.

The candles are burning all round, and there is a whispering of the flames as they grow taller and taller. The people stand at their reading-desks with grave faces, and draw on the robes and prayer-scarfs, the Spanish hoods and silver girdles; and their shadows sway this way and that along the walls, and might be the ghosts of the dead who died to-day and yesterday and the day before yesterday. Evidently they could not rest in their graves, and have also come into the Shool.

Hush!... the Rabbi has begun to say something, and the Dayonim, too, and a groan rises from the congregation.

"With the consent of the All-Present and with the consent of this congregation, we give leave to pray with them that have transgressed."

And a great fear fell upon me and upon all the people, young and old. In that same moment I saw the Rabbi mount the platform. Is he going to preach? Is he going to lecture the people at a time when they are falling dead like flies? But the Rabbi neither preached nor lectured. He only called to remembrance the souls of those who had died in the course of the last few days. But how long it lasted! How many names he mentioned! The minutes fly one after the other, and the Rabbi has not finished! Will the list of souls never come to an end? Never? And it seems to me the Rabbi had better call out the names of those who are left alive, because they are few, instead of the names of the dead, who are without number and without end.

I shall never forget that night and the praying, because it was not really praying, but one long, loud groan rising from the depth of the human heart, cleaving the sky and reaching to Heaven. Never since the world began have Jews prayed in greater anguish of soul, never have hotter tears fallen from human eyes.

_That_ night no one left the Shool.

After the prayers they recited the Hymn of Unity, and after that the Psalms, and then chapters from the Mishnah, and then ethical books....

And I also stand among the congregation and pray, and my eyelids are heavy as lead, and my heart beats like a hammer.

"U-Malochim yechofezun--and the angels fly around."

And I fancy I see them flying in the Shool, up and down, up and down.

And among them I see the bad angel with the thousand eyes, full of eyes from head to feet.

That night no one left the Shool, but early in the morning there were some missing--two of the congregation had fallen during the night, and died before our eyes, and lay wrapped in their prayer-scarfs and white robes--nothing was lacking for their journey from the living to the dead.

They kept on bringing messages into the Shool from the Ga.s.s, but n.o.body wanted to listen or to ask questions, lest he should hear what had happened in his own house. No matter how long I live, I shall never forget that night, and all I saw and heard.

But the Day of Atonement, the day that followed, was more awful still.

And even now, when I shut my eyes, I see the whole picture, and I think I am standing once more among the people in the Shool.

It is Atonement Day in the afternoon.

The Rabbi stands on the platform in the centre of the Shool, tall and venerable, and there is a fascination in his n.o.ble features. And there, in the corner of the Shool, stands a boy who never takes his eyes off the Rabbi's face.

In truth I never saw a n.o.bler figure.

The Rabbi is old, seventy or perhaps eighty years, but tall and straight as a fir-tree. His long beard is white like silver, but the thick, long hair of his head is whiter still, and his face is blanched, and his lips are pale, and only his large black eyes shine and sparkle like the eyes of a young lion.

I stood in awe of him when I was a little child. I knew he was a man of G.o.d, one of the greatest authorities in the Law, whose advice was sought by the whole world.

I knew also that he inclined to leniency in all his decisions, and that none dared oppose him.

The sight I saw that day in Shool is before my eyes now.

The Rabbi stands on the platform, and his black eyes gleam and shine in the pale face and in the white hair and beard.

The Additional Service is over, and the people are waiting to hear what the Rabbi will say, and one is afraid to draw one's breath.

And the Rabbi begins to speak.

His weak voice grows stronger and higher every minute, and at last it is quite loud.

He speaks of the sanct.i.ty of the Day of Atonement and of the holy Torah; of repentance and of prayer, of the living and of the dead, and of the pestilence that has broken out and that destroys without pity, without rest, without a pause--for how long? for how much longer?

And by degrees his pale cheeks redden and his lips also, and I hear him say: "And when trouble comes to a man, he must look to his deeds, and not only to those which concern him and the Almighty, but to those which concern himself, to his body, to his flesh, to his own health."

I was a child then, but I remember how I began to tremble when I heard these words, because I had understood.

The Rabbi goes on speaking. He speaks of cleanliness and wholesome air, of dirt, which is dangerous to man, and of hunger and thirst, which are men's bad angels when there is a pestilence about, devouring without pity.

And the Rabbi goes on to say:

"And men shall live by My commandments, and not die by them. There are times when one must turn aside from the Law, if by so doing a whole community may be saved."

I stand shaking with fear. What does the Rabbi want? What does he mean by his words? What does he think to accomplish? And suddenly I see that he is weeping, and my heart beats louder and louder. What has happened?

Why does he weep? And there I stand in the corner, in the silence, and I also begin to cry.

And to this day, if I shut my eyes, I see him standing on the platform, and he makes a sign with his hand to the two Dayonim to the left and right of him. He and they whisper together, and he says something in their ear. What has happened? Why does his cheek flame, and why are theirs as white as chalk?

And suddenly I hear them talking, but I cannot understand them, because the words do not enter my brain. And yet all three are speaking so sharply and clearly!

And all the people utter a groan, and after the groan I hear the words, "With the consent of the All-Present and with the consent of this congregation, we give leave to eat and drink on the Day of Atonement."

Silence. Not a sound is heard in the Shool, not an eyelid quivers, not a breath is drawn.