A Book that Was Lost

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Agnon’s writing first came to the attention of western Jewry during the period of World War i, when the author was living in Germany. His work was embraced as an authentic recreation of the inner spiritual life of Polish Jewry and compared to the achievement of the German Romantics in retelling the legends of their national culture. Such powerful critics as Dov Sadan and Baruch Kurzweil would later demonstrate the sophistication of the subversions that lay beneath the pious surface of the text. Yet the earlier, more naive response to the stories remains an important clue to the process whereby one typically reads an Agnon story. If it is set in the ancestral world of eastern Europe and its mode of telling is traditional — this accounts for much though certainly not all of Agnon’s oeuvre — then our attention is naturally drawn first to the conventions of pious storytelling. These include quotations (or pseudoquotations) from sacred texts, interpolated parables and anecdotes, and the use of such traditional expressions as “of blessed memory,” “Mercy deliver us!” and the like. The narrator’s measured tones and balanced sentences add to this effect, as does the subject matter itself: the world of scribes, sages, and the righteous and believing poor.

The Ancestral World

Yet a second, deeper reading usually reveals the behavior described in the stories to be more often than not at odds with the idealized code implied by the traditional mode of storytelling. Often the failure derives from the limitations of human nature or from the suffering that is man’s lot or from the evil that is at large in the world. Sometimes the criticism is even directed back at the code itself, and God’s expectations of man are implicitly found wanting. Whatever the case, a full appreciation of Agnon’s art hinges on savoring the gap between the normative expectations spun by the reverent way in which the story is told and the more troubling events that are enacted within that framework.

The best and most subtle example of this paradox is “The Tale of the Scribe.” The office of the scribe was an object of boundless fascination and veneration for Agnon. He compiled an anthology of legends and lore about scribes, and clearly identified his vocation with theirs. That relation is evident in the loving description of Raphael the Scribe, his devotion to his calling, and the daily round of his spiritual exercises. The sadness in the picture of his life is the barrenness of his pious and modest wife Miriam. She dies of sorrow at an early age, and Raphael copies out a Torah scroll in memory of her soul and the souls of his unborn children.

Now, on the surface of things, the tragic dimension of the story would appear to result from God’s inscrutable will or, in a naturalistic framework, from the equally unfathomable accidents of biology. On closer inspection, however, the reasons for Miriam’s childlessness lie closer to home. Raphael has abandoned himself so totally to the regimen of purity and sanctity required by his calling that he has left no room in their house for sexual desire and its fulfillment. Each month Miriam returns from the ritual bath purified and available to her husband for the kind of marital relations that are not only permitted but encouraged by Jewish law. Although they are drawn toward each other, their union never takes place. They catch a glimpse of scriptural verses embroidered on a wall hanging, and they are reminded of the fullness of God’s presence in the world. They part from each other silently and return to their separate spiritual endeavors. In “The Tale of the Scribe” the problem is not the failure of human beings to live up to divine expectations, but rather a quality of excess at the heart of the tradition itself — at least within the ascetic mystical tendencies of Ashkenazic Jewry. This is a piety that, by sublimating the life force, sows the seeds of its own destruction.

In the case of “That Tzaddik’s Etrog” and “Fable of the Goat,” the burden rests more squarely on human weakness, and the gap between the pious conventions and the wayward outcomes is more explicit. In the former, the Tzaddik’s quest for a beautiful etrog is revealed to be simply a higher form of spiritual selfishness. The old man’s indulgence in grief in the second story clearly represents a generation that could not part with its sorrows in order to seize the opportunity for redemption in the Land of Israel.

The longing for the Land of Israel is used as an effective marker of dubious piety in the grotesque story “Paths of Righteousness, or The Vinegar Maker.” The subject of the title is a poor old man who has suffered greatly in his life and whose only reason for living is to put aside some of the meager proceeds from his labors so that he can end his life in Zion. Once again we are in the reverential atmosphere of innumerable tales in Jewish literature about the righteous poor whose simple faith is extolled. Yet two themes in the story urge us toward a more ironic reading of the old man’s situation. The first is his trade as a vinegar maker. Vinegar is the acidic reduction of wine, and in fact the rabbinic phrase for the unworthy son of a good family (hometz ben yayin), which is invoked later in the story, literally means wine that has become vinegar. The old man’s life in exile has been eaten away by suffering to the point where it is nothing, and it is only this nothing that would be taken to the Land of Israel. The hallowed ideal of going to the Holy Land to die comes under scrutiny here as a macabre offering of the dead to the Land of the Living.

The second theme concerns the representation of Jesus, who is referred to euphemistically in this story, as in traditional Jewish literature, as “that man” (oto ish). The old man is so pathetically ignorant of the Polish-Christian society in which he lives that he has no notion that the charity box in which he places his savings belongs to the church. When he is apprehended trying to redeem his deposits, his imprisonment cannot even arouse indignation over gentile persecution among his coreligionists because his behavior was based on such dim stupidity. His dying vision of being embraced and then dropped by the Christian savior is an ironic and delusional extension of his ignorance and spiritual isolation.

The Ancestral World

“The Lady and the Peddler” also uses strongly marked conventions to set up readers’ expectations, but in this case the conventions are distinctly non-Jewish. Agnon uses the familiar framework of the vampire story in which to set a fable summing up the historical experience of the Jews in European culture. The story was published during the Holocaust, and the prototypical names of the characters (Helen as the woman who launched the Trojan War and Joseph as Jacob’s son who winds up in Egypt) identify them as allegorical counters for their respective civilizations. The easy recognizability of the vampire story and its conventions serves Agnon well by enabling him to create a classic case of dramatic irony. While the true motives of the lady’s hospitality are obvious to the reader, the peddler remains doggedly innocent of her designs.

The story is hardly an ecumenical meditation on Jewish-gentile relations. Yet given the years during which it was written, the generalization of European society as predatory and homicidal is not surprising. It is the representation of the Jew here that is ferociously critical: his abject gratitude for being taken in out of the cold, his eagerness to forget God’s commandments, his self-flattering need to believe that he is being loved for his own sake, his steadfast determination to learn nothing from his experience. This is a bleak and unsparing indictment, and it might have made the story into a grim allegorical tract were it not for the leavening of black humor. Within the grisly and campy conventions of the vampire story, the lady’s tongue-in-cheek derision and the peddler’s witless complacency make the message of the text all the more chilling.

The Tale of The Scribe

Dedicated To My Wife, Esther

1

This is the story of Raphael the Scribe. Raphael was a righteous and blameless man who copied Torah scrolls, tefillin, and mezuzot in holiness and purity. And any man in the household of Israel who was childless, Mercy deliver us, or whose wife had died, Mercy deliver us, would come to Raphael the Scribe and say, “You know, Reb Raphael my brother, what are we and what are our lives? I had indeed hoped that my sons and my sons’ sons would come to you to have you write tefillin for them; but now, alas, I am alone, and my wife, for whom I had thought I would wait long days and years in the upper world, has died and has left me to my sorrows. Perhaps, Reb Raphael my brother, you can undertake to write a Torah scroll under the good guidance of God’s hand, and I will compensate you for it. Let us not be lost both in this world and the next, my dear Reb Raphael. Perhaps God will be gracious unto me and the work of your hands will be found acceptable.” And Raphael then would sit and write a Torah scroll to give the man and his wife a name and remembrance in the household of Israel.

What may this be likened to? To a man who travels far from his own city, to a place where he is not known, and the watchmen who guard that city find him and ask, “Who are you and where do you live?” If the man is wealthy and a property owner, then as soon as he says I am So-and-so, the son of Thus-and-so, from such-and-such a place, they check the record books and documents, and find out how much he had given to the king’s treasury, how much in property taxes he had paid, and they welcome him immediately, saying, “Come in, you blessed of God, the entire land is before you, dwell wherever you wish.” But if the traveler is an ordinary man, and has neither property nor wealth, then he shows them a document written and signed by officials of his own city, which states that So-and-so is a resident of our city. Then he is permitted to remain and they do not hurry him out.

Likewise, when a man comes to the next world, and the evil angels meet him and ask, “Who are you and where are you from?”; if in his earthly life he had been an upright and blameless man, and left behind him good deeds, or sons busy with Torah and commandments, then these certainly serve as his good advocates. But if he had had none of these, then he is lost. However, when Jews come to the synagogue to pray and take a Torah scroll out of the ark and read from it, if the scroll was written as a memorial for the ascent of this man’s soul, then it is immediately known on high that he had been So-and-so, a resident of such-and-such a place, and that is his identification. They then say to him, Enter and rest in peace.

Raphael the Scribe sat and wrote, and his wife, most blessed among women, the pious Miriam, stayed home and made life pleasant for him in a fine house with fine utensils which she scrubbed and cleaned and purified, so that her husband would do his work in a clean and pure atmosphere. She delighted him with delicate foods and savory beverages, and for Sabbaths and holidays, and sometimes even for the New Moon, she would buy a goose, cook the meat in a pot, or roast it; and Raphael would prepare the quills for writing Torah scrolls, tefillin, and mezuzot. He sat at the Torah and at God’s service in holiness and purity, wielding the scribe’s pen and fashioning crowns for his Creator.

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Before we begin telling part of the story itself, let us tell about his way in his holy work. This was his way in holiness:

At midnight he would rise, seat himself on the floor, place ashes on his head, and weep for the destruction of Jerusalem, for the death of the righteous, the burning of the Temple, the length of the exile, the exile of the Shekhinah, the suffering under enslavement, and all sorts of hard and cruel decrees that are inflicted on the people of Israel day in and day out, and for our just Messiah, who is held in iron chains because of the sins of our generation. After that he would study the Path of Life and the Book of Splendor until the morning light, thus tying together what is proper for the night with what is proper for the day.

In the morning he would go down to the ritual bath and immerse his thin body in the water, then recite the morning prayers, return home and eat a piece of honey cake dipped in brandy, and fortify his weak body with a very light repast. After that he would go back and immerse himself again in the ritual bath, and then turn his heart away from all worldly matters. All day he sat in his house communing with his soul in solitude, completely within the frame of Torah. He did not mingle with other human beings and was thus saved from any of the transgressions between man and man, and remained holy in his speech, thought, and deed, and was spared all temptation and distraction. He sat secluded and isolated, and no one was with him except His Name, may He be blessed, and he studied a portion of the Talmud in order to tie together the oral teachings with the written ones, and concentrated on all the sacred meanings hinted at in Scripture. He was careful never to write the Holy Name without first having purified his body. For this reason he often wrote an entire sheet of parchment but left blank the spaces for the Holy Name, and later he wrote the Name in the blank spaces only after having immersed himself again in the purifying ritual bath.

He may thus be likened to a craftsman making a crown for a king: does he not first make the crown and then set into it the diamonds and other precious stones? Thus Raphael sat and wrote, until the beadle came, knocked on the window, and announced that the time had come for the afternoon prayers.

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How good is a word in its proper time. Having told of his way in his sacred work, let us now note the place of this work.

He lived in a small house close to the big synagogue and to the old house of study and to other houses of prayer, a few steps from not to be mentioned in the same breath — the bathhouse that contained the ritual bath. His house was small and low. It had only one room, which was divided in the middle by a partition made of boards. On the other side of the partition there was an oven and a range for pots, and between oven and range the pious and modest mistress of his house sat, and she cooked and baked and preserved and wove and knitted and looked to the needs of her home. Children they had none. Because the Holy One, blessed be He, desires the prayers of the righteous, He closed her womb.

When she completes the tasks that a wife is required to perform for her husband, she takes out a used garment and remakes it into clothing for an orphan. She is especially fond of this task because it enables her to sit quietly, to pull thread after thread, and in her thoughts take stock of the world. And in order to avoid doubts, Heaven forfend, about God’s ways, and not to complain, Heaven forfend, against Him, she recalls several pious tales of salvation. For example, the story of a childless woman like herself who saved money in a stocking to buy a ruby, which is a proven remedy against childlessness. Then she saw the officials of the Society for Clothing the Naked, and gave them all the money, and in addition sewed clothes for the orphan children. Not many days later her womb was blessed, and out of her came affluent men who served God in comfort.

Or another story about a woman who was making a small tallit for an orphan, and suddenly she felt that the ritual fringes were being pulled and drawn upward, and a fragrance like that of the Garden of Eden was all around her. When she looked up she saw Reb Gadiel, the infant who had been born by virtue of his father’s having taught Torah to Jewish children; Reb Gadiel was kissing the ritual fringes she had made, and she heard him say to her: “Know that your deeds are acceptable on high, and that you will yet merit making ritual fringes for your own sons and sons’ sons.” Not many days later she was rewarded and her womb was blessed, and out of her came righteous, God-fearing, good men, taken up with Torah and God’s commandments. And this birth was out of the ordinary, because that woman had been barren by nature.

Thus the pious Miriam sits, drawing thread after thread, and a thread of mercy is drawn and extended on high, and good angels bring up before her various fantasies: for example, that she is preparing a garment for her son who is sitting in his schoolroom and studying Torah.

From time to time she raises her pure eyes toward Raphael, the husband of her youth, who sits on the other side of the partition, near the window, at the clean table covered with a tallit. Also on the other side of the partition are a wardrobe and a bed. The bed is covered with a colored, clean spread, and the wardrobe contains rolls of parchment and sacred implements. In it her white wedding dress hangs, and in it also earth from the Land of Israel lies hidden away.

Across the top of the room a dart beam stretches from one end of the house to the other. On top of the beam there are a number of sacred books: some new, some old; some thick, some thin; some bound in cured sheepskins and some in a plain binding.

Near the beam, to the right, on the eastern wall, is the embroidered wall hanging Miriam had made in her youth at her father’s house. It depicts a garden full of fruit trees, with a palace in the garden, and two lions watching over the garden. The lions’ faces are turned toward each other, lion facing lion, one tongue reaching out toward the other; and stretching from tongue to tongue there is an inscription in large letters of gold, which says, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof,” as if it were one mighty roar. In each of the four corners of the embroidery there is a square that contains the words: “I have set the Lord always before me.”

Facing the east-wall embroidery, on the opposite wall, there is a mirror, and on top of its frame lies a bundle of willow twigs. Each year, on Hoshana Rabbah, Miriam brings home a bundle of the twigs that had been beaten against the prayer lecterns in the synagogue as part of the liturgy. A number of women had already been helped at childbirth by water in which such willow twigs were boiled. Only she herself has never yet made use of that water. The willow twigs continue to wither, and leaf after leaf is shed into the web that the spider has spun over the amulet that is near the bed. Her mother had given her the amulet on her wedding day to help keep away from the house the evil spirits that prevent births.

The amulet is written in the letters of the sacred alphabet but in the tongue of the Gentiles, Yak krova mloda, etc., meaning, “When the cow is young and healthy, why should she not give birth to a calf?” It was written for her mother, peace be upon her, who had been childless for a number of years, by Rabbi Simon of Yaroslav during his stay at the inn operated by her mother. He wrote it at the insistence of several righteous rabbis, while she cooked red borsht and potatoes for them after they had gone without food for three days on their journey to their saintly rabbi, the Seer of Lublin. And since at that time Rabbi Simon had not yet been ordained, he did not write the amulet in the sacred tongue; but the Hebrew letters in which the amulet was written spelled out the name of the angel in charge of pregnancy, with the Holy Name interwoven among them. Miriam tied the amulet with seven threads from seven veils of seven women from whom had come sons and sons of sons, none of whom had died during the lives of their parents.

From time to time Miriam comes softly to her side of the partition, and stands there letting her pure eyes rest on her husband as he sits at his work in holiness and purity. And if Raphael should interrupt his work and notice her standing there, immediately the pallor leaves her face and a blush takes its place, and she offers him the excuse that she had only come to fetch the Sabbath candlesticks to polish them in honor of the Sabbath. This is the rule of the house. Outside of the house nothing unclean ever appears, because the schoolchildren drive away any dog or pig that may wander into the street. The only animal present is the cat, which was created for the purpose of keeping the house free of mice. Geese and other clean fowl wander around the house. And the birds of heaven, at the time of their migration to the Land of Israel when the Torah portion Ki tavo is read in the synagogue, and again at the time when they return on Passover to hear the recitation of the Song of Songs in the classroom, sing their own song at his window every morning.

4

Inside the house there is quiet and peace. A feeling like Sabbath rest prevails. And the beauty of the place is reflected in its dwellers. The beloved Miriam’s head is always covered by a clean white kerchief knotted below her throat, with its ends resting upon her heart like a dove’s wings. Unlike most women, she uses no pin in her kerchief so that not even the smallest part of the covered area may become exposed, Heaven forbid. And if her hands were not busy with her work, one might mistakenly think that every day is Sabbath unto the Lord.

At times a poor man comes to the house to ask for alms, or a traveler comes in to have his tefillin repaired, and they tell Raphael what they had seen and heard in the dispersion of Israel. “What shall we say and what shall we relate, Reb Raphael? If told it would not be believed. In the house of Thus-and-so the Scribe, I saw with my own eyes a number of young men sitting day and night writing Torah scrolls, tefillin, and mezuzot, thus making factory work of the sacred Torah. Not only this, but I have heard that another scribe even employs girls to sit and write.”

Raphael listens respectfully and replies humbly, “Do not say this, my dear fellow Jew. Why should we slander the people of God? Indeed, we have reason to rejoice that we have reached a time such as this when the Torah is spread so widely that a single scribe for a city is no longer enough.”

At times a woman neighbor comes in to consult Miriam on something related to cooking, or to ask when the new month will begin. And if there is a difficult birth in town, someone comes running to her to borrow her willow twigs. The woman says to her, “My dear Miriam, surely you wish to save two human souls, therefore please lend me your willow twigs. Tomorrow, God willing, I shall go from one end of the town to the other end and find other willow twigs to replace these.” And Miriam answers with a sigh, “Take the willow twigs, my dear soul, and may they bring good fortune and long life. As for me, I am not worthy of your going to any trouble about me; for myself, what will these willow twigs give or add, even if they were boiled in tears?” And her neighbor replies, “Don’t, Miriam, don’t, my precious life, let us not give Satan a foothold by complaining. We have a mighty Father in heaven and His mercies are over all His works. Many barren women have given birth, and children have clung to their breasts. There is a women’s prayer book that has been brought from the Holy Land; nothing I can say matters, but in that book you will discover God’s acts and miracles, and in it also you will learn how to entreat God.”

When Miriam visits the bathhouse Raphael remains in the house of study. When she returns home she dresses in fine clothes, like a bride on her wedding day, and stands before the mirror. At that moment it seems as if the days of her youth were returning to her. She recalls an inn on a main road, frequented by gentile lords and ladies, and cattle dealers sojourning there, and herself sitting with her father and mother, and with Raphael the husband of her youth. She recalls the crown her mother placed on her head on her wedding day, and at that moment the thought enters her mind to make herself beautiful for her husband. But then she sees reflected in the mirror the east-wall embroidery with its scenes and those two lions with their mouths open; immediately she is startled and shrinks back: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.”

And when Raphael returns home after the prayers and sees his wife in her true beauty reflected in the mirror, he is immediately attracted to her. He goes toward her to make some pleasing remark. But when he is near her, His name, may He be blessed, flashes before him out of the mirror. Immediately he stops and recites devoutly and in holiness: “I have set the Lord always before me,” and shuts his eyes before the glory and awe of the Name. Both turn away silently. He sits in one corner and studies the Book of Splendor, and she sits in another corner reading the women’s prayer book, until sleep invades their eyes. They take the large bucket of water with the large copper fish embossed on its bottom, and wash their hands in preparation for reciting “Hear, O Israel” before retiring.

5

When hope and patience came to an end and she no longer had the strength to weep and pray for children, she stood before her husband heartbroken and with great humility. Said Raphael to Miriam, “What is your wish, Miriam, and what is your request?” And Miriam replied, “My wish and my request, if I have found favor in my husband’s eyes, and if it please my husband to do my wish and fulfill my petition, then let him write a Torah scroll for us also.”

At that moment Reb Raphael took Miriam’s head and placed it on his knees, then he placed his eyes upon her eyes, his face upon her face, his mouth upon her mouth, and said to her, “Please don’t, my daughter, God has not yet withdrawn His mercy from us. We shall surely still behold seed upon the earth.” Miriam lowered her eyelids and replied, “May the words of your mouth enter the ears of the Holy One, blessed be He.” From then on her hands were busy making a mantle for a Torah scroll, and other sacred implements, as does a woman whose hands are busy making decorative ribbons, sheets, and coverings for the expected newborn baby.

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“Good fortune is not forever.” God chastises those He loves. One Sabbath morning Miriam returned from the synagogue, put down her prayer book, and, before she was able to remove her outer garment and prepare her heart and soul to greet her husband properly, a sigh escaped from deep within her, she began to feel alternately chilled and hot, her face turned green, her bones began rattling in their joints, and her whole skin sought to escape from her body. She lay down on her bed and remained there and never again rose or left her bed. She had not been inscribed on high for a long life, and was plucked while still in her youth.

Miriam died in the prime of her days and left her husband to his sorrows. She died in the prime of her days and left behind her neither son nor daughter.

7

At the end of the seven days of mourning, Raphael the Scribe arose, put on his shoes, went to the marketplace, and obtained sheets of parchment, bundles of quills, a string of gallnuts for ink, and soft gut-thread for sewing together the sheets of parchment, and set his heart to the writing of a Torah scroll in memory of the soul of his wife whom God had taken away.

What may this be likened to? To a great gardener who raised beautiful plants in his garden, and all the officials who were to see the king would first come to his garden and buy beautiful flowers to take with them. Once the gardener’s wife was to see the king, and the gardener said, “All others who visit the king take flowers from my garden. Now that my own wife is to visit the king, it is only proper that I go down to my garden and pick flowers for her.”

The comparison is clear. Raphael was a great gardener. He planted beautiful Torah scrolls in the world. And whoever was invited to appear before the King — the King over kings of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He — took a Torah scroll with him. And now that Miriam’s time had come to appear before the King — the Holy One, blessed be He — Raphael immediately went down to his garden — that is, to his pure and holy table — and picked roses — that is, the letters of the Torah scroll he wrote — and made a beautiful bouquet — that is, the Torah scroll he had prepared. Thus the work began.

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Raphael sat and wrote. He wrote his Torah scroll day and night, interrupting the work only for prayers with the congregation and for the recitation of the kaddish. A tallit was spread over the clean table, its fringes drooping below the table and getting intertwined with the fringes of the little tallit he wore. On the tallit lay a lined sheet of parchment dazzling in its whiteness as the sky itself in its purity.

From morning to evening the quill wrote on the parchment and beautiful black letters glistened and alighted on the parchment as birds upon the snow on the Sabbath when the Song of Moses is read. When he came to the writing of the great and awesome Name he would go down to the ritual bath and immerse himself.

Thus he sat and wrote until he completed the entire Torah scroll.

9

But the doing does not flow as fast as the words. Raphael sat at his toil a long time before he completed the writing of the scroll. His face shrank, his cheeks became hollow, his temples sunken, his eyes larger and larger, as he sat bewildered in the emptiness of his desolate house. Near its hole a mouse plays with a discarded quill, and the cat lies dejectedly on the abandoned oven. A month comes and a month goes, and time sprinkles his earlocks with gray. Raphael prods himself with the sage’s saying: “Raphael, Raphael, do not forget death because death will not forget you.” Month comes and month goes and there is no action and no work done. The sheet of parchment lies on the table and the quill lies in the sunshine, and the sun’s reflection out of the quill shines as the hidden light from among the wings of the celestial creatures. Sunbeams come down to bathe in the scribe’s inkwell, and when they depart in order to bid welcome to the shadows of the night, the sheet of parchment lies unchanged.

At times Raphael summoned strength, dipped the pen in ink, and wrote a word, but this did not lead to any more work because his eyes filled with tears. When he sat down to write a single letter in the Torah, immediately his eyes brimmed with tears which rolled down to the parchment.

In vain do builders build palaces

If a flooding river sweeps away their foundations;

In vain do people kindle a memorial candle

If the orphans extinguish it with their tears.

And when he swallowed his tears and said to himself, Now I will work, now I will write, he would reach such a peak of devout ecstasy that his quill spattered droplets of ink, and he was unable to write even a single letter properly.

It is told of the Rabbi of Zhitomir that he once asked the Rabbi of Berditchev about the biblical verse “And Aaron did so,” on which the commentator Rashi, of blessed memory, commented that Aaron did not deviate from God’s instructions. This is puzzling; how could it have been otherwise? The Holy One, blessed be He, told Aaron to kindle the lights; would it have been possible for Aaron to deviate? Had God instructed an ordinary man to do this, would that man have deviated? Therefore, what is so praiseworthy about Aaron’s not having deviated? However, if the Holy One, blessed be He, had told the Rabbi of Berditchev to kindle the lights, he would surely have felt ecstasy and awe and fervor, and if he tried to kindle them he would spill the oil on the ground, and, because of his awe, would not succeed in kindling them. But Aaron, even though he surely possessed ecstasy and awe and fervor more than any other person, when he came to kindle the lights, he did as God commanded, without any deviation.

That winter it once happened that the bathhouse in Raphael’s town was closed down by the authorities because it was near collapse, and when Raphael reached a place in the Torah scroll where the Name had to be written, he could find no bath of purification. He took an ax, went down to the river on the outskirts of the town, broke the ice, immersed himself in the water three times, and returned and wrote the Name with the joy of wondrous fervor. At that moment Raphael attained the merit of discovering the divine secret that before a man is able to rise to the height of joyous fervor he has to be like a man who stands in icy water on a snowy day.

From then on Raphael sat, physically weakened, in the joy of silence, and with emaciated hand he wielded the quill on the parchment until he completed his scroll. The wooden rollers on which the parchment sheets are rolled, and other sacred implements, he made himself. In this he may be compared to a host who always had guests in his house and had several servants waiting on them. Once he made a feast for the king. Who should properly wait on the king? Surely the host himself.

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And now let us recall the custom — a custom in Israel is like a law — observed at the completion of the writing of a Torah scroll.

When a scribe is about to complete a scroll, he leaves several verses at the end unfinished, in outlined lettering, in order that any Jew who had not himself had the privilege to fulfill the biblical admonition “And now ye shall write down this song for yourselves” may be afforded the opportunity to come and fill in one of the letters of the Torah. And whoever is so favored takes a pen, dips its tip in ink, and fills in the hollow, outlined letter. Raphael put down his quill, having left several verses in outlined letters, and said to himself: I shall go and invite a quorum of ten Jews, so that the Torah will not be lonely, and saintly Jews may see and rejoice in the completion of a Torah. He walked over to the mirror to look into it and straighten out his earlocks and his beard in honor of the Torah and in honor of those who would come to rejoice with him.

The mirror was covered with a sheet. From the day of Miriam’s death, peace be with her, no one had removed this sign of mourning. Raphael pulled aside the end of the sheet, looked into the mirror, and saw his own face, and the east-wall embroidery across the room, and the scroll he had written, with the hollow, outlined letters at its end. At that moment his soul stirred and he returned to the table, took the quill, and filled in the letters in the scroll he had written in memory of his wife’s soul. When he completed the task he rolled up the scroll, raised it high, dancing with great joy, and he leaped and danced and sang in honor of the Torah. Suddenly Raphael stopped, puzzled about the melody he was singing in honor of the completion of the scroll. He felt sure that he had heard this melody before but could not remember where he had heard it. And now, even when he closed his lips the singing of the melody continued by itself. Where had he heard this melody?

11

Having mentioned the melody, I shall not refrain from relating where he had heard it.

It was the evening of Simhat Torah. That evening the rabbi’s house of study was full of bright lights, every light fixture glowing with a radiance from on high. Righteous and saintly Hasidim clothed in white robes of pure silk, with Torah scrolls in their arms, circled the pulpit, dancing with holy fervor and enjoying the pleasures of the Torah. A number of Hasidim as well as ordinary householders get the privilege of dancing with them, and they cling to the sacred Torah and to those who selflessly obey the Torah, and they forget all anger and all disputes and all kinds of troublesome trivialities. And their young children form an outer circle around them, each child carrying a colored flag, red or green or white or blue, each flag inscribed with letters of gold. On top of each flag is an apple, and on top of each apple a burning candle, and all the candles glow like planets in the mystical “field of sacred apples.” And when young boys or girls see their father receive this honor, carrying a Torah scroll in his arms, they immediately jump toward him, grasping the scroll, caressing, embracing, kissing it with their pure lips that have not tasted sin; they clap their hands and sing sweetly, “Happy art thou, O Israel,” and their fathers nod their heads toward the children, singing “Ye holy lambs.” And the women in the outer lobby feast their eyes on this exalted holiness.

When the seventh round of the procession around the pulpit is reached, the cantor takes a Torah scroll to his bosom and calls out to the youths, “Whoever studies the Torah, let him come and take a Torah scroll,” and a number of fine youths come and take scrolls in their arms.

Then the cantor calls out again, “The distinguished young man, Raphael, is honored with the honor of the Torah, and with the singing of a beautiful melody.”

Raphael came forward, went to the ark, accepted the scroll from the cantor, and walked at the head of the procession. The elders stood and clapped their hands, adding to the rejoicing. The children stood on the benches chanting aloud “Ye holy lambs” and waving their flags over the heads of the youths. But when Raphael began to sing his melody all hands became still and everyone stood motionless without saying a word. Even the older Hasidim whose saintly way in prayer and in dancing with great fervor is like that of the ancient sage Rabbi Akiba — of whom it is told that when he prayed by himself, his bowing and genuflecting were so fervent that “if when you left him he was in one corner, you found him in another corner at the next moment”—even they restrained themselves with all their might from doing this. They did not lift a hand to clap because of the ecstatic sweetness, even though their hearts were consumed with fire. The women leaned from the windows of the womens’ gallery, and their heads hung out like a flock of doves lined up on the frieze of a wall.

Raphael held the scroll in his arm, walking in the lead with all the other youths following him in the procession around the pulpit. At that moment a young girl pushed her way through the legs of the dancers, leaped toward Raphael, sank her red lips into the white mantle of the Torah scroll in Raphael’s arm, and kept on kissing the scroll and caressing it with her hands. Just then the flag fell out of her hand, and the burning candle dropped on Raphael’s clothing.

After the holiday, Raphael’s father brought an action before the rabbi against the girl’s father in the matter of Raphael’s robe that had been burned because of the girl. The rabbi, indulging himself in the pleasure of a wise remark, said to the girl’s father, “God willing, for their wedding day you will have a new garment made for him.” Immediately they brought a decanter of brandy and wrote the betrothal contract. And for Raphael’s and Miriam’s wedding a new garment was made for him. This is the story of the melody.

And Raphael continues to circle the pulpit, singing sweet melodies. His voice is lovely and sad, numbing the senses but wakening the soul to rise and dance the dance of the Shekhinah. That dance without sound or movement, in which even the earlocks and beard remain motionless, and only the fringes of the prayer shawl drip down to the knees. The house is still, the feet are stilled, and the hands unmoved. The girls come down from the women’s gallery to the house of study to watch the youths dance. The youths continue to circle the pulpit, and the girls reach out with the tips of their fingers toward the Torah scrolls in the hands of the youths.

The sun has set, her last rays shine through the cracks in the shutters, and their light adorns Miriam’s white dress. Raphael came toward Miriam and bowed before her with the Torah scroll held in his arm. He could not see her face because she was wrapped in her wedding dress. Silently Raphael stood and wondered where her wedding dress had come from, because he had taken it out of her wardrobe to have a curtain for the ark made out of it. He walked over to see whether her dress hung there, but when he got there he no longer remembered what he had come for. He stood facing the wardrobe and looked into its black void. Suddenly he noticed the little bag of earth from the Land of Israel. He had placed some of this earth on Miriam’s eyes in her grave. Raphael took the little bag of earth in his hand and his heart trembled violently. His hand faltered and the earth spilled to the floor of the house. His heart became agitated as that of a man who stands on sacred soil.

The lamp flickers. Raphael is wrapped in his prayer shawl, a Torah scroll in his arm, and the scroll has a mantle of fine silk on which the name of Miriam the wife of Raphael the Scribe is embroidered. The house becomes filled with many Torah scrolls, and many elders dancing. As they dance they neither lift their feet nor bend their knees, but move as if they had no joints. They dance without motion, revolving their bodies, and Miriam stands in the center, her face covered, dancing with her shoulders, her arms raised into the emptiness of the room. She approaches Raphael’s scroll. She takes off her veil and covers her face with her hands. Suddenly her hands slide down, her face is uncovered, and her lips cling to the mantle of the Torah scroll in Raphael’s arms.

The Holy One, blessed be He, removed His robe of light, and the world stood in silent evening prayer. The lamp flickered and the wick sank into the oil. Suddenly a tongue of flame leaped up and illuminated the room. Its light framed the face of Raphael the Scribe, who sank down with his scroll. His wife’s wedding dress was spread out over him and over his scroll.

That Tzaddik’s Etrog

You heard the story from whomever you may have heard it, whereas I heard it from a Hasid son of a Hasid who heard it from his teacher Reb Shlomo the Tzaddik of Zvihel, the direct seventh generation descendant of Reb Mikheleh the Holy Preacher of Zloczow. And there is no question that the way I heard it from that Hasid who heard it from his Rebbe, is exactly the way it happened, since that righteous Reb Shlomo of Zvihel had it from his fathers and in the very language of his fathers he told it, not adding a word except for clarification. So whatever he added was of the very stuff of the original.

Reb Mikheleh the Holy Preacher of Zloczow started out a pauper in a house devoid of material goods. Often he had nothing except the slice he had stashed away in the hat on his head for a beggar, so that in case a beggar should happen along he would not leave humiliated, for so devoted was that righteous man to his Maker that he neglected his own needs, paying attention only to the needs of the Shekhinah — that is Torah, prayer, and good deeds.

Doesn’t Solomon tell us in his Proverbs that the righteous man understands the soul of his beast? Well, so, too, the wife of that righteous man understood the soul of her righteous husband. She did all she could to keep aggravation away from him and to protect him against all distractions from his holy work, unlike most women who, when the cupboard is bare, come muttering and nattering.

One year it was already hours before Sukkot and the rabbi’s wife did not have a morsel in the house for celebrating the holiday. She thought, I will go tell my husband — he will hear and know my distress. She went to his solitude room, stood in the doorway, and said, “Sukkot eve is upon us and I still have no festival provisions.”

That righteous man lifted himself from his chair, poked his head out from under his tallit, put his hand on his tefillin, and said to her, “You are worried about meat and fish, and I am worried about not yet having my etrog.”

She kissed the mezuzah on the doorpost of his room and left dejectedly.

That righteous man stood up and went all over the house looking for something to sell and use the money to buy an etrog. He looked and looked but did not find a single thing worth an etrog.

He fondled his tefillin and mused, The nine festival days are approaching, and during the festival tefillin aren’t worn, and my tefillin were written by a holy man of God, who writes each and every letter in holiness and purity, investing the most sublime and most awesome intents and purposes in the writing of each and every character. Tefillin of his make are much sought after and command a high price. I will sell them, and with the proceeds I will get an etrog.

Reb Mikheleh removed his tefillin and took them and went to his Beit Midrash and asked, “Who would like to buy my tefillin?” A certain man stood up and said, “I will buy them.” He took out a gold dinar and gave it to the righteous man, and the righteous man handed him his tefillin.

The righteous man took the dinar and ran to the etrog seller to get an etrog. He saw a beautiful etrog and judged it to be kosher and perfectly formed. Now a truly righteous man, when he buys an object for performing a divine precept, doesn’t bargain. All the more so when it comes to an etrog, about which it is written, “And on the first day [of Sukkot] you shall take a fruit of the beautiful tree…and rejoice before the Lord your God” (Leviticus 23:40).

Reb Mikheleh returned home happy that he had come by a beautiful etrog possessing all the qualities that are lauded in an etrog. He went into his sukkah to fix something and returned to his solitude room.

He sat down in his chair and placed the etrog before him and ruminated on this precept that God had given the Jewish people to observe during these holy days of Sukkot, a holiday adorned with a multitude of precepts to observe.

His wife the rebbetzin heard that her husband had been to market. She went into his room.

She saw the glow in his face and the ecstasy emanating from his entire being. The rebbetzin thought he had brought home all the festival victuals. She said to him, “I see that you are happy. You must have brought us the festival provisions. Give them to me and I will prepare them, for it is nearly time.”

The righteous man rose from his chair and put his hand on his eyes and said, “Praised be the blessed and sublime Name for bestowing His grace on me and fulfilling my every need.”

The rebbetzin stood there waiting for her husband to deliver. He sat back down in his chair and told her that he had been privileged to acquire a kosher etrog.

She asked him, “How did you have money to get an etrog?” He said to her, “I sold my tefillin for a gold dinar and bought an etrog.” She said to him, “In that case, give me the change.” He said to her, “They didn’t give me any change. All the money they gave me for my tefillin, I gave for my etrog.” He started to enumerate with steadily mounting enthusiasm all the virtues of the etrog.

The rebbetzin swallowed her tears and said, “I want to see this great find of yours.” The righteous man took out the etrog and unwrapped it. It radiated its beauty and emitted its fragrance, a feast for the eyes and truly fit for the benediction.

The woman said, “Give it to me so I can have a good look at it.” She reached out and picked up the etrog.

She thought of the pitiful state of her house and the distress of her children who had nothing to eat, and how the festival of Sukkot was nearly here and she had nothing with which to make it festive. Grief drove the strength from her hands, and the etrog slipped and fell. And having fallen, its stem broke. And the stem having broken, the etrog was no longer fit for ritual use.

The righteous man saw that his etrog was no longer fit for the benediction. He stretched out his two holy hands in despair and said, “Tefillin I have not and etrog I have not; all I have left is anger. But I will not be angry, but I will not be angry.”

Now that Hasid who told me this story said to me: I asked my rebbe, “Is that really how it happened?” And my rebbe said to me, “That is how it happened, exactly as I have told it to you.” And my rebbe also said to me, “This story — the daughter-in-law of the Holy Preacher, wife of Rabbi Yosef of Yampol, told it to the father of her son-in-law, Rabbi Baruch of Mezbizh. On the very day that this incident occurred she had been in the Holy Preacher’s home and had seen it with her own eyes. And when she told it to Rabbi Baruch the Tzaddik of Mezbizh, Rabbi Baruch, father of her son-in-law, said to her, ‘Mother of my daughter-in-law, tell me the story again from beginning to end. This is a story worth hearing twice.’”

Fable of The Goat

The tale is told of an old man who groaned from his heart. The doctors were sent for, and they advised him to drink goat’s milk. He went out and bought a she-goat and brought her into his home. Not many days passed before the goat disappeared. They went out to search for her but did not find her. She was not in the yard and not in the garden, not on the roof of the house of study and not by the spring, not in the hills and not in the fields. She tarried several days and then returned by herself; and when she returned, her udder was full of a great deal of milk, the taste of which was as the taste of Eden. Not just once, but many times she disappeared from the house. They would go out in search of her and would not find her until she returned by herself with her udder full of milk that was sweeter than honey and whose taste was the taste of Eden.

One time the old man said to his son, “My son, I desire to know where she goes and whence she brings this milk which is sweet to my palate and a balm to all my bones.”

His son said to him, “Father, I have a plan.”

He said to him, “What is it?”

The son got up and brought a length of cord. He tied it to the goat’s tail.

His father said to him, “What are you doing, my son?”

He said to him, “I am tying a cord to the goat’s tail, so that when I feel a pull on it I will know that she has decided to leave, and I can catch the end of the cord and follow her on her way.” The old man nodded his head and said to him, “My son, if your heart is wise, my heart too will rejoice.”

The youth tied the cord to the goat’s tail and minded it carefully. When the goat set off, he held the cord in his hand and did not let it slacken until the goat was well on her way and he was following her. He was dragged along behind her until he came to a cave. The goat went into the cave, and the youth followed her, holding the cord. They walked thus for an hour or two, or maybe even a day or two. The goat wagged her tail and bleated, and the cave came to an end.

When they emerged from the cave, the youth saw lofty mountains, and hills full of the choicest fruit, and a fountain of living waters that flowed down from the mountains; and the wind wafted all manner of perfumes. The goat climbed up a tree by clutching at the ribbed leaves. Carob fruits full of honey dropped from the tree, and she ate of the carobs and drank of the garden’s fountain.

The youth stood and called to the wayfarers: “I adjure you, good people, tell me where I am, and what is the name of this place?”

They answered him, “You are in the Land of Israel, and you are close by Safed.”

The youth lifted up his eyes to the heavens and said, “Blessed be the Omnipresent, blessed be He who has brought me to the Land of Israel.” He kissed the soil and sat down under the tree.

He said, “Until the day breathe and the shadows flee away, I shall sit on the hill under this tree. Then I shall go home and bring my father and mother to the Land of Israel.” As he was sitting thus and feasting his eyes on the holiness of the Land of Israel, he heard a voice proclaiming:

“Come, let us go out to greet the Sabbath Queen.”

And he saw men like angels, wrapped in white shawls, with boughs of myrtle in their hands, and all the houses were lit with a great many candles. He perceived that the eve of Sabbath would arrive with the darkening, and that he would not be able to return. He uprooted a reed and dipped it in gallnuts, from which the ink for the writing of the Torah scrolls is made. He took a piece of paper and wrote a letter to his father:

“From the ends of the earth I lift up my voice in song to tell you that I have come in peace to the Land of Israel. Here I sit, close by Safed, the holy city, and I imbibe its sanctity. Do not inquire how I arrived here but hold on to this cord which is tied to the goat’s tail and follow the footsteps of the goat; then your journey will be secure, and you will enter the Land of Israel.”

The youth rolled up the note and placed it in the goat’s ear. He said to himself: When she arrives at Father’s house, Father will pat her on the head, and she will flick her ears. The note will fall out, Father will pick it up and read what is written on it. Then he will take up the cord and follow the goat to the Land of Israel.

The goat returned to the old man, but she did not flick her ears, and the note did not fall. When the old man saw that the goat had returned without his son, he clapped his hands to his head and began to cry and weep and wail, “My son, my son, where are you? My son, would that I might die in your stead, my son, my son!”

So he went, weeping and mourning over his son, for he said, “An evil beast has devoured him, my son is assuredly rent in pieces!”

And he refused to be comforted, saying, “I will go down to my grave in mourning for my son.”

And whenever he saw the goat, he would say, “Woe to the father who banished his son, and woe to her who drove him from the world!”

The old man’s mind would not be at peace until he sent for the butcher to slaughter the goat. The butcher came and slaughtered the goat. As they were skinning her, the note fell out of her ear. The old man picked up the note and said, “My son’s handwriting!”

When he had read all that his son had written, he clapped his hands to his head and cried, “Vay! Vay! Woe to the man who robs himself of his own good fortune, and woe to the man who requites good with evil!”

He mourned over the goat many days and refused to be comforted, saying, “Woe to me, for I could have gone up to the Land of Israel in one bound, and now I must suffer out my days in this exile!”

Since that time the mouth of the cave has been hidden from the eye, and there is no longer a short way. And that youth, if he has not died, shall bear fruit in his old age, full of sap and richness, calm and peaceful in the Land of the Living.

Paths of Righteousness, or the Vinegar Maker

In one of the towns of Poland there lived an old man who used to make vinegar. His forebears were renowned wine merchants, but hard times impoverished them and they left him with no more than a shack and wine that had gone sour. Ne’er a happy day did he see there. His wife died when his children were small, and when they grew up they were pressed into military service and died in the wars. The old man would sit there all alone and make vinegar. For the first five days of the week he would engage in his trade, and on Fridays he would fill up a large can and make his rounds about town. Many times he would stop and think, What am I and what is my life? Five days a week I make vinegar to sell; when I have sold it I make some more and go out again to sell it. And for what reason? To sustain this enfeebled body. If my wife and children were alive, I would truly provide for them. Now that my wife is dead and my progeny is no more, why do I take such pains to draw my skin from my flesh? He would whine and sigh and moan about the course of his life so much that his work was discreditable in his eyes, and even the wearing of tsitsit and tefillin of little worth. But since the love of the Land of Israel was embedded in his heart, he made up his mind to go up to the Land of Israel, and if he were found worthy he would find for himself a grave in its dust. Not only was he sparing in his food and parsimonious in his pleasures, but he would even deny himself tasting the fruit that he had from which to make vinegar and would take his bread with weak brew, eating less than his due. On Mondays and Thursdays he would fast, until he got used to living on very little. And on Friday afternoons, after he had sold his vinegar and returned from town, he would sit on a stone and take the money out of his pocket, half of which he would take for sustenance and the other half he would put into a charity box which the Gentiles in this realm used to place at crossroads in the hands of that man. A simple man, he didn’t know what the purpose of the box was, and thought that there was no place safer than that. Copper coins he would take for his immediate requirements and silver coins for his traveling expenses to the Land of Israel, and he would make a scratch on the can for a sign. From then on he labored with joy. Lo and behold, he would say to himself, up to now I disliked my trade and now I find it hard to give it up; the same utensils and the same vinegar, and before I know it the day is done. At midnight he would get up from his bed, take his can, and dance about with it until it was time for morning prayers. The more he was occupied with his calculations of how many scratches there were on the can and how much money he had put in the charity box, so his prayers suffered, becoming somewhat erratic. And so said he, “O God, it is plain for You to see that all the calculations I make are only so that I may go up to Your land. Take me there and there I will say to You a fine prayer.”

And thus several years passed. The old man, out of love for his work, went around the town with his vinegar, after which he would apportion his earnings, one-half for his immediate requirements and one-half for his traveling expenses. Then he would make more vinegar to take around the town, apportioning his earnings, one-half for his sustenance and one-half for the charity box. So is the nature of simple people that, notwithstanding the passage of years, they do not change their ways. And thus several years passed. The inner walls of his house began to peel. The roof began to leak and cracks appeared in the walls. And when it rained he was soaked to the skin, even when he was under the covers. And the way taxes and rates were going up, if he were to remain either the state would take over his house or his house would be his grave. The vinegar maker would lie on his bed at night and listen to the sound of the plaster crumbling from the walls, bit by bit snapping off and falling away, almost without being heard due to the moisture. But the old man’s heart quavered like a bell out of joy at God’s mercy in keeping him alive and not letting him perish abroad.

At cockcrow, the old man would wash his hands and eyes, light the candle and sit by the front door and wrap himself up as one who mourns and bewails the exile, but as soon as he sees his can and how many scratches there are on it, he recalls immediately the money he had put into the charity box for his traveling expenses. He would pick up the can and drum on it with his fingers songs and praises, and then, placing one hand on his hip and raising one shoulder, he would count how many scratches there were on the can — two, three, forty, fifty, a hundred — dancing for joy. Not like those who dance over their heads and not like those who if they are put in one corner are to be found in another, but like those who dance around their shoulders, moving their shoulders to and fro. And so he would hop about until summoned by the beadle to services. Upon hearing the beadle’s voice calling to services, he would say to himself softly, I will get up and go to prayers, abashed at being so happy in this world. And then he would get on his feet and take with him his tallit and tefillin. How tattered was his tallit, virtually disintegrating with tears. Thank God he is going to Jerusalem where one is buried without a tallit. When prayers were over, and unless it was a fast day, he would dip a slice of bread into a glass of weak brew and lick the dust with his tongue so as not to be tempted to indulge in meat and wine. Then would he get down to making vinegar. Five days a week he made vinegar, and on Fridays he would fill up the can and make his rounds about town. Upon his return he would apportion the money he had made, one half for his immediate requirements, and the other for his traveling expenses. And when no one was looking he would thrust his finger through the cobwebs that had gathered during the week around the slit in the charity box which was clasped between the hands of that man, and would put the coins into the box. He was a simple man and knew not the purpose for which the box served. Each time he put coins in the box he would add another scratch on the can for a sign.

And thus several years passed. His body became bent like a ram’s horn and he groaned from the heart. The vinegar ate away half of his lungs and he breathed with difficulty. Most of the time he suffered and there was hardly enough left of him to fill his clothes. But each Friday afternoon he would add another scratch to the can, although there was barely room for one more. Now he was already saying that it was high time to go up to the Land of Israel, for, he said, last Friday afternoon when I put my money in the can, I could see the coins peeping out of the box. But as long as the can is whole it is hard to retire.

One day while the old man was pouring off vinegar the can burst. Whether he sold any more vinegar I never knew. But I heard that he went to the image of that man and took a stone to break open the charity box and take out his money. I also heard that on the same day Roman priests came to open the charity box and found him standing over the charity box with the stone in his hand. They seized him and put him in prison. No sooner had they seized him and put him in prison than the whole town was seething like hell. Some said, “The world is going to the dogs and there is no more faith,” and others said, “The tradesman is but a product of his trade. For as vinegar is none other than fermented wine, so has this old man shown himself to be wicked.” The former and the latter all ashamed sighed ruefully at such sacrilege, saying, “Oh, what an unworthy son born of a worthy father.” The old man sat in jail chained in irons. But his wrists were thin and the irons did not press on them. When God brings an affliction upon a man, God relieves the bitterness so that he might cope with the suffering. The old man sat in jail and shook his chains, and hordes of bugs and the like went scurrying. He was afraid to lie on the floor. He put his head between his knees like the early mystics until he was brought before the judge.

The judge asked him, “Do you admit that you were about to open the charity box?” The old man replied, “I was about to open the box because the money…” Before he could finish what he was saying, the judge said to him reproachfully, “Does the accused admit that he wanted to open the box?” The old man wanted to explain to him that whatever he had done he had done lawfully, since the money in the box was his and a man cannot be guilty of stealing his own money. But the presumption in that jurisdiction was that the more one spoke the truth the more was he deemed to be lying. The judge called the witnesses. The priests came forward, each one in turn taking out his cross from under his vestments and kissing it, and testifying that on said day of said month at said hour they were about to open said box when they found a Jew with a stone in his hand about to smash the box. The judge then asked the witnesses, “Do you recognize this old man as the one who was about to smash the box?” And they repeated after him, “We testify on our oath against this old man that he was about to smash the box.” The man was taken aback that men of such high order should take the oath where it is not required. He shook his hands and his chains rattled, making a loud noise. The judge turned to him and said, “Are you inferring that these high-ranking witnesses have perjured against you?” God forbid! It had never occurred to the old man to say so. It was true that he was about to open the box. And what did this judge see to indicate that he was lying? But he would not lie, all he wanted was his money back. He was chained hand and foot with chains of iron and he was incriminated out of his own mouth. But he was still well served by his eyes, which he raised and looked into the judge’s and witnesses’ faces. A weird state of affairs: all speak the truth and the truth gives rise to a miscarriage of justice. With one eye on his chains, the old man looked with his other eye about their heads. He saw the image of that man hanging on the courtroom wall and said to himself, You smile at me. He began rapping on the table with both hands until the sound of his chains was heard from one end of the building to the other, and cried out, “Leave me alone and give me back my money.” But they beat him and put him back in jail.

The old man sat on the straw and complained, “O God, it was plain for You to see how many years I have had to contend with this exile; I ate no good food, I wore no fine clothes, and I occupied no fine lodgings. All my years were sour to me as vinegar, and I accepted it all lovingly solely because I was to go up to Your Holy Land. And now that my time has come to go up, my captors have come and taken my money and put me in jail.” So he sat and cried until he dozed off in the midst of his crying. At midnight he woke of his own accord. In the room of the jail there was no mezuzah and no can. He began shaking his chains and chanting in a sad voice some songs and praises which he was used to singing at night; and so he went on chanting until he fell asleep again. The jail door opened, and there appeared some apparition of a man with a stone box in his hand and a certain smile on his lips. The old man turned his eyes away from him and tried to fall asleep. That man put him on his feet and said, “Hold on to me and I will bring you to wherever you wish to go.” The old man extended his arms toward that man and said, “How shall I hold on to you when my hands are in chains of iron?” And the latter replied, “Regardless thereof you shall.” The old man opened wide the palms of his hand and clasped them around the neck of that man who smiled and said, “I shall promptly bring you to the Land of Israel.” The old man embraced the neck of that man as the latter turned and faced in the direction of Jerusalem. On their first flight that man stopped smiling. On their second flight the old man’s fingers turned cold. On their third flight he felt that he was embracing cold stone. His heart melted and his hands waxed weak. He was set loose and fell to the ground. On the morrow when his captors came in, he was not to be found.

That night a knocking was heard on the door of the Kolel in Jerusalem. Those who went outdoors saw a flight of angels which had come from the exile bearing a mortal form, which that very night they took and buried, in keeping with the custom in Jerusalem not to hold over the dead.

The Lady and the Peddler

A certain Jewish peddler was traveling with his stock from town to town and village to village. One day he found himself in a wooded region far from any settlement. He saw a lone house. He approached it and, standing before the door, he cried out his wares. A lady came outside and spoke to him. “What do you want here, Jew?” Bowing, he wished her well and said, “Perhaps you can use something of these lovely things I have?” He took his pack off his back and offered her all sorts of goods. “I have no use for you or your wares,” she said to him.

“But look and see, perhaps even so? Here are ribbons and rings and kerchiefs and sheets and soap and fine perfumes that the noblewomen use.” She looked at his pack for a few moments, then averted her eyes from him. “There’s nothing here. Get out!” Again he bowed before her and took things out of the pack to offer to her. “Just look, my lady, and don’t say there’s nothing here. Perhaps you might want this, or perhaps this lovely piece of goods pleases you. Please, my lady, look and see.” The lady saw a hunting knife. She paid him for it and went back into her house. He put his pack on his shoulders and went on his way.

By that time, the sun had already set and he could no longer make out the road. He walked on, and on again farther, weaving his way in among trees and out and in among them once more. Darkness covered the earth and no moon shone in the sky. He looked all around and began to be afraid. Then he saw a light shining. He walked toward the light until he arrived at a house. He knocked on the door. The mistress of the house peered out at him and shouted, “Are you here again? What do you want, Jew?”

“Since I left you, I’ve been wandering in the darkness and I can’t find any town.”

“And so, what do you want from me?”

“Please, my lady, give me permission to sit here until the moon comes out. Then I’ll be able to see where I’m going and I’ll be off.” She looked at him with an angry eye and granted him permission to spend the night in an old barn in her courtyard. He lay down on the straw and dozed off.

That night it rained heavily. When the peddler rose in the morning, he saw that the entire land was one great swamp. He realized that the lady was a hard person. Let me abandon myself, he thought, to the mercy of Heaven, and I’ll ask no favors from ungenerous people. He put his pack on his shoulders and prepared to leave. The lady looked out at him. “It seems to me that the roof needs mending. Can you do anything about it?” The peddler set down his pack. “I’ll be glad to jump right up and take care of it.” She gave him a ladder and he climbed up to the top of the roof, where he found shingles torn loose by the wind. At once, he set them back in place, paying no heed to himself while all his clothes gushed water and his shoes were like two buckets. What difference does it make to me, he thought, whether I’m on the top of a roof or walking through the forest? There’s as much rain in the one place as in the other. And perhaps because I’m helping her out, she’ll show some kindness to me and let me stay in her house till the rains stop.

The peddler fixed the shingles, sealed the leaks in the roof, and climbed down. “I’m sure that from now on the rain won’t get into your house,” he told the lady. “You are a real craftsman,” she answered. “Tell me what your fee is and I’ll pay you.” He put his hand over his heart and said, “God forbid that I should take a single penny from my lady. It is not my practice to accept payment for anything that is not part of my trade, certainly not from my lady, who has shown me the kindness of allowing me to spend the night in her house.” She looked at him with suspicion, for she thought that he spoke in this manner in order to ingratiate himself with her and get more money out of her. Finally she said, “Sit down and I’ll bring you some breakfast.” He stood up to wring out his clothes, then he emptied the water from his shoes and looked all around. From the many antlers hanging on the walls, it was clear that this was a hunter’s house. Or perhaps it wasn’t a hunter’s house at all, and those antlers were simply hung up for decoration, as is the custom of forest dwellers, who decorate their homes with the horns of wild animals.

While he was still standing and looking, the mistress of the house returned, bringing with her hot liquor and cakes. He drank and ate and drank. After he had eaten and drunk, he said to her, “Perhaps there is something else here that needs to be fixed? I’m ready to do whatever my lady wishes.” She cast a glance around the house and told him, “Look and see.” The peddler was happy that he had been granted permission to stay in the house until the rains passed. He began to busy himself, fixing one thing and then another, and he asked no payment. In the evening she prepared supper for him and made up a bed for him in a room where she kept old things no longer in use. The peddler thanked the mistress of the house for bestowing such bounties upon him, and he swore that never would he forget her kindness to him.

By the next morning, new rains were falling. The peddler looked first outside and then at the face of the lady: Who was prepared to have pity on him sooner? The mistress of the house sat huddled in silence, and a great feeling of desolation arose from the furniture all around. The animals’ horns on the walls were enveloped in mist and they gave off an odor like the odor of living flesh. Perhaps she wanted to relieve that feeling of desolation which gripped the heart, or perhaps she was moved to pity for this fellow who would have to walk through rains and swamps. Whatever the reason, the lady began to speak to him. About what did she speak and about what didn’t she speak! About rains that did not stop and winds that blew without letup, about roads that were becoming impassable and grain that would rot, and much of the same sort. The peddler thanked her in his heart for every word because every word extended his time in the house so that he did not have to drag himself along the ways in rain and cold and storm. And she also was pleased that she had a living creature there. She took up her knitting needles and told him to sit down. He sat before her and began to tell of noblemen and noblewomen, of lords and ladies, of all that he knew and all that was pleasant for her to hear. In the meantime, they had drawn closer together. He said to her, “My lady lives all alone. Has she no husband or friend and companion? Surely there must be here many distinguished gentlemen to seek the company of such a fine lady.”

“I had a husband,” she said. The peddler sighed, “And he died.” “No,” she corrected, “he was killed.” The peddler sighed over her husband who was killed and asked, “How was he killed?” She answered, “The police don’t know, and now you want to know! What difference does it make to you how he was killed, whether an evil beast ate him or whether he was slaughtered with a knife? Don’t you yourself sell knives with which it is possible to slaughter a man?”

The peddler saw that the lady was not inclined to discuss her husband, so he kept silent. And she too was silent. After a little while the peddler spoke again. “May the Lord grant that they find the murderers of your husband to exact vengeance from them.”

“They won’t find them,” she said, “they won’t find them. Not every murderer is meant to be caught.” The peddler lowered his eyes. “I am sorry, my lady, that I have reminded you of your sorrow. If I only knew how I could cheer you up, I’d give half my life to do it.” The lady looked at him and smiled a queer smile, perhaps in contempt or perhaps in gratification, or perhaps just an ordinary smile that one person smiles to another and the other interprets as he wishes: if he is naive, then he interprets it in his own favor. The peddler, who was a naive man, interpreted the laughter of that woman in his own favor and for his own benefit. And since he was sorry for this woman who, to judge by her age and beauty, should have had men courting her, he suddenly looked upon himself as just such a man. He began to speak to her the sort of things that the ear of a young woman loves to hear. God only knows where this simple peddler learned such a style of talking. He soon found courage and began to speak of love, and even though she was a lady and he was a poor peddler, she welcomed his words and showed him affection. And even when the rains had passed and the roads had dried, they did not part.

The peddler stayed with the lady. Not in the old barn and not in the room for old things that were no longer used. No, he stayed in the lady’s room and slept in her husband’s bed, while she waited upon him as though he were her lord. Every day she prepared him a feast from all that she had, in house and field, every good fowl and every fat fowl. And if she broiled the meat in butter, he did not hold back from it. At first, when he would see her twisting the neck of a bird, he would be shocked. Afterward, he ate and even sucked the bones dry, as is the way of worthless folk: at first they are unwilling to commit a sin and afterward they commit all the sins in the world with a hearty appetite. He had neither wife nor children, he had no one to miss, and so he lived with the lady. He took off his peddler’s clothes and put on the garments of aristocracy, and he fell in with the people of the place until he was like one of them. The lady did not allow him to labor, neither in the house nor in the field. On the contrary, she took all the work upon herself while she treated him royally with food and drink, and if she was short-tempered with him in the daytime she was loving to him at night, as it is a woman’s nature to be sometimes one way and sometimes the other. And so passed one month and then two months, until he began to forget that he was a poor peddler and she a lady. She on her part forgot that he was a Jew or anything of the sort.

And so they lived together in one house under one roof, and he ate and drank and enjoyed himself and slept in a properly made bed — in short, it would seem that he wanted for nothing. But about one thing he was amazed: all that time he had never seen her eat or drink. At first he thought she might think it degrading to eat with him. After he became used to her and had forgotten that she was a lady and he a Jew, he wondered more and more.

Once he said to her, “How is it, Helen, that I’ve been living with you several months and I’ve never seen you eat or drink? You haven’t put a feeding trough in your belly, have you?” She said to him, “What difference does it make to you whether I eat or drink? It’s enough that you don’t want for anything with me and you have plenty to eat always.” “It’s true,” he answered, “that I eat and drink and I lead a more comfortable life now than ever before, but even so I would like to know how you sustain yourself and how you nourish yourself. You don’t eat at the same table with me, and I’ve never seen you eat away from the table either. Is it possible to exist without eating and drinking?” Helen smiled and said, “You want to know what I eat and what I drink? I drink men’s blood and I eat human flesh.” As she spoke she embraced him with all her might and placed her lips against his and sucked. “I never imagined,” she said to him, “that a Jew’s flesh would be so sweet. Kiss me, my raven. Kiss me, my eagle. Your kisses are sweeter to me than all the kisses in the world.” He kissed her, thinking, This is the kind of poetic language that noblewomen must use when they address their husbands with affection. And she on her part kissed him and said, “Joseph, in the beginning, when you showed yourself here I wanted to set the bitch on you, and now I myself am biting you like a mad bitch, so much that I’m afraid you won’t get out of my hands alive. O my own sweet corpse!” And so they would while away their days in love and affection, and there was nothing in the world to upset their affairs.

But that one thing kept gnawing away in the heart of the peddler. They lived together in one house in one room, and her bed was next to his, and everything she had she put in his hands, except for the bread which she did not eat at the same table with him. And she observed this to such a degree that she would not even taste from the dishes she prepared for him. Since this thing was gnawing away in his heart, he would ask about it again. And she would tell him. “He who delves too deeply digs his own grave. Be happy, my sweet corpse, with everything that is given to you, and don’t ask questions that have no answer.” The Jew reflected on this. Perhaps she’s really right. What difference does it make to me whether she eats and drinks with me or somewhere else? After all, she is healthy and her face looks fine and I want for nothing. He decided to keep quiet. He went on enjoying her board and all the rest of it. He neither pressed her with questions nor bothered her with excessive talk. Rather, he loved her even more than before, whether because he really loved her, or perhaps because of that enigma which had no solution.

Anyone who has to do with women knows that a love that depends upon the physical bond alone will come to an end before long. And even if a man loves a woman as Samson loved Delilah, in the end she will mock him, in the end she will oppress him, until he wishes he were dead. That is the way it was with this peddler. After a while she began to mock him, after a while she began to oppress him, after a while he began to wish he were dead. Nevertheless, he did not leave her. And she on her part did not tell him to get out. He stayed with her month after month: they would quarrel and make up, quarrel and make up, and he not knowing why they were quarreling and why they were making up. But he would reason thus to himself: Here the two of us are intimate with each other, living side by side, never apart from one another, and yet I know no more about her today than I knew yesterday, and yesterday I knew no more than I knew about her the day I came here for the first time when she bought the knife from me. As long as they continued to live together in peace, he didn’t ask many questions, and if he asked, she would stop up his mouth with kisses. When the peace between them disappeared, he began to think more and more about it, until he said to himself, I won’t let her be until she tells me.

One night he said to her, “Many times now I’ve asked you about your husband, and you’ve never said a thing to me.”

“About which one did you ask?”

“You mean you had two husbands?”

“What difference does it make to you if there were two or three?”

“So then I’m your fourth husband?”

“My fourth husband?”

“Well, from what you say, that is what it comes to. Doesn’t it, Helen?”

“Wait a minute and I’ll count them all,” she said to him. She held up her right hand and began counting on her fingers, one, two, three, four, five. When she had counted all the fingers on her right hand, she held up her left hand and went on counting. “And where are they?” he said to her.

“Now, didn’t I tell you that he who delves too deeply digs his own grave?”

“Tell me anyway.” She patted her belly and said, “Some of them perhaps are here.”

“What do you mean, ‘here’?” he asked. She narrowed her eyes and smiled. She looked at him for a few moments. “And if I told you,” she said, “do you think you would understand? Mother of God! Look, see what a face this corpse has.”

But from the moment she had begun to count on her fingers, he no longer had his wits about him. Now he lost the power of speech as well. He sat in silence. She said to him, “Darling, do you believe in God?” He sighed and answered, “And is it possible not to believe in God?”

“You’re a Jew, aren’t you?” He sighed “Yes, I’m a Jew.”

“Well, the Jews don’t believe in God, for if they believed in Him they wouldn’t have murdered Him. But if you do believe in God, pray to Him that you won’t end up the way they did.”

“The way who did?”

“The way those you asked about ended up.”

“You mean your husbands.”

“Yes, my husbands.”

“And how did they end up?”

“If you don’t understand,” Helen answered, “it doesn’t pay to talk to you.” As she said this she looked at his throat, and her blue eyes glittered like the blade of a new knife. He took a look at her and shuddered. She also looked at him and said, “Why did you turn so pale?” He touched his face and asked, “Did I turn pale?”

“And the hair on your head,” she continued, “is standing up like pig bristles.” He felt his hair. “My hair is standing up?”

“And the strands of your beard,” she said, “are clotted together in patches like goose feathers. Pfui, how ugly the face of a coward is!” She spat in his face and left him. As she was walking away she turned her head back toward him and called out, “Take good care of your Adam’s apple. Mother of God! It’s trembling as though it saw the knife. Don’t worry, my little sweetheart, I haven’t bitten you yet.”

The peddler was left sitting by himself. One moment he would feel his face with his hand and the next moment his beard. The hair on his head had already settled and was lying in place as before, half on one side and half on the other, with a part going down the middle that was as cold as though ice had been laid on it. From the next room he could hear Helen’s footsteps. At that moment he neither loved her nor hated her. His limbs began to grow numb, as though he had lost control over them. His thoughts, on the other hand, became more and more active. I’ll get up and take my pack and be on my way, he said to himself. But when he tried to leave, his limbs became even weaker. Again he heard Helen’s footsteps. Then her feet were still and he heard the clattering of utensils and the smell of cooking. The peddler began to consider again. I have to get out of here. If not now, then tomorrow morning. How glad he was when he had been permitted to spend the night in the old barn. Now even the bed made up for him shrieked, “Pick up your feet and run!” By that time it had already grown dark. Despite himself, he decided to spend the night in that house. Not, however, in his wife’s room, in the bed of her murdered husbands, but in the old barn or in some other room. When day broke, he would be on his way.

Helen came in and said, “You look as if I had already swallowed you.” She took him by the arm and brought him into the diningroom, sat him down at the table, and told him, “Eat.” He lifted up his eyes and looked at her. Again she said, “Eat.” He broke off a piece of bread and swallowed it whole. “I see you need to have your bread chewed for you,” Helen said. He wiped the remnants of bread from his hands and got up to leave. “Wait, and I’ll go with you,” Helen said. She put on a sheepskin coat and went outside with him.

Walking along, they spoke nothing either good or bad, but they just talked, like people who have quarreled and want to take their minds off themselves. As they were walking, they came upon a stone image. Helen stopped, crossed herself, stood and recited a brief prayer. Afterward she took Joseph by the arm and returned with him to their house.

During the night Joseph awoke from his sleep in terror and screamed with all his might. It seemed to him that a knife had been thrust into his heart, and not into his heart but into that stone image, and not into the stone image, but into another image made of ice, the kind the Christians make on the river during their holidays. And though the knife had not struck him, even so he felt pain in his heart. He turned over and sighed. Sleep fell upon him and he dozed off. He heard a clinking sound and saw that the bitch was pulling off the chain around her neck. He closed his eyes and did not look at her. She leaped up on him and sank her teeth into his throat. His throat began to spurt and she licked up his blood. He screamed with all his might and thrashed about in the bed. Helen awoke and shouted, “What are you doing, raising the house with your noise and not letting me sleep!” He shrank under his covers and pillows, and lay motionless until daybreak.

In the morning Joseph said to Helen, “I disturbed your sleep.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Why, you shouted at me that I wasn’t letting you sleep.”

“I shouted?”

“Then you must have been talking in your sleep.” Helen’s face paled and she asked, “What are you saying?”

That night he moved his bedding to the room where old things were kept that were no longer in use. Helen saw and said nothing. When it was time to go to sleep, he said to her, “I haven’t been sleeping well and I keep turning and tossing in bed, so I’m afraid that I’ll disturb your sleep. That’s why I’ve moved my bed into another room.” Helen nodded in agreement. “Do whatever you think is best for you.”

“That’s what I’ve done.”

“Then good.”

From then on they spoke no more of the matter. Joseph forgot that he was only a guest and continued according to his practice. Every day he thought of leaving her house, of abandoning all her favors. A day passed, a week passed, and he did not leave her house. And she on her part did not tell him to get out.

One night he was sitting at the dinner table and Helen brought in a dish. Her mouth gave off an odor like the smell of a hungry person. He grimaced. She noticed and said to him, “Why are you twisting your mouth?”

“I didn’t twist my mouth.” She smiled a queer smile. “Maybe you’re bothered by the way my mouth smells?”

“Take a piece of bread and eat,” he entreated her. “Don’t worry about me, I won’t go hungry,” Helen answered. And again a queer smile played over her face, worse than the first one.

After eating and drinking, he went off to his room and made his bed ready. It occurred to him suddenly to recite the bedtime Shema. Since there was a crucifix hanging on the wall, he got up and went outside to recite the Shema.

That night was a winter night. The earth was covered with snow and the sky was congealed and turbid. He looked up to the sky and saw no spark of light; he looked to the ground and he could not make out his own feet. Suddenly he saw himself as though imprisoned in a forest in the midst of the snow around him that was being covered over by new snow. And he himself was also being covered over. He uprooted his feet and began to run. He bumped into a stone image that stood in the snow. “Father in heaven,” Joseph shouted, “how far away I have gone! If I don’t return at once, I am lost.” He looked one way and then another until he got his bearings. He directed himself toward the house and went back to it.

A tranquil stillness prevailed. No sound could be heard except for a muffled sound like snow falling on piles of snow. And from that arose another sound of his feet sinking in the snow and struggling to get out. His shoulders grew very heavy, as though he were carrying his heavy pack. After a while he reached the house.

The house was shrouded in darkness. There was no light in any of the rooms. “She’s sleeping,” Joseph whispered and stood still, his teeth clenched in hatred. He closed his eyes and entered his room.

When he came in he sensed that Helen was in the room. He put aside his hatred for her. Hurriedly, he took off his clothes and began to grope among the covers and pillows. He called out in a whisper, “Helen,” but received no answer. Again he called and received no answer. He got up and lit a candle. He saw his bedding filled with holes. What’s this? What’s this? When he had left his room, his bedding had been undamaged, and now it was filled with holes. There could be no doubt that these holes were made by human hands, but for what reason were they made? He looked and saw a blood spot. He stared at the blood in wonder.

Meanwhile, he heard the sound of a sigh. He looked and saw Helen sprawled on the floor with a knife in her hand. It was the hunting knife that she had bought from him the day he came there. He took the knife out of her hand, lifted her from the floor, and stretched her out on his bed. Helen opened her eyes and looked at him. As she looked at him, she opened her mouth wide until her teeth glittered.

Joseph asked Helen, “Do you want to say something?” And she said not a word. He bent down toward her. She pulled herself up all at once, sank her teeth into his throat, and began to bite and suck. Then she pushed him away and shouted, “Pfui, how cold you are! Your blood isn’t blood. It’s ice water.”

The peddler took care of the lady a day, and two days, and another day. He bound her wounds, for on the night that she came in to slaughter him, she wounded herself. He also prepared food for her.

But whatever food she tried to eat she would throw up, for she had already forgotten the science of eating ordinary human food, as it was her practice to eat the flesh of her husbands whom she slaughtered and to drink their blood, just as she wanted to do with the peddler.

On the fifth day she gave up the ghost and died. Joseph went to look for a priest but found none. He made her a coffin and a shroud, and dug in the snow to bury her. Since all the land was frozen over, he could not manage to dig her a grave. He took her carcass, placed it in the coffin, and climbed up to the roof where he buried the coffin in the snow. The birds smelled her carcass. They came and pecked away at the coffin till they broke into it, and then they divided among them the carcass of the lady. And that peddler took up his pack and traveled on from place to place, traveling and crying out his wares.

Tears

It was told to me by Rabbi Shmuel Arieh: In my youth I lived in the village of Koshilovitz, the same Koshilovitz that gained world renown because the Baal Shem was a shohet there before his greatness was revealed. I met a shohet there, an old man over eighty. I asked him, “Did you perhaps know someone who knew the Baal Shem?” Said he, “I have never met a Jew who saw the Baal Shem, but I have met a Gentile who saw him. When I was a young man I used to lodge with a Gentile farmer. Whenever I would pour water on a stone before whetting my slaughtering knife, the farmer’s grandfather, an old man of ninety or a hundred, would shake his head. I used to think it was due to his age. One time I sensed that he was doing it out of disapproval. I asked him, ‘Why do you shake your head while I work?’ Said he, ‘You are not going about your task in a nice way. Yisroelki, before he whetted his knife, would dampen the stone with tears.’”