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In a remote portion of Togarog, and separated from the main village by a number of wretched lanes, lay the Jewish quarter. A decided improvement in the general condition of the houses which formed this suburb was plainly visible to the casual observer. The houses were, if possible, more unpretentious than those of the serfs, yet there was an air of home-like comfort about them, an impression of neatness and cleanliness prevailed, which one would seek for in vain among the semi-barbarous peasants of Southern Russia. To the inhabitants of these poor huts, home was everything. The ordinary occupations, the primitive diversions of the serfs, were forbidden them. Shunned and decried by their gentile neighbors, the Jews meekly withdrew into the seclusion of their dwellings, and allowed the wicked world to wag. Their "home" was synonymous with their happiness, with their existence.
The shadows of evening were falling upon the quiet village. Above, the stars were beginning to twinkle in the calmness of an April sky, and brighter and brighter shone the candles in the houses of the Jews, inviting the wayfarer to the cheer of a hospitable board.
It is the Jewish Sabbath eve, the divine day of rest. The hardships and worry of daily toil are succeeded by a peaceful and joyous repose. The trials and humiliations of a week of care are followed by a day of peace and security.
The poor, despised Hebrew, who, during the past week, has been hunted and persecuted, bound by the chain of intolerance and scourged by the whip of fanaticism; who, in fair weather and foul, has wandered from place to place with his pack, stinting, starving himself, that he may provide bread for his wife and little ones, has returned for the Sabbath eve, to find, in the presence and in the smiles of his dear ones, an ample compensation for the care and anxiety he has been compelled to endure.
At the end of the street, and not far from the last house in the settlement, stands the House of Prayer. Thither the population of the Jewish quarter wends its way. Men arrayed in their best attire, and followed by troops of children, who from earliest infancy have been taught to acknowledge the efficacy of prayer, enter the synagogue.
It is a poor, modest-looking enclosure.
A number of tallow candles illumine its recesses. The oron-hakodesh , or ark containing the holy Penta teuch, a shabbily-covered pulpit, or almemor , and a few rough praying-desks for the men, are all that relieve the emptiness of the room. Around one side there runs a gallery, in which the women sit during divine service. In spite of its humble plainness, the place beams with cheerfulness; it bears the impress of holiness. Gradually the benches fill. All of the men, and many of the boys who form the population of the quarter, are present.
Reb Mordecai Winenki, the reader, begins the service. Prayers of sincere gratitude are sent on high. The worshippers greet the Sabbath as a lover greets his long-awaited bride—with joy, with smiles, with loving fervor. The service is at an end and the happy participants return to their homes.
Beautiful is the legend of the Sabbath eve.
When a man leaves the synagogue for his home, an Angel of Good and an Angel of Evil accompany him. If he finds the table spread in his house, the Sabbath lamps lighted, and his wife and children in festive attire, ready to bless the holy day of rest, then the good Angel says:
"May the next Sabbath and all thy Sabbaths be like this. Peace unto this dwelling!"
And the Angel of Evil is forced to say, "Amen."
No one, indeed, would, before entering one of these poor, unpainted huts expect to find the cheerful and brilliant interior that greets his eyes. Let us enter one of the houses, that of Reb Mordecai Winenki.
The table is covered with a snow-white cloth. The utensils are clean and bright. The board is spread with tempting viands. An antique brass lamp, polished like a mirror, hangs from the ceiling, and the flame from its six arms sheds a soft light upon the table beneath. A number of silver candlesticks among the dishes add to the illumination.
On this evening, Mordecai returned from the synagogue with his son Mendel, a lad of thirteen, and his brother-in-law, Hirsch Bensef, a resident of Kief. Mordecai was a thin, pale-faced, brown-bearded man of forty or thereabouts, with shoulders stooping as though under a weight of care; perhaps, though, it was from the sedentary life he led, teaching unruly children the elements of Hebrew and religion. He had resided in Togarog for fourteen years, ever since he had married Leah, the daughter of Reb Bensef of Kief. His wife's brother was a man of different stamp. He was a few years younger than Mordecai. His step was firm, his head erect, his beard jet black, and his intellect, though not above the superstitious fancies of his time and race, was, for all ordinary transactions, especially those of trade, eminently clear and powerful. He was, as we shall see, one of the wealthiest Jewish merchants in Kief, and therefore quite a power in the community of that place.
Leah met the men at the door.
"Good Shabbes , my dear husband; good Shabbes , brother," said the woman, cheerfully, her matronly face all aglow with pride and pleasure. "You must be famished from your long trip, brother."
"Yes, I am very hungry. I have tasted nothing since I left Kharkov, at five o'clock this morning."
"How kind of you to come all that distance to our boy's bar-mitzvah! He can never be sufficiently grateful."
"He is my god-child," said the man, affectionately stroking his nephew's head. "I take great pride in him. It has pleased the Lord to deny me children, and the deprivation is hard to bear. Sister, let me take Mendel with me. I am rich and can give him all he can desire. He shall study Talmud and become a great and famous rabbi, of whom all the world will one day speak in praise. You have still another boy, while my home is dreary for want of a child's presence. What say you?"
But the mother had, long before the conclusion of this appeal, clasped the boy to her bosom, while the tears of love forced themselves through her lashes at the bare suggestion of parting from her first-born.
"God forbid," she cried, "that he should ever leave me; my precious boy." And she embraced him again and again.
Meanwhile, the husband had crossed the room to where a little fellow, scarcely six years of age, lay upon a sofa.
"Well, Jacob, my boy; how do you feel?" he asked, gently.
"A little better, father," murmured the child. "My arm and ear still pain me, but not so much as yesterday."
The boy sat up and attempted to smile, but sank back with a groan.
"Poor child, poor child," said the father, soothingly, "Have patience. In a few days you will be about again."
"Is uncle here? I want to see uncle," cried the boy.
Hirsch Bensef obeyed the call, and, going to the sufferer, kissed his burning brow.
"Why, Jacob; how is this?" he said. "I did not know that you were sick. What is the trouble, my lad?" The child turned his face to the wall and shuddered.
Reb Mordecai shook his head mournfully, while a tear he sought to repress ran down his furrowed cheek.
"It is the old story," he said. "Prejudice and fanaticism, hatred and ignorance."
And while the Sabbath meal waited, the father told his tale in a simple, unaffected manner, and the uncle listened with clenched hands and threatening glances.
The day following the events in the kretschma , little Jacob had wandered, in company with some Christian playmates, through the village, and seeing the door of a barn wide open, his childish curiosity got the better of his discretion, and he peeped in. A brindled cow, with a pretty calf scarcely three days old, attracted his attention, and for some minutes he gazed upon the pair in silent ecstasy. Then, knowing that he was on forbidden ground, he retraced his steps and endeavored to reach the lane where he had left his companions. The master of the farm, however, having witnessed the intrusion from a neighboring window, did not lose the opportunity to vent his anger against the whole tribe of inquisitive Jews. On the following day the cow ran dry. In vain did the calf seek nourishment at the maternal breast; there was nothing to satisfy its cravings.
The farmer, slow as he was in matters of general importance, was far from slow in tracing the melancholy occurrence to its supposed source.
"That accursed Jew has bewitched my cow," was his first thought, and his second was to find the author of the deed and mete out punishment to him.
Throughout the whole of Russia, and even in parts of civilized Germany, Jews are accused of all manner of sorcery. The Cabala is the principal religious authority of the lower classes among the Russian Jews, and this may perhaps inspire such a preposterous notion. The Jews, themselves, frequently believe that some one of their own number is in possession of supernatural secrets which give him wonderful and awful powers. Many were the tortures which these poor people were doomed to endure for their supposed influence over nature's laws.
It was an easy matter to find little Jacob. His hours at the cheder (school) were over. He was sure to be playing upon the streets, and his capture was quickly effected. Seizing the innocent little fellow by the arm, the irate peasant lifted him off his feet, and dragged him by sheer force into the barn, where he confronted the malefactor with his victim.
"So, you thought you could bewitch my cow," he hissed. "But I saw you, Jew, and, by our holy Czar, I swear that, unless you repair the damage, I shall feed your carcass to the dogs."
Poor Jacob was too terrified to understand of what crime he had been accused. He looked piteously at his tormentor, and burst into tears.
"Well?" cried the peasant, impatiently; "will you take off the spell, or shall I call my dog?"
The child, knowing that such threats were not made in vain, endeavored to plead his innocence, but the bellowing of the hungry calf outweighed the sobbing of the boy, and with an angry oath Jacob was struck to the ground, and a ferocious bull-dog, but little more brutal than his master, was set upon the helpless little fellow.
"Please, Mr. Farmer, don't kill me," he pleaded, groaning in pain.
"Will you cure my cow?" demanded the peasant.
"I'll try to; I'll do my best," sobbed the boy, whose pain made him diplomatic at last.
The dog was called off, and the child, after promising to restore the cow to her former condition, was turned out into the lane, where his mother found him an hour later, unconscious, his body lacerated, one arm broken, and a portion of his right ear torn off.
When Reb Mordecai concluded his sad narration, all about him were in tears.
"Just God!" exclaimed the uncle; "hast Thou indeed deserted Thy people, that Thou canst allow such indignities? How long, O Lord! must we endure these torments?"
"Nay, brother," sobbed the poor mother, while she caressed her ailing boy; "what God does is for the best. It is not for us to peer into his inscrutable actions. But come, Mordecai, banish your sorrows. This is Shabbes , a day of joy and peace. Come, the table is spread."
Father and mother placed their hands upon the heads of their children, and pronounced the solemn blessing:—"May God let you become like Ephraim and Manasseh!" and the family took their places at the table.
Then Mordecai made kiddush , which consisted in blessing the wine, without which no Jewish Sabbath is complete, and having pronounced motzi , a similar prayer over the bread, he dipped the latter in salt, and passed a small piece to each of the participants. It is a ceremony which no pious Jew ever neglects.
In spite of the recent affliction, the meal was a merry one. The poorest Israelite will deny himself even the necessaries of life during the six working-days, that he may live well on the Sabbath. Reb Mordecai was a poor man. He had a small income, derived from teaching the Talmud to the children in the vicinity, from transcribing the holy scrolls, and from sundry bits of work for which he was fitted by his intellectual attainments. He was the most influential Jew in the settlement and not even the fanatical serfs of the village could find a complaint to make against his character or person.
The theme of conversation was naturally the family festival, which would take place upon the morrow. Mendel having attained his thirteenth year and acquired due proficiency in the difficult studies of the Jewish law, would become bar-mitzvah ; in other words, he would take upon himself the responsibility of a man before God and the world, and acknowledge his readiness to act and suffer for the maintenance of the belief in Adonai Echod —the only God. Mendel, under his father's tuition, had made rapid strides. He was the wonder of every male inhabitant of the community. His knowledge of the Scriptures was simply phenomenal, and his philosophical reasoning puzzled and astonished his friends.
"He will be a great rabbi some day," they prophesied.
Hirsch Bensef had journeyed all the way from Kief to take part in the family festival. There were some privileges which not even the wealthy Jews of Russia could purchase, and among them was the right to travel in a public conveyance. Hirsch was obliged to journey as best he could. A kindly disposed wagoner had permitted him to ride part of the way, but the greater portion of the distance he was compelled to walk. Still, at any cost, he had determined not to miss so important an event as his nephew's bar-mitzvah .
The bread having been broken, the supper was proceeded with. The fish was succulent and the cake delicious. A lofty and religious Sabbath sentiment enhanced the charm of the whole meal. Then a prayer of thanks was offered, the dishes were cleared away and the family settled themselves at ease, to discuss the topics most dear to them.
"You make a great mistake, sister," said Bensef, "if you allow Mendel to waste his time in this village. The boy is much too bright for his surroundings."
"Don't begin that subject again," said the mother, determinedly; "for I positively will not hear of his leaving. The parting would kill me."
"But," continued her brother, "have you ever asked yourself what his future will be in this wretched neighborhood? Shall he waste his precious years helping his father teach cheder ? Shall he earn a few paltry kopecks in making tzitzith (fringes for the praying scarfs) for the Jehudim in the village? Or, shall he cobble shoes or peddle from place to place with a bundle upon his back, which are the only two occupations open to the despised race?"
"Alas!" sighed the mother, "what you say may be true. But what would you propose for the boy?"
"Let him go with me to Kief. There are nearly fifteen thousand of our co-religionists in that city; and, while their lot is not an enviable one, it is decidedly better than vegetating in a village. Our celebrated Rabbi Jeiteles is getting old and we will soon need a successor. It is an honorable position and one which our little Mendel will some day be able to fill. Would you not like living in a big city, my boy?"
Mendel hovered between filial affection and a desire to see the big world. It was difficult to decide.
"I should like to remain with father and mother—and Jacob," he stammered, "and yet——"
"And yet," continued his uncle, "you would love to come to Kief, where everything is grand and brilliant, where the stores and booths are fairly alive with light and beauty, where the soldiers parade every day in gorgeous uniforms. Ah, my boy, there is life for you!"
"But how much of that life may the Jews enjoy?" asked Mordecai. "Are they not restricted in their privileges and deprived of every possibility of rising in station? Is their lot any happier than ours in this village, where, at all events, we are not troubled with the envy which the sight of so much luxury must bring with it?"
"It will not always be so," said Bensef, confidently. "With each year we may expect reforms, and where will they strike first if not in the cities? Nicholas already has plans under consideration, whereby the condition of the serfs may be bettered."
"How will that benefit our race?"
"How? I will tell you. The serf persecutes the Jew because he is himself persecuted by the nobility. There is no real animosity between the peasant and his Jewish neighbors. Our wretched state is the outgrowth of a petty tyranny, in which the serf desires to imitate his superiors. Let the people once enjoy freedom and they will cease to persecute the Hebrews, without whom they cannot exist."
"Absurd ideas," interrupted the teacher. "Our degradation proceeds not from the people, but from those in authority. Our lot will not improve until the Messiah comes with sword in hand, to deliver us from our enemies. Remember the proverb: 'The heavens are far, but further the Czar.'"
"But about Mendel?" asked Bensef, suddenly reverting to his original topic, for in spite of his hopeful theories, he did not feel sanguine that he would live to see their realization.
"The matter is not pressing," said the father. "We can think it over, and decide before you return to Kief."
"No, no!" cried Leah; "Mendel must not leave us. Promise to remain, my child!"
But the boy was now delighted with the idea of accompanying his uncle. He asked a thousand questions concerning the wonderful town of Kief, which suddenly became the goal of all his hopes and ambitions.
Bensef took the boy upon his lap and told him all about the great city, which had once been the capital of Russia. Mendel listened and sighed. His eyes beamed with pleasurable anticipation. Before going to bed, he threw his arms about his mother's neck.
"Mother," he whispered; "let me go to Kief. I want to become great."
Leah held him in a convulsive embrace, but said nothing.
The morrow was Saturday—Sabbath morning. The little synagogue was crowded with an expectant throng. It was long since there had been a bar-mitzvah in Togarog, and Israelites came from all the villages in the vicinity to witness the happy event. Happy seemed the men, arrayed in their white tallesim (praying scarfs)—happy at the thought of another member being added to their ranks. Happy appeared the mothers in the reflection that their sons, too, would some day be admitted to the holy rite. When Mendel finally mounted the almemor (pulpit), and began his Bar'chu eth Adonai , the audience scarcely breathed.
Like a finished scholar did Mendel recite his sidrah , that portion of the Torah or Law which was appropriate to the day. This was followed by the drosha , a well-committed speech, expressive of gratitude to his parents and teachers, and full of beautiful promises of a future that should be pleasant in the eyes of the Lord. The words fell from his lips as though inspired. It was a proud moment for the boy's parents. Their tears mingled with their smiles. Forgotten were hardships and persecutions. God still held happiness in reserve for his chosen people. When the boy concluded his exercises, kisses and congratulations were showered upon him by his admiring friends.
"Hirsch Bensef is right," said Mordecai to his wife. "Mendel ought to go to some large city. He has wonderful talents. He may become a great rabbi. Who can tell?"
"We shall see; we shall see!" replied his wife, with a look of mingled pleasure and pain. But she did not say her husband was in the wrong.
In the afternoon the entire congregation visited Reb Mordecai, so that the little house scarcely held all the people. The men came with their long caftans , the women with their black silk robes, their prettiest wigs, and strings of pearls; and one and all brought presents, tokens of their esteem. Naturally, Mendel was the centre of attraction. His present, past and future were discussed. A brilliant career was predicted for him, and he was held up as a model to his juniors.
Little Jacob was also the recipient of attentions from young and old. His mishap, though painful, was not an exceptional case. Similar ones occurred almost weekly in the surrounding country. What mattered it? His arm would be stiff and his ear mutilated to the end of his days; but he was only a Jew—doomed to live and suffer for his belief in the one God. It was a sad consolation they gave him, but it was the best they had to offer.
The poor children, Christian as well as Jew, came from miles around to receive alms, which were generously given. Then refreshments were served, followed by speeches and jests; and so the afternoon and evening wore merrily away, and night—a dark and dismal night—followed the happy day.