Yiddish Tales/Isaac Dob Berkowitz/The Last of Them
THE LAST OF THEM
They had been Rabbonim for generations in the Misnagdic community of Mouravanke, old, poverty- stricken Mouravanke, crowned with hoary honor, hidden away in the thick woods. Generation on generation of them had been renowned far and near, wherever a Jewish word was spoken, wherever the voice of the Torah rang out in the warm old houses-of-study.
People talked of them everywhere, as they talk of miracles when miracles are no more, and of consolation when all hope is long since dead talked of them as great-grandchildren talk of the riches of their great- grandfather, the like of which are now unknown, and of the great seven-branched, old-fashioned lamp, which he left them as an inheritance of times gone by.
For as the lustre of an old, seven-branched lamp shining in the darkness, such was the lustre of the family of the Rabbonim of Mouravanke.
That was long ago, ever so long ago, when Mouravanke lay buried in the dark Lithuanian forests. The old, low, moss-grown houses were still set in wide, green gardens, wherein grew beet-root and onions, while the hop twined itself and clustered thickly along the wooden fencing. Well-to-do Jews still went about in linen pelisses, and smoked pipes filled with dry herbs. People got a living out of the woods, where they burnt pitch the whole week through, and Jewish families ate rye- bread and groats-pottage. THE LAST OF THEM 567
A new baby brought no anxiety along with it. People praised God, carried the pitcher to the well, filled it, and poured a quart of water into the pottage. The newcomer was one of God's creatures, and was assured of his portion along with the others.
And if a Jew had a marriageable daughter, and could not afford a dowry, he took a stick in his hand, donned a white shirt with a broad mangled collar, repeated the "Prayer of the Highway," and set off on foot to Volhynia, that thrice-blessed wonderland, where people talk with a "Chirik," and eat Challeh with saffron even in the middle of the week with saffron, if not with honey.
There, in Volhynia, on Friday evenings, the rich Jewish householder of the district walks to and fro leisurely in his brightly lit room. In all likelihood, he is a short, plump, hairy man, with a broad, fair beard, a gathered silk sash round his substantial figure, a cheery singsong "Sholom-Alechem" on his mincing, "chiriky" tongue, and a merry crack of the thumb. The Lithua- nian guest, teacher or preacher, the shrunk and shrivelled stranger with the piercing black eyes, sits in a corner, merely moving his lips and gazing at the floor perhaps because he feels ill at ease in the bright, nicely- furnished room; perhaps because he is thinking of his distant home, of his wife and children and his marriage- able daughter; and perhaps because it has suddenly all become oddly dear to him, his poor, forsaken native place, with its moiling, poverty-struck Jews, whose week is spent pitch-burning in the forest ; with its old, warm houses-of -study ; with its celebrated giants of the Torah, 568 BERKOWITZ
bending with a candle in their hand over the great hoary Gemorehs.
And here, at table, between the tasty stuffed fish and the soup, with the rich Volhynian "stuffed monkeys," the brusque, tongue-tied guest is suddenly unable to contain himself, and overflows with talk about his corner in Lithuania.
"Whether we have our Eabbis at home ? ! N-nu ! !" And thereupon he holds forth grandiloquently, with an ardor and incisiveness born of the love and the longing at his heart. The piercing black eyes shoot sparks, as the guest tells of the great men of Mouravanke, with their fiery intellects, their iron per- severance, who sit over their books by day and by night. From time to time they take an hour and a half's doze, falling with their head onto their fists, their beards sweeping the Gemoreh, the big candle keeping watch overhead and waking them once more to the study of the Torah.
At dawn, when the people begin to come in for the Morning Prayer, they walk round them on tiptoe, giving them their four-ells' distance, and avoid meet- ing their look, which is apt to be sharp and burning. "That is the way we study in Lithuania !" The stout, hairy householder, good-natured and cred- ulous, listens attentively to the wonderful tales, loosens the sash over his pelisse in leisurely fashion, unbuttons his waistcoat across his generous waist, blows out his cheeks, and sways his head from side to side, because one may believe anything of the Lithuanians ! THE LAST OF THEM 569
Then, if once in a long, long while the rich Volhynian householder stumbled, by some miracle or other, into Lithuania, sheer curiosity would drive him to take a look at the Lithuanian celebrity. But he would stand before him in trembling and astonishment, as one stands before a high granite rock, the summit of which can barely be discerned. Is he terrified by the dark and bushy brows, the keen, penetrating looks, the deep, stern wrinkles in the forehead that might have been carved in stone, they are so stiffly fixed? Who can say? Or is he put out of countenance by the cold, hard assertiveness of their speech, which bores into the conscience like a gimlet, and knows of no mercy ? for from between those wrinkles, from beneath those dark brows, shines out the everlasting glory of the Shechinah.
Such were the celebrated Eabbonim of Mouravanke.
They were an old family, a long chain of great men, generation on generation of tall, well-built, large-boned Jews, all far on in years, with thick, curly beards. It was very seldom one of these beards showed a silver hair. They were stern, silent men, who heard and saw everything, but who expressed themselves mostly by means of their wrinkles and their eyebrows rather than in words, so that when a Mouravanke Rav went so far as to say "N-nu," that was enough.
The dignity of Eav was hereditary among them, descending from father to son, and, together with the Rabbinical position and the eighteen gulden a week salary, the sou inherited from his father a tall, old read- ing-desk, smoked and scorched by the candles, in the old 570 BERKOWITZ
house-of -study in the corner by the ark, and a thick, heavy-knotted stick, and an old holiday pelisse of lustrine, the which, if worn on a bright Sabbath-day in summer-time, shines in the sun, and fairly shouts to be looked at.
They arrived in Mouravanke generations ago, when the town was still in the power of wild highwaymen, called there "Hydemakyes," with huge, terrifying whiskers and large, savage dogs. One day, on Hoshanah Kabbah, early in the morning, there entered the house- of-study a tall youth, evidently village-born and from a long way off, barefoot, with turned-up trousers, his boots slung on a big, knotted stick across his shoulders, and a great bundle of big Hoshanos. The youth stood in the centre of the house-of-study with his mouth open, bewildered, and the boys quickly snatched his willow branches from him. He was surrounded, stared at, questioned as to who he was, whence he came, what he wanted. Had he parents ? Was he married ? For some time the youth stood silent, with downcast eyes, then he bethought himself, and answered in three words: "I want to study !"
And from that moment he remained in the old build- ing, and people began to tell wonderful tales of his power of perseverance of how a tall, barefoot youth, who came walking from a far distance, had by dint of determination come to be reckoned among the great men in Israel; of how, on a winter midnight, he would open the stove doors, and study by the light of the glowing coals; of how he once forgot food and drink for three days and three nights running, while he stood THE LAST OF THEM 571
over a difficult legal problem with wrinkled brows, his eyes piercing the page, his fingers stiffening round the handle of his stick, and he motionless; and when sud- denly he found the solution, he gave a shout "ISTu !" and came down so hard on the desk with his stick that the whole house-of-study shook. It happened just when the people were standing quite quiet, repeating the Eighteen Benedictions.
Then it was told how this same lad became Rav in Mouravanke, how his genius descended to his children and children's children, till late in the generations, gathering in might with each generation in turn. They rose, these giants, one after the other, persistent investi- gators of the Law, with high, wrinkled foreheads, dark, bushy brows, a hard, cutting glance, sharp as steel.
In those days Mouravanke was illuminated as with seven suns. The houses-of -study were filled with students; voices, young and old, rang out over the Gemorehs, sang, wept, and implored. Worried and tired-looking fathers and uncles would come into the Shools with blackened faces after the day's pitch- burning, between Afternoon and Evening Prayer, range themselves in leisurely mood by the doors and the stove, cock their ears, and listen. Jewish drivers, who convey people from one town to another, snatched a minute the first thing in the morning, and dropped in with their whips under their arms, to hear a passage in the Gemoreh expounded. And the women, who washed the linen at the pump in summer-time, beat the wet clothes to the melody of the Torah that came floating into the street through the open windows, sweet as a long- expected piece of good news. 572 BERKOWITZ
Thus Mouravanke came to be of great renown, be- cause the wondrous power of the Mouravanke Rab- bonim, the power of concentration of thought, grew from generation to generation. And in those days the old people went about with a secret whispering, that if there should arise a tenth generation of the mighty ones, a new thing, please God, would come to pass among Jews.
But there was no tenth generation; the ninth of the Mouravanke Rabbonim was the last of them.
He had two sons, but there was no luck in the house in his day: the sons philosophized too much, asked too many questions, took strange paths that led them far away.
Once a rumor spread in Mouravanke that the Rav's eldest son had become celebrated in the great world because of a book he had written, and had acquired the title of "professor." When the old Rav was told of it, he at first remained silent, with downcast eyes. Then he lifted them and ejaculated :
"Nu !"
And not a word more. It was only remarked that he grew paler, that his look was even more piercing, more searching than before. This is all that was ever said in the town about the Rav's children, for no one cared to discuss a thing on which the old Rav himself was silent.
Once, however, on the Great Sabbath, something happened in the spacious old house-of-study. The Rav was standing by the ark, wrapped in his Tallis, and expounding to a crowded congregation. He had a clear, resonant, deep voice, and when he sent it thunderTHE LAST OF THEM 573
ing over the heads of his people, the air seemed to catch fire, and they listened dumbfounded and spellbound.
Suddenly the old man stopped in the midst of his exposition, and was silent. The congregation thrilled with speechless expectation. For a minute or two the Rav stood with his piercing gaze fixed on the people, then he deliberately pulled aside the curtain before the ark, opened the ark doors, and turned to the congre- gation :
"Listen, Jews ! I know that many of you are think- ing of something that has just occurred to me, too. You wonder how it is that I should set myself up to expound the Torah to a townful of Jews, when my own children have cast the Torah behind them. Therefore I now open the ark and declare to you, Jews, before the holy scrolls of the Law, I have no children any more. I am the last Rav of our family !"
Hereupon a piteous wail came from out of the women's Shool, but the Rav's sonorous voice soon reduced them to silence, and once more the Torah was being ex- pounded in thunder over the heads of the open-mouthed assembly.
Years, a whole decade of them, passed, and still the old Rav walked erect, and not one silver hair showed in his curly beard, and the town was still used to see him before daylight, a tall, solitary figure carrying a stick and a lantern, on his way to the large old Bes ha- Midrash, to study there in solitude until Mouravanke began to ring with the fame of her Charif, her great new scholar. 37 5?4 BERKOWITZ
He was the son of a poor tailor, a pale, thin youth, with a pointed nose and two sharp, black eyes, who had gone away at thirteen or so to study in celebrated, dis- tant academies, whence his name had spread round and about. People said of him, that he was growing up to be a Light of the Exile, that with his scholastic achievements he would outwit the acutest intellects of all past ages ; they said that he possessed a brain power that ground "mountains" of Talmud to powder. News came that a quantity of prominent Jewish communities had sent messengers, to ask him to come and be their Rav.
Mouravanke was stirred to its depths. The house- holders went about greatly perturbed, because their Rav was an old man, his days were numbered, and he had no children to take his place.
So they came to the old Rav in his house, to ask his advice, whether it was possible to invite the Mouravanke Charif, the tailor's son, to come to them, so that he might take the place of the Rav on his death, in a hundred and twenty years seeing that the said young Charif was a scholar distinguished by the acuteness of his intellect the only man worthy of sitting in the seat of the Mouravanke Rabbonim.
The old Rav listened to the householders with low- ering brows, and never raised his eyes, and he answered them one word :
"Nu!"
So Mouravanke sent a messenger to the young Charif, offering him the Rabbinate. The messenger was swift, and soon the news spread through the town that the Charif was approaching. THE LAST OF THEM 575
When it was time for the householders to go forth out of the town, to meet the young Charif, the old Rav offered to go with them, and they took a chair for him to sit in while he waited at the meeting-place. This was by the wood outside the town, where all through the week the Jewish townsfolk earned their bread by burning pitch. Begrimed and toil-worn Jews were continually dropping their work and peeping out shamefacedly between the tree-stems.
It was Friday, a clear day in the autumn. She appeared out of a great cloud of dust she, the travel- ling-wagon in which sat the celebrated young Charif. Sholom-Alechems flew to meet him from every side, and his old father, the tailor, leant back against a tree, and wept aloud for joy.
Now the old Rav declared that he would not allow the Charif to enter the town till he had heard him, the Charif, expound a portion of the Torah.
The young man accepted the condition. Men, women, and little children stood expectant, all eyes were fast- ened on the tailor's son, all hearts beat rapidly.
The Charif expounded the Torah standing in the wagon. At first he looked fairly scared, and his sharp black eyes darted fearfully hither and thither over the heads of the silent crowd. Then came a bright idea, and lit up his face. He began to speak, but his was not the familiar teaching, such as everyone learns and understands. His words were like fiery flashes appear- ing and disappearing one after the other, lightnings that traverse and illumine half the sky in one second of time, a play of swords in which there are no words, only the clink and ring of finely-tempered steel. 576 BERKOWITZ
The old Rav sat in his chair leaning on his old, knobbly, knotted stick, and listened. He heard, but evil thoughts beset him, and deep, hard wrinkles cut themselves into his forehead. He saw before him the Charif, the dried-up youth with the sharp eyes and the sharp, pointed nose, and the evil thought came to him, "Those are needles, a tailor's needles," while the long, thin forefinger with which the Charif pointed rapidly in the air seemed a third needle wielded by a tailor in a hurry.
"You prick more sharply even than your father," is what the old Rav wanted to say when the Charif ended his sermon, but he did not say it. The whole assembly was gazing with caught breath at his half- closed eyelids. The lids never moved, and some thought wonderingly that he had fallen into a doze from sheer old age.
Suddenly a strange, dry snap broke the stillness, the old Rav started in his chair, and when they rushed forward to assist him, they found that his knotted, knobbly stick had broken in two.
Pale and bent for the first time, but a tall figure still, the old Rav stood up among his startled flock. He made a leisurely motion with his hand in the direction of the town, and remarked quietly to the young Charif :
"Nu, now you can go into the town !"
That Friday night the old Rav came into the house- of-study without his satin cloak, like a mourner. The congregation saw him lead the young Rav into the corner near the ark, where he sat him down by the high old desk, saying: THE LAST OF THEM 577
"You will sit here."
He himself went and sat down behind the pulpit among the strangers, the Sabbath guests.
For the first minute people were lost in astonishment ; the next minute the house-of-study was filled with wailing. Old and young lifted their voices in lamenta- tion. The young Eav looked like a child sitting behind the tall desk, and he shivered and shook as though with fever.
Then the old Eav stood up to his full height and commanded :
"People are not to weep !"
All this happened about the Solemn Days. Mou- ravanke remembers that time now, and speaks of it at dusk, when the sky is red as though streaming with fire, and the men stand about pensive and forlorn, and the women fold their babies closer in their aprons.
At the close of the Day of Atonement there was a report that the old Eav had breathed his last in robe and prayer-scarf.
The young Charif did not survive him long. He died at his father's the tailor, and his funeral was on a wet Great Hosannah day. Aged folk said he had been summoned to face the old Eav in a lawsuit in the Heavenly Court.