An Obscure Apostle. Eliza OrzeszkowaЧитать онлайн книгу.
asked the melamed mockingly.
This time Meir raised his eyelids and his shining eyes looked sharply into the eyes of his questioner.
"Reb Moshe," he exclaimed, "you know who attacked them. They were your pupils—they do the same every Friday. And why should they not do it, knowing—"
He stopped and again dropped his eyes. Fear and anger were fighting within him.
"Nu, what do they know? Meir, why did you not finish? What do they know?" laughed Reb Moshe.
"They know that you, Reb Moshe, will praise them for so doing."
The melamed rose from his chair, his shining eyes opened widely. He stretched out his dark, thin hand, as though to-say something, but the strong and already sonorous voice of the young man did not permit to do it.
"Reb Moshe," said Meir, bending his head slightly before the melamed—which he did, evidently not very willingly—"Reb Moshe, I respect you—you taught me. I do not ask you why you do not forbid your pupils to attack these poor people living in darkness—but I cannot look at such injustice My heart aches when I see them, because I believe that from such bad children will grow bad men, and if they now shake the poor hut of an old man, and throw stones through the windows, afterward they will set fire to the houses and kill the people! To-day they would have destroyed that poor hut and killed the people if I had not prevented them."
As he said the last words, he took his place at the table. On his face there was no longer timidity and bashfulness. He was evidently deeply convinced of the righteousness of his cause. He looked boldly around, and only his lips quivered, as is always the case with young, sensitive people. At that moment old Saul and his two sons raised their arms and said:
"Sabbath."
Their voices were solemn, and the looks they turned on Meir were severe and almost angry.
"Sabbath! Sabbath!" shouted the melamed, jumping in his chair and gesticulating with his hands; "You, Meir, during the holy evening of Sabbath, instead of reciting Kiddish and filling your spirit with great joy and giving it into the hands of the angel Matatron, who defends Jacob's tribes before God, that he may give them into the hands of Sar-ha-Olama, who is the angel over angels and the prince of the world, that Sar-ha-Olama may give them to the ten serafits who are so strong in force that they crushed the whole world, in order that through the ten serafits your spirit may reach the great throne, on which is seated En-Sof himself, and join with him in a kiss of love—you, Meir, instead of doing all that, went to defend people from some attack—to watch their house and their life. Meir! Meir! You have violated the Sabbath! You must go to the school and accuse yourself before the people of having committed a great sin and scandal."
This speech made an immense impression on the whole assembly. Saul and his sons looked threatening. The women were surprised and frightened. The dark eyes of Lija—she who had first betrayed her cousin's secret—shone with tears. Only Saul's son-in-law, blue-eyed Ber, looked at the accused boy with sad sympathy, and several young men, Meir's playmates, gazed into his face with curiosity and friendly uneasiness.
Meir answered in a trembling voice:
"In our holy books, Reb Moshe, neither in the Torah nor in the Mishma is there any mention of Sefirots and En-Sof. But there it is stated plainly that Jehovah, although he has commanded us to keep the Sabbath, permitted twenty people to violate the Sabbath in order to save one man."
Such a thing as any one daring to answer the melamed—the perfect pious and Rabbi Todros's right hand—was unheard of and astonishing; it was more, because in the answer there was a negation of his judgment. Therefore the melamed's convex eyes nearly sprang from their sockets. They opened widely and covered Meir's pale face with deep hatred.
"Karaims!" he shouted, tossing himself in his chair, and tearing his beard and his hair—"You went to rescue the Karaims, heretics, infidels, accursed! Why should one rescue them? Why do they not light candles on Sabbath—why do they sit in darkness? Why do they not kill birds and animals as we do? Why do they not know Mishma, Gemara and Zahor?"
He choked with excitement and became silent, and in that interruption
Meir's pure and sonorous voice resounded:
"Reb, they are very poor!"
"En-Sof is revengeful and merciless!"
"They are much persecuted!"
"The Incomprehensible persecutes them!" shouted Reb.
"The Eternal does not command us to persecute. Rabbi Huna said: 'Even if the persecution is righteous, the Eternal will take the part of the persecuted one!'"
Reb Moshe's cheeks were red as flame. His eyes seemed to devour the face of the young man, whose looks had now grown bold, and his lips quivered with the words that came rushing to them, but were not pronounced.
The whole gathering was astonished—frightened—depressed. Such a quarrel with the melamed seemed to some of them a sin, to others a danger for the bold young man, and even for the whole family. Therefore Saul looked up sharply from beneath his bushy gray eye-brows into his grandson's face, and hissed:
"Sh-a-a-a!"
Meir bent his head before his grandfather, in token of humility and obedience, and one of Saul's sons, in order to pacify Reb Moshe's anger, asked him:
"What is the difference between the authority of the books of Talmud, and Zahora, the Kabalistic book?"
Having heard this question, the melamed put his elbows on the table, and fixed his eyes motionlessly and with an expression of deep reflection on the opposite wall. Then he began to speak slowly, and in a solemn voice:
"Simon ben Jochai, the great Rabbi who lived a very great while ago and knew everything that happened in the heavens and on the earth, said, 'The Talmud is a vile slave, and the Kabala is a great queen.' With what is the Talmud filled? It is filled up with small, secondary things. It teaches what is clean and what is not clean. What is permitted and what is not permitted. What is decent and what is not decent. And with what is filled Zohar—the book of light, the book of Kabala? It is filled with great science; it tells what is God and his Sefirots. The author of it knows all their names, and he teaches what they do and how they built the world. There is said that God's name is En-Sof and his second name is Notarikon and his third name is Gomatria and fourth name Zirufh. The Sefirots are great heavenly forces called: human source, fiancee, fair sex, great visage, small face, mirror, celestial story, lily and apple orchard. And Israel is call Matron, and Israel's. God is called Father, God, En-Sof. He did not create the world; the Sefirots, celestial forces, did it. The first Sefirot produced the strength of God; the second all angels and the Torah (Bible); the third all prophets. The fourth Sefirot produced God's love; the fifth God's justice, and the sixth, a power which ruins everything. The seventh Sefirot produced beauty, the eighth magnificence, the ninth, eternal cause, and the tenth, an eye which watches Israel continually, and follows him on all his roads and takes care of his feet—that they are not wounded—and his head, that misfortune does not fall upon him. All this is taught by Zohar, the book of Kabala, and it is the first book for every Israelite. I know that many Israelites say that the Torah is the more important, but they are stupid, and they do not know that the earth shall tremble from great pains before God and Israel, Father and Matron, shall be united in a kiss of love, until the slave will not retreat before the queen—the Talmud before the Kabala. And when shall that time come? It shall come when the Messiah shall appear. Then for all pious and scholarly people will there be a great feast of joy. Then God will order the boiling of the fish Leviathan which is so great that the whole world rests on it. And everyone will sit down and eat that fish—the scholarly and pious people from the head, and the simple and ignorant from the tail!"
When the melamed finished his speech he breathed deeply, and having dropped his eyes on the table he suddenly fell from mystical heights to earthly realities. On the plate before him was an excellent fish—not Leviathan, but excellent nevertheless. The melamed, living ascetically was very fond of Sabbath feasts, because he believed that it was necessary, to celebrate the Sabbath properly,