Satan in Goray

arms to the dais.
    So tightly was the study hall packed, there was not even room for a pin. However, the crowd made way for Rechele, as though she were the sacred Torah. Some even touched her with their fingertips as she passed and bore their fingers to their lips, as when a scroll is taken from the Ark. Rechele's left shoe fell and Reb Godel lifted it like some holy vessel. Reb Gedaliya placed Rechele on the dais table and commanded that candles be lighted in the menorah. Then he approached the woman, kissed her forehead, and said in a wavering voice, for his throat was full of tears: "Rechele, my daughter, be of stout heart! Happy are we, for the Divine Presence has returned to us, and happy art thou, for she has chosen thee!"
    The study house was filled with the sounds of sobbing women and whispering men. Anxiously all waited for the prophetess to begin again. Rechele opened her eyes.
    Her sick body shivered, as with cold, and her teeth chattered. She seemed to struggle with a compulsion to speak, but her strength deserted her again, and she uttered a shrill wail. Then, sighing, she grew still once more, as though her soul had deserted her. Reb Gedaliya straightened up and lifted his arms, signaling silence. His silk coat flew open, the crown of his hat pointed skyward, and his whole figure was imbued with the awe of Heaven. He resembled one of those great men of old, a leader of Israel.
    "Jews!" he cried. "The blessed God has worked a great miracle for us! The Angel Sandalfon has spoken to us this day through the lips of Rechele! Prophecy has returned! Let us all recite the benediction of thanks!"
    "Blessed art thou, 0 Lord, our God, king of the universe, who hath kept us alive, and sustained us, and brought us to this day!" every mouth responded. The walls shook with the echo, and the very pillars of the dais seemed to rock.
    "Let us send forth emissaries! Let us spread the word to every settlement!"
    "I'll go!" shouted someone; it was lame Mordecai Joseph. "I'll run and waken the whole world!"
    "Go, Mordecai Joseph!" Reb Gedaliya cried, "and take with you Itche Mates, the husband of the prophetess! Do not hesitate--spread the news!"
    "Where is Itche Mates?"
    "Bring Itche Mates!" rasped Reb Mordecai Joseph, and he held his head with his hands, as though he were going mad. He threw his crutch from him.
    All his life Reb Mordecai Joseph, the cabalist and student of mysteries, had anticipated the day when his mission would be to go into the world. He had always feared that his revelations and warnings would find no listeners, for his name was unknown outside of Goray. But now Reb Mordecai Joseph's voice could resound throughout all Poland, stirring up every community. He already imagined himself in Lublin at the yearly fair, standing before the assembly of the Council of the Four Lands, roaring with his lion's voice at multitudes of important Jews--rabbis, righteous men, learned men, rich men--pouring pitch and tar on those who doubted Sabbatai Zevi, bidding that they be flogged and bound with heavy ropes. Their tracts and epistles must be burned in a fire whose glow would reach Heaven. In his enthusiasm Reb Mordecai Joseph began to preach standing there in the study house at Goray.
    "I swear by the Messiah of the God of Jacob that Rechele is a true prophetess! Woe to the doubters! Alas for their souls! A curse on them! May they perish! Do you hear me, men? May they be torn out by the roots! But 0 you true believers, rejoice in the Lord!"
    Reb Mordecai Joseph suffered a coughing spasm and then suddenly Reb Gedaliya lifted Rechele in his arms and walked in the direction of the doorway to the anteroom. Song burst from every throat. Men and women embraced, kissed, and, with arms about each other, danced out of the study house. Hats and bonnets fell from their heads, but no one cared. The gentiles who had crowded about the prayer house stepped back, terrified at the sight; they kneeled and bowed, and God's name was sanctified abroad. Young men took the Torah scrolls, and the curtain of the Ark was hung on poles as a kind of canopy and borne aloft over the heads of Reb Gedaliya and Rechele. Never since Goray first became a town had there been such rejoicing. Even the ill and bedridden were taken from the poorhouse to witness the holiday. A few apprentices in their zeal fetched the board of purification and burned it in the midst of the market place, as a sign that death from this day on should cease among Jews. And that