The Collected Stories

see?”
    “A young rabbi has moved here from Modly Bozyc. He’s not yet thirty, but he’s absolutely stuffed with knowledge, knows the thirty-six tractates of the Talmud by heart. He’s the greatest Cabalist in Poland, fasts every Monday and Thursday, and bathes in the ritual bath when the water is ice cold. He won’t permit any of us to talk to him. What’s more he has a handsome wife, and that’s bread in the basket. What do we have to tempt him with? You might as well try to break through an iron wall. If I were asked my opinion, I’d say that Tishevitz should be removed from our files. All I ask is that you get me out of here before I go mad.”
    “No, first I must have a talk with this rabbi. How do you think I should start?”
    “You tell me. He’ll start pouring salt on your tail before you open your mouth.”
    “I’m from Lublin. I’m not so easily frightened.”
    II

    On the way to the rabbi, I ask the imp, “What have you tried so far?”
    “What haven’t I tried?” he answers.
    “A woman?”
    “Won’t look at one.”
    “Heresy?”
    “He knows all the answers.”
    “Money?”
    “Doesn’t know what a coin looks like.”
    “Reputation?”
    “He runs from it.”
    “Doesn’t he look backwards?”
    “Doesn’t even move his head.”
    “He’s got to have some angle.”
    “Where’s it hidden?”
    The window of the rabbi’s study is open, and in we fly. There’s the usual paraphernalia around: an ark with the Holy Scroll, bookshelves, a mezuzah in a wooden case. The rabbi, a young man with a blond beard, blue eyes, yellow sidelocks, a high forehead, and a deep widow’s peak sits on the rabbinical chair peering in the Gemara. He’s fully equipped: yarmulka, sash, and fringed garment with each of the fringes braided eight times. I listen to his skull: pure thoughts! He sways and chants in Hebrew, “
Rachel t’unah v’gazezah
,” and then translates: “A woolly sheep fleeced.”
    “In Hebrew Rachel is both a sheep and a girl’s name,” I say.
    “So?”
    “A sheep has wool and a girl has hair.”
    “Therefore?”
    “If she’s not androgynous, a girl has pubic hair.”
    “Stop babbling and let me study,” the rabbi says in anger.
    “Wait a second,” I say. “Torah won’t get cold. It’s true that Jacob loved Rachel, but when he was given Leah instead, she wasn’t poison. And when Rachel gave him Bilhah as a concubine, what did Leah do to spite her sister? She put Zilpah into his bed.”
    “That was before the giving of Torah.”
    “What about King David?”
    “That happened before the excommunication by Rabbi Gershom.”
    “Before or after Rabbi Gershom, a male is a male.”
    “Rascal.
Shaddai kra Satan
,” the rabbi exclaims. Grabbing both of his sidelocks, he begins to tremble as if assaulted by a bad dream. “What nonsense am I thinking?” He takes his ear lobes and closes his ears. I keep on talking but he doesn’t listen; he becomes absorbed in a difficult passage and there’s no longer anyone to speak to. The little imp from Tishevitz says, “He’s a hard one to hook, isn’t he? Tomorrow he’ll fast and roll in a bed of thistles. He’ll give away his last penny to charity.”
    “Such a believer nowadays?”
    “Strong as a rock.”
    “And his wife?”
    “A sacrificial lamb.”
    “What of the children?”
    “Still infants.”
    “Perhaps he has a mother-in-law?”
    “She’s already in the other world.”
    “Any quarrels?”
    “Not even half an enemy.”
    “Where do you find such a jewel?”
    “Once in a while something like that turns up among the Jews.”
    “This one I’ve got to get. This is my first job around here. I’ve been promised that if I succeed, I’ll be transferred to Odessa.”
    “What’s so good about that?”
    “It’s as near paradise as our kind gets. You can sleep twenty-four hours a day. The population sins and you don’t lift a finger.”
    “So what do you do all day?”
    “We play with our women.”
    “Here there’s not a single one of our girls.” The imp sighs. “There was one old bitch but she expired.”
    “So what’s left?”
    “What Onan did.”
    “That doesn’t lead anywhere. Help me and I swear by Asmodeus’s beard that I’ll get you out of here. We have an opening for a mixer of bitter herbs. You only work Passovers.”
    “I hope it works out, but don’t count your chickens.”
    “We’ve taken care of tougher than he.”
    III

    A week goes by and our business has not moved